conclude further, perhaps, that the Real sits apart, that it keeps state by itself and does not descend into phenomena. Or it is as cheap, again, to take up another side of the same error. The Reality is viewed perhaps as immanent in all its appearances, in such a way that it is, alike and equally, present in all. Everything is so worthless on one hand, so divine on the other, that nothing can be viler or can be more sublime than anything else. It is against both sides of this mistake, it is against this empty transcendence and this shallow Pantheism, that our pages may be called one sustained polemic. The positive relation of every appearance as an adjective to Reality, and the presence of Reality among its appearances in different degrees and with diverse values—this double truth we have found to be the centre of philosophy. It is because the Absolute is no sundered abstraction but has a positive character, it is because this Absolute itself is positively present in all appearance, that appearances themselves can possess true differences of value. And, apart from this foundation, in the end we are left without a solid criterion of worth or of truth or reality. This conclusion—the necessity on one side for a standard, and the impossibility of reaching it without a positive knowledge of the Absolute—I would venture to press upon any intelligent worshipper of the Unknown.
The Reality itself is nothing at all apart from appearances.[1] It is in the end nonsense to talk of realities—or of anything else—to which appearances could appear, or between which they somehow could hang as relations. Such realities (we have seen) would themselves be appearances or nothing. For there is no way of qualifying the Real except by appearances, and outside the Real there remains no space in which appearances could live. Reality
- ↑ For the meaning of appearance see, in particular, Chapter xxvi.
