Page:Appearance and Reality (1916).djvu/239

 xxiii., xxiv.). And the whole succession itself, if defensible, may admit of transformation. We assert that (X)b is the effect which follows on (X)a, but perhaps the two are identical. The succession and the difference are perhaps appearances, which exist only for a view which is isolated and defective. The successive relation may be a truth which, when filled out, is transmuted, and which, when supplemented, must lose its character in the Absolute. It may thus be the fragment of a higher truth not prejudicial to identity.

Such considerations will turn the edge of any objection directed against our Absolute from the ground of causation. But we have seen, in addition, in our sixth chapter that this ground is indefensible. By its own discrepancy causation points beyond itself to higher truth; and I will briefly, here once more, attempt to make this plain. Causation implies change, and it is difficult to know of what we may predicate change without contradiction. To say “a becomes b, and there is nothing which changes,” is really unmeaning. For, if there is change, something changes; and it is able to change because something is permanent. But then how predicate the change? “Xa becomes Xb”; but, if X is a and afterwards b, then, since a has ceased to qualify it, a change has happened within X. But, if so, then apparently we require a further permanent. But if, on the other side, to avoid this danger, we take Xa not to change, we are otherwise ruined. For we have somehow to predicate of X both elements at once, and where is the succession? The successive elements co-exist unintelligibly within X, and succession somehow is degraded to mere appearance.

To put it otherwise, we have the statement “X is first Xa, and later also Xb.” But how can “later also b” be the truth, if before mere a was true? Shall we answer “No, not mere a; it is not mere