relations, and as real as any other objects in our metaphysical system. Yet when all is said that can be said in favour of Pluralism, and of the externality of relations as the basis of it, it must be admitted that the chief inducement which has led philosophers to embrace it, lies in a dissatisfaction with the Monistic alternative. This dissatisfaction is with many temperamental; William James felt it strongly. He speaks of the "impeccable and complacent perfection of the Absolute," and complains of the "stuffiness" of the whole doctrine, whimsically likened to the atmosphere of a seaside boarding house. To something of the same feeling I must confess ; yet I think that what I may venture to call the comparative obscurity into which Monism seems recently to have fallen is due to more serious and fundamental logical objections which have become increasingly subjects of comment. I have, for instance, never been able to understand how, if the Absolute is a purely perfect, complete, and indeterminate being, such that determination or characterisation of any kind would infringe its perfection, the possibility of evolution or development from it ever arises. How, in short, does the principle of difference emerge from perfect one-ness? If we grant this it will be said that the principle of difference is fallacious, that it is due to partial apprehension, and disappears with increasing knowledge. If we grant this, it may still be asked, how came it that we ever thought that there was difference? How can perfect unity be the ground, I will not say of Pluralism, but of the appearance of Pluralism? And this difficulty receives expression, I think, in a certain duplication of conception among Monists. When they dwell upon the unity and perfection of the Absolute, it is thought of as the universal ground or condition of all the appearances that make up the world as we know it when its fulness or completeness, its allabsorbing nature, is to the fore, it is thought of rather as the perfect sum or fulness of Reality, in which all contradictory appearances find perfect reconciliation. Yet the universal ground of things is not the same as the sum of all the developments from that ground (why if it is, was the process of development ever initiated ), while neither conception seems to account for the origin of that element, whatever it is, negativeness, partiality, or what not, which produces apparent error, apparent multiplicity, and apparent dichotomy between knowing mind and known object. We are told that all these are "ultimately " one. But the word "ultimately" gives the game away. The distinction between "ultimately one" and "one' is not, indeed, clear, but if the word "ultimately means anything," ultimately one" implies a contrast with something other than one-ness now. How that something other can ever have been generated from the completeness of the Absolute, or become merged into it without carrying with it the principle of difference,-a principle of difference which can best be described as the fact that there does appear to be a difference between appearance and Reality, is the insoluble difficulty which seems to me to be implicit in the whole elaborate structure of the Absolute. To put it briefly, granting that Pluralists are misguided, how can Monists account for the fact of there being Pluralists at all? As an alternative to these difficulties, we would suggest the common sense doctrine of the reality of external relations adumbrated above. The fact that it has not yet, perhaps, attained its final and definite form should not deter us from affording it the consideration it deserves. IT THE MEANING OF TRUTH I. seems to be necessary to say something about the meaning of Truth in any set of essays which purport to present an aspect of Realism, because one's view of truth, whatever it may be, follows inevitably from, and is conditioned by, one's theory as to the nature of Reality and of perception. Of the two schools whose views on truth hold the field, it is difficult for a Realist to hold the coherence theory, and impossible for a modern Idealist to pin his faith on correspondence. 44 99 44 If, for instance there is no external reality other than thinking or your thinking, with which your ideas are to correspond, then "coherence," merging," "interpenetration," ultimate identity and other kinds of Idealist processes must of necessity happen to your ideas, and you may say that any or all of these processes is the meaning of truth, but correspondence, which asserts that of two things, one corresponds with or is like another, can only occur if the two things are really distinct and different to begin with, and will not be reconciled or merged even in the end. Before entering into the rival merits of coherence and correspondence, one or two preliminary observations may be made which are not so much in the nature of arguments, as a statement of positions which will be taken for granted, and attempts clearly to define and to delimit what it is proposed to discuss. First it is clear to me that Truth is a property of judgment. Facts are real, but judgments are true. Even if we hold on the correspondence theory that truth depends upon something nonmental, in the sense that any judgment depends for its truth or falsehood on whether a certain non-mental fact did or did not take place, the judgment has still to be passed before the question of Truth or Falsehood arises. If there were no minds there would be no such thing as Truth. I do not wish to be taken as claiming a dogmatic validity for this distinction. Whether you call facts real or true is probably not a matter of great importance, but simply a question of the language you happen to use. 44 To me, however, it seems more convenient from the point of view of language, and less likely to lead to confusion from that of clear thinking, if we do adopt this distinction. In 1917 Professor Lloyd Morgan read a paper to the Aristotelian Society in the course of which he continually used the expression true facts' when he appeared to be speaking what I should call real facts. This terminology had the unfortunate effect of leading to a confusion between truth and reality, in which the words true and real were used interchangeably and apparently synonymously to describe the same phenomena. It may of course be argued that if |