Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/460

 446 F. H. BRADLEY : a fact, and with this side of its being it, as an idea and so far, does not qualify reality. Its essence, we may say, lies in ignoring or in discounting this side of itself. And thus everywhere truth and ideas have a double aspect. But every idea, used as an idea, must so far attach itself as an adjective to the real, and hence in the end there will be no such thing as an idea which merely floats. This conclusion is very commonly rejected as false. Its falsehood is at times even silently assumed against those who maintain its truth. And certainly at first sight any such doctrine seems open to grave objection. " An idea," it may be said, " always, if you please, refers in some sense to the real world, and always, if you please, neglects or discounts its own private existence, if, that is, it possesses any. But on the other hand there are ideas which plainly do not qualify the real. When an idea is taken as false it may even be repelled and denied. And, apart from this, ideas may be recognised as merely imaginary, and, taken in this character, they float suspended above the real world. The same thing happens wherever we deal with questions, with ideal experi- ments, and again with those suggestions which we merely entertain without pronouncing on their truth. And how, when you do not know that an idea is true, or when you even know that it is not true, can you say in such a case that the idea qualifies reality? In such cases the idea, it is plain, can do no more than float." There is force in this objection, and with myself, I admit, the objection at one time more or less prevailed. 1 I will now however, attempt to show briefly that it rests upon misconception. The misconception is in short a false assumption as to the limits of the real world. Reality is identified with the world of actual fact, and outside of this world floats the unsub- stantial realm of the imaginary. And actual fact, when we inquire, is in the end the world which is continuous with niy body. It is the construction which in my waking hours 2 I 1 Principles of Logic, p. 4. There are, besides, various expressions used in the account of ideas which is given there, which are more or less ob- jectionable. So far as I know, these expressions have not been used by me since, though I hardly understand how a careful reader of the volume could be deceived by them. The term ' sign ' or ' symbol,' for instance, implies strictly, I suppose, the recognised individual existence of the sign. And obviously with an idea this aspect may be absent. There are other expressions also which, if you take them literally, are certainly false, and also inconsistent with what may be called the general doctrine of the book. But I hope that the statements as to ideas, which I have made several times since 1883, are less misleading. 2 In the end in my present waking moment. This point is further discussed in the second part of this paper.