Chapter IV: The World of Things—(1) Substance, Quality, and Relation

§ 1. The natural or pre-scientific view of the world regards
it as a plurality of “things,” each possessing
_qualities_, standing in _relation_ to others, and
interacting with them. § 2. Hence arise four problems:
those of the Unity of the Thing, of Substance and
Quality, of Relation, of Causality. § 3. No simple
answer can be given to the question, _What is one
thing?_ The Unity of the Thing is one of teleological
structure, and this is a matter of degree, and also
largely of our own subjective point of view. § 4.
_Substance and Quality._ The identification of the
substance of things with their primary qualities, though
useful in physical science, is metaphysically
unjustifiable. § 5. Substance as an “unknowable
substratum of qualities” adds nothing to our
understanding of their connection. § 6. The thing cannot
be a mere collection of qualities without internal
unity. § 7. The conception of a thing as the law or mode
of relation of its states useful but metaphysically
unsatisfactory. Ultimately the many can be contained in
the one only by “representation”; the unity in things
must be that of an individual experience. § 8.
_Relation._ We can neither reduce qualities to relations
nor relations to qualities. § 9. Again, the attempt to
conceive Reality as qualities in relation leads to the
indefinite regress. §10. We cannot escape this
difficulty by taking all relations as “external.” And
Professor Royce’s vindication of the indefinite regress
seems to depend on the uncriticised application of the
inadequate category of whole and part to ultimate
Reality. The union of the one and the many in concrete
experience is ultra-relational. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE: Dr.
Stout’s reply to Mr. Bradley 120