"For the present," he says,[2] "we may keep a fast hold upon this, that appearances _exist._ That is absolutely certain, and to deny it is nonsense. And whatever exists must _belong to reality._ This is also quite certain, and its denial once more is self-contradictory. Our appearances, no doubt, may be a beggarly show, and their nature to an unknown extent may be something which, _as it is,_ is _not_ true of reality. That is one thing, and it is quite another thing to speak as if these facts had no actual existence, or as if there could be anything but reality to which they might belong. And I must venture to repeat that such an idea would be sheer nonsense. What appears, for that sole reason, most indubitably _is;_ and there is no possibility of conjuring its being away from it." That is the passage which seems to me to raise a difficulty as to his meaning when contrasted with the former passage. And the reason why it seems to me to raise one is this. In the former passage Mr. Bradley declared most emphatically that Time is not real; he said: "Time has _most evidently_ proved not to be real." Whereas in this one he seems to declare equally emphatically that Time _does_ exist, and _is._ And his language here again is as strong as possible. He says it is sheer nonsense to suppose that Time does _not_ exist, is _not_ a fact, does _not_ belong to reality. It looks, therefore, as if he meant to make a distinction between "being real" on the one hand, and "existing," "being a fact," and "being" on the other hand--as if he meant to say that a thing may exist, and be, and be a fact, and yet _not_ be real. And I think there is, at all events, some superficial difficulty in understanding this distinction. We might naturally think that to say "Time exists, is a fact, and is," is equivalent to saying that it is real. What more, we might ask, can a man who says that Time _is_ real mean to maintain about it than that it exists, is a fact, and is? All that most people would mean by saying that time is real could, it would seem, be expressed by saying "There is such a thing as Time." And it might, therefore, appear from this new passage as if Mr. Bradley fully agreed with the view that most people would express by saying "Time is real"--as if he did not at all mean to contradict anything that most people believe about Time. But, if so, then what are we to make of his former assertion that, nevertheless, Time is _not_ real? He evidently thinks that, in asserting this, he is asserting something which is _not_ mere nonsense; and he certainly would not have chosen this way of expressing what he means, unless he had supposed that what he is here asserting about Time is incompatible with what people _often_ mean when they say "Time is real." Yet, we have seen that he thinks that what he is asserting is _not_ incompatible with the assertions that Time is, and is a fact, and exists. He must, therefore, think that when people