Chapter IX: Part 9

But, nevertheless, I think it is a wrong explanation, and I want to explain why. If we were to suppose that this distinction between Time in one character and Time in another were the only one on which Mr. Bradley meant to rely, we should have as his doctrine this: We should have to suppose him to affirm most emphatically that Time, in the character which it exhibits, neither is real, _nor_ exists, _nor_ is a fact, _nor_ is. We should have to suppose him to be using all these four expressions always as strict equivalents, and to mean that it is _only_ in its other character that Time either exists, or is a fact, or is. And if he did mean this, there would, of course, be no doubt whatever that he does mean to contradict the common view with regard to Time; since, of course, what most people mean by "Time" is what he chooses to call "Time in the character which it exhibits." Yet, his language, even in the passages that I quoted, seems to me to indicate that he does not mean this. I think, on the contrary, he means to affirm emphatically that Time _even_ in the character which it exhibits, does exist, _is_ a fact, and indubitably _is,_ though it is _not_ real in that character. In the second passage, for instance, where he insists so emphatically that appearances do exist, are facts, and indubitably _are,_ he is, I think, plainly talking of appearances, in the character which they exhibit--or, as he there puts it, their nature, _as it is_--he does, I think, mean that appearances, even in this character, are facts, exist, and are, though, in this character, they are not "true of reality." And, so again in the third passage, where he says, Change _is_ a fact, and this fact, _as such,_ is not reconcilable with the Absolute; this language is surely quite inexcusable, unless he means that Change, as such--change, in the _character which it exhibits_--change, _as it is, is_ a fact: though, of course, he holds that _in_ this character it certainly is not real. I think, therefore, we have to assume that Mr. Bradley means to make a distinction not merely between Time, in one character, and Time in another, but also between "real," in one sense, and "real" in another. His meaning is not so simple as it would be, if he were merely making a distinction between Time in one character and Time in another, and it is not, after all, at all plain whether he means to contradict what ordinary people hold about Time or not. He does not mean to assert that Time, _as such, neither_ is real, _nor_ exists, _nor_ is a fact, _nor_ is; but, on the contrary, that Time, even _as such,_ does exist, _is_ a fact, and _is_; _but,_ nevertheless, is not real. This, at least, is what I am going to assume him to mean. And on this assumption, we are brought face to face with the question as to the meaning of the word "real," and also as to the meaning of these other words "exists," "is a fact," and "is." Mr. Bradley seems to admit, we have seen, that "real" may _sometimes_ be properly used as _merely_ equivalent to these other phrases. We are, however, now supposing that he also holds that in another sense they are not equivalent, but that "real" means something more than the others, so that it is quite consistent to maintain that Time is _not_ "real," and yet _does_ exist, is a fact, and is. In holding this I think he is mistaken; and what I want to do is to explain, as clearly as I can, what sort of a mistake I take him to be making, and what seems to me to be the source of this mistake. I may, perhaps, be quite wrong in thinking that Mr Bradley has made this mistake, and that it is in any degree the source of the distinction he seems to draw between "reality" and "existence." To maintain that it is so is no part of my main object. My main object is simply to make clear the nature of this particular mistake, whether committed by Mr. Bradley or not, and that it is a mistake; because it seems to me that it is a mistake which it is very easy to make, and very important to avoid. I am, of course, not concerned at all to discuss the question whether Time _is_ real or not, but only to discuss the question what sort of things would have to be true, if it were unreal, and whether if those things were true it could still be true that Time either exists, or is, or is a fact.

Now, to begin with, I think I know pretty well, in part at least, what Mr. Bradley means when he says that it is unreal. I think that part at least of what he means is just what he _ought_ to mean--just what anyone else would mean if he said that Time was unreal, and what any ordinary person would understand to be meant, if he heard those words. But I can conceive that, when I have explained as well as I can what this is that he _ought_ to mean, some people may be inclined to dispute whether he means any such thing at all. They may say that he is using the word "real" exclusively in some highly unusual and special sense, so that in asserting that "Time is unreal" he is by no means denying any part of what ordinary people would mean by saying that "Time is real." And that some special sense may _come in_ to his meaning I am prepared to admit. I do think it is possible that _part_ of what Mr. Bradley is asserting may be something which no unsophisticated person would think of expressing in the same way, and I will admit, therefore, that he does not, very likely, mean by "Time is unreal" _merely_ what other people would mean by this phrase, but something else _as well._ What, however, I cannot help thinking is that, even if he means something more, he _does_ mean what ordinary people would mean _as well_: that what they would mean is at least a _part_ of his meaning. And if even this is disputed, if it is maintained that he is using the words _exclusively_ in some special sense, I own I do not know how to argue the question. If anybody really does take the view that, when he says "Time is unreal," absolutely all that he means is something which is in no way incompatible with what most people would mean by saying "Time is real," I do not know how to show that this view is wrong. I can only say that if this _had_ been all that he meant, I cannot believe that he would have expressed his view in the form "Time is unreal." The only further argument I shall bring in favour of my view that he does mean what he ought to mean will take the form of an answer to one possible argument which might be brought against it. When I nave explained what he _ought_ to mean by saying that "Time is unreal," it will be quite clear that this is something which is in fact incompatible with the truth of the propositions that Time _is,_ or _exists,_ or _is a fact._ And it might be urged that the fact that it is thus incompatible is a strong argument against the view that Mr. Bradley does mean what he _ought_ to mean, since, if he had meant it, he could hardly have failed to perceive that what he meant _was_ inconsistent with these propositions, whereas, as we have seen, he certainly does not perceive this. I have an answer to that argument, which consists in giving an explanation, which I think a plausible one, as to how he could come to think that the propositions are _not_ inconsistent, when in fact they are.

What, then, _ought_ Mr. Bradley to mean by "Time is unreal"? What would most people mean by this proposition? I do not think there is much difficulty in discovering what sort of thing they would mean by it. Of course, Time, with a big T, seems to be a highly abstract kind of entity, and to define _exactly_ what can be meant by saying of an entity of that sort that it is unreal does seem to offer difficulties. But if you try to translate the proposition into the concrete, and to ask what it _implies,_ there is, I think, very little doubt as to the sort of thing it implies. The moment you try to do this, and think what it really comes to, you at once begin thinking of a number of different _kinds_ of propositions, all of which plainly must be untrue, if Time is unreal. If Time is unreal, then plainly nothing ever happens before or after anything else; nothing is ever simultaneous with anything else; it is never true that anything is past; never true that anything will happen in the future; never true that anything is happening now; and so on. You can at once think of a considerable number of kinds of propositions (and you could easily add to the list), the falsehood of all of which is plainly implied by saying that Time is unreal. And it is clear, also, that to say that the falsehood of all propositions of these kinds is implied is equivalent to saying that there are no facts of certain corresponding kinds--no facts which consist in one event happening before another; none which consist in an event being past or future, and so on. That is to say, what "Time is unreal" implies is that, in the case of a large number of different _properties_ which are such that, if they _did_ belong to anything, what they belonged to would be facts having some common characteristic, which we might express by calling them "temporal facts," the properties in question do, in fact, belong to nothing. It implies that the property of being a fact which consists in one event following another belongs to nothing; that that of being a past event belongs to nothing, and so on. And why it implies that all those different special properties belong to nothing is, I think we may say, because what it _means_ is that the general property which I have called that of being a "temporal fact" belongs to nothing. To say that the property of being a temporal fact belongs to nothing _does imply_ that such special properties as that of being a fact which consists in one event following another, or that of being a fact which consists in something being past, also belong to nothing; in exactly the same way as to say that the property of being "coloured" belongs to nothing _implies_ with regard to the special properties "being red," "being blue," etc., that they also belong to nothing. We may, then, I think, say that what "Time is unreal" _means_ is simply "The property of being a temporal fact belongs to nothing," or, to express this in the way in which it would be expressed in ordinary life, "There _are_ no temporal facts." And this being so, we have explained the usage of "unreal," where it is predicated of Time with a capital T, by reference to a much more common and perfectly familiar usage of the term. The use of "is unreal" in the phrase "Time is unreal" has been defined by reference to its use in the phrase "Temporal facts are unreal." And its use in this phrase is, so far as I can see, exactly the same as in hosts of phrases with which we are perfectly familiar; it is, I think, _the_ commonest and by far the most important use of the term "unreal." The use is that in which we use it when we say, "Unicorns are unreal," "Griffins are unreal," "Chimæras are unreal," and so on. It is the usage in which unreal is equivalent to "imaginary"; and in which to say "Unicorns are unreal" means the same as "There are no unicorns" or "Unicorns do not exist." In just the same way the proposition "Temporal facts are unreal," into which we have translated "Time is unreal," means the same as "There are no temporal facts," or "Temporal facts do not exist," or "Temporal facts are imaginary."

I think, then, that what Mr. Bradley _ought_ to mean by "Time is unreal" can be defined by reference to one particular usage of the word "real" --or, if you like to put it that way, to one particular one among the conceptions for which the term "reality" may stand. And this particular conception seems to me to be by far the commonest and most important of those for which the term does stand. I want, therefore, before going on, to dwell a little upon its nature; although I daresay that all that I have to say is perfectly familiar and perfectly well understood by every one here. Of course, it has often been said before, but I think it is still very far from being generally understood.

I think, perhaps, the point I want to insist on can be brought out in this way. I have just said that we have pointed out one particular one, and that the most important, among the conceptions for which the term "reality" may stand; and that is an excusable way of saying what we have done. But it would, I think, be more correct to say that we have pointed out one particular, and that the most important, usage of the terms "real" and "unreal," and that one of the peculiarities of this usage is that it is such that the terms "real" and "unreal" cannot, when used in this way, be properly said to stand for any conception whatever. I will try to explain what I mean. We have said that what "Lions are real" _means_ is that some particular property or other--I will say, for the sake of brevity, _the_ property of being a lion, though that is not strictly accurate, does In fact _belong to_ some-thing--that there are things which have it, or, to put it in another way, that the conception of being a lion is a conception which does apply to some things--that there are things which _fall under_ it. And similarly what "Unicorns are _unreal"_ means is that the property of being a unicorn belongs to _nothing_. Now, if this is so, then it seems to me, in a very important sense, "real" and "unreal" do _not_ in this usage stand for any conceptions at all. The only _conceptions_ which occur in the proposition "Lions are real" are, on this interpretation, plainly, (1) the conception of being a lion, and (2) the conception of belonging to something, and perfectly obviously "real" does not stand for either of these. In the case of the first that is obvious; but it is worth while pointing out that it is also true of the second.

For if "is real" did stand for "belongs to something," then the proposition "Lions are real" would stand, not for the assertion that the property of "being a lion" belongs to something, but for the assertion that lions themselves _are properties which belong to something_; and it is quite obvious that what we mean to assert is not any such nonsense as this. "Real," therefore, does not, in this proposition, stand for the conception of "belonging to something" nor yet, quite plainly, does it stand for the conception of "being a lion." And hence, since these are the only two conceptions which do occur in the proposition, we may, I think, say that "real," in this usage, does not stand for any conception at all. To say that it did would be to imply that it stood for some property of which we are asserting that everything which has the property of "being a lion" _also_ has this other property. But we are not, in fact, asserting any such thing. We are not asserting of any property called "reality" that it belongs to lions, as in the proposition "Lions are mammalian" we _are_ asserting of the property of "being a mammal" that _it_ belongs to lions. The two propositions "Lions are real" and "Lions are mammalian," though grammatically similar, are in reality of wholly different forms; and one difference between them may be expressed by saying that whereas "mammalian" does stand for a property or conception, the very point of this usage of "real" is that it does not.

To return to Mr. Bradley. "Time is unreal" _ought_ to mean, according to me, "Temporal facts are unreal," in the sense I have tried to explain. And I cannot help thinking that this which he _ought_ to mean is, in part at least, what Mr. Bradley _does_ mean when he says "Time is unreal," though possibly be also means something else as well. But if so, it is quite clear, I think, that what he means is inconsistent with its being true that Time exists or that there is such a thing as Time. To say that Time exists or that there is such a thing, is to assert at least, that there are some temporal facts: it may assert more than this, but it does assert this, at least. And this, we have seen, is exactly what is denied when it is said that Time is unreal. "Time is unreal" just means "Temporal facts are unreal," _or_ "there are no temporal facts," _or_ "Temporal facts do not exist." And just this is also what is meant by "Time does not exist" or "There is no such thing as Time." There is, in fact, nothing, else for these expressions to mean. What, therefore, Mr. Bradley _ought_ to mean and (according to me) does mean by "Time is unreal" is, in fact, inconsistent with what he ought to mean by "Time exists" or by "Time is." And yet plainly he does not think that it is so. Is it possible to explain why he should have failed to perceive the inconsistency?

I think his failure can be explained as follows. It may have been noticed that, in the passages I quoted from him, he insists in one place, that to deny that appearances exist is not merely false but _self-contradictory,_ and in another appeals to the principle that "any deliverance of consciousness is but a deliverance of consciousness" in support of his contention that what _is_ a fact need, nevertheless, _not_ be real. And the fact that he does these two things does, I think, give colour to the suggestion that the reason why he thinks that what is unreal may yet exist, and be a fact, and be, is the following. It is undoubtedly the case that, even if temporal facts are unreal, _i.e.,_ there _are_ no such things, we can and do _think of them,_ just as it is undoubtedly the case that, though unicorns are unreal, we can and do imagine them. In other words, "temporal facts" and "unicorns" are both quite certainly "deliverances of consciousness," at least in the sense that they are "objects of thought"; being "objects of thought" they are, in a wide sense, "appearances" also, and I cannot help thinking that Mr. Bradley supposes that, merely because they are so, they _must_ at least BE. "How" (I imagine he would ask) "can a thing 'appear' or even 'be thought of' unless it is there to appear and to be thought of? To say that it appears or is thought of, and that yet there is no such thing, is plainly self-contradictory. A thing cannot have a property, unless it is there to have it, and, since unicorns and temporal facts _do_ have the property of being thought of, there certainly must be such things. When I think of a unicorn, what I am thinking of is certainly not nothing; if it were nothing, then, when I think of a griffin, I should also be thinking of nothing, and there would be no difference between thinking of a griffin and thinking of a unicorn. But there certainly is a difference; and what can the difference be except that in the one case what I am thinking of is a unicorn, and in the other a griffin? And if the unicorn is what I am thinking of, then there certainly must _be_ a unicorn, in spite of the fact that unicorns are unreal. In other words, though in one sense of the words there certainly _are_ no unicorns--that sense, namely, in which to assert that there are would be equivalent to asserting that unicorns are real--yet there _must_ be _some_ other sense in which there _are_ such things; since, _if_ there were not, we could not think of them."

Perhaps, it may be thought that the fallacy involved in this argument is too gross for it to be possible that Mr. Bradley should have been guilty of it. But there are other passages in _Appearance and Reality_--particularly what he says about Error --which look to me as if he certainly was guilty of it. I suppose it will be quite obvious to everyone here that it is a fallacy; that the fact that we can think of unicorns is not sufficient to prove that, in any sense at all, there _are_ any unicorns. Yet, I am not sure that I know myself what is _the_ mistake involved in thinking that it _is_ sufficient, and I am going, therefore, to try to put as clearly as I can, what I think it is, in the hope that somebody may be able, if I am wrong, to correct me.

The main mistake, I suppose, is the mistake of thinking that the proposition "Unicorns are thought of" is a proposition of the same form as "Lions are hunted"; or the proposition "I am thinking of a unicorn" of the same form as "I am hunting a lion"; or the proposition "Unicorns are objects of thought" of the same form as "Lions are objects of the chase." Of the second proposition in each of these three pairs, it is in fact the case that it could not be true unless there were lions--at least one. Each of them does, in fact, assert both with regard to a certain property--which we will call that of "being a lion"--that there _are_ things which possess it, and also with regard to another--that of being hunted--that some of the things which possess the former possess this property too. But it is obvious enough to common sense that the same is by no means true of the _first_ proposition in each pair, in spite of the fact that their grammatical expression shows no trace of the difference. It is perfectly obvious that if I say "I am thinking of a unicorn,"

I am not saying both that there is a unicorn and that I am thinking of it, although, if I say "I am hunting a lion," I am saying both that there is a lion, and that I am hunting it. In the former case,

I am _not_ asserting that the two properties of being a unicorn and of being thought of by me both belong to one and the same thing; whereas, in the latter case, I am asserting that the two properties of being a lion and of being hunted by me _do_ belong to one and the same thing. It is quite clear that there is _in fact_, this difference between the two propositions; although no trace of it appears in their verbal expression. And why we should use the same form of verbal expression to convey such different meanings is more than I can say. It seems to me very curious that language, in this, as in the other instance which we have just considered of "Lions are real" and "Lions are mammalian," should have grown up just as if it were expressly designed to mislead philosophers; and I do not know why it should have. Yet, it seems to me there is no doubt that in ever so many instances it has. Moreover, _exactly_ what _is_ meant by saying "I am thinking of a unicorn" is not by any means clear to me. I think we can assert at least this: In order that this proposition should be true, it is necessary (1) that I should be conceiving, with regard to a certain property, the hypothesis that there Is something which possesses it, and (2) that the property in question should be such that, if anything did possess it there would be a unicorn. Although this is plainly true, it does not give us completely what is _meant_ by the statement, "I am thinking of a unicorn"; and I do not know what the complete meaning is. It is certainly _not_ that I am conceiving with regard to the property of "being a unicorn," that there is something which possesses it; since I may be thinking of a unicorn, without ever having conceived the property of "being a unicorn" at all. Whatever it does mean, the point which concerns us is that it is certainly _not_ necessary for its truth, that the property of being a unicorn should, in fact, belong to anything whatever, or, therefore, that there should in any sense whatever _be_ a unicorn. And the fallacy I am attributing to Mr. Bradley is that of supposing that, _in some sense,_ it must imply this latter.

This, then, is what I imagine to be at least one of the reasons which have led Mr. Bradley to suppose that the proposition "Time is unreal," _must_ be consistent with the proposition "There _is_ such a thing as Time." Put shortly, it is that he sees (what is perfectly true) that "Time is unreal" _must_ be consistent with "We do think of Time;" he thinks (falsely) that "We _do_ think of Time" must imply, in some sense, "There _is_ such a thing as Time;" and finally, infers (correctly) from this true and this false premiss, that there _must_ be some sense of the proposition "There is such a thing as Time" which is consistent with "Time is unreal."

It follows, then, that if Mr. Bradley means what he ought mean _both_ by "Time is unreal" _and_ by "Time exists," he is contradicting himself when he combines these two propositions. And I have said I feel convinced that he _does_ mean what he ought to mean by the former. But I feel a good deal of doubt as to whether, all the same, he is contradicting himself, because it does seem to me doubtful whether he means what he ought to mean by the latter. The kind of thing which I imagine may be happening to him when he insists so strongly that Time _does_ exist, _is a fact,_ and _is,_ is that, properly speaking, he is not attaching to these phrases any meaning whatever--_not,_ therefore, that which they properly bear. It seems to me very possible that he has so strongly convinced himself of the false proposition that there _must_ be _some_ sense in which, if I think of a unicorn, there must _be_ a unicorn, that wherever he knows the former proposition holds, he allows himself to use the latter _form of words,_ without attaching any meaning to them. What he is really asserting so emphatically may, I think, be not anything which his words stand for, but simply this verbal proposition that there _must_ be _some_ sense in which they are true.

[1] _Appearance and Reality_ (2nd edn.), p. 35. The Italics are mine.

[2] _Op. cit._ pp. 131-2.

SOME JUDGMENTS OF PERCEPTION

I want to raise some childishly simple questions as to what we are doing when we make judgments of a certain kind, which we all do in fact exceedingly commonly make. The kind of judgments I mean are those which we make when, with regard to something which we are seeing, we judge such things as '"That is an inkstand," "That is a tablecloth," "That is a door," etc., etc.; or when, with regard to something which we are feeling with our hands, we judge such things as "This is cloth," "This is a finger," "This is a coin," etc., etc.

It is scarcely possible, I think, to exaggerate the frequency with which we make such judgments as these, nor yet the certainty with which we are able to make vast numbers of them. Any man, who is not blind, can, at almost any moment of his waking life, except when he is in the dark, make a large number of judgments of the first kind, with the greatest certainty. He has only to look about him, if he is indoors, to judge with regard to various things which he is seeing, such things as "That is a window," "That is a chair," "This is a book"; or, if he is out-of-doors, such things as "That is a house," "That is a motor-car," "That is a man," or "That is a stone," "That is a tree," "That is a cloud." And all of us, who are not blind, do in fact constantly make such judgments, even if, as a rule, we only make them as parts of more complicated judgments. What I mean is that, when we make such judgments as "Hullo! that clock has stopped," or "This chair is more comfortable than that one," or "That man looks like a foreigner," judgments of the simpler kind with which I am concerned are, so far as I can see, actually a part of what we are judging. In judging "That clock has stopped," part of what I am actually judging is, so far as I can see, "That is a clock;" and similarly if I judge "That tree is taller than this one," my judgment actually contains the two simpler judgments "That is a tree," and "This is a tree." Perhaps most judgments which we make, of the kind I mean, are, in this way, only parts of more complicated judgments: I do not know whether this is so or not. But in any case there can be no doubt that we make them exceedingly commonly. And even a blind man, or a man in the dark, can and does, very frequently, make judgments of the second kind--judgments about things which he is feeling with his hands. All of us, for instance, at almost any moment of our waking life, whether we are in the dark or not, have only to feel certain parts of our own bodies or of our clothes, in order to make, with great certainty, such judgments as "This is a finger," "This is a nose," "This is cloth." And similarly I have only to feel in my pockets to judge, with regard to objects which I meet with there, such things as "This is a coin," "This is a pencil," "This is a pipe."

Judgments of this kind would, I think, commonly, and rightly, be taken to be judgments, the truth of which involves the existence of material things or physical objects. If I am right in judging that this is an inkstand, it follows that there is at least one inkstand in the Universe; and if there is an inkstand in the Universe, it follows that there is in it at least one material thing or physical object. This may, of course, be disputed. Berkeley, if I understand him rightly, was clearly of opinion that there was no inconsistency in maintaining that there were in the Universe thousands of inkstands and trees and stones and stars, and that yet there was in it no such thing as matter. And perhaps the definition of matter, which he adopted, was such that there really was no inconsistency in maintaining this. Perhaps, similarly, other philosophers have sometimes adopted definitions of the expressions "material things" and "physical objects," which were such that all the judgments of this kind that we make might quite well be true, without its being true that there are in the Universe any material things whatever. Perhaps, even, there may be some justification for adopting definitions of those terms which would yield the surprising result that we may, with perfect consistency, maintain that the world is full of minerals and vegetables and animals, of all sorts of different kinds, and that yet there is not to be found in it a single material thing. I do not know whether there is or is not any utility in using the terms "material thing" or "physical object" in such a sense as this. But, whether there is or not, I cannot help thinking that there is ample justification for using them in another sense--a sense in which from the proposition that there are in the Universe such things as inkstands or fingers or clouds, it strictly follows that there are in it at least as many material things, and in which, therefore, we can _not_ consistently maintain the existence of inkstands, fingers, and clouds, while denying that of material things. The kinds of judgment which I have mentioned, and thousands of others which might easily be mentioned, are obviously all of the same sort in one very important respect--a respect in which, for instance, such judgments as "This is an emotion," "This is a judgment," "This is a colour," are _not_ of the same sort as they are. And it seems to me that we are certainly using the term "material thing" in _a_ correct and useful way, if we express this important common property which they have, by saying that of each of them the same can truly be said as was said of the judgment "That is an inkstand": that, just as from the proposition "There is an inkstand" it follows that there is at least one material thing, so from the proposition "There is a tablecloth," it follows that there is at least one material thing; and similarly in all the other cases. We can certainly use the expression "Things _such as_ inkstands, tablecloths, fingers, clouds, stars, etc.," to mean things such as these in a certain very important respect, which we all understand, though we may not be able to define it. And the term "material thing" certainly is and can be correctly used to mean simply things such as these in that respect--whatever it may be. Some term is certainly required to mean merely things such as these in that important respect; and, so far as I can see, there is no term which can be naturally used in this sense except the term "material things" and its equivalents. Thus understood, the term "material thing" certainly does stand for an important notion, which requires a name.

And, if we agree to use the term in this sense, then it is obvious that no more can be necessary for the truth of the assertion that there are material things, than is necessary for the truth of judgments of the kind with which I propose to deal. But no more can be necessary for the truth of these judgments than is actually asserted in or logically implied by them. And if we approach the question what is necessary for the truth of the assertion that there are material things, by asking what it is that we actually assert when we make such judgments as these, certain reasons for doubting how much is necessary are, I think, brought out much more clearly, than if we approach the question in any other way. Many philosophers have told us a very great deal as to what they suppose to be involved in the existence of material things; and some, at least, among them seem to have meant by "material things" such things as inkstands, fingers and clouds. But I can think of only one type of view as to the constitution of material things, which is such that it is tolerably clear what answer those who hold it would give to the simple question; What is it that I am judging, when I judge, as I now do, that that is an inkstand? The type of view I mean is that to which the view that Mill suggests, when he explains what he means by saying that Matter is a Permanent Possibility of Sensation, and also the view or views which Mr. Russell seems to suggest in his "Our Knowledge of the External World," seem to belong. In the case of views of this kind, it is, I think, tolerably clear what answer those who hold them would give to _all_ the questions I want to raise about judgments of the kind I have described. But it does not seem to me at all certain that any view of this type is true; and certainly many philosophers have held and do hold that all views of this type are false. But in the case of those who do hold them to be false, I do not know, in any single case, what answer would be given to _all_ the questions which I want to raise. In the case of philosophers, who do not accept any view of the Mill-Russell type, none, so far as I know, has made it clear what answer he would give to _all_ my questions: some have made it clear what answer they would give to _some_ of them; but many, I think, have not even made it clear what answer they would give to any. Perhaps there is some simple and satisfactory answer, which has escaped me, that such philosophers could give to all my questions; but I cannot help thinking that assumptions as to the nature of material things have too often been made, without its even occurring to those who made them to ask, what, if they were true, we could be judging when we make such judgments as these; and that, if this question had been asked, it would have become evident that those assumptions were far less certain than they appeared to be.

I do not know that there is any excuse whatever for calling _all_ judgments of the kind I mean "judgments of perception." All of them are, of course, judgments _about_ things which we are at the moment perceiving, since, by definition, they are judgments about things which we are seeing or feeling with our hands; and all of them are, no doubt, also _based upon_ something which we perceive about the thing in question. But the mere fact that a judgment is both about a thing which I am perceiving, and also based upon something which I perceive about that thing, does not seem to be a sufficient reason for calling it a judgment of perception; and I do not know that there is any other reason than this for calling _all_ judgments of the kind I mean judgments of perception. I do not want therefore, to assert that _all_ of them are so. But it seems to me quite plain that enormous numbers of them are so, in a perfectly legitimate sense. This judgment, which I now make, to the effect that _that_ is a door, seems to me quite plainly to be a judgment of perception, in the simple sense that I make it because I do, in fact, see that that _is_ a door, and assert in it no more than what I see; and what I see I, of course, perceive. In every case in which I judge, with regard to something which I am seeing or feeling with my hands, that it is a so-and-so, simply because I do perceive, by sight or touch, that it is in fact a thing of that kind, we can, I think, fairly say that the judgment in question is a judgment of perception. And enormous numbers of judgments of the kind I mean are, quite plainly, judgments of perception in this sense. They are not _all,_ for the simple reason that some of them are mistaken. I may, for instance, judge, with regard to an animal which I see at a distance, that it is a sheep, when in fact it is a pig. And here my judgment is certainly not due to the fact that I see it to be a sheep; since I cannot possibly see a thing to be a sheep, unless it is one. It, therefore, is _not_ a judgment of perception in this sense. And moreover, even where such a judgment is true, it may not always be a judgment of perception, for the reason that, whereas I only see the thing in question, the kind of thing which I judge it to be is of such a nature, that it is impossible for any one, by sight alone, to perceive anything to be of that kind. How to draw the line between judgments of this kind, which are judgments of perception, and those which are not, I do not know. That is to say, I do not know what conditions must be fulfilled in order that I may be truly said to be _perceiving,_ by sight or touch, such things as that that is a door, this is a finger, and not _merely_ inferring them. Some people may no doubt think that it is very unphilosophical in me to say that we _ever_ can perceive such things as these. But it seems to me that we do, in ordinary life, constantly talk of _seeing_ such things, and that, when we do so, we are neither using language incorrectly, nor making any mistake about the facts--supposing something to occur which never does in fact occur. The truth seems to me to be that we are using the term "perceive" in a way which is both perfectly correct and expresses a kind of thing which constantly does occur, only that some philosophers have not recognised that this is a correct usage of the term and have not been able to define it. I am not, therefore, afraid to say that I do now perceive that that is a door, and that that is a finger. Only, of course, when I say that I do, I do not mean to assert that part of what I "perceive," when I "perceive" these things, may not be something which, in an important sense, is known to me only by inference. It would be very rash to assert that "perception," in this sense of the word, entirely excludes inference. All that seems to me certain is that there is an important and useful sense of the word "perception," which is such that the amount and kind of inference, if inference there be, which is involved in my present perception that that is a door, is no bar to the truth of the assertion that I do perceive that it is one. Vast numbers, then, of the kind of judgments with which I propose to deal seem to me to be, in an important and legitimate sense, judgments of perception; although I am not prepared to define, any further than I have done, what that sense is. And though it is true that the questions which I shall raise apply just as much to those of them which are not judgments of perception as to those which are, it is, of course, also true that they apply just as much to those which are as to those which are not; so that I shall be really dealing with a large and important class among judgments of perception.

It is true that, if certain views which, if I understand them rightly, some Philosophers have seriously entertained, were true ones, it would be quite impossible that any of them should be judgments of perception. For some philosophers seem to me to have denied that we ever do in fact know such things as these, and others not only that we ever know them but also that they are ever true. And, if, in fact, I never do know such a thing, or if it is never true, it will of course, follow that I never perceive such a thing; since I certainly cannot, in this sense, perceive anything whatever, unless I both know it and it is true. But it seems to me a sufficient refutation of such views as these, simply to point to cases in which we do know such things. This, after all, you know, really is a finger: there is no doubt about it: I know it, and you all know it. And I think we may safely challenge any philosopher to bring forward any argument in favour either of the proposition that we do not know it, or of the proposition that it is not true, which does not at some point, rest upon some premiss which is, beyond comparison, less certain than is the proposition which it is designed to attack. The questions whether we do ever know such things as these, and whether there are any material things, seem to me, therefore, to be questions which there is no need to take seriously: they are questions which it is quite easy to answer, with certainty, in the affirmative. What does, I think, need to be taken seriously, and what is really dubious, is not the question, whether this is a finger, or whether I know that it is, but the question _what,_ in certain respects, I am knowing, when I know that it is. And this is the question to which I will now address myself.

To begin with there is one thing which seems to me to be very certain indeed about such judgments. It is unfortunately a thing which I do not know how properly to express. There seem to me to be objections to every way of expressing it which I can think of. But I hope I may be able to make my meaning clear, in spite of the inadequacy of my expression. The thing I mean is a thing which may to some people seem so obvious as to be scarcely worth saying. But I cannot help thinking that it is not always clearly recognised, and even that some philosophers, to judge from what they say, might perhaps dispute it. It seems to me to be an assumption which is silently made in many treatments of the subject, and, as I say, it seems to me to be very certain indeed. But I think it is at all events worth while to try to make the assumption explicit, in case it should be disputed. If it really is not true, then the other questions to which I shall go on, and which seem to me really dubious and difficult, do not, I think, arise at all.

I will try to express this fundamental assumption, which seems to me so very certain, by saying it is the assumption that, in all cases in which I make a judgment of this sort, I have no difficulty whatever in picking out a thing, which is, quite plainly, in a sense in which nothing else is, _the_ thing about which I am making my judgment; and that yet, though this thing is _the_ thing about which I am judging, I am, quite certainly, _not_, in general, judging with regard to it, that _it_ is a thing of that kind for which the term, which seems to express the predicate of my judgment, is a name. Thus, when I judge, as now, that That is an inkstand, I have no difficulty whatever in picking out, from what, if you like, you can call my total field of presentation at the moment, an object, which is undoubtedly, in a sense in which nothing else is, _the_ object about which I am making this judgment; and yet it seems to me quite certain that of _this_ object I am not judging that it is a whole inkstand. And similarly when I judge, with regard to something which I am feeling in my pocket, "This is a coin," I have no difficulty in picking out, from my field of presentation, an object, which is undoubtedly _the_ object with which my judgment is concerned; and yet I am certainly not judging with regard to this object that it is a whole coin. I say that _always__t_ when I make such a judgment, I can pick out _the_ one, among the objects presented to me at the time, about which I am making it; but I have only said that _in general_ I am not judging with regard to this object that it is a thing of the kind, for which the term, which seems to express the predicate of my judgment, is a name. And I have limited my second proposition in this way, because there are cases, in which it does not, at first sight, seem quite so certain that I am not doing this, as in the two instances I have just given. When, for instance, I judge with regard to something, which I am seeing, "This is a soap-bubble," or "This is a drop of water," or even when I judge "This is a spot of ink," it may not seem quite so plain, that I may not be judging, with regard to the very object presented to me, that it is, itself, a whole soap-bubble, a whole drop of water, or a whole spot of ink, as it always is, in the case of an inkstand, or a coin, that I never take the presented object, about which I am judging, to be a whole inkstand, or a whole coin. The sort of reason why I say this will, of course, be obvious to any one, and it is obviously of a childish order. But I cannot say that it seems to me quite obvious that in such a case I am not judging of the presented object that it is a whole drop of water, in the way in which it does seem to be obvious that I am not judging of _this_ presented object that it is an inkstand. That is why I limit myself to saying that, _in general_, when I judge "That is a so-and-so" I am not judging with regard to the presented object, about which my judgment is that _it_ is a thing of the kind in question. As much as this seems to me to be a thing which any child can see. Nobody will suppose, for a moment, that when he judges such things as "This is a sofa," or "This is a tree," he is judging, with regard to the presented object about which his judgment plainly is, that it is a whole sofa or a whole tree: he can, at most, suppose that he is judging it to be a part of the surface of a sofa or a part of the surface of a tree. And certainly in the case of most judgments of this kind which we make, whether in the case of all or not, this is plainly the case: we are not judging, with regard to the presented object about which our judgment plainly is, that it is a thing of the kind, for which the term which appears to express the predicate of our judgment, is a name. And that this should be true of _most_ judgments of this kind, whether of all or not, is quite sufficient for my purpose.

This much, then, seems to me to be very certain indeed. But I will try to make clearer exactly what I mean by it, by mentioning a ground on which I imagine it might perhaps be disputed.