is that it makes possible an
Idealism without Theism: but, if Theism be an easier and more defensible
theory, that is no recommendation at all.

(6) Dr. McTaggart's whole theory seems to me to waver between two
inconsistent views of Reality. When he insists that the world consists
of a system or Unity, he tends towards a view of things which makes the
system of intellectual relations constituting knowledge or Science to be
the very reality of things: on such a view there is no impossibility of
an ultimate Reality not known to any one mind. But Dr. McTaggart has too
strong a hold on the conviction of the supremely real character of
conscious mind and the unreality of mere abstractions to be satisfied
with this view. If there is no mind which both knows and wills the
existence and the mutual relations of the spirits, the supreme reality
must be found in the individual spirits themselves; yet the system, if
known to none of them, seems to fall outside the reality. The natural
tendency of a system which finds the sole reality in eternally
self-existent souls is towards Pluralism--a theory of wholly independent
'Reals' or 'Monads.' Dr. McTaggnrt is too much of a Hegelian to
acquiesce in such a view. The gulf between the two tendencies seems to
me--with all respect--to be awkwardly bridged over by the assumption that
the separate selves form an intelligible system, which nevertheless no
one really existent spirit actually understands. If a system of
relations can be Reality, there is no ground for assuming the
pre-existence or eternity of individual souls: if on the other hand
Reality is 'experience,' an unexperienced 'system' cannot be real, and
the 'unity' disappears. This is a line of objection which it would
require a much more thorough discussion to develope.

(7) On the view which I myself hold as to the nature of Causality, the
only intelligible cause of events is a Will. The events of Dr.
McTaggart's world (putting aside the very {126} small proportion which
are due, in part at least, to the voluntary action of men or spirits) are
not caused at all. His theory is therefore open to all--and more than
all--the objections which I have urged in Lecture II. against the theory
which explains the Universe as the thought of a Mind but not as caused by
that Mind.

(8) It is just possible that some one might suggest that the first of my
objections might be met by the allegation that there is nothing in the
scheme w