The way to refute the above would be, I presume, to show (a) that merely external relations have in the end, and as ultimate facts, a meaning and reality, and to show (b) that it is possible to think the togetherness of the terms and the external relations—for somehow, I suppose, they are together—without a self-contradiction, manifest directly or through an infinite process of seeking relations between relations and terms.
p. 366, footnote. I may remark here that I am still persuaded that there is in the end no such thing as the mere entertainment of an idea, and that I, for example, went wrong when in my book on Logic I took this to exist. It seems to be, on the contrary, the abstraction of an aspect which by itself does not exist. See Mind, N.S., No. 60.
p. 398, footnote. To the references given here add Mind, N.S., iv, pp. 20, 21 and pp. 225, 226.
Chapter xxiv. The doctrine of the Criterion adopted by me has in various quarters been criticised, but, so far, I venture to think, mainly without much understanding of its nature. The objections raised, for example, by Mr. Hobhouse, Theory of Knowledge, pp. 495-6, I cannot understand in any sense which would render them applicable. I will however in this connection make some statements which will be brief, if perhaps irrelevant.
(i) I have never held that the criterion is to be used apart from, instead of on, the data furnished by experience, (ii) I do not teach that, where incompatible suggestions are possible, we must or may affirm any one of them which we fail to perceive to be internally inconsistent. I hold on the contrary that we must use and arrange all available material (and that of course includes every available suggestion) so that the reality qualified by it all will answer, so far as is possible, to our criterion of a harmonious system. On this point I refer specially to Chapters xvi, xxiv, and xxvii, the doctrines of which, I venture to add, should not be taken as non-existent where my views are in question, (iii) I do not think that where a further alternative is possible a disjunction is complete. But I have always held, and do hold, J. S. Mill’s idea of the Unmeaning as a third possibility to be the merest nonsense, (iv) I do not admit but deny the assumption that, if our knowledge could be consistent, it could then be made from the outside to contradict itself, (v) And I reject the idea that, so far as our knowledge is absolute, we can rationally entertain the notion of its being or becoming false. Any such idea, I have tried to show, is utterly unmeaning. And on the other hand, so far as our knowledge is liable to error, it is so precisely so far as it does not answer to the criterion, (vi) Finally I
