Page:Essays on Truth and Reality (1914).djvu/264

 CHAPTER IX ON APPEARANCE, ERROR AND CONTRADICTION1 IN the following pages I am to offer some remarks on the subject of Appearance, Contradiction and Error. I have probably nothing to say here which I have not said before, and there is nothing, I imagine, in what I have said which could be called original. I, however, offer these remarks because they seem to me to be wanted, because, that is, the general view which I have adopted seems still partly misunderstood. I am not seeking here to argue with any one who wishes to criticize rather than to understand. I address myself to those whose interest in these topics is impersonal, to those who desire to make their own every way, however imperfect, in which these matters are apprehended.

I propose here first to say something as to the general foundation on which I stand. I shall next deal briefly with the relation of Error to Appearance. From this I shall go on to discuss at length what may be called the relative and absolute views of Error. I shall then examine a difficulty with regard to Contradiction, and shall finally remark on the general reality of Appearance and Degree. The reader who finds here too much repetition of what to him is familiar, will, I hope, accept the explanation which has been offered above.

The way of taking the world which I have found most

1 First published in Mind for April 1910, and, with the exception of some small additions and of the Supplementary Notes, written rather more than a year previously. There are some further questions as to the nature of Truth which will be dealt with in the chapter which follows.