process, and it would not be with it that the knower would be concerned. And its existence asserted by the knower would be a self-contradiction.
Such is in outline the objection to a plurality of reals which can be based on the fact of knowledge. It would be idle to seek to anticipate attempts at a reply, or to criticise efforts made to give existence and ultimate reality to relations outside the reals. But I will venture to express my conviction that any such attempt must end in the unmeaning. And if any one seeks to turn against my own doctrine the argument which I have stated above, let me at least remind him of one great difference. For me every kind of process between the Many is a state of the Whole in and through which the Many subsist. The process of the Many, and the total being of the Many themselves, are mere aspects of the one Reality which moves and knows itself within them, and apart from which all things and their changes and every knower and every known is all absolutely nothing.
Note to pp. 155-8. I will add a few words in explanation of the position taken up in these pages, though I think the main point is fairly clear even if the result is unsatisfactory. If there is more pain than pleasure in the Universe, I at least could not call the Universe perfect. If on the other hand there is a balance of pleasure, however small, I find myself able to affirm perfection. I assume, on what I think sufficient ground, that pleasure and pain may in a mixed total state counterbalance one another, so that the whole state as a whole may be painful or pleasurable. And I insist that mere quantity has nothing whatever to do with perfection. The question therefore about pleasure and pain, and how far they give a quality to the Whole, may be viewed as a question about the overplus, whether of pain or pleasure. This I take to be the principle and the limit, and the criterion by which we decide against or for Optimism or Pessimism. And this is why we cannot endorse the charming creed of Dr. Pangloss, “Les malheurs particuliers font le bien général, de sorte que plus il y a de malheurs particuliers et plus tout est bien.”
It is therefore most important to understand (if possible) the ultimate nature both of pleasure and pain, the conditions of both and also their effects. For I would add in passing that to suppose that anything could happen uncaused, or could have no effects at all, seems, at least to me, most absurd. But unfortunately a perfect knowledge about pain and pleasure, if attainable, is not yet attained. I am but very incompletely acquainted with the literature of the subject, but still this result, I fear, must be admitted as true. Mr. Marshall’s interesting book on Pleasure and Pain, and the admirable chapter in Mr. Stout’s Psychology both seem to me, the former especially, more
