F. C. S. Schiller

“ We must conclude, then, that the method of explaining the ultimate nature of the world by an abstract universal formula, or a series of such, is not supported by the methodological use of similar formulas in the natural sciences, which, rightly considered, leads to very different inferences. What compensation then has it to offer us for its inability to take account of many of the chief data which a comprehensive philosophy has to explain? Surely the full reality which has to be explained is the individual in the Time-process. ”

“ And indeed from such a standpoint it is possible to indicate an explanation even of the Becoming which is so puzzling a characteristic of the Real, and the source of all our conceptions of Time and Change — it may be ascribed to the struggle of finite existence to attain that ultimate end. Instead of being left over as an inexplicable surd at the conclusion of a metaphysical explanation, the Time-process thus becomes an integral part of that explanation, and a fruitful source of inquiry opens out to philosophy concerning its value in the discovery and estimation of ultimate truth. ”

“ For the difficulties in question have been under scrutiny too long to render it credible that any thinkable solution has been overlooked. If, however, a development of the human mind be admitted, the reality of the Time-process, in which that development takes place, can no longer be denied, and abstract metaphysic becomes indebted to it for the means to solve its difficulties. Is it not curious, then, to go on maintaining that the Time-process is unfit to form a factor in an ultimate philosophy? ”

“ Science subordinates itself to the needs and ends of life alike whether we regard its origin — practical necessity, or its criterion — practical utility. But if so, the procedure of Science can no longer be quoted in support of the attempt to found our ultimate philosophy upon abstract and ‘eternal’ universals. If the abstraction from time, place and individuality is conditioned by practical aims, the next inquiry must evidently concern the nature of these practical aims, to which all theoretic knowledge is ultimately subsidiary. ”

“ To say that we assume the truth of abstraction because we wish to attain certain ends, is to subordinate theoretic ‘truth’ to a teleological implication: to say that, the assumption once made, its truth is ‘proved’ by its practical working, by the way in which it stands the test of experience, is to assert this same subordination only a little less directly. For the question of the ‘practical working’ of a truth will always ultimately be found to resolve itself into the question whether we can live by it. ”

“ For surely the admission that philosophy is an interpretation of experience in terms of thought does not preclude us from the reinterpretation of our symbols by a reference to experience wherever that may seem expedient and profitable. Why should we commit ourselves to a task which must prove either illusory or impossible, that of the rational deduction of the self-evident? It is true that philosophic explanation came into being because experience is not wholly self-explaining. ”

“ Is there then a science which gives an orderly account of the ends of life that are or should be aimed at? Surely Ethics is as much of a science as abstract metaphysics, and if it be the science of ultimate ends, it seems to follow that our ultimate metaphysic must be ethical.
Let us consider next what the attitude of such an ethical metaphysic would be to the metaphysical pretensions of abstract universals and the time-process respectively. It seems clear, in the first place, that practical aims, or a system thereof, do not easily lend themselves to statement in terms of abstract universals. ”

“ The true reason, then, why Hegelism can give no reason for the Time-process, ie. for the fact that the world is ‘in time,’ and changes continuously, is that it was constructed to give an account of the world irrespective of Time and Change. If you insist on having a system of eternal and immutable ‘truth,’ you can get it only by abstracting from those characteristics of Reality, which we try to express by the terms individuality, time, and change. ”

“ For an end or purpose seems to be intrinsically the affair of a finite individual in space and time, and the attempt to regard the timeless, immutable and universal as possessed of ends seems to meet with insuperable difficulties. ”

“ But why should we want to calculate the facts by such universal formulas? The answer to this question brings us to the roots of the matter. We make the fundamental assumption of science, that there are universal and eternal laws, i.e. that the individuality of things together with their spatial and temporal context may be neglected, not because we are convinced of its theoretic validity, but because we are constrained by its practical convenience. ”

“ And though it will remain no trivial task to exhibit the rationality of the Real, it has yet become evident that rationality is but one of several attributes to be predicated of Reality, and that a mere rationalism or ‘panlogism,’ therefore, can never be anything but a one-sided philosophy. ”

“ Still less has it been found repugnant either to the reason or to the feelings of men to regard the Time-process as the realization of an end or even of a multitude of individual ends, e.g. as a process of spiritual redemption. There is, therefore, perfect harmony between an ethical metaphysic and the existence of individuals in Time and Space, while that existence is found to be irreconcilable with any abstract metaphysical formula. ”

“ In other words that assumption is a methodological device, and ultimately reposes on the practical necessity of discovering formulas for calculating events in the rough, without awaiting or observing their occurrence. To assert this methodological character of eternal truths is not, of course, to deny their validity — for it is evident that unless the nature of the world had lent itself to a very considerable extent to such interpretation, the assumption of ‘eternal’ laws would have served our purposes as little as those of astrology, chiromancy, necromancy, and catoptromancy. ”

“ The abstractions of metaphysics, then, exist as explanations of the concrete facts of life, and not the latter as illustrations of the former, and the Absolute Idea also is not exempt from this rule. Nor is it to a different conclusion concerning the subordination of abstract metaphysics that we are led by the consideration of the first argument adduced in their favour, the fact that all science shares their assumption. ”

“ From the tyranny of abstractions there would thus always be an appeal to the immediacy of living experience, and by it many a difficulty which appals on paper would be shown to be shadowy in the field. And conversely, it would perhaps be possible for philosophy to grapple somewhat more effectively with the real difficulties of actual life. ”

“ The prejudice to this effect is no doubt well-founded from the standpoint of a philosophy whose initial abstraction excludes Time. But if we decline to hamper ourselves by a method which fails de facto to account for Time and imperfection, while its claim de jure had to be disallowed as ignoring the supreme practical limitations under which the whole understanding operates, the case is different. It has already been shown that an ethical metaphysic has no difficulty in conceiving the ultimate end as realizable in the Time-process. ”

“ For all explanation must set out from certain data, which may either be accepted as facts or considered self-evident, and in no wise necessitate or justify the attempt to explain everything, an attempt which must ultimately derive everything from nothing, by the power alone of an intentionally obscure vocabulary. ”

“ Hence attempts to forecast the future have been the source of half the superstitions of mankind. But no method of divination ever invented could compete in ingenuity and gorgeous simplicity with the assumption of universal laws which hold good without reference to time ”

“ Either the idea that a contradiction is a necessary proof of falsehood must be given up, and one or both sides of the antinomy must be accepted in spite of everything — in which case it is hard to say what weapon would be left to refute the most patent absurdities ”

“ If it scorns to excuse its failure by pious phrases concerning the infinite capacity of a non-human mind to solve the insoluble, if it dreads to have recourse to the more impious ἀργός λόγος of Mr Bradley, and to postulate an Absolute which ‘absorbs,’ ‘transmutes,’ ‘submerges,’ ‘suppresses’ and ‘reconciles’ all difficulties ex officio, in a manner no doubt highly satisfactory to itself and Mr Bradley, two alternatives remain. ”