Page:Appearance and Reality (1916).djvu/127

 self-consistent, it would not suffice for a knowledge of reality. Reality, as it commonly appears, contains terms and relations, and indeed may be said to consist in these mainly. But the form of feeling (on the other side) is not above, but is below, the level of relations; and it therefore cannot possibly express them or explain them. Hence it is idle to suppose, given relational matter as the object to be understood, that feeling will supply any way of understanding it. And this objection seems quite fatal. Thus we are forced beyond feeling, first by change, and then further by the relational form which remains obstinately outstanding. But, when once more we betake ourselves to reflection, we seem to have made no advance. For the incompleteness and relativity in the matter given by feeling become, when we reflect on them, open contradiction. The limitation is seen to be a reference to something beyond, and the self-subsistent fact shows ideality, and turns round into mere adjectives whose support we cannot find. Feeling can be, therefore, no solution of the puzzles which, so far, have proved to be insoluble. Its content is vitiated throughout by the old inconsistencies. It may be said even to thrust upon us, in a still more apparent form, the discrepancy that lies between identity and diversity, immediate oneness and relation.

(b) Thus mere feeling has no power to justify the self s reality, and naturally none to solve the problems of the universe at large. But we may perhaps be more fortunate with some form of self-consciousness. That possibly may furnish us with a key to the self, and so also to the world; and let us briefly make an attempt. The prospect is certainly at first sight not very encouraging. For (i.) if we take the actual matter revealed by self-consciousness, that (in any sense in which it pleases us to understand self) seems quite inconsistent internally. If the reader will recall the discussions of the preceding chapter,