Page:A Brief History of Modern Philosophy.djvu/288

 Rh Bradley makes the ethical standard consist of the degree to which we have developed the unity which is so deeply imbedded in our nature so as to combine a rich content with inner harmony. And the metaphysical principle forms an analogy with the psychological and ethical principles: being must be conceived as coherent and consistent whole.

Bradley's chief work bears the title Appearance and Reality (1895). It consists of an investigation of the criterion by which we are enabled to distinguish true reality from mere appearance. Although Bradley himself (along with many of his critics) thinks that his position is closely identical with Hegel, and notwithstanding the fact that "the Absolute" in the Spinozistic and Hegelian sense, as of an objective final statement, appears in the background of his thought, his reflections are nevertheless more epistemological the metaphysical. Like Kant, he makes the concept of experience fundamental. True reality can only exist where complete and perfect experience — i.e. all-inclusive perception — and an absolutely mutual relation of the contents of perception — is present. This is an ideal which finite beings can approach only approximately. Neither the natural nor the mental sciences satisfy this ideal. Such concepts as matter, space, time, and energy are applicable whenever it is necessary to express the relation of finite appearances; they are working ideas, — but they can never describe the absolute nature of being. And the same is true of the psychological concepts. As a matter of course we find a more vital relationship between unity and multiplicity in the sphere of mind than in physical nature, and psychological experience therefore constitutes our highest experience. But antitheses and disharmonies