ledge. But any system of this kind seems, most assuredly, by its essence impossible.
There are certain truths about the Absolute, which, for the present at least,[1] we can regard as unconditional. In this point they can be taken to differ in kind from all subordinate truths, for with the latter it is a question only of more or less fallibility. They are all liable to a possible intellectual correction, and the amount of this possibility cannot be certainly known. Our power of abstraction varies widely with different regions of knowledge, but no finite truth (however reached) can be considered as secure. Error with all of them is a matter of probability, and a matter of degree. And those are relatively true and strong which more nearly approach to perfection.
It is this perfection which is our measure. Our criterion is individuality, or the idea of complete system; and above, in Chapter xxiv., we have already explained its nature. And I venture to think that about the main principle there is no great difficulty. Difficulty is felt more when we proceed to apply it in detail. We saw that the principles of internal harmony and of widest extent in the end are the same, for they are divergent aspects of the one idea of concrete unity. But for a discussion of such points the reader must return to our former chapter.
A thing is more real as its opposite is more inconceivable. This is part of the truth. But, on the other hand, the opposite is more inconceivable, or more impossible, because the thing itself is more real and more probable and more true. The test (I would repeat it once more here) in its essence is positive. The stronger, the more systematic and more fully organised, a body of knowledge becomes, so
- ↑ For a further statement see below.
