Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/544

 530 B. RUSSELL : is a constituent of this complex ". This view is connected with the opinion that all relations are based upon the "nature" of the related terms. Thus he says (p. 43) : " Clearly, the sentience to which greenness can be related is 'vision,' not ' hearing '. But we are to understand that this restriction is not based upon the nature of greenness as such, but is just a fact." I do not know what the "nature" of greenness, as opposed to greenness, may be; it seems to be the ghost of the scholastic essence. This claim that relations are to be grounded in the natures of their terms is really a claim that all propositions are to be of the subject-predicate form, so that instead of saying "A and B have such-and-such a relation," we should say " A has such-and-such a property and B has such-and- such another ; these properties being part of the natures of A and B ". And as to the relation being " just a fact," so, on the opposite view, is the " nature " of greenness ; for why should it not have had a different " nature " ? What emerges, in Mr. Joachim's discussion, is, as he himself points out, that the views he is attacking are only tenable on the assumption that relations are "external," i.e., that there is no such thing as the " nature " of the related terms in cases in which these terms are simple, and that relatedness is no evidence of intrinsic complexity. This is the fundamental doctrine of the view which he is criticising; the opinion that "experiencing makes no difference to the facts " is merely a special application of this fundamental doctrine. Having brought the argument to this point, one expects to find reasons alleged against the doctrine in question, but strange to say, no reason whatever is given except that it seems incredible to Mr. Joachim. The curious thing is that, elsewhere, he protests against immediate inspection as a test of truth, holding that co- herence in a system is both the test and the meaning of truth. Nevertheless, in this instance, although he admits later (e.g., p. 178) that the system resulting from his assumption is not completely coherent, so that nothing except immediate inspection is left to recommend it, he is content to regard his view as firmly and irrevoc- ably established by the fact that he cannot imagine it false. But to support this statement, I will quote some of the principal sentences in the pages (pp. 45-49) which deal explicitly with this fundamental point. " That any Simples should combine" is "an arbitrary irrational fact, if it be a fact at all. ... How can you treat them as each absolutely simple and independent, and also as related to one another to form a complex?" After setting forth that, in my opinion, " the same greenness and ' precisely and nu- merically the same ' relations enter as constituents into an indefinite number of different complexes " (p. 47) he proceeds : "In this account of the union of Simple Entities to form Com- plexes, I can see nothing but a statement of the problem in terms which render its solution inconceivable. If you tell me that a penny in my pocket is ' the same ' coin as a penny in yours, I agree that in a sense this is true enough. But if for the penny you substitute