Elements of metaphysicsTaylor, A. E. (Alfred Edward)
Philosophy
Elements of metaphysics
Taylor, A. E. (Alfred Edward)
Metaphysics
Such reflections, however, only show that our limited insight is
insufficient to assign to every appearance with certainty its own place
in the ordered system of appearances through which the single Reality
expresses itself. They do not touch our general position, that where
comprehensiveness and harmony _can_ be seen to go together, we are
justified in using them as the measure of the individuality and
therefore of the reality of the partial system in which we discover
them. It is on such grounds, for instance, that we may safely pronounce
that an organism, which is the living unity of its members, is more
individual and therefore a higher reality that a mere aggregate of
pre-existing units, in which the nature of the parts is wholly or mainly
independent of the structure of the whole; and again, that a mind
consciously and systematically pursuing a coherent self-chosen system of
ends is more individual, and therefore again a higher reality, than an
organism reacting according to the temporary character of its
environment or its momentary internal condition in ways which form no
systematic execution of a connected scheme of ends. And it is clear
that, if only on this ground, we should have to say that we are nearer
the truth in thinking of the individual whole of complete Reality as an
organism than in thinking of it as an aggregate, and nearer the truth
still in thinking of it as a mind. Similarly in our judgments upon our
own lives and character. So far as one life possesses more breadth and
again more conscious unity of aim than another, so far it is more truly
individual, and therefore a more adequate type of complete reality. Just
so far as I am individual, I am truly real. And just so far as I fall
short of systematic individuality, whether from the poverty of my
interests or their mutual incompatibility, the appearance of unity in my
life is illusory, and I must be pronounced an unreal appearance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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