I was reading the other day Mr. Dickinson's memoir of the late and lamented Mr. McTaggart, that philosopher-saint whose lectures on Kant and Hegel I had the privilege to attend as an advanced student of Trinity College, Cambridge, about a quarter of a century ago. I should like to note a few points which occurred to me while reading this interesting book whose value is very much enhanced by the personal reminiscences of those who had the good fortune of coming into contact with that great thinker.

"As we have pointed out more than once," says Mr. Dickinson, "the origin of McTaggart's philosophy was not in his intellect but in his emotions." This is true—perhaps more or less true of all thinkers—if we look at McTaggart as a thinker torn asunder from the general current of British thought. In order to understand the true significance of his philosophy we must put him back into that current.

Agnosticism is not a permanent mode of thought. It comes and goes. The British mind tried to escape from it in two ways. One is the total elimination of what is called the Ultimate Reality. The "Unknown and Unknowable" of Herbert Spencer simply does not exist. Why then look for it? The Universe is nothing but perishable phenomena without any eternal reality behind. The other way is that an Eternal Reality does exist behind the world of perishable phenomena and is approachable by a purely speculative method. The first course was adopted by Hume, the second by Green. In opposition to British Phenomenalism, Green affirmed the existence of an Eternal Consciousness. The temporal process, according to Green, is unthinkable without a non-temporal consciousness; for consciousness of change cannot be identical with the process of change. But the eternal consciousness so regarded is nothing more than a Newtonian Space holding the world of eternally interrelated appearances. This view makes it impossible to develop the living concrete self out of a dead immobile system of abstract relations. Bradley's philosophy is the logical outcome of Green. The criterion of reality is coherence and freedom from contradiction. Applying this test, the world of appearance, time, change, movement, multiplicity turns out to be a mere illusion. The Ultimate Reality is one and immutable. This is the ancient Hindu doctrine of "mava" and the Greek Parmenides again. But how did this illusion originate? Nobody knows. Bradley, however, admits in spite of the contradiction involved in the notion of self that the human self must, in some sense, be real. In what sense is it real? He does not explain. McTaggart reaches the Absolute by means of dialectic method but he does not stop at the Absolute. The Absolute according to him further differentiates itself into concrete Egos. The Universe is not an illusion; it is a system of real selves which cannot be regarded as mere predicates or adjectives of the Absolute. As he wrote to me in December 1919:

"I agree with you, as you know, in regarding quite untenable the view that finite beings are adjectives of the Absolute. Whatever they are, it is quite certain to me that they are not that."

In this aspect of his teaching, McTaggart is much more genuinely British than either Bradley or Green or Bosanquet. Indeed he was to Hegel as Liebniz was to Spinoza. Thus the character of McTaggart's philosophy was determined not so much by his private emotions as by the intellectual difficulties as well as the un-British character of neo-Hegelian thought in England. It was also determined by what he called the needs of his country. I quote from another letter of 1920 which he appears to have written after he had read Nicholson's English translation of my Secrets of Self:

"I am writing to tell you with how much pleasure I have been reading your poems. Have you not changed your position very much? Surely in the days when we used to talk philosophy together, you were more of a pantheistic and mystic.

For my own part I adhere to my own belief that selves are the Ultimate Reality, but as to their true content and their true good my position is, as it was, that it is to be found in Eternity and not in time, and in love rather than action.

Perhaps, however, the difference is largely a question of emphasis—we each lay most weight on what our own country needs. I dare say you are right when you say that India is too contemplative. But I am sure that England—and all Europe—is not contemplative enough. That is a lesson that we ought to learn from you—and no doubt we have something to teach in return."

The point of interest in McTaggart's philosophy, however, is that in his system, mystical intuition as a source of knowledge is much more marked than in the system of Bradley. The need of such a direct revelation is the natural outcome of the failure of a purely speculative method. An Italian writer describes McTaggart's philosophy as mystical degeneration of English neo-Hegelianism. Nothing of the kind. Some of the greatest minds of the world which have felt the need of a direct contact with the Ultimate Reality, have indeed in some cases achieved such contact. Plotinus, Ghazzali, and Bergson are instances in this point. In his spiritual evolution Kant himself reaches that stage but unlike Ghazzali and others he was led to conceive the Ultimate Reality as a regulative idea only. The result of his critical act was as if He does exist. Not William James but Kant was the real founder of modern Pragmatism. Will then the Italian writer referred to above, describe Kant's philosophy as pragmatic degeneration of German thought?

It must, however, be remembered in the case of McTaggart that the mystic revelation of Reality came to him as a confirmation of his thought. His system is deductive not in the sense in which the philosophy of Bergson and Plotinus is deductive. He started with a firm conviction in the power of human reason and that conviction remained with him to the end of his days. His illumination came, I think, as an accidental confirmation of what he had reached through pure reason. That is why he had such an unshakable faith in his wife: "I am grieved that we must part, but you know I am not afraid of death." Such a triumphant faith is the result of a direct revelation alone. And this revelation has nothing to do with what our psychology calls emotion, it is as Mrs. McTaggart rightly insists "actual perception of the senses." Like a true mystic McTaggart rarely mentioned his experiences to others. The ultimate basis of religion is an experience which is essentially individual and incommunicable. It is because of its private character that mystics see no use in talking about it except to experts and that too for the purpose of verification only. In the history of Islamic mysticism we find many recorded instances in which some mystics have been reported to have traveled thousands of miles for the verification of a single experience. This is technically known as "tasdiq", i.e. verification by an appeal to another man's experience. Knowledge and direct revelation are not mutually opposed; they are complementary to each other. The philosophical theologian simply tries, for the sake of fortunate persons, to socialize through reason what is essentially individual. When the mystic Sultan Abu Said met the philosopher Abu Ali Ibn Sina, he is reported to have said: "I see what he knows." McTaggart both knew and saw; but his vision I believe did not precede his system. It did not initially inspire his thought, though it did bring to him the warmth of conviction. This to my mind indicates a far more powerful intellect than that of Plotinus or Bergson. Yet the vision of McTaggart, in view of its static character, is not free from the unhealthy influences of Hegelian inspiration. But perhaps we possess no criterion to decide whether the Universe in the ultimate essence is at rest or in motion.

Another point on which I would like to say a few words is McTaggart's view of the Self. Hegel's indifference to personal immortality has more or less affected all those who received inspiration from him. With Bosanquet and Bradley the Self is not a substance in the sense of Spinoza. It is a construction of thought, a mere predicate or adjective of the Absolute. And this selfhood according to these thinkers is further transcended in the Absolute. This account of the Self disregards even the elementary conditions of selfhood as known to living experience. It is much more than a mere predicate of the Absolute; it is a dynamic centre of experience. By this criticism of the common neo-Hegelian view of the Self I do not mean to argue for McTaggart's view. All that I mean is to show how his mind tried to escape from the result of English neo-Hegelianism. To McTaggart the Self is a real substance. He reached the Absolute through the method of Hegel. But with him the Absolute has further determinations, i.e. the egos of actual experience which participate in the elementary eternity of the Absolute. This amounts to a total dismissal of the Hegelian Absolute. But the result of this dismissal is not a return to Empiricism. It gives us not a world of interrelated appearances but a living world of interrelated egos. Mr. Dickinson thinks that it cuts out science at one stroke. It does nothing of the kind any more than the spiritual pluralism of Liebniz. But while I agree that the Self is more than a mere predicate of the Absolute, I cannot agree with McTaggart in the view that the Self is elementally immortal. From the mere fact that the individual Ego is a differentiation of the eternal Absolute, it by no means follows that even in its finitude the human Self retains the character, which belongs to its source. To my mind such a differentiation should give it only a capacity for immortality and not immortality itself. Personally I regard immortality as an inspiration and not something eternally achieved. Man is a candidate for immortal life, which involves a ceaseless struggle in maintaining the tension of the Ego. I venture here to quote one or two passages from my poem called "The New Garden of Mystery":

"If you say that "Ego" is merely a superstitious thing, and its appearance is just like any other fantastic thing in the world, then tell me who has caused that doubt in your mind? Once look into yourself, and tell me who is the Invisible Being that dwells within you?¹ Obviously the world exists, and still it requires some arguments for its existence, and it can't be grasped even by a Gabriel! On the other hand, however, Ego is concealed (in our mind), and does not require any argument for its existence,—once think well what is the secret behind its activities? Now, take your "Self" to be a Truth (fact), and don't think there is any touch of Evil in it. Never imagine that "Self" (Ego) is a Farm without any produce! When your "Self" becomes mature, it is immortal, for the separation of true lovers is itself a Union! Yea, we can easy attach speedy wings to a spark even, so it can be restless for all the time to come. Even an everlasting Truth isn't the exact Reward of the labour of our "Self", for its own Eternity isn't achieved only by seeking! In fact, the real Eternity is that our soul should be strengthened by ecstasy of Love! Then, why should we fear Death?—When our "Self" (Ego) is mature, it is absolutely free from Death! Nevertheless, my body as well as my heart and spirit, trembles with the fear of another Death! And what is that Death!—To be deprived of Love and Ecstasy, and to be incapable of throwing our Spark into the trash of Evil!² This is the moment, when we see our Death with our own eyes, and prepare our Shroud with our own hands! Remember! This kind of Death is always in ambush for you, and fear it,³ for our real Death is this one!"

But while I disagree with McTaggart in his view of immortality, I regard this part of his work as almost apostolic. He emphasized personal immortality even at the expense of the transcendent God of Christian theology, at a time when this important belief was decaying in Europe and when the European man was about to face death on an enormous scale. Indeed in this aspect of his work he may be compared to the great Muslim mystic Hallaj whose undying phrase "I am the creative Truth" was thrown as a challenge to the whole Muslim world at a time when Muslim scholastic thought was moving in a direction which tended to obscure the reality and destiny of the human Ego. Hallaj never ceased to utter what he had personally seen to be the truth until the mullas of Islam prevailed upon the State to imprison him and finally to crucify him. He met his death with perfect calm.

There is one more point which I would like briefly to consider here—I mean his atheism. I used to meet him almost every day in his rooms in Trinity and very often our talk turned on the question of God. His powerful logic often silenced me but he never succeeded in convincing me. There is no doubt, as Mr. Dickinson points out in his memoir that he had a positive dislike for the transcendent God of Western theology. The Absolute of the neo-Hegelian lacks life and movement. The Eternal Consciousness of Green is hardly distinguishable from Newtonian Space. How could these satisfy him? In a letter already quote he wrote to me:

"As far as the life of the individual remains the same in the course of amplification and expression, I am inclined to think (for a European you can also be mystic) that the solution rests in loving the same persons. But indeed it still seems to me, as it did when we first knew one another, that the solution of all problems is found in Love."

Indeed his description of Love as the essence of Reality indicates that in spite of his thoroughgoing intellectualism, his soul revolted against the inert Absolute of neo-Hegelianism. Yet in a letter from which I have quoted above, he seems to oppose love to action. I do not see the opposition. Love is not passivity. It is active and creative. Indeed on the material plane, it is the only force which circumvents death; for when death carries away one generation, love creates another. He tells us that this is the love of one person for another; and further it is the cause and the effect of the proximity of two persons. Now it is because of its character as an active cause that in spite of variety in content of the mutual loves of various persons, it is capable of being experienced as a unity embracing the entire Universe. But the crucial point is whether this central unity is an all-inclusive Self. This was McTaggart's real difficulty. How could one Self, however superior, include other selves. The Self is unique and impervious. The mystic poet Rumi felt the same difficulty. "Between the individual egos and their Sustainer", he says "obtains a contact which can neither be imagined nor intellectually conceived." In his Idea of God, Professor Pringle-Pattison also regards this relation as inscrutable by human intellect. But is not the individual Ego himself a colony of Egos?

Perhaps it is not possible intellectually to conceive this ultimate unity as an all-embracing self. It is my belief as I have pointed out before, that McTaggart's Hegelian inspiration marred the vision which vouchsafed him. A more serious thing happened to poor Nietzsche, whose peculiar intellectual environment led him to think that his vision of the ultimate Ego could be realized in the world of Space and Time. What grown only out of the inner depths of the heart of men, he proposed to create by an artificial biological experiment. He was taken as a mad man and was placed in the hands of those who administrated drugs and mixtures. As I said of him in my Javed Nama:

The real test of a Self is whether it responds to the call of another Self. Does Reality respond to us? It does sometimes by reflection, sometimes by reflection rising higher than itself, i.e. the act of worship. The orders of Muslim mystics have invented various rules and practices by which to come into direct contact with the Ultimate Reality. The truth however is that neither worship, nor reflection nor any kind of practices entitle a man to this response from the Ultimate Love. It depends eventually upon what religion calls "grace". The philosophy of McTaggart has in fact raised the great problem of the nature of Love. How will it be solved in Europe if at all? Surely, analytic psychology will never be able to solve it. Its secret lies in the pangs of separation, detachment or as McTaggart would say "differentiation".

If the Ultimate Reality, i.e. Love has any significance for the life of its own ego-differentiation, it must itself be an all-inclusive Ego which sustains, responds, loves and is capable of being loved. In McTaggart's view there is no guarantee that the process of birth, death and rebirth will be endless. On the other hand, he himself suggests in Some Dogmas of Religion that "it may be that the process will eventually destroy itself and merge in a perfection which transcends all time and change." In this eventually we come back to the Absolute again and McTaggart's system defeats its own purpose. The possibility of ego-differentiation merging again into a perfection transcending time and change, must be counteracted however remote it may be. And this can be done only by taking immortality as a hope, an inspiration, a duty and not as an eternal fact: