Finite truth and fact, we may say, is throughout “hypothetical.” But, either with this term or with “conditional,” we have to guard against misleading implications. There cannot (from our present point of view) be one finite sphere which is real and actual, or which is even considered to be so for a certain purpose. There can be here no realm of existence or fact, outside of which the merely supposed could fall in unreality. The Reality, on one hand, is no finite existence; and, on the other hand, every predicate—no matter what—must both fall within and must qualify Reality.[1] They are applicable, all subject to various degrees of alteration, and as to these degrees we, in the end, may in any case be mistaken. In any case, therefore, the alteration may amount to unlimited transformation. This is why the finite must be called conditional rather than conditioned. For a thing might be conditioned, and yet, because of its conditions, might seem to stand unshaken and secure. But the conditions of the finite, we have seen, are otherwise. They in any case may be such as indefinitely to dissipate its particular nature.
Every finite truth or fact to some extent must be unreal and false, and it is impossible in the end certainly to know of any how false it may be. We cannot know this, because the unknown extends illimitably, and all abstraction is precarious and at the mercy of what is not observed. If our knowledge were a system, the case would then undoubtedly be altered. With regard to everything we should then know the place assigned to it by the Whole, and we could measure the exact degree of truth and falsehood which anything possessed. With such a system there would be no outlying region of ignorance; and hence of all its contents we could have a complete and exhaustive know-
- ↑ Cp. here Chapter xxiv.
