Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/186

 172 J. ELLIS MCTAGGART : that each individual is in harmony with all the individuals is to say that it is in harmony with all the individuals con- ceived as united under the category of Cognition. And to maintain that the unity must be expressly mentioned is to confess that it is not involved in the individuality in other words, to accept the fundamental position of atomism. It will therefore be equally correct to say that the in- dividuals are for each individual as to say that the unity is for each individual. Which expression we use will be merely a matter of convenience. Now philosophy, in se- lecting her terminology, is bound to think most, not of the convenience of philosophers, but of the convenience of that part of the outside world which is likely to become aware of the terms at all. The philosophical specialist will be able to learn, and to remember, whatever meaning it is decided that terms shall bear. But other people will insist on taking the philosophical terms which they hear in the senses in which the words are most commonly used ; and, unless they are to be misled, it is the meaning which they will be disposed to attach to a phrase which we ought to consider when deciding on its use. The chief sphere, in which metaphysical terms are important to others than professed metaphysicians, is the Philosophy of Religion. Now whether we say, in the phrase we are discussing, " individuals " or " unity," we may be mis- understood, and the misunderstanding may lead to erroneous conclusions. If the individuals are taken as meaning in- dividuals apart from the unity, we might be led to suppose that the content which was for each individual was a crowd of disconnected other individuals, and so brought to an atomism entirely inconsistent with the Absolute Idea. If, on the other hand, we say that it is the unity which is for each individual, that may be misunderstood to mean the unity as something more than the union of the individuals. This might have in consequence the assertion, in the Philo- sophy of Eeligion, of an Absolute which, although the bond of all plurality, was also something beyond and in addition to that bond. And this would be quite as opposed to the dialectic as the opposite error is. Which of these two mistakes requires to be most guarded against ? I think the latter the hypothesis of the unity. It is true that atomism is the philosophical error into which common-sense, as a rule, falls most easily. But, on the other hand, when idealism has been once accepted, there is considerably less danger of atomism than of the undue isola- tion of the unity from its manifestation. And as it is only