the imperfect rationality of the absolute from this
point of view. Mr. McTaggart, for example, writes: 'Does not our very
failure to perceive the perfection of the universe destroy it? ... In
so far as we do not see the perfection of the universe, we are not
perfect ourselves. And as we are parts of the universe, that cannot be
perfect.'[11]

And Mr. Joachim finds just the same difficulty. Calling the hypothesis
of the absolute by the name of the 'coherence theory of truth,' he
calls the problem of understanding how the complete coherence of all
things in the absolute should involve as a necessary moment in
its self-maintenance the self-assertion of the finite minds, a
self-assertion which in its extreme form is error,--he calls this
problem, I say, an insoluble puzzle. If truth be the universal _fons
et origo_, how does error slip in? 'The coherence theory of truth,' he
concludes, 'may thus be said to suffer shipwreck at the very
entrance of the harbor.'[12] Yet in spite of this rather bad form
of irrationality, Mr. Joachim stoutly asserts his 'immediate
certainty'[13] of the theory shipwrecked, the correctness of which
he says he has 'never doubted.' This candid confession of a fixed
attitude of faith in the absolute, which even one's own criticisms and
perplexities fail to disturb, seems to me very significant. Not only
empiricists, but absolutists also, would all, if they were as candid
as this author, confess that the prime thing in their philosophy
is their vision of a truth possible, which they then employ their
reasoning to convert, as best it can, into a certainty or probability.

I can imagine a believer in the absolute retorting at this point that
_he_ at any rate is not dealing with mere probabilities, but that
the nature of things logically requires the multitudinous erroneous
copies, and that therefore the universe cannot be the absolute's book
alone. For, he will ask, is not the absolute defined as the total
consciousness of everything that is? Must not its field of view
consist of parts? And what can the parts of a total consciousness be
unless they be fractional consciousnesses? Our finite minds _must_
therefore coexist with the absolute mind. We are its constituents, and
it cannot live without us.--But if any one of you feels tempted to
retort in this wise, let me remind you that you are frankly employing
pluralistic weapons, and thereby giving up the absolutist cause. The
notion that the absolute i