118
a complex AB," he says, "I must begin
with A or B. And beginning, say with A, if I
then merely find B, I have either lost A, or
I have got beside A, [_the_word_'beside'_seems_
_here_vital,_as_meaning_a_conjunction_'external'_
_and_therefore_unintelligible_] something else, and
in neither case have I understood.(1) For my
intellect can not simply unite a diversity, nor
has it in itself any form or way of togetherness,
and you gain nothing if, beside A and B,
you offer me their conjunction in fact. For to
my intellect that is no more than another external
element. And 'facts,' once for all, are
for my intellect not true unless they satisfy
it. . . . The intellect has in its nature no
principle of mere togetherness." (2)
---
1 Apply this to the case of 'book-on-table'! W.J.
2 Op. cit., pp. 570, 572.
119
Of course Mr. Bradley has a right to define
'intellect' as the power by which we perceive
separations but not unions -- provided he
give due notice to the reader. But why then
claim that such a maimed and amputated
power must reign supreme in philosophy, and
accuse on its behoof the whole empirical
world of irrationality? It is true that he elsewhere
attributes to the intellect a _proprius_
_motus_ of transition, but says that when he
looks for _these_ transitions in the detail of living
experience, he 'is unable to verify such a
solution.
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