for the first sensible tangle; and whether
these were morally elevated or only intellectually neat they were
at any rate always aesthetically pure and definite, and aimed at
ascribing to the world something clean and intellectual in the way of
inner structure. As compared with all these rationalizing pictures,
the pluralistic empiricism which I profess offers but a sorry
appearance. It is a turbid, muddled, gothic sort of an affair, without
a sweeping outline and with little pictorial nobility. Those of you
who are accustomed to the classical constructions of reality may be
excused if your first reaction upon it be absolute contempt--a
shrug of the shoulders as if such ideas were unworthy of explicit
refutation. But one must have lived some time with a system to
appreciate its merits. Perhaps a little more familiarity may mitigate
your first surprise at such a programme as I offer.

First, one word more than what I said last time about the relative
foreignness of the divine principle in the philosophy of the absolute.
Those of you who have read the last two chapters of Mr. Bradley's
wonderful book, 'Appearance and reality,' will remember what an
elaborately foreign aspect _his_ absolute is finally made to assume.
It is neither intelligence nor will, neither a self nor a collection
of selves, neither truthful, good, nor beautiful, as we understand
these terms. It is, in short, a metaphysical monster, all that we are
permitted to say of it being that whatever it is, it is at any rate
_worth_ more (worth more to itself, that is) than if any eulogistic
adjectives of ours applied to it. It is us, and all other appearances,
but none of us _as such_, for in it we are all 'transmuted,' and its
own as-suchness is of another denomination altogether.

Spinoza was the first great absolutist, and the impossibility of being
intimate with _his_ God is universally recognized. _Quatenus infinitus
est_ he is other than what he is _quatenus humanam mentem constituit_.
Spinoza's philosophy has been rightly said to be worked by the word
_quatenus_. Conjunctions, prepositions, and adverbs play indeed the
vital part in all philosophies; and in contemporary idealism the words
'as' and 'qua' bear the burden of reconciling metaphysical unity with
phenomenal diversity. Qua absolute the world is one and perfect, qua
relative it is many and faulty, yet it is identically the self-same
world--instead of talking of it as many facts, we call it one fa