Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/472

 458 F. H. BRADLEY: Now this diversity of worlds, and the presence of the same object in various worlds, seems to bear on our problem. If on the one side you agree that these worlds are diverse, each through a different content, it seems natural to think that the object's quality may be affected in each case by this dif- ference. But if on the other side all these worlds are to be diverse without differing in content, such a doctrine, if tenable, has surely at least ceased to be plausible. It seems to commit us to the view that there is an indefinite number of distinctions without any difference or that there are differ- ences between things which do not really differ. For myself rsuch a conclusion tends to the dissolution of all things, whether real or imaginary, and at any rate there will be few, I think, to whom it commends itself at once as plausible. If now leaving general considerations we test our doctrine "by applying it to special cases, we discover that at least it has limits. The whole distinction in short between the imaginary and the real tends, as we apply it, to become invalid. The first instance I will take is the case of the Universe or Reality, for it is better, I think, here not to use the instance of God. Can we speak of the Universe as being merely real or as being merely imaginary ? Is it not on the -other hand plain that such a distinction falls within the Universe? If we oppose the real to the imaginary, then clearly the Universe is neither or both. Taken as a whole it falls on neither side of this opposition, and is not com- prised in either the real or the imaginary world. Both these "worlds on the contrary are contained within the Universe. "So far then as we maintain the hard distinction between imaginary and real, we can neither say that All is real nor ihat All is imaginary. This distinction, and with it the ^vhole doctrine which we are considering, has proved in- applicable or mistaken. Again let me take the case of my real self. My real self, ,s I am now aware of it, appears to be unique, and in con- trast with it I have a variety of imaginary selves. Now, if the doctrine in hand is correct, the difference between my imaginary selves and my real self does not rest on content. It must on the other hand somehow consist in mere external relations. But this conclusion, if in the end it is not sense- less, seems contrary to what experience here suggests. The distinction between imaginary and real seems at least here to rest on a felt difference, and, where there is a felt differ- ence, it is natural to assume a diversity in content. To sup- pose that my real and imaginary selves are in themselves interchangeable, and that there is no diversity here except