On this side we reach, I think, the heart of the matter by asking, in reference to the first quotation: Absolute _for what_? Surely absolute for the process under consideration, that is absolute for thought. But the significance of this absolute for thought is, one may say, “absolutely” (since we are here confessedly in the realm just of thought) determined by the nature of thought itself. Now this nature has been already referred by considerations “belonging irremovably to truth’s proper character,” to the world of appearance and of internal discrepancy. Yes, one may say (speaking formally), the criterion of thought is absolute--that is to say absolute or final for thought; but how can one imagine that this in any way alters the essential nature and value of thought? If knowledge works by thought, and thought institutes appearance over against reality, any further fact about thought--such as a statement of its criterion--falls wholly within the limits of this situation. It is comical to suppose that a _special_ trait of thought can be employed to alter the fundamental and essential nature of thought. The criterion of thought must be infected by the nature of thought, instead of being a redeeming angel which at a critical juncture transforms the fragile creature, thought, into an ambassador with power plenipotentiary to the court of the Absolute. There really seems to be ground for supposing that the whole argument turns on an ambiguity in the use of the word “absolute.” Keeping strictly within the limits of the argument, it means nothing more than that thinking has a certain principle, a law of its own; that it has an appropriate mode of procedure which must not be violated. It means, in short, whatever is finally controlling for the thought-function. But Mr. Bradley immediately takes the word to mean absolute in the sense of describing a reality which by its very nature is totally contradistinguished from appearance--that is to say, from the realm of thought. Upon the ambiguity of a word, the systematic indictment of intellectualism becomes the cornerstone of a systematically intellectualistic method of conceiving reality!