Page:Appearance and Reality (1916).djvu/387

 further reflection, we should find that our general account will hold good. The imaginary always is regarded as an adjective of the real. But, in referring it, (a) we distinguish, with more or less consciousness, the regions to which it is, and to which it is not, applicable. And (b) we are aware, in different degrees, of the amount of supplementation and re-arrangement, which our idea would require before it reached truth. These are two aspects of the same principle, and I will deal briefly with each.

(a) With regard to the first point we must recall the want of unity in the world, as it comes within each of us. The universe we certainly feel is one, but that does not prevent it from appearing divided, and in separate spheres and regions. And between these diverse provinces of our life there may be no visible connection. In art, in morality and religion, in trade or politics, or again in some theoretical pursuit, it is a commonplace that the individual may have a world of his own. Or he may rather have several worlds without rational unity, conjoined merely by co-existence in his one personality. And this separation and disconnectedness (we may fail to observe) is, in some degree, normal. It would be impossible that any man should have a world, the various provinces of which were quite rationally connected, or appeared always in system. But, if so, no one, in accepting or rejecting ideas, can always know the precise sense in which he affirms or denies. He means, from time to time, by reality some one region of the Real, which habitually he fails to distinguish and define. And the attempt at distinction would but lead him to total bewilderment. The real world, perhaps consciously, may be identified with the spatial system which we construct. This is “actual fact,” and everything else may be set apart as mere thought, or as mere imagination or feeling, all equally unreal. But, if so,