There
_must_ be total conflux of its parts, each into
and through each other. The 'must' appears
here as a _Machtspruch_, as an _ipse_dixit_ of Mr.
Bradley's absolutistically tempered 'understanding,'
for he candidly confesses that how
the parts _do_differ as they contribute to different
wholes, is unknown to him.(1)
Although I have every wish to comprehend
the authority by which Mr. Bradley's understanding
speaks, his words leave me wholly
unconverted. 'External relations' stand with
their withers all unwrung, and remain, for
aught he proves to the contrary, not only
practically workable, but also perfectly intelligible
factors of reality.
---
1 Op. cit., pp. 577-579.
117
VI
Mr. Bradley's understanding shows the
most extraordinary power of perceiving separations
and the most extraordinary impotence
in comprehending conjunctions. One would
naturally say 'neither or both,' but not so Mr.
Bradley. When a common man analyzes certain
_whats_ from out the stream of experience, he
understands their distinctness _as_thus_isolated_.
But this does not prevent him from equally
well understanding their combination with
each other _as_originally_experienced_in_the_concrete_,
or their confluence with new sensible experiences
in which they recur as 'the same.
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