Note 187 — Introductory material

The converse argument to mine, the argument from the spatio-temporal element in perception to a world of interrelated but diverse things, is developed at length in Bradley's Logic. It is put briefly in the following sentence (p. 44, note): "If space and time are continuous, and if all appearance must occupy some time or space—and it is not hard to support both these theses—we can at once proceed to the conclusion, no mere particular exists. Every phenomenon will exist in more times or spaces than one; and against that diversity will be itself an universal[187]." The importance of this fact appears, when we consider that, if any mere particular existed, all judgment and inference as to that particular would be impossible, since all judgment and inference necessarily operate by means of universal. But all reality is constructed from the This of immediate presentation, from which judgment and inference necessarily spring. Owing, however, to the continuity and relativity of space and time, no This can be regarded either as simple or as self-subsistent. Every This, on the one hand, can be analyzed into Thises, and on the other hand, is found to be necessarily related to other things, outside the limits of the given object of sense-perception. This function of space and time is presupposed in the following statement from Bosanquet's Logic (Vol. I. pp. 77–78): "Reality is given for me in present sensuous perception, and in the immediate feeling of my own sentient existence that goes with it. The real world, as a definite organized system, is for me an extension of this present sensation and self feeling by means of judgment, and it is the essence of judgment to effect and sustain such an extension.... The subject in every judgment of Perception is some given spot or point in sensuous contact with the percipient self. But, as all reality is continuous, the subject is not merely this given spot or point."