But the denial of
one thing in many relations is but one application
of a still profounder dialectic difficulty.
Man can't be good, said the sophist, for man is
_man_ and _good_ is good; and Hegel(1) and Herbart
in their day, more recently A. Spir,(2) and most
---
1 [For the author's criticism of Hegel's view of relations, cf.
_Will_to_Believe_, pp. 278-279, ED.]
2 [Cf. A. Spir: _Denken_und_Wirklichkeit_, part I, bk. III, ch. IV
(containing also account of Herbart). ED.]
107
recently and elaborately of all, Mr. Bradley,
informs us that a term can logically only be
a punctiform unit, and that not one of the
conjunctive relations between things, which
experience seems to yield, is rationally possible.
Of course, if true, this cuts off radical empiricism
without even a shilling. Radical empiricism
takes conjunctive relations at their face
value, holding them to be as real as the terms
united by them.(1) The world it represents as a
collection, some parts of which are conjunctively
and others disjunctively related. Two
parts, themselves disjoined, may nevertheless
hang together by intermediaries with which
they are severally connected, and the whole
world eventually may hang together similarly,
inasmuch as _some_ path of conjunctive transition
by which to pass from one of its parts
to another may always be discernible.
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