The Conception of Reality

The fourth chapter of Mr. Bradley’s Appearance and Reality is a chapter headed “Space and Time,” and he begins the chapter as follows:—

“The object of this chapter is far from being an attempt to discuss fully the nature of space or of time. It will content itself with stating our main justification for regarding them as appearances. It will explain why we deny that, in the character which they exhibit, they either have or belong to reality.” Appearance and Reality (2nd edn.), p. 35. The Italics are mine. ⁴

Here, it will be seen, Mr. Bradley states that, in his opinion, Time, in a certain character, neither has nor belongs to reality; this is the conclusion he wishes to maintain. And to say that Time has not reality would seem to be plainly equivalent to saying that Time is not real. However, if anybody should doubt whether the two phrases are meant to be equivalent, the doubt may be easily set at rest by a reference to the concluding words of the same chapter, where Mr. Bradley uses the following very emphatic expression: “Time,” he says, “like space, has most evidently proved not to be real, but to be a contradictory appearance” (p. 43). Mr. Bradley does, then, say here, in so many words, that Time is not real. But there is one other difference between this statement at the end of the chapter, and the statement at the beginning of it, which we must not forget to notice. In the statement at the beginning he carefully qualifies the assertion “Time neither has nor belongs to reality” by saying “Time, in the character which it exhibits, neither has nor belongs to reality,” whereas in the final statement this qualification is not inserted; here he says simply “Time is not real.” This qualification, which is inserted in the one place and omitted in the other, might, of course, be meant to imply that, in some other character—some character which it does not exhibit—Time has reality and does belong to it. And I shall presently have something to say about this distinction between Time in one character and Time in another, because it might be thought that this distinction is the explanation of the difficulty as to Mr. Bradley’s meaning, which I am going to point out.

However, so far it is clear that Mr. Bradley holds that in some sense, at all events, the whole proposition “Time is not real” can be truly asserted. And, now, I want to quote a passage in which he says things which, at first sight, seem difficult to reconcile with this view. This new passage is a passage in which he is not talking of Time in particular, but of “appearances” in general. But, as we have seen, he does regard Time as one among appearances, and I think there is no doubt that what he here declares to be true of all appearances is meant to be true of Time, among the rest. This new passage is as follows:—

“For the present,” he says, Op. at. pp. 131-2. ⁵ “we may keep a fast hold upon this, that appearances exist. That is absolutely certain, and to deny it is nonsense. And whatever exists must belong to reality. This is also quite certain, and its denial once more is self-contradictory. Our appearances, no doubt, may be a beggarly show, and their nature to an unknown extent may be something which, as it is, is not true of reality. That is one thing, and it is quite another thing to speak as if these facts had no actual existence, or as if there could be anything but reality to which they might belong. And I must venture to repeat that such an idea would be sheer nonsense. What appears, for that sole reason, most indubitably is; and there is no possibility of conjuring its being away from it.”

That is the passage which seems to me to raise a difficulty as to his meaning when contrasted with the former passage. And the reason why it seems to me to raise one is this. In the former passage Mr. Bradley declared most emphatically that Time is not real; he said: “Time has most evidently proved not to be real.” Whereas in this one he seems to declare equally emphatically that Time does exist, and is. And his language here again is as strong as possible. He says it is sheer nonsense to suppose that Time does not exist, is not a fact, does not belong to reality. It looks, therefore, as if he meant to make a distinction between “being real” on the one hand, and “existing,” “being a fact,” and “being” on the other hand—as if he meant to say that a thing may exist, and be, and be a fact, and yet not be real.. And I think there is, at all events, some superficial difficulty in understanding this distinction. We might naturally think that to say “Time exists, is a fact, and is,” is equivalent to saying that it is real. What more, we might ask, can a man who says that Time is real mean to maintain about it than that it exists, is a fact, and is? All that most people would mean by saying that time is real could, it would seem, be expressed by saying “There is such a thing as Time.” And it might, therefore, appear from this new passage as if Mr. Bradley fully agreed with the view that most people would express by saying “Time is real” —as if be did not at all mean to contradict anything that most people believe about Time. But, if so, then what are we to make of his former assertion that, nevertheless, Time is not real? He evidently thinks that, in asserting this, he is asserting something which is not mere nonsense; and he certainly would not have chosen this way of expressing what he means, unless he had supposed that what he is here asserting about Time is incompatible with what people often mean when they say “Time is real.” Yet, we have seen that he thinks that what he is asserting is not incompatible with the assertions that Time is, and is a fact, and exists. He must, therefore, think that when people say “Time is real” they often, at least, mean something more than merely that there is such a thing as Time, something therefore, which may be denied, without denying this. All the same, there is, I think, a real difficulty in seeing that they ever do mean anything more, and, if they do, what more it is that they can mean.

The two expressions “There is such a thing as so and so” and “So and so is real” are certainly sometimes and quite naturally used as equivalents, even if they are not always so used. And Mr. Bradley’s own language implies that this is so. For, as we have seen, in the first passage, he seems to identify belonging to reality with being real. The conclusion which he expresses in one place by saying that Time does not belong to reality he expresses in another by saying that it is not real; whereas in the second passage he seems to identify the meaning of the same phrase “belonging to reality” with existing; he says that whatever exists must belong to reality, and that it is self-contradictory to deny this. But if both being real and existing are identical with belonging to reality, it would seem they must be identical with one another.

And, indeed, in another passage in the Appendix to the 2nd Edition (p. 555) we find Mr. Bradley actually using the following words: “Anything,” he says, “that in any sense is, qualifies the absolute reality and so is real.” Moreover, as we have seen, he declares it to be nonsense to deny that Time is; he must, therefore, allow that, in a sense, at all events, it is nonsense to deny that Time is real. And yet this denial is the very one he has made. Mr. Bradley, therefore, does seem himself to allow that the word “real” may, sometimes at all events, be properly used as equivalent to the words “exists,” “is a fact,” “is.” And yet his two assertions cannot both be true, unless there is some sense in which the whole proposition “Tine is real” is not equivalent to and cannot be inferred from “Time is,” or “Time exists,” or “Time is a fact.”

It seems, then, pretty clear that Mr. Bradley must be holding that the statement “Time is real” is in one sense, not equivalent to “Time exists”; though he admits that, in another sense, it is. And I will only quote one other passage which seems to make this plain.

“If,” he says later on (p. 206) “Time is not unreal, I admit that our Absolute is a delusion; but, on the other side, it will be urged that time cannot be mere appearance. The change in the finite subject, we are told, is a matter of direct experience; it is a fact, and hence it cannot be explained away. And so much of course is indubitable. Change is a fact and, further, this fact, as such, is not reconcilable with the Absolute. And, if we could not in any way perceive how the fact can be unreal, we should be placed, I admit, in a hopeless dilemma . . . But our real position is very different from this. For time has been shown to contradict itself, and so to be appearance. With this, its discord, we see at once, may pass as an element into a wider harmony. And with this, the appeal to fact at once becomes worthless.”

“It is mere superstition to suppose that an appeal to experience can prove reality. That I find something in existence in the world or in my self, shows that this something exists, and it cannot show more. Any deliverance of consciousness—whether original or acquired—is but a deliverance of consciousness. It is in no case an oracle and a revelation which we have to accept. It is a fact, like other facts, to be dealt with; and there is no presumption anywhere that any fact is better than appearance.”

Here Mr. Bradley seems plainly to imply that to be “real” is something more and other than to be a fact or to exist. This is the distinction which I think he means to make, and which, I think, is the real explanation of his puzzling language, and this is the distinction which I am going presently to discuss. But I want first to say something as to that other distinction, which I said might be supposed to be the explanation of the whole difficulty— the distinction implied by the qualification “Time, in the character which it exhibits ”; the suggestion that, when we talk of “Time,” we may sometimes mean Time in one character, sometimes in another, and that what is true of it in the one character may not be true of it in the other. It might, I think, be suggested that this is the explanation of the whole difficulty. And I want briefly to point out why I think it cannot be the only explanation.

Stated very badly and crudely, the difficulty which requires explanation is this: Mr. Bradley says, “It is sheer nonsense to say Time is not real.” But this thing which he says it is sheer nonsense to say is the very thing which he himself had formerly said. He had said, “Time has most evidently proved not to be real.” Now, Mr. Bradley certainly does not mean to say that this proposition of his own is sheer nonsense; and yet he says, in words, that it is sheer nonsense. This is the difficulty. What is the explanation? Quite obviously, the explanation can only take one possible form. Mr. Bradley must be holding that the words “Time is real” may have two different senses. In one sense, the denial of them is sheer nonsense; in the other sense, so far from being sheer nonsense, denial of them is, according to him, evidently true. Now, what are these two different senses, between which the difference is so enormous? It is here that the two different explanations come in.

The first and, as I think, the wrong explanation (though I think Mr. Bradley’s words do give some colour to it) is this. It might be said: “The whole business is perfectly easy to explain. When Mr. Bradley says that Time is not real, what he means is that Time, in the character which it exhibits, is not real. Whereas, when he says, Time does exist, is a fact, and is, and that it is nonsense to deny this, what he means is that Time does exist, in some other character—some character other than that which it exhibits. He does not mean to make any distinction, such as you suppose, between two meanings of the word ‘real ’—the one of them merely equivalent to ‘exists,’ ‘is,’ ‘is a fact,’ and the other meaning something very different from this. The only distinction he means to make is a distinction between two meanings of ‘ Time ’ or of the whole sentence ‘Time is real.’ He distinguishes between the meaning of this sentence, when it means, ‘ Time in the character which it exhibits, is real,’ which meaning, he says, is evidently false; and its meaning when it means, ‘ Time in some other character, is real,’ and this meaning, he says, is evidently true. This is the complete explanation of your supposed puzzle, which is, in fact, therefore, very easy to solve.”

This, I think, might be offered as an explanation of Mr. Bradley’s meaning. And it must be admitted that it would furnish a complete explanation of the particular puzzle I have just stated, it would completely absolve Mr. Bradley from the charge of inconsistency; and would show that where he appears to contradict himself about the reality of Time, the contradiction is verbal only and not real. We might, indeed, object to this distinction between Time in one character and Time in another; on the ground that anything which has not got the character which Time exhibits, but only some other character, ought not to be called Time at all. We are, indeed, perfectly familiar with the conception that one and the same thing may at one time possess a character which it does not possess at another, so that what is true of it at one time may not be true of it at another. We are, that is, familiar with the idea of a thing changing its character. But Time itself as a whole obviously cannot change its character in this sense. Mr. Bradley cannot mean to say that it possesses the character “which it exhibits” and in which it is unreal at one time, and possesses some other character, in which it is real, at some other time. And hence we might say it is certainly wrong to speak as if Time itself could have two incompatible characters; since nothing can have two incompatible characters, unless it has them at different times. And this is an objection which does seem to apply to Mr. Bradley’s doctrine in any case, since he does in any case seem to imply this distinction between Time in one character and Time in another, whether this distinction is the complete explanation of our particular puzzle or not. Yet this objection would not necessarily be more than an objection to Mr. Bradley’s words; it would not necessarily be an objection to his meaning. Where he seems to imply that Time, in some character other than that which it exhibits, may be fully real, he may only mean that something completely different from Time, but which does in some sense correspond to it, is fully real; and if he does mean this, our objection would only amount to an objection to his giving the name of “Time” to this supposed counterpart of Time; we might say, and I think justly, that it is misleading to speak of this counterpart of Time as if it were Time itself in some other character; but this would go no way at all to show that there may not really be such a counterpart of Time, which is real, while Time itself is unreal. We might ask, too, what this supposed counterpart of Time is like, or (to put it in Mr. Bradley’s way) what the precise character is, in which Time is real? And I think Mr. Bradley would admit that he cannot tell us. But this, you see, would also be no objection to his actual doctrine. He might quite well know, and be right in saying, that there is and must be a real counterpart of Time, completely different in character from Time, as we know it, even though he has not the least idea what this counterpart is like.

We must, therefore, admit that this proposed explanation of our puzzle would be a complete explanation of it. It would completely vindicate Mr. Bradley from the charge of inconsistency, and would give us, as his doctrine, a doctrine to which we have hitherto found no objection except verbal ones.

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 have 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,” “Chimaeras 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 something—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 ate 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.