Part 25

It is also true, as already mentioned, that in the process of fulfilling the plan, of realizing the idea, further determination and specification is produced in the plan itself. The idea as a plan is certainly not formed all at once. Nor does it reach and maintain a fixed content. No purpose is ever realized in its original content. But this does not mean that its realization is, therefore, "partial," "incomplete," or "fragmentary." It is a part of its business to change. The purpose is not there for its own sake. The purpose is there as a means to the reorganization and reconstruction of experience. It exists, as Mr. Royce says, as an instrument, "as a tool" for "introducing control into experience." And as, in the process of use, a tool always undergoes modification, so here, as an instrument for reconstructing habit, the plan, too, undergoes reconstruction. Indeed, as regards its content, it is itself, as Mr. Royce says, as much a habit, as much "the product of association," as any part of experience. The purposing function, the purposing activity, remains; its content is constantly shifting.

Here, too, is where "the submission of the idea to the object" takes place. Only, here, it is not a submission to an object already constituted as it is in Mr. Royce's conception of the absolute system. The idea as an hypothetical plan of action, as a trial construction, must be tested by the activities it is attempting to reconstruct. That is to say, at this point the question is: Does the plan apply to the activities actually involved in the unrest? Has it diagnosed the case properly, and is it therefore one in and through which these activities can operate and come to unity again? The "submission" here is the submission of the purpose, the end, to the material out of which it is formed, and with which it must work. But again this material to which the idea submits itself is anything but finally fixed and "complete" in form. On the contrary, as we have seen, it is just the fragmentary and incomplete condition of this material that calls for the idea. Yet the idea as a plan must be true to its mission, and to this material, and in this sense must submit itself to whatever modifications and reconstruction the material "dictates" as necessary in order that it may function in and through the plan.

On the other hand--and this is the point to which Mr. Royce gives most emphasis--it is equally apparent that "the idea must determine its object." On this all philosophy, from Plato down, which approaches reality "from the side of ideas" is at stake. And this does not appear impossible if, again, the object is not already and eternally fixed and complete. If the object is one constructed out of the very mass of habit material which the idea is reconstructing, and if "determination" means not copying, but construction, then, indeed, must the idea "determine its object." Just for that does it have its being. That is its sole mission. Here the determination of the object by the idea is not a mere abstract postulate; it is not based upon a general consideration of the disastrous consequences to our logical and ethical assumptions, if it were not so determined. Here not only the general necessity for it, but the modus operandi of this determination, is apparent. But, at the risk of tedious iteration, must it again be said that for the determination of the completed and perfected object in the absolute system not only is there nowhere any modus to be found, but, even if there were, it is difficult to see what it would have to do with the kind of determination demanded by such a specific sort of unrest as "singing out of tune," etc. The process of submission is thus a reciprocal one. Neither in the object nor in the idea is there a fixed scheme or order to which the other must submit and conform. And this is simply the logical commonplace that submission cannot be a one-sided affair, that determination must be reciprocal.

This brings us to what might as well have been our introductory as our concluding observation. It has just been said that the determination of the object by the idea is a vital matter in any philosophy which approaches reality "from the side of ideas." Such a way of approach must assert "the primacy of the world of ideas over the world as a fact." Mr. Royce thus further states the case:

I am one of those who hold that when you ask what is an idea, and how can ideas stand in any true relation to reality, you attack the world knot in the way that promises most for the untying of its meshes. This way is of course very ancient. It is the way of Plato.... It is in a different sense the way of Kant. If you view philosophy in this fashion, you subordinate the study of the world as fact to a reflection upon the world as idea. Begin by accepting upon faith and tradition the mere brute reality of the world as fact, and there you are sunk deep in an ocean of mystery.... The world of fact surprises you with all sorts of strange contrasts.... It baffles you with caprices like a charming and yet hopelessly wayward child, or like a bad fairy. The world of fact daily announces itself to you as a defiant mystery.

Here we have concisely stated at the outset of the lectures the position which we have seen to be fraught with so many difficulties: the position, namely, which accepts to start with the opposition of the world as idea and the world as fact, as something given, instead of something to be accounted for; and which assumes that this opposition stands in the way of reaching reality, whereas it possibly may be of the very essence of reality. To be sure, the above statement of this opposition between the world as fact and as idea is but the expository starting-point. And it is true that the rest of the argument is occupied in the attempt to close this breach. But, as we have seen, except where the idea is expounded as a specific purpose, arising out of a specific experience of unrest, such as singing out of tune, etc.--except in this case, the breach is taken as found and the attempt to heal it is made by working forward from the opposition as given instead of back to its source. This opposition, of course, has its forward goal, but the difficulty is to find it without an exploration of its source. It is back in that matrix out of which the opposition has arisen that the line of direction to the goal is to be found.

Moreover, in starting from this opposition of fact and idea as given, the only method of quelling it seems to be either that of reducing one side to terms of the other, or of appealing to some new, and therefore external unifying, agency. But if the factors in the opposition are found, not one in submission to the other, nor having the "primacy" over the other, but as co-ordinate and mutually determining functions, developed from a common matrix and co-operating in the work of reconstructing experience, some of the difficulties involved in the alternative methods just mentioned appear to drop out.

The point may be clearer if we recur to the passage and ask just what is meant by "the defiantly mysterious," "baffling," and "capricious" character of the world as fact--as "brute reality." First, if by the world as "fact;" as "brute reality," we mean experience so brute that it is not yet "lighted up with ideas," it is difficult to see how it could be mysterious or capricious, since mystery and caprice appear only when experience ceases to be taken merely as it comes and an inquiry for connections and meanings has begun. That is to say, there can be neither mystery nor caprice except in relation to some sort of order. And order is always a matter of ideas. But it is sufficient to submit Mr. Royce's own statement on this point:

We all of us from moment to moment have experience. This experience comes to us in part as brute fact; light and shade, sound and silence, pain and grief and joy.... These given facts flow by; and were they all, our world would be too much of a blind problem for us even to be puzzled by its meaningless presence.

If next we take the world of fact as in contrast and co-ordinate with the world of ideas, mystery and caprice here, certainly, are not all on the side of the fact. Here, again, must they be functions of the relation between fact and idea. We have seen that without thought there is neither mystery nor caprice. The idea then cannot take part in the production of mystery and caprice, and forthwith deny its parenthood. Of course, mystery and caprice are not the final fruits of this co-ordinate opposition of fact and idea. They are but the first fruits--the relatively unorganized embryonic mass which through the further activities of the parent functions shall develop into the symmetry of truth and law.

There appears then no ultimate "primacy" of either idea or fact over the other. Nor does either appear as a better way of approach to reality than the other. It is only when we say: "Lo! here in the idea," or "Lo! there in the fact is reality," that we find it "imperfect," "incomplete," and "fragmentary," and must straightway "look for another." But surely not in "a certain absolute system of ideas," which is "the object of love and hope, of desire and will, of faith and work, but never of present finding," shall we seek it. Rather precisely in the loving and hoping, desiring and willing, believing and working, shall we find that reality in which and for which both the "World as fact" and the "World as idea" have their being.

INDEX

ABSOLUTE: as constituting reality, 348; as related to truth and error, 363 ff.; as a hypostatized abstraction, 369.

ABSOLUTE SELF, 330.

ACCESSORY: thought as, 58 ff.

ACTIVITY: as social, 74; thought as, 78; interrupted, and judgment, 154; and hypothesis, 170; as sensori-motor, 193, 200; (see Function, Reconstruction).

ÆSTHETIC EXPERIENCE: appreciative rather than reflective, 255; not a form of valuation, 339, 340.

ALTERNATIVES: in judgment, 155; (see Disjunction).

ANALOGY, 171, 172, 175; in relation to habit, 176.

ANAXAGORAS: in relation to the One and the Many, 219; his [Greek: nous], 220, 221.

ANAXIMANDER: and the infinite, 209; his process of segregation, 214, 215.

ANAXIMENES: his [Greek: archê], 209; his scheme of rarefaction and condensation, 209, 213, 215, 224.

ANGELL, J. R., 14 note, 345 note.

ANIMISM, 49 note.

ANTECEDENTS OF THOUGHT (see Stimulus).

APPLIED LOGIC: Lotze's definition, 6.

APPRECIATION: distinguished from reflection, 255, 339; not to be identified with valuation, 320-24, 338.

ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS: refers to meanings, 33, 34; connection with thought, 80; doctrine of: analogous to subjectivism in ethics, 261; presupposes a mechanical metaphysics, 330, 331 note.