Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/196

 182 J. ELLIS MCTAGGART : are to a certain extent contingent to one another. But this assertion of a limitation of our present knowledge, perhaps of all knowledge, must not be converted into an assertion about the facts. We must not say that it is possible that the Absolute Idea and the matter of sensation are really contingent to one another, and that it is possible that the Absolute Idea might have been combined with a different content. Such a statement would be unmeaning, as, indeed, in the long run, every statement must be which speaks of possible, but unreal, universes. If we look at anything by itself, there is no ground for saying that it could have been other than it was. For this only means that some other reality could not or would not have prevented it. The universe must be looked at by itself, for there is nothing outside it in whose company we can look at it. And thus to talk of the possibility of a different universe is meaning- less. There is no reality on which such a possibility can be based. So long as the universe is taken as real, it cannot be different from what it is. If the universe is not taken as real, all possibilities and impossibilities have vanished with everything else. The supposition that the Absolute Idea could possibly be combined with a different immediate element is due to the belief that the element of pure thought is the logical prim of the element of immediacy, and so forms a skeleton or frame- work, which could be filled up in different ways without any change in its own nature. But we have seen that this is an entirely mistaken view of the matter. It is the concrete whole of reality which is the logical prius of both its moments. Neither of these moments has any priority over the other, and still less over the whole. Thus we cannot take pure thought as a basis, and speculate on the possibility of its combination with a different immediate element. The only ultimate basis is the nature of reality as a whole. And to assert a possibility of any change in this would involve the idea of a possible, but unreal universe, which we con- sidered in the last paragraph. We have said that, for our present knowledge, there is a certain contingency between the two elements of reality. Whether this is a necessary characteristic of all knowledge, we cannot tell. It may not be so. It is possible that per- fect knowledge of the universe would enable us to see that any variation in the details of its plurality would be incom- patible with the completeness of unity and differentiation demanded by the Absolute Idea. If this were so, then, for a person who possessed such perfect knowledge, the precise