'
Returning into the stream of sensible presentation,
nouns and adjectives, and _thats_ and abstract
_whats_, grow confluent again, and the
word 'is' names all these experiences of conjunction.
Mr. Bradley understands the isolation
of the abstracts, but to understand the
combination is to him impossible.(1) "To understand
---
1 So far as I catch his state of mind, it is somewhat like this:
'Book,' 'table,' 'on' -- how does the existence of these three abstract
elements result in _this_ book being livingly on _this_table. Why is
n't the table on the book? Or why does n't the 'on' connect itself with
another book, or something that is not a table? Must n't something _in_
each of the three elements already determine the two others to _it_, so
that they do not settle elsewhere or float vaguely? Must n't the
_whole_fact_be_prefigured_in_each_part_, and exist _de_jure_ before it
can exist _de_fact?_ But, if so, in what can the jural existence
consist, if not in a spiritual miniature of the whole fact's
constitution actuating every partial factor as its purpose? But is this
anything but the old metaphysical fallacy of looking behind a fact
_in_esse_ for the ground of the fact, and finding it in the shape of the
very same fact _in_posse?_ Somewhere we must leave off with a
_constitution_ behind which there is nothing.
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