90 A. E. TAYLOR : before my mind in making these observations, for the very good reason that I was unaware at the time of writing of the use which had been made of the word "instrument " and its connexions by Mr. Schiller's friends. And I may observe that there seems to be some difference between calling thought an instrument of science and calling science itself an instrument to practice. In any case the remark used to be a commonplace of ' Anglo-Hegelian ' lecture- rooms in Oxford some dozen years ago. As to the second passage it is taken from a qualified defence of that very mental attitude of mystical contemplative intuition which Mr. Schiller has elsewhere, if I mistake not, politely characterised as the stupefied condition of a horde of self-hypnotised fakirs, though, to be sure, as he has explained, that sentence was inspired by the need of obtaining a certain notoriety by newspaper reviews. Having now obtained, I hope, all the notoriety he desired, it appears he can afford to aban- don the methods of the Aristophanic sausage-seller for a more serenely Olympian diction. Still Mr. Schiller's newly acquired serenity of manner seems to me to have been purchased by a sacrifice of consistency. I simply do not see what the " higher level of immediate apprehension " is- doing in his scheme of things at all, the " lower level," no doubt, includes recognisably enough the realm of our every-day practical pursuits, especially as it seems in the context to carry with it something like a belief in its object, the poor despised ' Absolute '. Incidentally Mr. Schiller in dealing with the foregoing citations gives me credit for accepting the " teleological character of the construction of identity ". If this means that I hold the view that all identity is a matter of postulation, and presumably voluntary postulation, I must observe that Mr. Schiller's interpretation of my meaning is mistaken. That we often in the physical world have to postulate an identity which goes beyond anything we can prove, I am well enough aware ; in fact, as I learned long ago from Mr. Bradley, we commonly call two things the same because they are the same up to the point required for our purposes. Still the fact that up to that point there is sameness is itself a fact which we find there calling for recognition and in no sense create for our- selves by the " might of postulation ". Postulation of identity is, in fact, only legitimate on a basis of identity apprehended as already existing. To be sure, I remember a characteristically delicate and ingenious apologue of Edwin and Angelina in one of Mr. Schiller's own publications, 1 in which this truth appears to be forgotten, but I have always wondered that Mr. Schiller should not have discovered that his chaste and affecting story has, to say the least, a doubtful moral. And when one comes to deal with the concepts of the pure sciences, the last vestige of postulation seems to disappear from the recognition of identity. I do not postulate by the " might " of some great and glorious faculty of volition that 1 Personal Idwlism, p. 98.
