Mr. Bradley has himself recognized the seeming contradiction between his indictment of thought and his use of the criterion of thought as the exclusive path to a philosophic notion of the real. In dealing with it, he (to my mind) comes within an ace of stating a truer doctrine, and also exhibits even more clearly the weakness of his own position. He goes so far as to put the following words into the mouth of an objector, and to accept their general import: “All axioms, as a matter of fact, are practical ... for none of them in the end can amount to more than the impulse to behave in a certain way. And they cannot express more than this impulse, together with the impossibility of satisfaction unless it is complied with” (p. 151). After accepting this (p. 152) he goes on to say: “Take for example the law of avoiding contradiction. When two elements will not remain quietly together, but collide and struggle, we cannot rest satisfied with that state. Our impulse is to alter it and, on the theoretical side, to bring the content to such shape that the variety remains peaceably in one. And this inability to rest otherwise and this tendency to alter in a certain way and direction is, when reflected upon and made explicit, our axiom and our intellectual standard” (p. 152; italics mine).
The retort is obvious: if the intellectual criterion, the principle of non-contradiction on which his whole Absolute Reality rests, is itself a practical principle, then surely the ultimate criterion for regulating intellectual undertakings is practical. To this obvious answer Mr. Bradley makes reply as follows: “You may call the intellect, if you like, a mere tendency to a movement, but you must remember that it is a movement of a very special kind.... Thinking is the attempt to satisfy a special impulse, and the attempt implies an assumption about reality.... But why, it may be objected, is this assumption better than what holds for practice? Why is the theoretical to be superior to the practical end? I have never said that this is so, only here, that is, in metaphysics, I must be allowed to reply, we are acting theoretically.... The theoretical standard within theory must surely be absolute” (p. 153. The italics again are mine; compare with the quotation this, from p. 485: “Our attitude, however, in metaphysics must be theoretical.” So, also, p. 154, “Since metaphysics is mere theory and since theory from its nature must be made by the intellect, it is here the intellect alone which is to be satisfied”).
Grant that intellect is a special movement or mode of practice; grant that we are not merely acting (are we ever merely acting?) but are “specially occupied and therefore subject to special conditions,” and the problem remains what special kind of activity is thinking? what is its experienced differentia from other kinds? what is its commerce with them? When the problem is what special kind of an activity is thinking and of what nature is the consistency which is its criterion, somehow we do not get forward by being told that thinking is a special mode of practice and that its criterion is consistency. The unquestioned presupposition of Mr. Bradley is that thinking is such a wholly separate activity (the “intellect alone” which has to be satisfied), that to give it autonomy is to say that it, and its criterion, have nothing to do with other activities; that it is “independent” as to criterion, in a way which excludes interdependence in function and outcome. Unless the term “special” be interpreted to mean isolated, to say that thinking is a special mode of activity no more nullifies the proposition that it arises in a practical contest and operates for practical ends, than to say that blacksmithing is a special activity, negates its being one connected mode of industrial activity.
His underlying presupposition of the separate character of thought comes out in the passage last quoted. “Our impulse,” he says, “is to alter the conflicting situation and, on the theoretical side, to bring its contents into peaceable unity.” If one substitutes for the word “on” the word “through,” one gets a conception of theory and of thinking that does justice to the autonomy of the operation and yet so connects it with other activities as to give it a serious business, real purpose, and concrete responsibility and hence testibility. From this point of view the theoretical activity is simply the form that certain practical activities take after colliding, as the most effective and fruitful way of securing their own harmonization. The collision is not theoretical; the issue in “peaceable unity” is not theoretical. But theory names the type of activity by which the transformation from war to peace is most amply and securely effected.[22]
Admit, however, the force of Mr. Bradley’s contention on its own terms and see how futile is the result. It is quite true, as Mr. Bradley says (p. 153), that if a man sits down to play the metaphysical game, he must abide by the rules of thinking; but if thinking be already, with respect to reality, an idle and futile game, simply abiding by the rules does not give additional value to its stakes. Grant the premises as to the character of thought, and the assertion of the final character of the theoretical standard within metaphysics—since metaphysics is a form of theory—is a warning against metaphysics. If the intellect involves self-contradiction, it is either impossible that it should be satisfied, or else self-contradiction is its satisfaction.
II
Let us, however, turn from Mr. Bradley’s formal proof that the criterion of philosophic truth must be exclusively a canon of formal thought. Let us ignore the contradiction involved in first making the work of thought to be the producing of appearance and then making the law of this thought the law of an Absolute Reality. What about the intellectualist criterion? The intellectualism of Mr. Bradley’s philosophy is represented in the statement that it is “the theoretical standard which guarantees that reality is a self-consistent system” (p. 148). But how can the fact that the criterion of thinking is consistency be employed to determine the nature of the consistency of its object? Consistency in one sense, consistency of reasoning with itself, we know; but what is the nature of the consistency of reality which this consistency necessitates? Thinking without doubt must be logical; but does it follow from this that the reality about which one thinks, and about which one must think consistently if one is to think to any purpose, must itself be already logical? The pivot of the argument is, of course, the old ontological argument, stripped of all theological irrelevancies and reduced to its fighting weight as a metaphysical proposition. Those who question this basic principle of intellectualism will, of course, question it here. They will urge that, instead of the consistency of “reality” resting on the basis of consistency in the reasoning process the latter derives its meaning from the material consistency at which it aims. They will say that the definition of the nature of the consistency which is the end of thinking and which prescribes its technique is to be reached from inquiry into such questions as these: What sort of an activity in the concrete is thinking? what are the specific conditions which it has to fulfil? what is its use; its relevancy; its purport in present concrete experiences? The more it is insisted that the theoretical standard—consistency—is final within theory, the more germane and the more urgent is the question: What then in the concrete is theory? and of what nature is the material consistency which is the test of its formal consistency?[23]
Take the instance of a man who wishes to deny the criterion of self-consistency in thinking. Is he refuted by pointing to the “fact” that eternal reality is eternally self-consistent? Would not his obvious answer to such a mode of refutation be: “What of it? What is the relevancy of that proposition to my procedure in thinking here and now? Doubtless absolute reality may be a great number of things, possibly very sublime and precious things; but what I am concerned with is a particular job of thinking, and until you show me the intermediate terms which link that job to the asserted self-consistent character of absolute reality, I fail to see what difference this doubtless wholly amiable trait of reality has to make in what I am here and now concerned with. You might as well quote any other irrelevant fact, such as the height of the Empress of China.” We take another tack in dealing with the man in question. We call his attention to his specific aim in the situation with reference to which he is thinking, and point out the conditions that have to be observed if that aim is to fulfil itself. We show that if he does not observe the conditions imposed by his aim his thinking will go on so wildly as to defeat itself. It is to consistency of means with the end of the concrete activity that we appeal. “Try thinking,” we tell such a man, “experiment with it, taking pains sometimes to have your reasonings consistent with one another, and at other times deliberately introducing inconsistencies; then see what you get in the two cases and how the result reached is related to your purpose in thinking.” We point out that since that purpose is to reach a settled conclusion, that purpose will be defeated unless the steps of reasoning are kept consistent with one another. We do not appeal from the mere consistency of the reasoning process—the intellectual aspect of the matter—to an absolute self-consistent reality; but we appeal from the material character of the end to be reached to the type of the formal procedure necessary to accomplish it.
With all our heart, then, the standard of thinking is absolute (that is final) within thinking. But what is thinking? The standard of blacksmithing must be absolute within blacksmithing, but what is blacksmithing? No prejudice prevents acknowledging that blacksmithing is one practical activity existing as a distinct and relevant member of a like system of activities: that it is because men use horses to transport persons and goods that horses need to be shod. The ultimate criterion of blacksmithing is producing a good shoe, but the nature of a good shoe is fixed, not by blacksmithing, but by the activities in which horses are used. The end is ultimate (absolute) for the operation, but this very finality is evidence that the operation is not absolute and self-inclosed, but is related and responsible. Why must the fact that the end of thinking is ultimate for thought stand on any different footing?
Let us then, by way of experiment, follow this suggestion. Let us assume that among real objects in their values and significances, real oppositions and incompatibilities exist; that these conflicts are both troublesome in themselves, and the source of all manner of further difficulties—so much so that they may be suspected of being the source of all man’s woe, of all encroachment upon and destruction of value, of good. Suppose that thinking is, not accidentally but essentially, a way, and the only way that proves adequate, of dealing with these predicaments—that being “in a hole,” in difficulty, is the fundamental “predicament” of intelligence. Suppose when effort is made in a brute way to remove these oppositions and to secure an arrangement of things which means satisfaction, fulfilment, happiness, that the method of brute attack, of trying directly to force warrings into peace fails; suppose then an effort to effect the transformation by an indirect method—by inquiry into the disordered state of affairs and by framing views, conceptions, of what the situation would be like were it reduced to harmonious order. Finally, suppose that upon this basis a plan of action is worked out, and that this plan, when carried into overt effect, succeeds infinitely better than the brute method of attack in bringing about the desired consummation. Suppose again this indirection of activity is precisely what we mean by thinking. Would it not hold that harmony is the end and the test of thinking? that observations are pertinent and ideas correct just in so far as, overtly acted upon, they succeed in removing the undesirable, the inconsistent.