ABSTRACT
I began to develop a philosophy of my own during the year 1898, when, with encouragement from my friend G. E. Moore, I threw over the doctrines of Hegel. If you watch a bus approaching you during a bad London fog, you see first a vague blur of extra darkness, and you only gradually become aware of it as a vehicle with parts and passengers. According to Hegel, your first view as a vague blur is more correct than your later impression, which is inspired by the misleading impulses of the analytic intellect. This point of view was temperamentally unpleasing to me. Like the philosophers of ancient Greece, I prefer sharp outlines and definite separations such as the landscapes of Greece afford. When I first threw over Hegel, I was delighted to be able to believe in the bizarre multiplicity of the world. I thought to myself, “Hegel says there is only the One, but there really are twelve categories in Kant’s philosophy”. It may seem queer that this was the example of plurality that specially impressed me, but I am concerned to report the facts without distortion.
