Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/474

 460 F. H. BEADLEY : as high as another. And the conclusion suggested is that the above opposition of 'real existence' to 'mere imagina- tion ' is in the end invalid and breaks down. But, however arbitrary my procedure, my real world is- taken as that which is continuous with my normal waking felt self. And it is by exclusion from this real world that the imaginary is made. Thus if I and a hundred other men were to dream the same dream, and in somnambulism were to act from our dreamt world, this world would remain un- real because not continuous with the world of my self as normal and waking. By virtue of exclusion from this world the realm of the imaginary is denned. And it is only at a stage of mind which is comparatively late that such a division is made. Thus the gulf fixed between imaginary and real existence, however necessary and useful it may be, is at once arbitrary and novel. And the points to which I would direct the reader's atten- tion are these, (i.) The existence of the imaginary depends upon my real world, and (ii.) the existence of my real world depends on a felt quality. (i.) A content is not made imaginary by mere privation and through simple failure. If you abstract from all relation to what is called my real world, you have so far not got the imaginary. Abstract truths, for instance, do not express ' real ' matters of fact, but they fall elsewhere than in the realm of mere imagination. This realm is made by positive exclusion from the special world which I call real. And in a word if you desire to turn 'imaginary' into 'real,' you cannot effect this by mere addition. You require also to subtract the above exclusion, though, this subtraction being unimportant practically, has been generally ignored. (ii.) And my real world, difference from which and exclu- sion by which, we have seen, is the essence on what does that rest ? It rests on a quality, on a felt content, on that of which I am aware when I say ' this myself which is now '. I experience this content when I feel the difference between the mere idea and the actuality of my present self. But it is impossible for me to bring this content wholly before me as an object. With every object I have still the difference felt between this object and my felt self. And, if this were not so, the difference and the relation between subject and object would vanish. And thus what I call my real world, the world which is made by a construction from my self, depends in the end on a content, a content not explicit but positive, not brought before me but felt. If you take away this content, and the exclusion by this content, then at one