to remain within the limits of direct experience. Now it would not be easy to point out what is given to us immediately. It would be hard to show what is not imported into the “this,” or, at least, modified there by transcendence. To fix with regard to the past the precise limit of presentation, might at times be very difficult. And to discount within the present the result of ideal processes would, at least often, be impossible. But I do not desire to base any objection on this ground. I am content here to admit the distinction between direct and indirect experience. And the question is whether reality can go beyond the former? Has a man a right to say that something exists, beside that which at this moment he actually feels? And is it possible, on the other side, to identify reality with the immediate present?
This identification, we have seen, is impossible; and the attempt to remain within the boundary of the mere “this” is hopeless. The self-discrepancy of the content, and its continuity with a “what” beyond its own limits, at once settle the question. We need not fall back for conviction upon the hard shock of change. The whole movement of the mind implies disengagement from the mere “this”; and to assert the content of the latter as reality at once involves us in contradictions. But it would not be profitable further to dwell on this point. To remain within the presented is neither defensible nor possible. We are compelled alike by necessity and by logic to transcend it (Chapters xv. and xix).
But, before proceeding to ask whither this transcendence must take us, I will deal with a question we noticed before (Chapter xix.). An objection may be based on the uniqueness of the felt; and it may be urged that the reality which appears in the “this-mine” is unique and exclusive. Whatever, therefore, its predicates may seem to demand, it is not possible
