Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 4.djvu/56

 it would seem as though it must be in terms of individual ends, realized in and through the Time-process. Nor is there anything repugnant to reason in the conception of an end realized in a time-process that would render it difficult for a teleological explanation to admit the reality of the time-process. On the contrary, if the transition from means to end were instantaneous, the distinction between them would vanish, and lose all meaning. Still less has it been found repugnant either to the reason or to the feelings of men to regard the Time-process as the realization of an end or even of a multitude of individual ends, e.g. as a process of spiritual redemption. There is, therefore, perfect harmony between an ethical metaphysic and the existence of individuals in Time and Space, while that existence is found to be irreconcilable with any abstract metaphysical formula.

We must conclude, then, that the method of explaining the ultimate nature of the world by an abstract universal formula, or a series of such, is not supported by the methodological use of similar formulas in the natural sciences, which, rightly considered, leads to very different inferences. What compensation then has it to offer us for its inability to take account of many of the chief data which a comprehensive philosophy has to explain? Surely the full reality which has to be explained is the individual in the Time-process. And though it will remain no trivial task to exhibit the rationality of the Real, it has yet become evident that rationality is but one of several attributes to be predicated of Reality, and that a mere rationalism or ‘panlogism,’ therefore, can never be anything but a one-sided philosophy.

We have to consider next the second question raised (on p. 39) as to whether by pursuing a different method philosophy is able to recognize the reality of the Time-process. And if such philosophic recognition is possible, what is the metaphysical value and methodological bearing of the reality of Time (or rather of the Time-process)? Or is there possibly, as Mr McTaggart suggests (Mind, N. S. p. 496), “something about Time which renders it unfit, in metaphysics, for the ultimate explanation of the universe”? The prejudice to this effect is no doubt well-founded from the standpoint of a philosophy whose initial abstraction excludes Time. But if we decline to hamper ourselves by a method which fails de facto to account for Time and imperfection, while its claim de jure had to be disallowed as ignoring the supreme practical limitations under which the whole understanding operates, the case is different. It has already been shown that an ethical metaphysic has no difficulty in conceiving the ultimate end as realizable in the Time-process. And indeed from such a standpoint it is possible