The Unity of Being
Part I Section 1
Introduction
[1]
Section 1
Preliminary Definitions and Discussions of Terms
1. Being and Monism. The purpose of this study is to defend a certain type of Monism.
This term, like, we are tempted to say, almost all terms in philosophy, has occasioned so much difficulty and misunderstanding that it is often begrudged its very existence. However, we hold fast to the term in the present case, since we can find no other to express a certain quite definite conception. This conception is, namely, that all things have their being and nature in terms of one Ultimate Being, one “all-general and all-sufficient principle” or “World-Ground.”
If we are asked to define being, we reply that the being of a thing is that which is predicated of it when we say of it: there is such a thing. And our “monistic” thesis is that for any entity “to be” involves essentially a difference indicated thereby to one uncompounded absolute principle or Being, a difference which is what it is in terms of the intrinsic nature of that Being, and which yet exactly covers or represents the nature of the entity in question, and is a necessary aspect of what is meant by its being or existence.
[2] This conception, that being is always being-for- the-One, and must be exhaustively represented in the One, does not, as we view it, commit us to the view that everything is but an adjective or appearance of the One; that, for instance, man has no real freedom or power of initiative. We retain the term monism precisely because we believe that the logical (or any other valid) motives leading to the conclusion of a single all-embracing Ground of things or Concrete Universal, do not compel us to go on to the conclusion that all finite individuals are solely to be viewed as phases of the one Activity or Power.
Monism consists for us in the denial off any unmediated dualism or pluralism of qualities or substances, of any gap between realities such that there is no common principle realized in both as their sustaining and all-comprehending ground. And it consists in the assertion that whatever a thing is, it is that not in and for itself only, but in and for in all cases one and the same Ultimate Reality — which is not a totality nor even merely a system, but a single, fundamentally simple or unitary Power.1 But while we say that nothing is, save in the manner in which it is permitted and enabled to be by this Power, we do not thereby say that all action is but the one Action.2
All [3] action must carry with it the ultimate Action, or it could not even exist. But it cannot be straightway assumed that the supreme Agent determined altogether whither its action shall be thus carried. If it did, of course its action would not be carried at all, and there would be no action save that of the One. But we cannot infer that because a power is unlimited it will not suffer itself to be affected by other power. Perhaps it prefers to allow such a reciprocity. And to say it cannot do so seems after all to limit its power in a more grievous way than any voluntary limitation could be held to do so.
From another point of view, to say that any reality is present with all its qualities in the One, may imply that the thing is a phase or manifestation of the power of the One, but — we maintain — does not imply that it is simply and solely that. Everything qualifies or makes a difference to, the One; and so, if one wishes, it may be called an adjective of the One. But this is merely one necessary aspect of its being. The other aspect may turn out to be its being for itself, and indeed precisely in such a character as real for itself may it be of significance to or real in the One. My friend is real to me, and so — as we shall argue later — is actually present and real in me, precisely inasmuch as my friend is also real in and for himself. His self-reality is just what gets into my consciousness and contributes to it.3 We shall confess later [4] on to a firm conviction that this illustration is no mere fanciful or idle analogy, but is the revelation of the foundation principle of existence.
We have now defined the sense in which we shall use the word monism. We can find no other term which, while avoiding the implication of the “all-devouring” type of Absolute yet expresses the idea of a single register upon which all facts are inscribed, a mirror in which all things are reflected and must be so reflected in order to be. Yet the awkward implication of our term is undeniable — and leads Professor Ward, for example to prefer the term pluralism for a view which appears to be at one with our own. The contrast between the two types of monism might be expressed by employing the two phrases — Absolutistic and Personalistic Monism, the latter being of course the one to be hereinafter defended.
In regard to the idea of the Good, in relation to Monism, its significance will be made progressively apparent, it is hoped. Brief definitions are of no great “value” in the case of such a concrete conception and problem. But we may say that for us the Good ultimately is the Divine — as theologians commonly use that term: that is, to denote an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-benevolent Being, a Person capable of social relations, and indeed finding His essential life therein.
[5]
2. Whole and Part. The word “whole” seems properly to mean — an organized aggregate of entities (called parts, in relation at least to this whole). The idealist is commonly regarded as holding that the whole is “prior” to the entities or parts composing it, or in other words that the whole somehow constitutes the parts out of itself — so that the parts are but adjectives of the whole. The realist retorts that the whole is definable only in terms of its parts, and hence is no more prior in logic or otherwise than the parts.
The monistic position to be defended in the present study holds to a clear distinction between the whole, as the organized totality of all beings, and the Ultimate One which is the sustaining and organizing principle of the very totality in which it occurs itself as a member. It is this ground or active Principle which is constitutive of the parts and of the whole at once and in relation to each other.
Idealists such as Bosanquet and Bradley certainly distinguish such a pervasive principle — but they do not seem to hold the distinction clear in all references and their realistic critics often speak as if the Absolute were but the Whole of all beings in a systematized totality. Refutation is then easy. However, we agree with such critics that the matter is not made as straightforward and consistent as could be desired — to put it mildly. In the present [6] “outline” at any rate, the One Being or Ultimate Reality is not a totality, though it holds the Absolute Totality within itself and may be said thus to include it. If we use the term God, we should say that the whole, of which God is a member, is therefore not God, but that the whole belongs absolutely to God and exists only in his all-sustaining life. This seems no contradiction (that the whole should include God and yet God include the whole) if we remember that include is here used in two quite divergent senses. Since all things are in God and God is in himself, the Absolute Totality of reals is comprehended in God — not as a member of a further, more inclusive system, but as the objective scope of the Divine self-possessed Life. God sustains in his being the system of which he is himself a member, and his inclusion as a member in that system is one with his self-inclusion of himself in it. And the comprehension of the system in God is just his holding and sustaining it within his own life.
In what sense the whole is prior to the parts is a. problem to be discussed later, but it seemed well to differentiate the monism to be expounded from the mere assertion of such priority.4
[7]
3. The Term Absolute. If “the Absolute” is to mean “the totality of all that is,” as it seems to for Bradley and Bosanquet, then we admit that the Absolute is not the One of which we are to speak. But this is not because that One is but an appearance of the Absolute, or God but a more or less contradictory conception. But because God is the principle through which the totalization of the items in His identity as the Ultimate Person, must be thought, God is not the Absolute because He is the Absolute as held within His own survey and power.
But, it will be asked, can God be more than himself plus every other individual. Not numerically, is the answer; but in another manner of comprehensiveness, yes. For in adding other entities to God we simply enumerate what already falls within the being of God. Myself plus my thoughts is not the I that thinks, but the I that thinks while it is numerically less than I together with my thoughts, yet includes those thoughts within the unity of its own consciousness — and includes manifestly therefore the totality of myself and my thoughts.
Although we hold God or the Ultimate Being to be absolute in power, it seems therefore better to refrain from employing the term Absolute as a synonym for God or “The One”— especially as we shall thereby more successfully avoid the implication of a nothing-but or all-destroying type of Monism.
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Endnotes
1. The meaning of this word will be brought out later.
2. If the One be inactive, then “the one Inaction” would do as well here. But, again, we do not believe that Monism has any force to establish the existence of a Being unrelated to change.
3. Or else I do not really know my friend himself at all — Cf. Bradley on “The Real Julius Caesar,” Essays on Truth and Reality.
4. On the other hand, where the argument issues in a conclusion of any whole to part priority, we may regard pluralism as refuted and so far our own thesis as established. The remaining question will be an issue between monist and monist and will be discussed in its own place.