Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/94

 82 ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR. that is real in its own right ; the only thing of which the reality is not relative and derived." l These utterances "strictly interpreted" mean and can only mean that the world is the creation of an active intelligence : I do not say of course that it is posterior to this active intelligence in time, for there is, on Green's theory, no time-relation at all between the two. But though we are required to hold that the world of experience is neither after mind, nor before mind, nor (I suppose) simultaneous with mind, we are also expected to believe that it is "made" by mind, that it is " constituted " by mind, that it is passive while mind is " active," that its reality is derived from mind, while the reality of mind is not derived from it. This relationship may not be the same as that which, in the world of phenomena, obtains between a cause and its effect. In fact as time-relations are altogether excluded it cannot be. But unless the language of the Prolegomena is not only metaphorical but meaningless, unless " action " is the same as passion, unless " to constitute " is the same as " to be constituted," unless Neo-Kantism is after all a dualistic and .not a monistic system, it certainly appears to me that Green's theory, notwithstanding his explicit disclaimer, is open to the objection I have ventured to urge against it. So far I have been considering (1) how it is possible to prove on Green's method that nature consists of relations, and (2) how far it is possible to prove that relations are the "work of the mind". We now come to a third pro- blem or group of problems involving subjects of even greater subtlety and complexity than those which have already been touched on, and which are rendered specially difficult to treat satisfactorily from the circumstance that questions which are really separate are not always discussed separately by the author. Conceding then, for the sake of argument, the general position that the contents of experience are the product of self-conscious intellect, what grounds have we for assuming the existence of any such self-conscious intellect besides that one which every man is conscious of within himself, and, if we may assume its existence, what is its nature and in what relation does it stand to each one of ourselves. Or to put the questions in a form somewhat less general but more suited to our present purpose by what right may we assert 'the existence of a Universal Spiritual Principle, and hew are we related to it ? 1 P. 104 ; cf. also 63, p. 68.