[Note: I have made the following spelling changes: Prologue: "methed"to "method"; Chapter 2: "renders imposssible" to "renders impossible";"which man possessses" to "which man possesses"; "absoluteunqestionable" to "absolute unquestionable"; "loathesomeness" to"loathsomeness"; Chapter 3: "alllowed to distort" to "allowed todistort"; Chapter 4: "itelf in its precise" to "itself in its precise";Chapter 5: "do very considerably" to "do vary considerably";Chapter 6: "oversoul" to "over-soul"; "its own permonition" to "itsown premonition"; "arbitrement" to "arbitrament"; "subtratum" to"substratum"; "gooodeness" to "goodness"; Chapter 7: "flicherings" to"filcherings"; "Perapity" to "Peripety"; Chapter 8: "penerated" to"penetrated"; Chapter 9: "the anthropomorphic expresssion" to"the anthropomorphic expression"; "convuluted" to "convoluted";Chapter 10: "a vast hierachy" to "a vast hierarchy"; Chapter 11: "tobe too anthromorphic" to "to be too anthropomorphic"; "strictly strictlyspeaking" to "strictly speaking"; Chapter 13: "working in isolaton"to "working in isolation"; "If to this the astronomer answer" to"If to this the astronomer answers"; "difficult to decribe" to"difficult to describe"; "the asethetic sense" to "the aestheticsense"; "no attentuation" to "no attenuation"; "the Complex Visionrepresents" to "the complex vision represents"; Conclusion: "iseternaly divided" to "is eternally divided"; "rest of the imortals"to "rest of the immortals"; "elimination of the objectice mystery" to"elimination of the objective mystery". The word "over-soul" ismostly spelled with a hyphen, so I added a hyphen to all instances ofthis word. The word "outflowing" is mostly spelled without a hyphen, so I deleted the hyphens from all instances of this word. All otherspelling remains the same. ]

THE COMPLEX VISION

BY

JOHN COWPER POWYS

NEW YORKDODD, MEAD AND COMPANY1920

DEDICATEDTOLITTLETON ALFRED

PROLOGUE

What I am anxious to attempt in this anticipatory summary of thecontents of this book is a simple estimate of its final conclusions, insuch a form as shall eliminate all technical terms and reduce thematter to a plain statement, intelligible as far as such a thing can bemade intelligible, to the apprehension of such persons as have nothad the luck, or the ill-luck, of a plunge into the ocean ofmetaphysic. 

A large portion of the book deals with what might be called our_instrument of research_; in other words, with the problem of whatparticular powers of insight the human mind must use, if its visionof reality is to be of any deeper or more permanent value than the"passing on the wing, " so to speak, of individual fancies andspeculations. 

This instrument of research I find to be the use, by the humanperson, of all the various energies of personality concentrated intoone point; and the resultant spectacle of things or reality of things, which this concentrated vision makes clear, I call the originalrevelation of the complex vision of man. 

Having analyzed in the earlier portions of the book the peculiarnature of our organ of research and the peculiar difficulties--amounting to a very elaborate work of art--which have to beovercome before this _concentration_ takes place, I proceed in thelater portions of the book to make as clear as I can what kind ofreality it is that we actually do succeed in grasping, when thisconcentrating process has been achieved. I indicate incidentally thatthis desirable concentration of the energies of personality is sodifficult a thing that we are compelled to resort to our memory ofwhat we experienced in rare and fortunate moments in order toestablish its results. I suggest that it is not to our average momentsof insight that we have to appeal, but to our exceptional moments ofinsight; since it is only at rare moments in our lives that we are ableto enter into what I call the _eternal vision_. 

To what, then, does this conclusion amount, and what is thisresultant reality, in as far as we are able to gather it up andarticulate its nature from the vague records of our memory?

I have endeavoured to show that it amounts to the following seriesof results. What we are, in the first place, assured of is theexistence within our own individual body of a real actual living thingcomposed of a mysterious substance wherein what we call mind andwhat we call matter are fused and intermingled. This is our real andself-conscious soul, the thing in us which says, "I am I, " of whichthe physical body is only one expression, and of which all the bodilysenses are only one gateway of receptivity. 

The soul within us becomes aware of its own body simultaneouslywith its becoming aware of all the other bodies which fill the visibleuniverse. It is then by an act of faith or imagination that the soulwithin us takes for granted and assumes that there must be a soulresembling our own soul within each one of those alien bodies, ofwhich, simultaneously with its own, it becomes aware. 

And since the living basis of our personality is this real soul withinus, it follows that all those energies of personality, whoseconcentration is the supreme work of art, are the energies of this realsoul. If, therefore, we assume that all the diverse physical bodieswhich fill the universe possess, each of them, an inner soulresembling our own soul, we are led to the conclusion that just asour own soul half-creates and half-discovers the general spectacle ofthings which it names "the universe, " so all the alien souls in theworld half-create and half-discover what they feel as _their_universe. 

If our revelation stopped at this point we should have to admit thatthere was not one universe, but as many universes are there areliving souls. It is at this point, however, that we become aware thatall these souls are able, in some degree or other, to enter intocommunication. They are able to do this both by the bodily soundsand signs which constitute language and by certain immaterialvibrations which seem to make no use of the body at all. In thiscommunication between different souls, as far as humanity isconcerned, a very curious experience has to be recorded. 

When two human beings dispute together upon any importantproblem of life, there is always an implicit appeal made by both ofthem to an invisible arbiter, or invisible standard of arbitration, inthe heart of which both seem aware that the reality, upon whichtheir opinions differ, is to be found in its eternal truth. What thenis this invisible standard of arbitration? Whatever it is, we arecompelled to assume that it satisfies and transcends the deepest andfurthest reach of personal vision in all the souls that approach it. And what is the deepest and furthest reach of our individual soul?This seems to be a projection upon the material plane of the verystuff and substance of the soul's inmost nature. 

This very "stuff" of the soul, this outflowing of the substance of thesoul, I name "emotion"; and I find it to consist of two eternallyconflicting elements; what I call the element of "love, " and what Icall the element of "malice. " This emotion of love, which is thefurthest reach of the soul, I find to be differentiated when it comesinto contact with the material universe into three ultimate ways oftaking life; namely, the way which we name the pursuit of beauty, the way which we name the pursuit of goodness, and the way whichwe name the pursuit of truth. But these three ways of taking life findalways their unity and identity in that emotion of love which is thepsychic substance of them all. 

The invisible standard of arbitration, then, to which an appeal isalways made, consciously or unconsciously, when two humanbeings dispute upon the mystery of life, is a standard of arbitrationwhich concerns the real nature of love, and the real nature of whatwe call "the good" and "the true" and "the beautiful. "

And since we have found in personality the one thing in existence ofwhich we are absolutely assured, because we are aware of it, _on theinside_, so to speak, in the depths of our own souls, it becomesnecessary that in place of thinking of this invisible standard as anyspiritual or chemical "law" in any stream of "life-force" we shouldthink of it as being as personal as we ourselves are personal. Forsince what we call the universe has been already described assomething which is half-created and half-discovered by the vision ofsome one soul in it or of all the souls in it, it is clear that we haveno longer any right to think of these ultimate ideas as "suspended" inthe universe, or as general "laws" of the universe. They aresuspended in the individual soul, which half-creates andhalf-discovers the universe according to their influence. 

Personality is the only permanent thing in life; and if truth, beauty, goodness, and love, are to have permanence they must depend fortheir permanence not upon some imaginary law in a universehalf-created by personality but upon the indestructible nature ofpersonality itself. 

The human soul is aware of an invisible standard of beauty. To thisinvisible standard it is compelled to make an unconscious appeal inall matters of argument and discussion. This standard must thereforebe rooted in a personal super-human vision and we are driven to theconclusion that some being or beings exist, superior to man, and yetin communication with man. And since what we see around us is aworld of many human and sub-human personalities, it is, byanalogy, a more natural supposition to suppose that thesesupernatural beings are many than that they are one. 

What the human soul, therefore, together with all other souls, attainsin its concentrated moments is "an eternal vision" wherein what ismortal in us merges itself in what is immortal. 

But if what we call the universe is a thing made up of all the variousuniverses of all the various souls in space and time, we areforbidden to find in this visible material universe, whose "reality"does not become "really real" until it has received the "hall-mark, "so to speak, of the eternal vision, any sort of medium or link whichmakes it possible for these various souls to communicate with oneanother. 

This material universe, thus produced by the concentrated visions ofall the souls entering into the eternal vision, is made up of all thephysical bodies of all such souls, linked together by the medium ofuniversal ether. But although the bodies which thus occupy differentpoints of space are linked together by the universal ether, we are notpermitted to find in this elemental ether, the medium which links theinnumerable souls together. And we are not permitted this becausein our original assumption such souls are themselves thehalf-creators, as well as the half-discoverers, of that universe whoseempty spaces are thus filled. The material ether which links allbodies together cannot, since it is a portion of such an universe, beitself the medium from the midst of which these souls create thatuniverse. 

But if, following our method of regarding every material substancein the world as the body of some sort of soul, we regard thisuniversal ether as itself the body of an universal or elemental soul, then we are justified in finding in this elemental omnipresent souldiffused through space, the very medium we need; out of the midstof which all the souls which exist project their various universes. 

We are thus faced by a universe which is the half-creation andhalf-discovery of all living souls, a universe the truth and beauty ofwhich depend upon the eternal vision, a universe whose materialsubstance is entirely composed of the actual physical bodies ofthose very souls whose vision half-creates and half-discovers it. 

We thus reach our conclusion that there is nothing in the worldexcept personality. The material universe is entirely made up ofpersonal bodies united by the personal body of the elemental ether. What we name the universe, therefore, is an enormous group ofbodies joined together by the body of the ether; such bodies beingthe physical expression of a corresponding group of innumerablesouls joined together by the soul of the ether. 

In the portions of this book which deal with the creative energy ofthe soul I have constantly used the expression "objective mystery";but in my concluding chapter I have rejected and eliminated thisword as a mere step or stage in human thought which does notcorrespond to any final reality. When I use the term "objectivemystery" I am referring to the original movement of the individualmind when it first stretches out to what is outside itself. What isoutside itself consists in reality of nothing but an unfathomablegroup of bodies and souls joined together by the body and soul ofthe ether which fills space. 

But since, in its first stretching out towards these things, all it isaware of is the presence of a plastic something which lends itself, under the universal curve of space, to the moulding and shaping andcolouring of its creative vision, it is natural enough to look aboutfor a name by which we can indicate this original "clay" or "matter" or"world-stuff" out of which the individual soul creates its vision ofan universe. And the name "objective mystery" is the name bywhich, in the bulk of this book, I have indicated this mysteriousworld-stuff, by which the soul finds itself surrounded, both in regardto the matter of its own body and in regard to the still more alienmatter of which all other bodies are composed. 

But when by the use of the term objective mystery I have indicatedthat general and universal something, not itself, by which the soul isconfronted, that something which, like a white screen, or a thickmass of darkness, waits the moving lamp of the soul to give it lightand colour, it becomes clear that the name itself does not cover anyactual reality other than the actual reality of all the bodies in theworld joined together by the universal ether. 

Is the term "objective mystery, " therefore, no more than the namegiven to that first solid mass of external impression which theinsight of the soul subsequently reduces to the shapes, colours, scents, sounds, and all the more subtle intimations springing fromthe innumerable bodies and souls which fill universal space? No. Itis not quite this. It is a little deeper than this. It is, in fact, themind's recognition that _behind_ this first solid mass of externalimpression which the soul's own creative activity creates into its"universe" there must exist "something, " some real substance, ormatter, or world-stuff, in contact with which the soul half-createsand half-discovers the universe which it makes its own. 

When, however, the soul has arrived at the knowledge that its ownphysical body is the outward expression of its inner self, and whenby an act of faith or imagination it has extended this knowledge toevery other bodily form in its universe, it ceases to be necessary touse the term "objective mystery"; since that something which thesoul felt conscious of as existing behind the original solid mass ofimpressions is now known by the soul to be nothing else than anincredible number of living personalities, each with its own body. 

And just as I make use in this book of the term "objective mystery, "and then discard it in my final conclusion, so I make an emphaticand elaborate use of the term "creative" and then discard it, orconsiderably modify it, in my final conclusion. 

My sequence of thought, in this matter of the soul's "creative"power, may thus be indicated. In the process of preparing theground for those rare moments of illumination wherein we attain theeternal vision the soul is occupied, and the person attempting tothink is occupied, with what I call "the difficult work of art" ofconcentrating its various energies and fusing them into one balancedpoint of rhythmic harmony. This effort of contemplative tension is a"creative effort" similar to that which all artists are compelled tomake. In addition to this aspect of what I call "creation, " there alsoremains the fact that the individual soul modifies and changes thatfirst half-real something which I name the objective mystery, until itbecomes all the colours, shapes, sounds and so forth, produced bythe impression upon the soul of all the other personalities broughtinto contract with it by the omnipresent personality of the universalether. 

The words "creation" and "creative" axe thus made descriptive inthis book of the simple and undeniable fact that everything whichthe mind touches is modified and changed by the mind; and thatultimately the universe which any mind beholds is an universehalf-created by the mood of the mind which beholds it. And since themood of any mind which contemplates the universe is dependentupon the relative "overcoming" in that particular soul of the emotionof malice by love, or of the emotion of love by malice, it becomestrue to say that any universe which comes into existence isnecessarily "created" by the original struggle, in the depths of somesoul or other, of the conflicting emotions of love and malice. 

And since the ideal of the emotion of love is life, and the ideal ofthe emotion of hate is death, it becomes true to say that the emotionof love is identical with the creative energy in all souls, while theemotion of malice is identical with the force which resists creationin all souls. 

Why then do I drop completely, or at least considerably modify, thisstress upon the soul's "creative" power in my final chapter? I am ledto do so by the fact that such creative power in the soul is, after all, only a preparation for the eternal vision. Creative energy implieseffort, tension, revolution, agitation, and the pain of birth. Allthese things have to do with preparing the ground for the eternalvision, and with the final gesture of the soul, by which it entersinto that ultimate rhythm. But once having entered into that vision--and in these things time is nothing--the rhythm which results is arhythm upon which the soul rests, even as music rests upon music, orlife rests upon life. 

And the eternal vision, thus momentarily attained, and hereaftergathered together from the deep cisterns of memory, liberates us, when we are under its influence, from that contemplative or creativetension whereby we reached it. It is then that the stoical pride of thesoul, in the strength of which it has endured so much, undergoes theprocess of an immense relaxation and relief. An indescribablehumility floods our being; and the mood with which we contemplatethe spectacle of life and death ceases to be an individual mood andbecomes an universal mood. The isolation, which was a necessaryelement in our advance to this point, melts away when we havereached it. It is not that we lose our personality, it is that we mergeourselves by the outflowing of love, in all the personalities to whichthe procession of time gives birth. 

And the way we arrive at this identification of ourselves with allsouls, living or dead or unborn, is by our love for that idealsymbolized in the figure of Christ in whom this identification hasalready been achieved. This, and nothing less than this, is the eternalvision. For the only "god" among all the arbiters of our destiny, withwhom we are concerned, is Christ. To enter into his secret is to enterinto their secret. To be aware of him is to be aware of everything inthe world, mortality and immortality, the transitory and the eternal. 

Life then, as I have struggled to interpret it in this book, seems topresent itself as an unfathomable universe entirely made up ofpersonalities. What we call inanimate substances are all of them thebodies, or portions of the bodies, of living personalities. Theimmense gulf, popularly made between the animate and theinanimate, thus turns out to be an unfounded illusion; and the wholeuniverse reveals itself as an unfathomable series, or congeries, ofliving personalities, united by the presence of the omnipresent etherwhich fills universal space. 

It is of little moment, the particular steps or stages of thought, bywhich one mind, among so many, arrives at this final conclusion. Other minds, following other tracks across the desert, might easilyreach it. The important thing to note is that, once reached, such aconclusion seems to demand from us a very definite attitude towardlife. For if life, if the universe, is entirely made up of personality, then our instinctive or acquired attitude toward personality becomesthe path by which we approach truth. 

To persons who have not been plunged, luckily or unluckily, in thetroublesome sea of metaphysical phrases, the portions of this bookwhich will be most tiresome are the portions which deal with those"half-realities" or logical abstractions of the human reason, whensuch reason "works" in isolation from the other attributes of thesoul. Such reason, working in isolation, inevitably produces certainviews of life; and these views of life, although unreal whencompared with the reality produced by the full play of all ourenergies, cannot be completely disregarded if our research is tocover the whole field of humanity's reactions. Since there is alwaysan irresistible return to these metaphysical views of life directly thesoul loses the rhythm of its total being, it seems as if it were unwiseto advance upon our road until we have discounted such views andplaced them in their true perspective, as unreal but inevitableabstractions. 

The particular views of life which this recurrent movement of thelogical reason results in, are, first, the reduction of everything toan infinite stream of pure thought, outside both time and space, unconscious of itself as in any way personal; and, in the secondplace, the reduction of everything to one universal self-consciousspirit, in whose absolute and infinite being independent of space andtime all separate existences lose themselves and are found to beillusions. 

What I try to make clear in the metaphysical portion of this book isthat these two views of life, while always liable to return upon uswith every renewed movement of the isolated reason, are in truthunreal projections of man's imperious mind. When we subject themto an analysis based upon our complete organ of research they showthemselves to be nothing but tyrannous phantoms, abstracted fromthe genuine reality of the soul as it exists _within_ space and time. 

What I seek to show throughout this book is that the world resolvesitself into an immeasurable number of personalities held together bythe personality of the universal ether and by the unity of one spaceand one time. Even of space and time themselves, since the onlything that really "fills them, " so to speak, to the brim, is theuniversal ether, it might be said that they are the expression of thisuniversal ether in its relation to all the objects which it contains. 

Thus the conclusion to which I am driven is that the dome of space, out of which the sun shines by day and the stars by night, containsno vast gulfs of absolute nothingness into which the soul that hateslife may flee away and be at rest. At the same time the soul thathates life need not despair. The chances, as we come to estimatethem, for and against the soul's survival after death, seem socuriously even, that it may easily happen that the extreme longing ofthe soul for annihilation may prove in such a balancing of forces thefinal deciding stroke. And quite apart from death, I have tried toshow in this book, how in the mere fact of the unfathomable depthsinto which all physical bodies as well as all immaterial souls recedethere is an infinite opportunity for any soul to find a way of escapefrom life, either by sinking into the depths of its own physical being, or by sinking into the depths of its own spiritual substance. 

The main purpose of the book reveals, however, the only escapefrom all the pain and misery of life which is worthy of the soul ofman. And this is not so much an escape from life as a transfiguringof the nature of life by means of a newly born attitude toward it. This attitude toward life, of which I have tried to catch at least thegeneral outlines, is the attitude which the soul struggles to maintainby gathering together all its diffused memories of those raremoments when it entered into the eternal vision. 

And I have indicated as clearly as I could how it comes about that inthe sphere of practical life the only natural and consistentrealization of this attitude would be the carrying into actual effectof what I call "the idea of communism. "

This "idea of communism, " in which the human implications of theeternal vision become realized, is simply the conception of a systemof human society founded upon the creative instinct, instead of uponthe possessive instinct in humanity. 

I endeavour to make clear that such a reorganization of society, upon such a basis does not imply any radical change in humannature. It only implies a liberation of a force that already exists, ofthe force in the human soul that is centrifugal, or outflowing, asopposed to the force that is centripetal, or indrawing. Such a forcehas always been active in the lives of individuals. It only remains toliberate that force until it reaches the general consciousness of therace, to make such a reconstruction of human society not only ideal, but actual and effective. 

CONTENTS

Chapter I. The Complex Vision 1Chapter II. The Aspects of the Complex Vision 20Chapter III. The Soul's Apex-Thought 56Chapter IV. The Revelation of the Complex Vision 71Chapter V. The Ultimate Duality 100Chapter VI. The Ultimate Ideas 120Chapter VII. The Nature of Art 160Chapter VIII. The Nature of Love 194Chapter IX. The Nature of the Gods 214Chapter X. The Figure of Christ 225Chapter XI. The Illusion of Dead Matter 248Chapter XII. Pain and Pleasure 270Chapter XIII. The Reality of the Soul in Relation to Modern Thought 293Chapter XIV. The Idea of Communism 323 Conclusion 339

PREFACE

The speculative system which I have entitled "The Philosophy ofthe Complex Vision" is an attempt to bring into prominence, in thesphere of definite and articulate thought, those scattered and chaoticintimations which hitherto have found expression rather in Art thanin Philosophy. 

It has come to be fatally clear to me that between the greatmetaphysical systems of rationalized purpose and the actual shocks, experiences, superstitions, illusions, disillusions, reactions, hopeand despairs, of ordinary men and women there is a great gulf fixed. It has become clear to me that the real poignant personal drama in allour lives, together with those vague "marginal" feelings whichovershadow all of us with a sense of something half-revealed andhalf withheld, has hardly any point of contact with these formidableedifices of pure logic. 

On the other hand the tentative, hesitating, ambiguous hypotheses ofPhysical Science, transforming themselves afresh with every newdiscovery, seem, when the portentous mystery of Life's real secretconfronts us, to be equally remote and elusive. 

When in such a dilemma one turns to the vitalistic and pragmaticspeculations of a Bergson or a William James there is an almostmore hopeless revulsion. For in these pseudo-scientific, pseudo-psychological methods of thought something most profoundlyhuman seems to us to be completely neglected. I refer to the highand passionate imperatives of the heroic, desperate, treasonableheart of man. 

What we have come to demand is some intelligible system of_imaginative reason_ which shall answer the exigencies not only ofour more normal moods but of those moods into which we arethrown by the pressure upon us--apparently from outside themechanical sequence of cause and effect--of certain mysteriousPowers in the background of our experience, such as hitherto haveonly found symbolic and representative expression in the ritual ofArt and Religion. 

What we have come to demand is some flexible, malleable, rhythmic system which shall give an imaginative and yet a rationalform to the sum total of those manifold and intricate impressionswhich make up the life of a real person upon a real earth. 

What we have come to demand is that the centre of gravity in ourinterpretation of life should be restored to its natural point ofvantage, namely, to the actual living consciousness of an actualliving human being. 

And it is precisely these demands that the philosophy of thecomplex vision attempts to satisfy. It seeks to satisfy them by usingas its organ of research the balanced "ensemble" of man's wholenature. It seeks to satisfy them by using as its "material" the wholevariegated and contradictory mass of feelings and reactions tofeelings, which the natural human being with his superstitions, hissympathies, his antipathies, his loves and his hates, his surmises, hisirrational intuitions, his hopes and fears, is of necessity bound toexperience as he moves through the world. 

It seeks, in fact, to envisage from within and without the confusedhurly-burly of life's drama; and to give to this contradictory andcomplicated spectacle the aesthetic rationality or imaginativeinevitableness of a rhythmic work of art. 

In this attempt the philosophy of the complex vision is bound torecognize, and include in its _rational form_, much that remainsmysterious, arbitrary, indetermined, organic, obstinately illogical. For the illogical is not necessarily the unintelligible, so long as thereason which we use is that same imaginative and clairvoyantreason, which, in its higher measure, sustains the vision of the poetsand the artists. 

By the use of this fuller, richer, more living, more concreteinstrument of research, the conclusions we arrive at will have inthem more of the magic of Nature, and will be closer to the actualpalpable organic mystery of Life, than either the abstractconclusions of metaphysic or the cautious, impersonal hypotheses ofexperimental physical science. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE COMPLEX VISION

A philosophy is known by its genuine starting-point. This is also itsfinal conclusion, often very cunningly concealed. Such a conclusionmay be presented to us as the logical result of a long train ofreasoning, when really it was there all the while as one single vividrevelation of the complex vision. 

Like travellers who have already found, by happy accident, the cityof their desire, many crafty thinkers hasten hurriedly back to theparticular point from which they intend to be regarded as havingstarted; nor in making this secret journey are they forgetful to erasetheir footsteps from the sand, so that when they publicly set forth itshall appear to those who follow them that they are guided not byprevious knowledge of the way but by the inevitable necessity ofpure reason. 

I also, like the rest, must begin with what will turn out to be theend; but unlike many I shall openly indicate this fact and not attemptto conceal it. 

My starting-point is nothing less than what I call the originalrevelation of man's complex vision; and I regard this originalrevelation as something which is arrived at by the use of a certainsynthetic activity of all the attributes of this vision. And thissynthetic activity of the complex vision I call its apex-thought. 

This revelation is of a peculiar nature, which must be grasped, atleast in its general outlines, before we can advance a step furtherupon that journey which is also a return. 

It might be maintained that before attempting to philosophize uponlife, the question should be asked . . . "why philosophize at all?"And again . . . "what are the motive-forces which drive us into thisprocess which we call philosophizing?"

To philosophize is to articulate and express our personal reaction tothe mystery which we call life, both with regard to the nature of thatmystery and with regard to its meaning and purpose. 

My answer to the question "Why do we philosophize?" is asfollows. We philosophize for the same reason that we move andspeak and laugh and eat and love. In other words, we philosophizebecause man is a philosophical animal. We breathe because wecannot help breathing and we philosophize because we cannot helpphilosophizing. We may be as sceptical as we please. Our veryscepticism is the confession of an implicit philosophy. To suppressthe activity of philosophizing is as impossible as to suppress theactivity of breathing. 

Assuming then that we _have_ to philosophize, the questionnaturally arises . . . _how_ have we to philosophize if ourphilosophy is to be an adequate expression of our complete reactionto life?

By the phrase "man's complex vision" I am trying to indicate theelaborate and intricate character of the organ of research which wehave to use. All subsequent discoveries are rendered misleading ifthe total activity, at least in its general movement, of our instrumentof research is not brought into focus. This instrument of researchwhich I have named "man's complex vision" implies his possession, at the moment when he begins to philosophize, of certain basicattributes or energies. 

The advance from infancy to maturity naturally means, when thedifference between person and person is considered an unequal anddiverse development of these basic energies. Nor even when theperson is full grown will it be found that these energies exist in himin the same proportion as they exist in other persons. But if theyexisted in every person in precisely equal proportions we should notall, even then, have the same philosophy. 

We should not have this, because though the basic activities werethere in equal proportion, each living concrete person whoseactivities these were would necessarily colour the resultant visionwith the stain or dye of his original difference from all the rest. Forno two living entities in this extraordinary world are exactly thesame. 

What is left for us, then, it might be asked, but to "whisper ourconclusions" and accept the fact that all "philosophies" must bedifferent, as they are all the projection of different personalities?Nothing, as far as pure logic is concerned, is left for us but this. Yet it remains as an essential aspect of the process of philosophizingthat we should endeavour to bring over to our vision as many othervisions as we can succeed in influencing. For since we have thepower of communicating our thought to one another and since it isof the very nature of the complex vision to be exquisitely sensitiveto influences from outside, it is a matter of primordial necessity tous all that we should exercise this will to influence and this will tobe influenced. 

And just as in the case of persons sympathetic to ourselves theactivity of philosophizing is attended by the emotion of love and theinstinct of creation, so in the case of persons antagonistic toourselves the activity of philosophizing is attended by the emotionof hate and the instinct of destruction. For philosophy being thefinal articulation of a personal reaction to life, is penetratedthrough and through with the basic energies of life. 

On the one hand there is a "Come unto me, all ye . . . " and on theother there is a "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!"Just because the process of philosophizing is necessarily personal, itis evident that the primordial aspect of it which implies "the will toinfluence" must tally with some equally primordial reciprocity, implying "the will to be influenced. "

That it does so tally with this is proved by the existence of language. 

This medium of expression between living things does not seem tobe confined to the human race. Some reciprocal harmony of energy, corresponding to our complex vision, seems to have createdmany mysterious modes of communication by which myriads ofsub-human beings, and probably also myriads of super-human beings, act and react on one another. 

But the existence of language, though it excludes the possibility ofabsolute difference, does not, except by an act of faith, necessitatethat any sensation we name by the same name is really identicalwith the sensation which another person feels. And this difficulty ismuch further complicated by the fact that words themselves tend inthe process to harden and petrify, and in their hardening to form, asit were, solid blocks of accretion which resist and materially distortthe subtle and evasive play of the human psychology behind them. 

So that not only are we aware that the word which we use does notnecessarily represent to another what it represents to ourself, but weare also aware that it does not, except in a hard and inflexiblemanner, represent what we ourselves feel. Words tend all tooquickly to become symbolic; and it is often the chief importance ofwhat we call "genius" that it takes these inflexible symbols into itshands and breaks them up into pieces and dips them in the waveringwaters of experience and sensation. 

Every philosopher should be at pains to avoid as far as possible theuse of technical terms, whether ancient or modern, and shouldendeavour to evade and slip behind these terms. He shouldendeavour to indicate his vision of the world by means of wordswhich have acquired no thick accretion of traditional crust but arefresh and supple and organic. He should use such words, in fact, asmight be said to have the flexibility of life, and like living plantsto possess leaves and sap. He should avoid as far as he can suchmetaphors and images as already carry with them the accumulatedassociations of traditional usage, and he should select hisexpressions so that they shall give the reader the definite impact andvivid shock of thoughts that leap up from immediate contact withsensation, like fish from the surface of a river. 

Just because words, in their passage from generation to generation, tend to become so hard and opaque, it is advisable for any oneattempting to philosophize to use indirect as well as direct means ofexpressing his thoughts. The object of philosophizing being to"carry over" into another person's consciousness one's personalreaction to things, it may well happen that a hint, a gesture, asignal, a sign, made indirectly and rather by the grouping of wordsand the tone of words than by their formal content, will reach thedesired result more effectually than any direct argument. 

It must be admitted, however, that this purely subjective view ofphilosophy, with its implied demand for a precise subjectivecolouring of the words, leaves some part of our philosophicalmotive-force unsatisfied and troubled by an obscure distress. Notwo minds can interchange ideas without some kind of appeal, oftenso faint and unconscious as to be quite unrecognized, to an invisibleaudience of hidden attendants upon the argument, who are tacitlyassumed in some mysterious way to be the arbiters. These invisiblecompanions seem to gather to themselves, as we are vaguely awareof them, the attributes of a company of overshadowing listeners. They present themselves to the half-conscious background of ourmind as some pre-existent vision of "truth" towards which mysubjective vision is one contribution and my interlocutor'ssubjective vision another contribution. 

This vague consciousness which we both have, as we exchange ourideas, of some comprehensive vision of pre-existent reality, towhich we are both appealing, does not destroy my passionateconviction that I am "nearer the truth" than my friend; nor does itdestroy my latent feeling that in my friend's vision there is"something of the truth" which I am unable to grasp. I think themore constantly we encounter other minds in these philosophicaldisputes the more does there grow and take shape in our own mindthe idea of some mysterious and invisible watchers whose purervision, exquisitely harmonious and clairvoyant, remains a sort oftest both of our own and of others' subjectivity; becomes, in fact, anobjective standard or measure or pattern of those ideas which wediscover within us all, and name truth, beauty, nobility. 

This objective standard of the things which are most important andprecious to us, this ideal pattern of all human values, attests andmanifests its existence by the primordial necessity of theinterchange of thoughts among us. I call this pattern or standard ofideas "the vision of the immortal companions. " By the term "theimmortal companions" I do not mean to indicate any "immanent"power or transcendental "over-soul. " Nor do I mean to indicate thatthey are created by our desire that they should exist. Although I callthem "companions" I wish to suggest that they exist quiteindependently of man and are not the origin of these ideas in man'ssoul but only the model, the pattern, the supreme realization of theseideas. 

It is, however, to these tacit listeners, whose vision of the world isthere in the background as the arbiter of our subjective encounters, that in our immense loneliness we find ourselves constantly turning. All our philosophy, all our struggle with life, falls into two aspectsas we grow more and more aware of what we are doing. The wholestrange drama takes the form, as we feel our way, of a creationwhich at present is non-existent and of a realization of somethingwhich at present is hidden. 

Thus philosophy, as I have said, is at once a setting-forth and areturn; a setting-forth to something that has never been reached, because to reach it we have to create it, and a return to somethingthat has been with us from the beginning and is the very form andshape and image of the thing which we have set forth to create. 

These hidden listeners, these tacit arbiters, these assumed andimplied witnesses of our life, give value to every attempt we makeat arriving at some unity amid our differences; and their visionseems, as the eternal duality presses upon us, to be at once the thingfrom which we start and the thing towards which, moulding thefuture as we go, we find ourselves moving. In the unfathomabledepths of the past we are aware of a form, a shape, a principle, apremonition; and into the unfathomable depths of the future weproject the fulfilled reality of this. We are as gods creatingsomething out of nothing. But when we have created it . . . Behold!it was there from the beginning; and the nothing out of which wehave created it has receded into a second future from which it mocksand menaces us again. 

The full significance of this ultimate duality would be renderedabortive if the future were determined in any more definite way thanby the premonition, the hope, the dream, the passion, the prophecy, the vision, of those invisible companions whose existence is impliedwhenever two separate souls communicate their thoughts to oneanother. 

It is by our will that the future is created; but around the will hoverintermittently many unfathomable motives. And the pre-existentmotive, which finally gives the shape to the future, holds the futurealready in its hand. And this surviving motive, ultimately selectedby our will, is of necessity purged and tested by a continualcomparison with that form, that idea, that dream, that vision, whichis implied from the beginning and which I name "the vision of theinvisible companions. "

The philosophical enquiry upon which we are engaged finds itsstarting point, then, in nothing less than that revelation of thecomplex vision which is also the goal of its journey. The complexvision, in the rhythmic play of its united attributes, makes use of asynthetic power which I call its apex-thought. 

The supreme activity of this apex-thought is centred about thoseprimordial ideas of truth, beauty and nobility which are the verystuff and texture of its being. In the ecstasy of its creative andreceptive "rapport" with these it becomes aware of the presence ofcertain immortal companions whose vision is at once the objectivestandard of such ideas and the premonition of their fuller realization. 

In thus attempting to articulate and clarify the main outlines of ourstarting point, a curious situation emerges. The actual _spectacle_, or mass of impressions to be dealt with, presents itself, we areforced to suppose, as more or less identical, in its generalappearance, in every human consciousness. And this "generalsituation" is strange enough. 

We find ourselves, motionless or moving, surrounded by earth andair and space. Impressions flow past us and flow through us. Weourselves seem at the same time able to move from point to point inthis apparently real universe and able to remain, as invisibleobservers, outside all the phenomena of time and space. As theultimate invisible spectator of the whole panorama, or, in the logicalphrase, as the "a priori unity of apperception" our consciousnesscannot be visualized in any concrete image. 

But as the empirical personal self, able to move about within thecircle of the objective universe, the soul is able to visualize itselfpictorially and imaginatively, although not rationally or logically. These two revelations of the situation are simultaneously disclosed;and although the first-named of them--the "a priori unity ofapperception"--might seem to claim, on the strength of this "apriori" a precedence over the second, it has no real right to makesuch a claim. The truth of the situation is indeed the reverse of this;and upon this truth, more than upon anything else, our wholemethod of enquiry depends. For the fact that we are unable to thinkof our integral personal self _as actually_ being this "a priori"consciousness, and are not only able but are bound to think of ourintegral personal self as _actually being_ this individual "soul"within time and space, we are driven to the conclusion that this "apriori" observer outside time and space is nothing more than aninevitable trick or law or aspect or play of our isolated logicalreason. 

Our logical reason is itself only one attribute of our real concreteself, the self which exists within time and space; and therefore wereach the conclusion that this "a priori unity, " which seems outsidetime and space, is nothing but a necessary inevitable abstractionfrom the concrete reality of our personal self which is within timeand space. There is no need to be startled at the apparent paradox ofthis, as though the lesser were including the larger or the part thewhole, because when space and time are eliminated there can be nolonger any large or small or whole or part. All are equal therebecause all are equally nothing there. 

This "a priori" unity of consciousness, outside time and space, isonly real in so far as it represents the inevitable manner in whichreason has to work when it works in isolation, and thereforecompared with the reality of the personal self, within time andspace, it is unreal. 

And it is obvious that an unreal thing cannot be larger than a realthing; nor can an unreal thing be a whole of which a real thing is apart. 

The method therefore of philosophic enquiry, which I name "thephilosophy of the complex vision, " depends upon the realization ofthe difference between what is only the inevitable play of reason, working in isolation, and what is the inevitable play of all theattributes of the human soul when they are held together by thesynthetic activity of what I name the "apex-thought. " But thislogical revelation of the "a priori" unity of consciousness outside oftime and space is not the only result of the isolated play of someparticular attribute of personality. Just as the isolated play ofreason evokes this result, so the isolated play of self-consciousnessevokes yet another result, which we have to recognize as interveningbetween this ultimate logical unity and the real personal self. 

The abstraction evoked by the isolated play of self-consciousness isobviously nearer reality and less of an abstraction than the merelylogical one above-named, because self-consciousness has more ofthe personal self in it than reason or logic can have. But thoughnearer reality and less of an abstraction than the other, thisrevelation of the inevitable play of self-consciousness, working byitself, is also unreal in relation to the revelation of the concretepersonal individual soul. This revelation of self-consciousness, working in isolation, has as its result the conception of one universal"I am I" or cosmic self, which is nothing more or less than thewhole universe, contemplating itself as its own object. To thisconception are we driven, when in isolation from the soul's otherattributes our self-consciousness gives itself up to its own activity. The "I am I" which we then seek to articulate is an "I am I" reachedby the negation or suppression of that primordial act of faith whichis the work of the imagination. This act of faith, thus negated andsuppressed in order that this unreal cosmic self may embrace theuniverse, is the act of faith by which we become aware of theexistence of innumerable other "selves, " besides our own self, filling the vast spaces of nature. 

The difference between the sensation we have of our own body andthe sensation we have of the rest of the universe ceases to existwhen self-consciousness thus expands; and the conceptions wearrive at can only be described as the idea that the whole universewith all the bodies which it contains--including our own body--isnothing but one vast manifestation of one vast mind which is ourown "I am I. "

It must not be supposed that this abstraction evoked by the solitaryactivity of self-consciousness is any more a "whole, " of which thereal self is a "part, " than the logical "a priori unity" is a whole, ofwhich the real self is a part. Both are abstractions. Both are unreal. Both are shadowy projections from the true reality, which is thepersonal self existing side by side with "the immortal companions. "Nor must it be supposed that these primordial aspects of life are ofequal importance and that we have an equal right to make of anyone of them the starting point of our enquiry. The starting point ofour enquiry, and the end of our enquiry also, can be nothing elsethan the innumerable company of individual "souls, " mortal andimmortal, confronting the mystery of the universe. 

The philosophy of the complex vision is not a mechanicalphilosophy; it is a creative philosophy. And as such it includes in itfrom the beginning a certain element of faith and a certain elementwhich I can only describe as "the impossible. " It may seemridiculous to some minds that the conception of the "impossible"should be introduced into any philosophy at the very start. Thecomplex vision is, however, essentially creative. The creation ofsomething really new in the world is regarded by pure reason asimpossible. Therefore the element of "the impossible" must exist inthis philosophy from the very start. The act of faith must also existin it; for the imagination is one of the primary aspects of thecomplex vision and the act of faith is one of the basic activities ofthe imagination. 

The complex vision does not regard history as a progressivepredetermined process. It regards history as the projection, byadvance and retreat, of the creative and resistant power of individualsouls. That the "invisible companions" should be in eternal contactwith every living "soul" is a rational impossibility; and yet thisimpossibility is what the complex vision, using the faith of itscreative imagination, reveals as the truth. 

The imagination working in isolation is able, like reason andself-consciousness, to fall into curious distortions and aberrations. 

One has only to survey the field of dogmatic religion to see howcuriously astray it may be led. It is only by holding fast to the highrare moments when the apex-thought attains its consummation thatwe are able to keep such isolated acts of faith in their place andprevent the element of the "impossible" becoming the element of theabsurd. The philosophy of the complex vision, though far moresympathetic to much that is called "materialism" than to much thatis called "idealism, " certainly cannot itself be regardedas materialistic. And it cannot be so regarded because itscentral assumption and implication is the concrete basis ofpersonality which we call the "soul. " And the "soul, " when we thinkof it as something real, must inevitably be associated with whatmight be called "the vanishing point of sensation. " In other wordsthe soul must be thought of as having some kind of "matter" or"energy" or "form" as its ultimate life, and yet as having no kind of"matter" or "energy" or "form. " The soul must be regarded as"something" which is living and real and concrete, and which has adefinite existence in time and space, and which is subject toannihilation; but the stuff out of which the soul is made is notcapable of analysis, and can only be accepted by such an act of faithas that which believes in "the impossible. "

The fact that the philosophy of the complex vision assumes as itsonly axiom the concrete reality of the "soul" within us which is sodifficult to touch or handle or describe and yet which we feel to beso much more real than our physical body, justifies us in making anexperiment which to many minds will seem uncalled for andridiculous. I mean the experiment of trying to visualize, by anarbitrary exercise of fancy, the sort of form or shape which thisformless and shapeless thing may be imagined as possessing. 

Metaphysical discussion tends so quickly to become thin andabstract and unreal; words themselves tend so quickly to become"dead wood" rather than living branches and leaves; that it seemsadvisable, from the point of view of getting nearer reality, to makeuse sometimes of a pictorial image, even though such an image becrudely and clumsily drawn. 

Pictorial images are always treacherous and dangerous; but, as Ihave hinted, it is sometimes necessary, considering the intricate anddelicately balanced character of man's complex vision, to make aguarded and cautious use of them, so as to arrive at truth"sideways, " so to speak, and indirectly. 

One of the curious psychological facts, in connection with thevarious ways in which various minds function, is the fact that whenin these days we seek to visualize, in some pictorial manner, ourultimate view of life, the images which are called up are geometricalor chemical rather than anthropomorphic. It is probable that eventhe most rational and logical among us as soon as he begins tophilosophize at all is compelled by the necessity of things to form inthe mind some vague pictorial representation answering to hisconception of the universe. 

The real inherent nature of such a philosophy would be probablyunderstood and appreciated far better, both by the philosopherhimself and by his friends, if this vague pictorial projection couldbe actually represented, in words or in a picture. 

Most minds see the universe of their mental conception assomething quite different from the actual stellar universe uponwhich we all gaze. Even the most purely rational minds who findthe universe in "pure thought" are driven against their rational willto visualize this "pure thought" and to give it body and form andshape and movement. 

These hidden and subconscious representations, in terms of sensibleimagery, of the conclusions of philosophic thought, are themselvesof profound philosophical interest. We cannot afford to neglectthem. They are at least proof of the inalienable part played, in thefunctioning of our complex vision, by _sensation_ as an organ ofresearch. But they have a further interest. They are an illuminatingrevelation of the inherent character and personal bias of theindividual soul who is philosophizing. I suppose to a great manyminds what we call "the universe" presents itself as a colossal circle, without any circumference, filled with an innumerable number ofmaterial objects floating in some thin attenuated ether. I suppose thecentre of this circle with no circumference is generally assumed tobe the "self" or "soul" of the person projecting this particular image. 

Doubtless, in some cases, it is assumed to be such a person'sphysical body as it feels itself conscious of sensation and is aware ofspace and time. 

As I myself use the expression "complex vision" I suppose I call upin the minds of my various readers an extraordinary variety ofpictorial images. Without laying any undue stress upon this pictorialtendency, I should like to indicate the kind of projected imagewhich I myself am conscious of, when I use the expression, "thecomplex vision. "

I seem to visualize this thing as a wavering, moving mass of flames, taking the shape of what might be called a "horizontal pyramid, " theapex of which, where the flames are fused and lost in one another, iscontinually cleaving the darkness like the point of a fiery arrow, while the base of it remains continually invisible by reason of somemagical power which confuses the senses whenever they seek totouch or to hold it. 

Sometimes I seem to see this "base" or "spear handle" or "arrowshaft, " of my moving horizontal pyramid, as a kind of deeperdarkness; sometimes as a vibration of air; sometimes as a cloud ofimpenetrable smoke. I am always conscious of the curious fact that, while I can most vividly see the apex-point of the thing, and while Iknow that this moving pyramid of fire has a base, there is for eversome drastic natural law or magical power at work that obscures myvision whenever I turn my eyes to the place where I know it exists. 

I have not mentioned this particular pictorial image with any wish tolay undue stress upon it. In all rarified and subtle experiments ofthought pictorial images are quite as likely to hinder us in ourgroping towards reality as they are to help us. If my image of amoving, horizontal pyramid with an apex-point of many namesfused into one and a base of impenetrable invisibility seems to anyreader of this passage a ridiculous and arbitrary fancy I wouldmerely ask such an one to let it go, and to consider my descriptionof the complex vision quite independently of it. 

Sometimes to myself it appears ridiculous; and I only, as we put it, "throw it out" in order that, if it has the least illuminative value, such a value should not be quite lost. Any reader who regards myparticular picture as absurd is perfectly at liberty to form his ownpictorial image of what I am endeavouring to make clear. He may, ifhe pleases, visualize "the soul" as a sort of darkened planet fromwhich the attributes of the complex vision radiate to the right or tothe left, as the thing moves through immensity. All I ask is thatthese attributes should be thought of as converging to a point and asfinding their "base" in some thing which is felt to exist but cannotbe described. 

Probably to a thorough-going empiricist, and certainly to athorough-going materialist, it will appear quite unnecessary totranslate the obvious spectacle of the world, with oneself as aphysical body in the centre of it, into mental symbols and pictorialrepresentations of the above character. Of such an one I would onlyask, in what sort of manner he visualizes, when he thinks of it at all, the "soul" which he feels conscious of in his own body; and in thesecond place how he visualizes the connection between the will, theinstinct, the reason and so forth, which animate his body and endowit with living purpose? It will be found much easier for critics toreject the particular image which has commended itself to me assuggestive of the mystery with which we have to deal, than for themto drive out and expel from their own thought the insidious humantendency towards pictorial representation. 

I would commend to any sardonic psychologist whose "malice"leads him to derive pleasure from the little weaknesses ofphilosophers, to turn his attention to the ideal systems of supposedly"pure thought. " He will find infinite satisfaction for his spleen inthe crafty manner in which "impure" thought--that is to say thought bymeans of pictorial images--passes itself off as "pure" and concealsits lapses. 

Truth, as the complex vision clearly enough reveals to us, refuses tobe dealt with by "pure" thought. To deal with truth one has to use"impure" thought, in other words thought that is dyed in the grain bytaste, instinct, intuition, imagination. And every philosopher whoattempts to round off his system by pure reason alone, and whorefuses to recognize that the only adequate organ of research is thecomplex vision, is a philosopher who sooner or later will be caughtred-handed in the unphilosophic act of covering his tracks. 

No philosopher is on safe ground, no philosopher can offer us amassive organic concrete representation of reality who is shy of allpictorial images. They are dangerous and treacherous things; but itis better to be led astray by them than to avoid them altogether. 

The mythological symbolism of antique thought was full of thispictorial tendency and even now the shrewdest of modern thinkersare compelled to use images drawn from antique mythology. Poeticthought may go astray. But it can never negate itself into quite thethin simulacrum of reality into which pure reason divorced frompoetic imagery is capable of fading. 

After all, the most obstinate and irreducible of all pictorialrepresentations is the obvious one of the material universe with ourphysical body as the centre of it. But even this is not complete. Infact it is extremely far from complete, directly we think closelyabout it. For not only does such a picture omit the real centre, thatindescribable "something" we call the "soul, " it also loses itself inunthinkable darkness when it considers any one of its ownunfathomable horizons. 

It cannot be regarded as a very adequate picture when both thecentre of it and the circumference of it baffle thought. Thematerialist or "objectivist" may be satisfied with such a result, butit is a result which does not answer the question of philosophy, butrather denies that any answer is possible. But though this obviousobjective spectacle of the universe, with our bodily self as a part ofit, cannot satisfy the demands of the complex vision, it is at leastcertain that no philosophy which does not include this and acceptthis and continually return to this, can satisfy these demands. 

The complex vision requires the reality of this objective spectaclebut it also requires recognition of certain basic assumptions, implicitin this spectacle, which the materialist refuses to consider. 

And the most comprehensive of these assumptions is nothing lessthan the complex vision itself, with that "something, " which is thesoul, as its inscrutable base. Thus I am permitted to retain, in spiteof its arbitrary fantasy, my pictorial image of a pyramidal arrow offire, moving from darkness to darkness. My picture were false to myconception if it did not depict the whole pyramid, with the soul itselfas its base, moving, in its complete totality, from mystery tomystery. 

It may move upwards, downwards, or, as I myself seem to see it, horizontally. But as long as it keeps its apex-point directed to themystery in front of it, it matters little how we conceive of it asmoving. That it should _move_, in some way or another, is the gistof my demand upon it; for, if it does not move, nothing moves; andlife itself is swallowed up in nothingness. 

This swallowing up of life in nothingness, this obliteration of life bynothingness is what the emotion of malice ultimately desires. Theeternal conflict between love and malice is the eternal contestbetween life and death. And this contest is what the complex visionreveals, as it moves from darkness to darkness. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION

The aspects of the complex vision may be separated from oneanother according to many systems of classifications. As long as, inthe brief summary which follows, I include the more obvious andmore important of these aspects, I shall be doing all that thephilosophy of the complex vision demands. 

The reader is quite at liberty to make a different classification frommine, if mine appears unconvincing to him. The general trend of myargument will not be in any serious way affected, as long as headmits that I have followed the tradition of ordinary humanlanguage, in the classification which I have preferred. 

It seems to me, then, that the aspects of the complex vision areeleven in number; and that they may be summarized as consisting ofreason, self-consciousness, will, the aesthetic sense, or "taste, "imagination, memory, conscience, sensation, instinct, intuition andemotion. 

These eleven aspects or attributes are not to be regarded asabsolutely separate "functions, " but rather as relatively separate"energies" of the one concrete soul-monad. The complex vision isthe vision of an irreducible living entity which pours itself as awhole into every one of its various energizings. And though it poursitself as a whole into each one of these, and though each one ofthese contains the latent potentiality of all the rest, the nature ofthe complex vision is such that it necessarily takes colour and formfrom the particular aspect or attribute through which at the momentit is especially energizing. 

It is precisely here that the danger of "disproportion" was found. Forthe complex vision with the whole weight of all its aspects behind itreceives the colour and the form of only one of them. We can seethe result of this from the tenacity--implying the presence ofemotion and will--with which some philosopher of pure reasonpassionately and imaginatively defends his logical conclusion. 

But we are ourselves proof of it in every moment of our lives. Confronted with some definite external situation, of a happy orunhappy character, we fling ourselves upon this new intrusion withthe momentum of our whole being; and it becomes largely a matterof accident whether our reaction of the moment is coloured byreason or by will or by imagination or by taste. Immersed in the tideof experience, receiving shock after shock from alien and hostileforces, we struggle with the weight of our whole soul against eachparticular obstacle, not stopping to regulate the complicatedmachinery of our vision but just seizing upon the thing, or trying toavoid it, with whatever energy serves our purpose best at themoment. 

This is especially true of small and occasional pleasures or smalland occasional annoyances. A supreme pleasure or a supreme painforces us to gather our complex vision together, forces us to makeuse of its apex-thought, so that we can embrace the ecstasy or flingourselves upon the misery with a co-ordinated power. It is the littlecasual annoyances and reliefs of our normal days which are so hardto deal with in the spirit of philosophic art, because these littlepleasures and pains while making a superficial appeal to the reasonor the emotion or the will or the conscience, are not drastic orformidable enough to drive us into any concentration of theapex-thought which shall harmonize our confused energies. 

The fatal ease with which the whole complex vision gets itselfcoloured by and obsessed by one of its own attributes may beproved by the history of philosophy itself. Individual philosophershave, over and over again, plunged with furious tenacity into themystery of life with a complex vision distorted, deformed andover-balanced. 

I seem to see the complex vision of such thinkers taking somegrotesque shape whereby the apex-point of effective thought isblunted and broken. The loss and misery, or the yet more ignoblecomfort, of such suppressions of the apex-thought, is however apersonal matter. Those "invisible companions, " or immortalchildren of the universe, who are implicitly present as thebackground of all human discussion, grow constantly more definiteand articulate the apprehension of the general human mind byreason of these personal aberrations. 

It is perhaps rather to the great artists of our race than to anyphilosopher at all that these invisible ones reveal themselves, but intheir gradual disclosure to the consciousness of the human race, theyare certainly assisted by the most insane and unbalanced plungesinto mystery, of this and the other abnormal individual. The paradoxmay indeed be hazarded that the madder and more abnormal are theindividual's attempts to dig himself into the very nerves and fibresof reality, the clearer and more definite as far as consciousness ofthe race is concerned, does the revelation of these invisible onesgrow. 

The abnormal individual whose complex vision is distorted almostout of human recognition by the predominance of some oneattribute, is yet, in his madness and morbidity, a wonderful engineof research for the clairvoyance of humanity. 

The vision of the immortals, as a background to all furtherdiscussion, is rendered richer and more rhythmical every day, orrather the hidden rhythm of their being is revealed more clearlyevery day, by the eccentricities and maladies, nay! by the insanitiesand desperations, of individual victims of life. 

Thus it comes about that, while the supreme artists, whoseapproximation, to the vision of the invisible ones is closest, remainour unique masters, the lower crowd of moderately sane andmoderately well-balanced persons are of less value to humanity thanthose abnormal and wayward ones whose psychic distortions are theworld's perverted instruments of research. 

A philosopher of this unbalanced kind is indeed a sort of livingsacrifice or victim of self-vivisection, out of whose demonicdiscoveries--bizarre and fantastic though they may seem to thelower sanity of the mob--the true rhythmic vision of the immortalsis made clearer and more articulate. 

The kind of balance or sanity which such average persons, as arecommonly called "men of the world, " possess is in reality furtherremoved from true vision than all the madness of these debauches ofspecialized research. For the consummation of the complex vision isa meeting place of desperate and violent extremes; extremes, notwatered down nor modified nor even "reconciled, " certainly notcancelled by one another, but held forcibly and deliberately togetherby an arbitrary act of the apex-thought of the human soul. 

As I glance at these basic activities of the complex vision one byone, I would beg the reader to sink as far as he can into the recessesof his own identity; so that he may discover whether what he findsthere agrees in substance--call it by what name he pleases andexplain it how he pleases--with each particular energy I name, as Iindicate such energies in my own way. 

Consider the attitude of self-consciousness. That man is self-consciousis a basic and perhaps a tragic fact that surely requires noproof. The power of thinking "I am I" is an ultimate endowment ofpersonality, outside of which, except by an act of primordial faith, we cannot pass. The phenomenon of human growth from infancy tomaturity proves that it is possible for this self-consciousness--thispower of saying "I am I"--to become clearer and more articulatefrom day to day. It seems as impossible to fix upon a definitemoment in a child's life where we can draw a line and say "_there_he was unconscious of himself and _here_ he is conscious ofhimself" as it is impossible to observe as an actual visible movementthe child's growth in stature. 

Between consciousness and self-consciousness the dividing lineseems to be as difficult to define as it is difficult to define theline between sub-consciousness and consciousness. My existence as aself-conscious entity capable of thinking "I am I" is the basicassumption of all thought. And though it is possible for my thoughtto turn round upon itself and deny my own existence, such thoughtin the process of such a denial cuts the very ground away which isthe leaping point of any further advance. 

Philosophy by such drastic scepticism is reduced to completesilence. You cannot build up anything except illusion from a basisthat is itself illusion. If I were not self-conscious there would be nocentre or substratum or coherence or unity in any thought I had. If Iwere not self-conscious I should be unable to think. 

Consider, then, the attribute of reason. That we possess reason isalso a fact that carries with it its own evidence. It is reason whichat this very moment--reason of some sort, at any rate--I am bound touse, in estimating the important place or the unimportant placewhich reason itself should occupy. You cannot derogate from thevalue of reason without using reason. You cannot put reason into aninferior category, when compared with will or instinct or emotion, without using reason itself to prove such an inferiority. 

We may come to the conclusion that the universe is rather irrationalthan rational. We may come to the conclusion that the secret of lifetranscends and over-brims all rationality. But this very conclusionas to the irrational nature of the mystery with which reason isattempting to deal is itself a conclusion of the reason. 

There is only one power which is able to put reason aside in itssearch for truth and that power is reason. 

Consider, then, the attribute of will. That we possess a definite anddistinct energy whose activity may be contrasted with the rest andmay be legitimately named "the will" is certainly less self-evidentthan either of the two preceding propositions but is none the lessimplied in both of them. For in the act of articulating to ourself thedefinite thought "I am I" we are using our will. The motive-forcemay be anything. We may for instance will an answer to the impliedquestion "_what_ am I, " and our self-consciousness may return theanswer "I am I, " leaving it to the reason to deal with this answer asbest it can. The motive may be anything or nothing. Bothconsciousness and will are independent of motive. 

For in all these primordial energizings of the complex visioneverything that happens, happens simultaneously. With theconsciousness "I am I" there comes simultaneously into existencethe consciousness of an external universe which is, at one and thesame time, included in the circle of the "I am I" and outside thecircle. That is to say when we think the thought "I am I, " we feelourselves to be the whole universe thinking "I am I, " and yet by aprimordial contradiction, we feel ourselves to be an "I am I"opposed to the universe and contrasted with the universe. 

But all this happens simultaneously; and the consciousness that weare ourselves implies, at one and the same time, the consciousnessthat we _are_ the universe and the consciousness that we are_inside_ the universe. 

And precisely as the fact of self-consciousness implies theprimordial duality and contradiction of being at once the wholeuniverse and something inside the universe, so the original fact ofour thinking at all, implies the activity of the will. 

We think because we are "thinking animals" and we will becausewe are "willing animals. " The presence of what we call motive issomething that comes and goes intermittently and which may ormay not be present from the first awakening of consciousness. We_may_ think "I am I" at the very dawn of consciousness under thepressure of a vague motive of clearing up a confused situation. We_may_ use our reason at the very dawn of consciousness under thepressure of a vague motive of alleviating the distress of disorderwith the comfort of order. But, on the other hand, self-consciousnessmay play its part, reason may play its part and the will may play itspart in the complete absence of any definite motive. There is such athing--and this is the point I am anxious to make--as _motiveless_will. Certain thinkers have sought to eliminate the will altogether bysubstituting for it the direct impact or pressure of some motive ormotive-force. But if the will can be proved to be a primordial energyof the complex vision and if the conception of a motiveless exertionof the will is a legitimate conception, then, although we must admitthe intermittent appearance and disappearance of all manner ofmotives, we have no right to substitute motive for will. If we domake such a substitution, all we really achieve is simply a change of_name_; and our new motive is the old will "writ small. "

Motives undoubtedly may come and go from the beginning ofconsciousness and the beginning of will. They may flutter likebutterflies round both the consciousness and the will. For instance itis clear that I am not _always_ articulating to myself the notable ortroublesome thought "I am I. " I may be sometimes so lost andabsorbed in sensation that I quite forget this interesting fact. But itmay easily happen at such times that I definitely experience the_sensation of choice_; of choice between an intensification ofself-consciousness and a continued blind enjoyment of this externalpreoccupation. And it is from this _sensation of choice_ that wegather weight for our contention that the will is a basic attribute ofthe human soul. 

It is certainly true that we are often able to detach ourselves fromourselves and to watch the struggle going on between two oppositemotive-forces, quite unaware, it might seem, and almost indifferent, as to how the contest will end. 

But this struggle between opposite motives does not obliterate oursensation of choice. It sometimes intensifies it to an extreme pointof quite painful suspension. The opposite motives may be engagedin a struggle. But the field of the struggle is what we call the will. And it may even sometimes happen that the will intervenes betweena weaker and stronger motive and, out of arbitrary pride and thepleasure of exertion for the sake of exertion, throws its weight onthe weaker side. 

It is a well-known psychological fact that the complex vision canenergize, with vigorous spontaneity, through the will alone, just as itcan energize through sensation alone. The will can, so to speak, stretch its muscles and gather itself together for attack or defence ata moment when there is no particular necessity for its use. 

Some degree of self-consciousness is bound to accompany this"motiveless stretching" of the will, for the simple reason that it isnot "will in the abstract" which makes such a movement but thetotality of the complex vision, though in this case all otherattributes of the complex vision, including self-consciousness andreason, are held in subordination to the will. 

Man is a philosophical animal; and he philosophizes as inevitably ashe breathes. He is also an animal possessed of will; and he uses hiswill as inevitably as, in the process of breathing, he uses his lungsor his throat. Around him, from the beginning, all manner of motivesmay flutter like birds on the wing. They may be completelydifferent motives in the case of different personalities. But in allpersonalities there is consciousness, to grasp these motives; and inall personalities there is will, to accept or to reject these motives. 

The question of the freedom of the will is a question whichnecessarily enters into our discussion. 

The will feels itself--or rather consciousness feels the will to be--atonce free and limited. The soul does not feel it is free to do anythingit pleases. That at least is certain. For without some limitation, without something resistant to exert itself upon, the will could notbe known. An absolutely free will is unthinkable. The very nature ofthe will implies a struggle with some sort of resistance. 

The will is, therefore, by the terms of its original definition and bythe original feeling which the soul experiences in regard to it, limited in its freedom. The problem resolves itself, therefore, if oncewe grant the existence of the will, into the question of how muchfreedom the will has or how far it is limited. Is it, for instance, whenwe know all the conditions of its activity, entirely limited? Is thefreedom of the will an illusion?

It is just at this point that the logical reason makes a savage attemptto dominate the situation. The logical reason arrives step by step atthe inevitable conclusion that the will has no freedom at all but isabsolutely limited. 

On the other hand emotion, instinct, imagination, intuition, andconscience, all assume that the limitation of the will is not absolutebut that within certain boundaries, which themselves are by nomeans fixed or permanent, the will is free. 

Consciousness itself must be added to this list. For whateverarguments may be used in the realm of thought, when the momentof choice arrives in the realm of action, we are always conscious ofthe will as free. If the reason is justified in regarding the freedomof the will as an illusion, we are justified in denying the existenceof the will altogether. For a will with only an illusion of freedom isnot a will at all. In that ease it were better to eliminate the willand regard the soul as a thing which acts and reacts under the stimuliof motives like a helpless automaton endowed with consciousness. 

But the wiser course is to experiment with the will and let it proveits freedom to the sceptical reason by helping that same reason toretire into its proper place and associate itself with the apex-thoughtof the complex vision. 

Leaving the will then, as a thing limited and yet free, let us pass toa consideration of what I call "taste. " This is the aesthetic sense, anoriginal activity of the human soul, associated with that universaltendency in life and nature which we name the beautiful. I use theword "taste" at this moment in preference to "aesthetic sense, "because I feel that this particular original activity of the complexvision has a wider field than is commonly supposed. I regard it, infact, as including much more than the mere sense of beauty. I regardit as a direct organ of research, comparable to instinct or intuition, but covering a different ground. I regard it as a mysteriousclairvoyance of the soul, capable of discriminating between certaineverlasting opposites, which together make up an eternal duality inthe very depths of existence. 

These opposites imply larger and more complicated issues than areimplied in the words beautiful and ugly. The real and the unreal, theinteresting and the uninteresting, the significant and theinsignificant, the suggestive and the meaningless, the arresting andthe commonplace, the exciting and the dull, the organic and theaffected, the dramatic and the undramatic, are only some of thedifferences implied. 

The fact that art is constantly using what we call the ugly as well aswhat we call the commonplace, and turning both these into newforms of beauty, is a fact that considerably complicates thesituation. And what art, the culminating creative energy of theaesthetic sense, can do, the aesthetic sense itself can do with itscritical and receptive power. 

So that in the aesthetic sense, or in what I call "taste, " we have anenergy which is at once receptive and creative; at once capable ofresponding to this eternal duality, and of creating new forms ofbeauty and interest _out of_ the ugly and uninteresting. A new nameis really required for this thing. A name is required for it thatconveys a more creative implication than the word "taste, " a wordwhich has an irresponsible, arbitrary, and even flippant sound, and amore passionate, religious, and ecstatic implication than the word"aesthetic, " a word which suggests something calculated, cold, learned, and a little tame. I use the word "taste" at this particularmoment because this word implies a certain challenge to bothreason and conscience, and some such challenge it is necessary toinsist upon, if this particular energy of the soul is to defend itsbasic integrity. 

This ultimate attribute of personality, then, which I call "taste"reveals to us an aspect of the system of things quite different fromthose revealed by the other activities of the human soul. This aspectof the universe, or this "open secret" of the universe, loses itself, as all the others do in unfathomable abysses. It descends to the veryroots of life. It springs from the original reservoirs of life. It hasdepths which no mental logic can sound; and it has horizons in thepresence of which the mind stops baffled. When we use the term "thebeautiful" to indicate the nature of what it reveals, we are easilymisled; because in current superficial speech--and unless the word isused by a great artist--the term "beautiful" has a narrow and limitedmeaning. Dropping the term "taste" then, as having served itspurpose, and reverting to the more academic phrase "aestheticsense" we must note that the unfathomable duality revealed by thisaesthetic sense covers, as I have hinted, much more ground than iscovered by the narrow terms "beauty" and "ugliness. "

It must be understood, moreover, that what is revealed by the aestheticsense is a struggle, a conflict, a war, a contradiction, goingon in the heart of things. The aesthetic sense does not only revealloveliness and distinction; it also reveals the grotesque, the bizarre, the outrageous, the indecent and the diabolic. If we prefer to use theterm "beauty" in a sense so comprehensive and vast as to include_both sides_ of this eternal duality, then we shall be driven to regardas "beautiful" the entire panorama of life, with its ghastly contrasts, with its appalling evil, with its bitter pain, and with its intolerabledreariness. 

The "beautiful" will then become nothing less than the wholedramatic vortex regarded from the aesthetic point of view. Life withall its contradictions, considered as an aesthetic spectacle, willbecome "beautiful" to us. This is undoubtedly one form which theaesthetic sense assumes; the form of justifying existence, in all itshorror and loathsomeness as well as in all its magical attraction. 

Another form the aesthetic sense may assume is the form of "takingsides" in this eternal struggle; of using its inspiration to destroy, or to make us forget, the brutality of things, by concentrating ourattention upon what in the narrow sense we call the beautiful or thedistinguished or the lovely. But there is yet a third form theaesthetic sense may assume. Not only can it visualize the wholechaotic struggle between beauty and hideousness as itself a beautifuldrama; not only can it so concentrate upon beauty that we forget thehideousness; it is also able to see the world as a humorous spectacle. 

When the aesthetic sense regards the whole universe as "beautiful"it must necessarily regard the whole universe as tragic; for the painand dreariness and devilishness in the universe is so unspeakablethat any "beauty" which includes such things must be a tragicbeauty. Not to recognize this and to attempt to "accept" the universeas something which is not tragic, is to outrage and insult theaesthetic sense. 

But we may regard the universe as tragic without regarding it as"beautiful" and yet remain under the power of the aesthetic energy. For there exists a primordial aspect of the aesthetic vision which isnot concerned with the beautiful at all, or only with the beautiful inso wide a latitude as to transcend all ordinary usage, and this is oursense of humour. 

The universe as the human soul perceives it, is horribly and mosttragically humorous. Man is the laughing animal; and the "perilousstuff" which tickles his aesthetic sense with a revelation ofoutrageous comedy has its roots in the profoundest abyss. Thishumorous aspect of the system of things is just as primordial andintrinsic as what we call the "beautiful. " The human soul is able topour the whole stream of its complex vision through this fantasticcasement. It knows how to respond to the "diablerie" of the abysseswith a reciprocal gesture. It is able to answer irony with irony; andto the appalling grotesqueness and indecency of the universe it hasthe power of retorting with an equally shameless leer. 

But this sardonic aspect of human humour, though tallying trulyenough with one eternal facet of the universe, does not exhaust thehumorous potentiality of the aesthetic sense. There is a "good" ironyas well as a "wicked" irony. Humour can be found in alliance withthe emotion of love as well as with the emotion of hate. Humour canbe kind as well as cruel; and there is no doubt that the aestheticspectacle of the world is as profoundly humorous in a quite normalsense as it is beautiful or noble or horrible. 

Turning now to that primeval attribute of the complex vision whichwe call emotion, we certainly enter the presence of somethingwhose existence cannot be denied or explained away. Directly wegrow conscious of ourselves, directly we use reason or instinct orthe aesthetic sense, we are aware of an emotional reaction. Thisemotional reaction may be resolved into a basic duality, the activityof love and the activity of the opposite of love. 

I say "the opposite of love" deliberately; because I am anxious toindicate, in regard to emotion, how difficult it is to find adequatewords to cover the actual field of what we feel. 

I should like to write even the word "love" with some such mark ofhesitation. For, just because of the appalling importance of thisultimate duality, it is essential to be on our guard against the useof words which convey a narrow, crude, rough-and-ready, andsuperficial meaning. By the emotion of "love" I do not mean theamorous phenomenon which we call "being in love. " Nor do I meanthe calmer emotion which we call "affection. " The passion offriendship, when friendship really becomes a passion, is nearer mymeaning than any of these. And yet the emotion of love, conceivedas one side of this eternal duality, is much more than the "passion offriendship"; because it is an emotion that can be felt in the presenceof things and ideas as well as persons. Perhaps the emotion of loveas symbolized in the figure of Christ, combined with the aestheticand intellectual passion inherited from the Greek philosophers, comes nearest to what I have in mind; though even this, withoutsome tangible and concrete embodiment, tends to escape us andevade analysis. 

And if it is hard to define this "love" which is the protagonist, so tospeak, in the world's emotional drama, it is still harder to define itsopposite, its antagonist. I could name this by the name of "hate, " theordinary antithesis of love, but if I did so it would have to be with avery wide connotation. 

The true opposite to the sort of "love" I have in my mind is not somuch "hate" as a kind of dull and insensitive hostility, a kind ofbrutal malignity and callous aversion. Perhaps what we are lookingfor as the true opposite of love may be best defined as malice. 

Malice seems to convey a more impersonal depth and a wider reachof activity than the word hate and has also a clearer suggestion ofdeliberate insensitiveness about it. The most concentrated andenergetic opposite of love is not either hate or malice. It is_cruelty_; which is a thing that seems to draw its evil inspirationfrom the profoundest depths of conscious existence. 

But cruelty must necessarily have for its "object" something livingand sentient. A spiritual feeling, a work of art, an idea, a principle, a landscape, a theory, an inanimate group of things, could not becontemplated with an emotion of cruelty, though it could certainlybe contemplated with an emotion of malice. 

There is often, if not always, a strange admixture of sensuality incruelty. Cruelty, profoundly evil as it is, has a living intensitywhich makes it less dull, less thick, less deliberately insensitive, less coldly hostile, than the pure emotion of malice, and thereforeless adapted than malice to be regarded as the true opposite of love. 

But the best indication of the distinction I want to make will befound in the contrast between the conceptions of creation anddestruction. The dull, thick, insensitive callousness which we areconscious of in the opposite of love is an indication that while loveis essentially creative the opposite of love is essentially _thatwhich resists creation_. 

The opposite of love is not destructive in the sense of being anactive destructive force. Such an active destructive force mustnecessarily, by reason of the passionate energy in it, be a perversionof creative power, not the opposite of creative power. 

Creative power, even in its unperverted activity, must always becapable of destroying. It must be capable of destroying what is inthe way of further creation. Thus the true opposite of creation is notdestruction, but the inert, heavy, thick, callous, brutal, insensitive"obscurantism" or "material opacity" which resists the pressure ofthe creative spirit. 

By this analysis of the ultimate duality of emotion we are put inpossession of a basic aspect of the complex vision, which mustlargely shape and determine its total activity. The soul within us, that mysterious "something" which is the living and concrete"person" whose vision the complex vision is, is a thing subject at thestart to this unfathomable duality, the emotion of love and theemotion of malice. 

The emotion of love is the life-begetting, life-conceiving force, thecreator of beauty, the discoverer of truth, and the reconciler ofeternal contradictions. 

The emotion of malice, with its frozen sneer of sardonic denial, raises its "infernal fist" against the centrifugal outflowing of theemotion of love. It is impossible to conceive of self-consciousnesswithout love and hatred; or, as I prefer to say, without love andmalice. Self-consciousness implies from the start what we call theuniverse; and the universe cannot appear upon the scene withoutexciting in us the emotion of love and hate. Every man born into theworld loves and hates directly he is conscious of the world. This isthe ultimate duality. Attraction and repulsion is the material formulafor this contradiction. 

If everything in the world were illusion except one Universal Being, such a being must necessarily be thought of as experiencing theemotion of self-love and of self-hatred. A condition of absoluteindifference is unthinkable. Such indifference could not last amoment without becoming either that faint hatred, which we call"boredom, " or that faint love, which we call "interest. " Thecontemplation of the universe with no emotional reaction of anykind is an inconceivable thing. An infant at its mother's breastdisplays love and malice. At one and the same moment it satisfiesits thirst and beats upon the breast that feeds it. 

The primordial process of philosophizing and the primal will tophilosophize are both of them penetrated through and through, withthis ultimate duality of love and malice. Love and malice inalternate impulse are found latent and potent in every philosophiceffort. Behind every philosophy, if we have the love or the malice toseek for it, may be found the love or malice, or both of them, sideby side, of the individual philosopher. That pure and unemotionaldesire for truth for its own sake which is the privilege of physicalscience cannot retain its simplicity when confronted with the deeperproblems of philosophy. It cannot do so because the complex visionwith which we philosophize contains emotion as one of its basicattributes. 

To consider next, the attribute of imagination. Imagination seems, when we analyse it, to resolve itself into the half-creative, half-interpretative act by which the complex personality seizes upon, plunges into, and moulds to its purpose, that deeper unity in anygroup of things which gives such a group its larger and morepenetrating significance. 

Imagination differs from intuition in the fact that by its creative andinterpretative power it dominates, possesses and moulds the materialit works upon. Intuition is entirely receptive and it receives theillumination offered to it at one single indrawing, at one breath. Imagination may be regarded as a male attribute; intuition as afeminine one; although in a thousand individual cases the situationis actually reversed. 

To realize the primary importance of imagination one has only tovisualize reason, will, taste, sensation, and so forth, energizing inits absence. One becomes aware at once that such a limited activitydoes not cover the field of man's complex vision. Something--apower that creates, interprets, illumines, gathers up into large andflowing outlines--is absent from such an experience. 

Consider, in the next place, that primordial attribute of the complexvision which we commonly name conscience. We are not concernedhere with the world-old discussion as to the "origin" of conscience. Conscience, from the point of view we are now considering, is justas fundamental and axiomatic as will, or intuition, or sensation. 

The philosophy of the complex vision retains, with regard to what iscalled "evolution, " a completely suspended judgment. The processof historic evolution may or may not have resulted in the particulardifferentiation of species which we now behold. What we are nowassuming is that, in whatever way the differentiation of actual livingorganisms has come about, every particular living organism, including the planetary and stellar bodies, must possess in somedegree or other the organ of apprehension which we call thecomplex vision. 

Our assumption, in fact, is that every living thing has personality;that personality implies the existence of a definite soul-monad; thatwhere such a soul-monad exists there is a complex vision; andfinally that, where there is a complex vision, there must be, in somerudimentary or embryotic state, the eleven attributes of such avision, including the attribute which the human race has come tocall "conscience" and which is, in reality, "the power of response" tothe vision which we have named "immortal. " When evolutionistsretort to us that what we call personality is only a late and accidentalphenomenon in the long process of evolution, our answer is thatwhen they seek, according to such an assumption, to visualize theuniverse as it was _before personality appeared_, they really, only ina surreptitious and illegitimate manner, project their own consciouspersonality into "the vast backward and abysm of time, " to be theinvisible witness of this pre-personal universe. 

Thus when evolutionists assure us that there was once a period inthe history of the stellar system when nothing existed but masses ofgaseous nebulae, our reply is that they have forgotten that invisibleand shadowy projection of their own personality which is thepre-supposed watcher or witness of this "nothing-but-nebulae" state ofthings. 

The doctrine or hypothesis of evolution does not in any degreeexplain the mystery of the universe. All it does is to offer us anhypothetical picture--true or false--of the manner in which thechanges of organic and inorganic life succeeded one another in theirhistoric creation. Evolutionists have to make their start somewhere, just as "personalists" have; and it is much more difficult for them toshow how masses of utterly unconscious "nebulae" evoked themystery of personality than it is for us to show how the primordialexistence of personality demands at the very start some sort ofmaterial or bodily expression, whether of a nebular or of any otherkind. 

Evolutionists, forgetting the presence of that invisible "watcher" oftheir evolutionary process which they have themselves projectedinto the remote planetary past, assume as their axiomatic "data" thatsoulless unconscious chemical elements possess "within them" themiraculous power of producing living personalities. All one has todo is to pile up thousands upon thousands of years in which themiracle takes place. 

But the philosophy of the complex vision would indicate that noamount of piling up of centuries upon centuries could possiblyproduce out of "unconscious matter" the perilous and curious "stuff"which we call "consciousness of life. " And we would further replyto the evolutionists that their initial assumption as to the objectiveexistence, suspended in a vacuum, of masses of material chemistryis an assumption which has been abstracted and isolated from thetotal volume of those sense-impressions, which are the only actualreality we know, and which are the impressions made, in humanexperience, upon some living personality. 

This criticism of the evolutionists' inevitable attack upon us entersnaturally at this point; because, while the average mind is willingenough to grant some sort of vague omnipresent "will to evolve" tothe primordial "nebula" and even prepared to allow it such obscureconsciousness as is implied in the phrase "life-force" or "élan vital, "it is startled and shocked to a supreme degree when we assert thatsuch "nebula, " if it existed, was the outward body or form of aliving "soul-monad" possessed, even as human beings are, of everyattribute of the complex vision. 

The average mind, in its vague and careless mood, is ready to acceptour contention that some sort of will or reason or consciousnessexisted at the beginning of things. It is only when such a mindcomes to realize that what we are predicating is actual personality, with all the implications of that, that it cries out in protest. Theaverage mind can swallow our contention that reason and willexisted from the beginning because the average mind has beenpenetrated for centuries by vague traditions of an "over-soul" or anuniversal "reason" or "will. " It is only when in our analysis of theattributes of personality we come bolt up against the especiallyanthropomorphic attribute of "conscience" that it staggers andgasps. 

For the original "stellar gas" to be vaguely animated by someobscure "élan vital" seemed natural enough; but for it to be the"body" of some definite living soul seems almost humorous; and forsuch a living soul to possess the attribute of "conscience, " or thepower of response to the vision of immortals, seems not onlyhumorous but positively absurd. 

The philosophy of the complex vision, however, in its analysis ofthe eternal elements of personality is not in the least afraid ofreaching conclusions which appear "absurd" to the averageintelligence. The philosophy of the complex vision accepts theelement of the "absurd" or of the "outrageous" or of the "fantastic"in its primordial assumptions; for according to its contention thiselement of the "apparently impossible" is an essential ingredient inthe whole system of things. 

Life, according to this philosophy, is only one aspect of personality. Another aspect of personality is the apparently miraculous creationof "something" out of "nothing"; for the unfathomable creativepower of personality extends beyond and below all the organicphenomena which we group vaguely together under the name of"life. "

Thus when in our analysis of the attributes of the complex vision weare confronted by the evolutionary question as to how such a thing, as the thing we call "conscience, " got itself lodged in the littlecells of the human cranium, our answer is that the question stated inthis manner does not touch the essential problem at all. The essentialproblem from the point of view of the philosophy of the complexvision is not how "conscience, " or why other attribute of the soul, got itself lodged in the human skull, or expressed, shall we say, through the human skull, but how it is that the whole stream ofsense-impressions, of which the hardness and thickness of thehuman skull is only one impression among many, and the original"star-dust" or "star-nebulae" only another impression among many, ever got itself unified and synthesized into the form of "impression"at all. 

In other words the problem is not how the attributes of the soularose from the chemistry of the brain and the nerves; but how thebrain and the nerves together with the whole stream of materialphenomena from the star-dust upwards, ever got themselves unifiedand focussed into any sort of intelligibility or system. The averagehuman mind which feels a shock of distrust and suspicion directlywe suggest that the thing we name "conscience, " defined as thepower of response to the ideal vision, is an inalienable aspect ofwhat we call "the soul" wherever the soul exists, feels no sort ofshock or surprise when we appeal to its own "conscience, " or whenit appeals to the "conscience" of its child or its dog or even of itscat, or when it displays anger with its trees or its flowers fortheir apparent wilfulness and errancy. 

Kant found in the moral sense of humanity his door of escape fromthe fatal relativity of pure reason with its confounding antinomies. Huxley found in the moral sense of humanity a mysterious, unrelated phenomenon that refused to fall into line with the rest ofthe evolutionary-stream. But when, in one hold act of faith or ofimagination, we project the content of our own individual soul intothe circle of every other possible "soul, " including the "souls" ofsuch phenomenal vortices of matter as those from which historicevolution takes its start, this impossible gulf or "lacuna" dividingthe human scene from all previous "scenes" is immediately bridged;and the whole stream of material sense-impression flows forward, inparallel and consonant congruity, with the underlying creativeenergy of all the complex visions of which it is the expression. 

Therefore, there is no need for us, in our consideration of the basicattribute of the soul which we call conscience, to tease ourselveswith the fabulous image of some prehistoric "cave-man" supposedlydevoid of such a sense. To do this is to employ a trick of theisolated reason quite alien from our real human imagination. 

Our own personality is so constructed that it is impossible for us torealize with any sort of intelligent sympathy what the feelings ofthis conscience-less cave-man would be. To contemplate hisexistence at all we have to resort to pure rationalistic speculation. We have to leave our actual human experience completely behind. But the philosophy of the complex vision is an attempt to interpretthe mystery of the universe in terms of nothing else than actualhuman experience. So we are not only permitted but compelled toput out of court this conscience-less cave-man of pure speculation. It is true that we encounter certain eccentric human beings whodeny that they possess this "moral sense"; but one has only toobserve them for a little while under the pressure of actual life tofind out how they deceive themselves. 

Experience certainly indicates that every human being, howevernormal and "good, " has somewhere in him a touch of insanity and avein of anti-social aberration. But no human being, howeverabnormal or however "criminal, " is born into the world without thisinvisible monitor we call "conscience. "

The curious pathological experience which might be called"conscience-killing" is certainly not uncommon. But it is anexperiment that has never been more than approximately successful. In precisely the same way we might practise "reason-killing" or"intuition-killing" or "taste-killing. " One may set out to hunt andtry to kill any basic attribute of our complex vision; but the proof ofthe truth of our whole argument lies in the fact that these murderouscampaigns are never completely successful. The "murdered"attribute refuses to remain quiet in its grave. It stretches out an armfrom beneath the earth. It shakes the dust off and comes to lifeagain. 

When we leave the question as to the existence of conscience, andenquire what the precise and particular "command" of consciencemay be in any individual case, we approach the edge of analtogether different problem. 

The particular message or command of conscience is bound to differin a thousand ways in the cases of different personalities. Only in itsultimate essence it cannot differ. Because, in its ultimate essence, the conscience of every individual is confronted by that eternalduality of love and malice which is the universal contradiction at thebasis of every living soul. 

But short of this there is room for an infinite variety of "categoricalimperatives. " The conscience of one personality is able to accept asits "good" the very same thing that another personality is compelledto regard as its "evil. " Indeed it is conceivable that a moment mightarise in the history of the race when one single solitary individualcalled that thing "good" or that thing "evil" which all the rest of theworld regarded in the opposite sense. Not only so; but it might evenhappen that the genius and persuasiveness of such a person mightchange into its direct opposite the moral valuation of the whole ofhumanity. In many quite ordinary cases there may arise a clashbetween the conventional morality of the community and the verdictof an individual conscience. In such cases it would be towards whatthe community termed "immoral" that the conscience of theindividual would point, and from the thing that the communitytermed "moral" that it would turn instinctively away. 

A conscience of this kind would suffer the pain of remorse when inits weakness it let itself be swayed by the "community-morality"and it would experience the pleasure of relief when in absoluteloneliness it defied the verdict of society. 

Let us consider now an attribute of man's complex vision whichmust instantaneously be accepted as basic and fundamental by everyliving person. I refer to what we call "sensation. " The impressionsof the outward senses may be criticized. They may be corrected, modified, reduced to order, and supplemented by other considerations. Conclusions based upon them may be questioned. But whatever be donewith them, or made by them, they must always remain an integraland inveterate aspect of man's personality. 

The sensations of pain and pleasure--who can deny the primordialand inescapable character of these? Not that the pursuit of pleasureor the avoidance of pain can be the unbroken motive-force even ofthe most hedonistic among us. Our complex vision frequently flingsus passionately upon pain. We often embrace pain in an ecstasy ofwelcome. Nor is this fierce embracing of pain "motivated" by adeliberate desire to get pleasure out of pain. It seems in somestrange way due to an attraction towards pain for its own sake--towards pain, as though pain were really beautiful and desirable initself. One element in all this is undoubtedly due to the desire ofthe will to assert its freedom and the integrity of its being; inother words to the desire of the will towards the irrational, thecapricious, the destructive, the chaotic. 

It has been only the least imaginative of philosophers who havetaken for granted that man invariably desires his own welfare. Mandoes not even invariably desire his own pleasure. He desires thereactive vibration of power; and very often this "power" is thepower to rush blindly upon destruction. But, whether dominant ornot as a motive affecting the will, it remains that our experience ofpleasure and pain is a basic experience of the complex vision. Andthis experience of sensation is not only a passive experience. Theattribute of sensation has its active, its energetic, its creativeside. No one who has suffered extreme pain or enjoyed exquisite andthrilling pleasures, can deny the curious fact that these things taketo themselves a kind of independent life within us and becomesomething very like "entities" or living separate objects. 

This phenomenon is due to the fact that our whole personalityincarnates itself in the pain or in the pleasure of the moment. Suchpain, such pleasure, is the quintessential attenuated "matter" withwhich our soul clothes itself. At such moments we _are_ the pain;we _are_ the pleasure. Our human identity seems merged, lost, annihilated. Our soul seems no longer _our_ soul. It becomes thesoul of the overpowering sensation. We ourselves at such momentsbecome fiery molecules of pain, burning atoms of pleasure. Just asthe logical reason can abstract itself from the other primal energiesand perform strange and fantastic tricks, so the activity of sensationcan so absorb, obsess and overpower the whole personality that therhythm of existence is entirely broken. 

Pain at the point of ecstasy, pleasure at the point of ecstasy, areboth of them destructive of those rare moments when our complex visionresolves itself into music. Such music is indeed itself a kind ofecstasy; but it is an ecstasy intellectualized and consciouslycreative. Pain is present there and pleasure is present there; butthey are there only as orchestral notes in a larger unity that hasabsorbed them and transmuted them. 

When a work of art by reason of its sensational appeal reduces us toan ecstasy of pleasure or pain it renders impossible that supreme actof the complex vision by means of which the immortal calm of theideal vision descends upon the unfathomable universe. 

Sensation carried to its extreme limit becomes impersonal; for in itsunconscious mechanism personality is devoured. But it does notbecome impersonal in that magical liberating sense in which theimpersonal is an escape, bringing with it a feeling of large, cool, quiet, and unruffled space. It becomes impersonal in a thick, gross, opaque, mechanical manner. 

There is brutality and outrage; there is bestiality and obscenityabout both pain and pleasure when in their voracious maw they devourthe magic of the unfathomable world. Thus it may be noted that mostgreat and heroic souls hold their supreme pain at a distance fromthem, with a proud gesture of contempt, and go down at the lastwith their complex vision unruffled and unimpaired. There is indeeda still deeper "final moment" than this; but it is so rare as to beout of the reach of average humanity. I refer to an attitude like thatof Jesus upon the cross; in whose mood towards his own sufferingthere was no element of "pride of will" but only an immense pity forthe terrible sensitiveness of all life, and a supreme heightening ofthe emotion of love towards all life. 

It will be noted that in my analysis of "sensation" I have saidnothing of what are usually called "the five senses. " These sensesare obviously the material "feelers" or the gates of materialsentiency by which the soul's attribute of sensation feeds itself fromthe objective world; but they are so penetrated and percolated, through and through, by the other basic activities of the soul, that itis extremely difficult to disentangle from our impressions of sight, of sound, of touch, of taste, and of smell, those interwoven threadsof reason, imagination and so forth which so profoundly modify andtransmute, even in the art of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, andsmelling, the various manifestations of "the objective mystery"which we apprehend in our sensuous grasp. 

By emphasizing the feelings of pleasure and pain as the primarycharacteristics of the attribute of sensation we are indicating thefact that every sensation we experience carries with it in someperceptible degree or other, the feeling of "well-being" or thefeeling of distress. 

We now come to consider that dim, obscure, but neverthelesspowerful energy, which the universal tradition of language dignifiesby the name of "instinct. " This "instinct" is the portion of theactivity of the soul which works more blindly and less consciouslythan any other. 

The French philosopher Bergson isolates and emphasizes thissubterranean activity until it seems to him to hold in its grasp adeeper secret of life than any other energy which man possesses Tosecure for instinct this primary place in the panorama of life it isnecessary to eliminate from the situation that silent witness whichwe call "the mind" or self-consciousness; that witness which fromits invisible watch-tower looks forth upon the whole spectacle. It isnecessary to take for granted the long historic stream ofevolutionary development. It is necessary to regard thisdevelopment in its organic totality as the sole reality with which wehave to deal. 

The invisible mental witness being eliminated, it becomesnecessary, if instinct is to be thus made supreme, to regard theappearance of the soul as a mere stage in an evolutionary process, the driving-force of which is the power of instinct itself. Planetsand plants, men and animals, are seen in this way to be all dominatedby instinct; and instinct is found to be so much the most importantelement in evolution, that upon it, rather than upon anything else, the whole future of the universe may be said to depend. 

Having made this initial plunge into shameless objectivity, havingput completely out of court the invisible witness of it all, we findourselves reduced to regarding this "blind" instinct as the galvanicbattery which moves the world. Thus isolated from the other powersof the soul, this mysterious energy, this subterranean driving-force, has to bear the whole weight of everything that happens in spaceand time. A strange sort of "blindness" must its blindness be, whenits devices can supply the place of the most passionate intellectualstruggles of the mind!

If it is blind, it gropes its way, in its blindness, through theuttermost gulfs of space and into the nethermost abysses of life. Ifit is dumb, its silence is the irresistible silence of Fate, thesilence of the eternal "Mothers. "

But the "instinct" which is one of the basic attributes of the complexvision is not quite such an awe-inspiring thing as this. To raise itinto such a position as this there has to be a vigorous suppression, asI have hinted, of many other attributes of the soul. Instinct may bedefined as the pressure of obscure creative desire, drawn from theinscrutable recesses of the soul, malleable up to a certain point byreason and will, but beyond that point remaining unconscious, irrational, incalculable, elusive. That it plays an enormous part inthe process of life cannot be denied; but the part it plays is not soisolated from consciousness as sometimes has been imagined. 

There is in truth a strange reciprocity between instinct andself-consciousness, according to which they both play into eachother's hands. This is above all true of great artists' work, whichin a superficial sense might be called unconscious, but which in adeeper sense is profoundly conscious. It seems as though, in greatworks of art, a certain superficial reasoning is sacrificed toinstinct, but in that very sacrifice a deeper level of reason isreached between which and instinct there is no longer anythingbut complete understanding. 

To intellectualize instinct is one of the profoundest secrets of theart of life; and it is only when instinct is thus intellectualized, orbrought into focus with the other aspects of the soul, that it is ableto play its proper rhythmic part in the musical synthesis of thecomplex vision. But although we cannot allow to instinct theall-absorbing part in the world-play which Bergson claims for it, itremains that we have to regard it as one of the most mysterious andincalculable of the energies of the soul. It is instinct which bringsall living entities into relation with something sub-conscious in theirown nature. 

Under the pressure of instinct man recognizes the animal in himself, the plant in himself, and even a strange affinity with the inorganicand the inanimate. It is instinct in us which attracts us so strangelyto the earth under our feet. It is instinct which attracts certainindividual souls to certain particular natural elements, such as air, fire, sand, mould, rain, wind, water, and the like; a kind of remoteatavistic reciprocity in us stretching out towards that particularelement. It is by means of instinct that we are able to sink into thatmysterious sub-conscious world which underlies the consciouslevels of every soul-monad. Under the groping and fumblingguidance of this strange power we seem to come into touch with theprofoundest reservoirs of our personal identity. 

Considering what fantastic and cruel tricks the lonely thinkingpower, the abstract reason, has been allowed to play us it is nowonder that this French philosopher has been tempted to turn awayfrom reason and find in instinct the ultimate solution. Instinct, as wegive ourselves up to it, seems to carry us into the very nerves andtissues and veins and pulses of life. Its verdicts seem to reach uswith an absolute and unquestionable authority. They seem to bearupon them an "imprimatur" more powerful than any moral sanction. Potent and terrible, direct and final, instinct seems to rise up out ofthe depths and break every law. 

It leaps forth from our inmost being like a second self morepowerful than we are. It invades religion. It incarnates itself inlust. It obsesses taste. It masquerades as intuition. It triumphs overreason. With an irrationality, that seems at the same time terribleand beautiful, instinct moves straight to its goal. It follows itspurpose with demonic tenacity, heedless of logic, contemptuous ofconsequences. It cares nothing for contradictions. It forcescontradictions to lose themselves in one another according to somesecret law of its own, unknown to the law of reason. 

Such, then, is instinct, the sub-conscious fatality of Nature sodifficult to control; whose unrestrained activity is capable ofcompletely destroying the rhythm of the complex vision. Nothingbut the power of the apex-thought of man's whole concentratedbeing is able to dominate this thing. It may be detected lurking inthe droop of the Sphinx's eyelids and in the cruel smile upon hermouth. But the answer given to the challenge of this subterraneanforce is not, after all, any logical judgment of the pure reason. Itis the answer of the vision of the artist, holding its treacherousmaterial under his creative hand. 

Let us turn now to the attribute of "intuition. " Intuition is a thingmore clearly definable and more easily analysed than almost anyother of the aspects of the soul. Intuition is the feminine counterpartof imagination; and, as compared with instinct, it is a power whichacts in clearly denned, isolated, intermittent movements, each one ofwhich has a definite beginning and a definite end. As comparedwith imagination, intuition is passive and receptive; as comparedwith instinct it does not fumble and grope forward, steadily andtenaciously, among the roots of things; but it suspends itself, mirror-like, upon the surface of the unfathomable waters, andsuspended there reflects in swift sudden glimpses the mysteriousmovements of the great deep. In this process of reflecting, orapprehending in sudden, intermittent glimpses, the mysterious depthsof the life of the soul, intuition is less affected by the reasonor by the will than any other aspect of the complex vision. 

Instinct, in secret sub-conscious alliance with the will, is apermanent automatic energy, working in the hidden darkness of theroots of things like an ever-flowing subterranean stream. Therevelations of intuition, on the other hand, are not flowing andconstant, but separate, isolated, distinct and detached. In thesubject-matter of their revelations, too, intuition and instinct arevery different. If the recesses of the soul be compared to a fortifiedcastle, instinct is the active messenger of the place, continuallyissuing forth on secret errands concerning the real nature of whichhe is himself often quite ignorant. Intuition, on the contrary, isthe little postern gate at the back of the building, set open atrare moments to the wide fields and magical forests which extend tothe far-off horizon. 

Instinct is always found in close contact with sensation, groping itsways through the midst of the mass of material impressions, actingand reacting as it fumbles among such impressions. Intuition seemsto deal directly and absolutely with a clear and definite landscapebehind the superficial landscape, with a truth behind truth, with areality within reality. 

To take an instance from common experience: a stranger, anunknown person, enters our circle. Instinct, working automaticallyand sensationally, may attract us powerfully towards such a person, with a steady, irresistible attraction. Intuition, on the contrary, uttering its revelation abruptly and with, so to speak, one suddenmysterious cry, may warn us of some dangerous quicksand orperilous jungle in such a stranger's nature of which instinct wastotally ignorant because the thing was what might be called a"spiritual quality" lying deeper than those sensational or magneticlevels through which instinct feels its way. 

The instinct of animals or birds for instance warns them veryquickly with regard to the presence of some natural enemy whoseapproach they apprehend through some mysterious sense-impressionbeyond the analysis of human reason. But when their enemyis the mental intention of a human being they are only too easilytricked. 

To take quite a different instance. It may easily happen that whileconscience has habitually driven us to a certain course of actionagainst which instinct has never revolted because of itspreoccupation with the senses, some sudden flash of intuitionreaching us from the hidden substratum of our being changes ourwhole perspective and gives to conscience itself a completelyopposite bias. What these intermittent revelations of intuitioncertainly do achieve is the preservation in the soul's memory of theclear and deep and free and unfathomable margins of the ultimatemystery, those wavering sea-edges and twilight-shores of our being, which the austere categories of rational logic tend to shut out as ifby impenetrable walls. 

It remains to consider the attribute of memory. Memory is the namewhich we give to that intrinsic susceptibility, implying an intrinsicpermanence or endurance in the material which displayssusceptibility, such as makes it possible for what the soul feels orwhat the soul creates to write down its own record, so that it can beread at will, or if not "at will, " at least can be read, if the properstimulus or shock be applied. 

Memory is not the cause of the soul's concrete identity. The soul'sconcrete identity is the cause or natural ground of memory. Memoryis the "passive-active" power by means of which the concreteidentity of the soul grows richer, fuller, more articulate, morecomplex and more subtle. 

In looking back over these eleven attributes of the "soul-monad, "what we have to remark is, that two of the number differ radically intheir nature from the rest. The attribute of emotion differs from therest in the sense that it is the living substantial unity or ultimatesynthesis in which they all move. It is indeed more than this. For itis the actual "stuff" or "material" out of which they are all, so tospeak, "made" or upon which they all, so to speak, inscribe theirdiverse creations. 

The permanent "surface, " or identical susceptibility, of this ebbingand flowing stream of emotion is memory; but the emotion itself, divided into the positive and negative "pole, " as we say of love andmalice, is an actual projection upon the objective universe of theintrinsic "stuff" or psycho-material "substance" of which thesubstratum of the soul is actually composed. The other aspects ofthe soul are, so to speak, the various "tongues" of diversely colouredflame with which the soul pierces the "objective mystery"; but thesubstance of all these flames is one and the same. It is the soulitself, projected upon the plane of material impression; and thusprojected, becoming the conflicting duality to which I give the name of"emotion. "

The attribute of "will, " also, differs radically from the rest; in thesense that "will" is the power which the soul possesses ofencouraging or suppressing, re-vivifying or letting fade, all the otherattributes of the soul, including that attribute which is the substanceand synthesis of them all and which I name "emotion. "

In regard to "emotion" the will can do three separate things. It canencourage the emotion of love and suppress that of malice. It canencourage the emotion of malice and suppress that of love. Andfinally it can use its energy in the effort, an effort which can neverbe totally successful, to suppress all emotion, of any kind at all. 

Man's complex vision then consists, in simple terms, ofself-consciousness, reason, taste, imagination, conscience, instinct, sensation, intuition, will, memory, and emotion. These variousactivities, differentiated clearly enough in their separate energizing, must never be regarded as absolutely separate "faculties, " but ratheras relatively separated "aspects. " Behind all of them and under all ofthem is the complex vision itself, felt by all of us in rare moments inits creative totality, but constantly being distorted and obscured asone or other of its primal energies invades the appropriate territoryof some other. 

The complex vision must not be regarded as the mere sum oraccumulated agglomeration of all these. It is much more than this. Itis more than a mere formal focussing of its own attributes. It is morethan a mere logical unity suspended in a vacuum. 

The complex vision is the vision of a living self, of an organicpersonality, of an actual soul-monad. It may be the vision of a man. It may be the vision of a plant or a planet or a god. It may be thevision of entities undreamed of and of existences inconceivable. Itmay be the vision, for example, of some strange "soul of space" or"soul of the ether" whose consciousness is extended throughout thevisible universe and even throughout the "etherial medium" whichbinds all souls together. 

But whether the vision of a plant, a man, or a god, the complexvision seems to bring with it its own immediate revelation thatwhere there is any form of "matter, " however attenuated, such"matter" is the outward expression of some inward living soulwhose energies have some mysterious correspondence to the elevenaspects of the soul of man. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE SOUL'S APEX-THOUGHT

It now becomes necessary to discuss the connection between whatI have named the soul's "apex-thought" and certain permanentaspects of life with which this "apex-thought" has to deal. 

The "apex-thought" is the name I give to that synthetic andconcentrating effort of the soul by means of which the variousenergies of the complex vision are brought into focus and fusedwith one another. In accordance with my favourite metaphoricalimage, the "apex-thought" is the extreme point of the arrow-headof the soul; the point with which it pierces its ways into eternity. 

It is necessary that I should indicate the connection between theactivity of this apex-point of the complex vision and the variousperplexing human problems round which our controversiessmoulder and burn. It is advisable that I should indicate theconnection between the activity of this "apex-thought" and thatthing which the world has agreed to call Religion. 

It is advisable that I should indicate the relation of the"apex-thought" to those recurrent moods of profound human scepticismwherein we deny the attainability of any "truth" at all. 

It is advisable that I should indicate the relation of theapex-thought to any possible "new organ of vision" with which someunforeseen experiment of the soul may suddenly endow us. And itis above all advisable that I should show the relation between thisfocussed synthesis of the soul's complexity and the actual physicalbody whose material senses are part of this complexity. 

The whole problem of the art of life may be said to lie in thequestion of co-ordination. The actual process of coordination is thesupreme and eternal difficulty. Only at rare moments do weindividually approximate to its achievement. Only once or twice, itmay be, in a whole life-time, do we actually achieve it. But it is bythe power and insight of such fortunate moments that we attainwhatever measure of permanent illumination adds dignity andcourage to our days. 

We live by the memory of such moments. We live by the hope oftheir return. In the meanwhile our luck or our ill luck, as livinghuman beings, depends on no outward events or circumstances buton our success in the conscious effort of approximation to what, when it does arrive, seems to take the grace and ease andinevitable beauty of a free gift of the gods. 

This fortunate rhythm of the primordial energies of the complexvision may be felt and realized without being expressed in words. The curse of what we call "cleverness" is that it hastens to findfacile and fluent expression for what cannot be easily and fluentlyexpressed. Education is too frequently a mere affair of words, asuperficial encouragement of superficial expression. It is for thisreason that many totally uneducated persons achieve, unknown toall except their most intimate friends, a far closer approach to thisdifficult co-ordination than others who are not only well-educatedbut are regarded by the world as famous leaders of modernthought. 

It will be remarked that in my list of the primordial energies of thecomplex vision I do not mention religion. This is not because I donot recognize the passionate and formidable role played byreligion in the history of the human race, nor because I regard the"religious instinct" as a thing outgrown and done with. I have notincluded it because I cannot regard it as a distinct and separateattribute, in the sense in which reason, conscience, intuition and soforth, are distinct and separate attributes, of the complex vision. 

I regard it as a name given in common usage to certain prematureand disproportioned efforts at co-ordination among theseattributes, and I am well content to apply the word "religion" tothat sacred ecstasy, at once passionate and calm, at once personaland impersonal, which suffuses our being with an unutterablehappiness when the energies of the complex vision are broughtinto focus. I regard the word religion as a word that has drawn andattracted to itself, in its descent down the stream of time, so richand so intricate a cargo of human feelings that it has come to meantoo many things to be any longer of specific value in aphilosophical analysis. 

Any sort of reaction against the primeval fear with which mancontemplates the unknown, is religion. The passionate craving ofhuman beings for a love which changes not nor passes away, isreligion. 

The desperate longing to find an idea, a principle, a truth, a"cause, " for the sake of which we can sacrifice our personalpleasure and our personal selfishness, is religion. 

The craving for some unity, some synthesis, some universalmeaning in the system of things, is religion. The desire for an"over-life" or an "over-world, " in which the distress, disorder, misunderstandings and cruelties of our present existence areredeemed, is religion. 

The desire to find something real and eternal behind the transientflow of appearance, is religion. The desire to force upon others byviolence, by trickery, by fire, by sword, by persecution, by magic, by persuasion, by eloquence, by martyrdom, an idea which is moreimportant to us than life itself, is religion. 

It will be seen from this brief survey of the immense field whichthe word "religion" has come to cover, that I am justified inregarding it rather as a name given to the emotional thrilland ecstatic abandonment which accompanies any sort of co-ordinationof the attributes of the complex vision, proportioned ordisproportioned, than as a distinct and separate attribute in itself. 

Only when the co-ordination of our human activities rises to theheight of a supreme music, can we regard "religion" as the mostbeautiful and most important of all human experiences. And at themoment when it takes this form it resolves itself into nothing morethan an unutterable feeling of ecstasy produced by the sense thatwe are in harmony with the rest of the universe. Religion, as I amcompelled to think of it, resolves itself into that reaction ofunspeakable happiness produced in us, when by any kind ofsynthetic movement, however crude, we are either saved fromunreality or reconciled to reality. 

Religion is, in fact, the name we give to the ecstasy in the heart ofthe complex vision, when, in any sort of coordination between ourcontradictory energies, we at once escape from ourselves andrealize ourselves. We are forbidden to speak of the "religioussense" or the "religious instinct" because, truly interpreted, religion is not a single activity among other activities, but theemotional reaction upon our whole nature when that nature isfunctioning in its creative fulness. 

Religion must therefore be regarded as the culminating ecstasy ofthe art of life, or as a premature snatching at such an ecstasy whilethe art of life is still discordant and inchoate. In the first instanceit is the supreme reward of the creative act. In the second instance itis a tragic temptation to rest by the way in a unity which is anillusive unity and in a heaven from which "the sun of the morning"is excluded. It thus comes about that what we call religion isfrequently a hindrance to the rhythm of the apex-thought. It maybe a sentimental consolation. It may be an excuse for cruelty andobscurantism. There is always a danger when it is thusprematurely manifested, that it should darken, distort, deprave andobstruct the movement of creation. 

At this point, an objection arises to our whole method of researchwhich it is necessary to meet at once. This objection, a peculiarlymodern one, is based upon the theory, handed about in modernliterature as a kind of diploma of cleverness and repeatedsuperficially by many who are not really sceptical at all, that it isimpossible in this world to arrive, under any circumstances, at anykind of truth. 

Persons who repeat this sceptical dogma are simply refusing toacknowledge the evidence of their own experience. However rareour high rhythmic moments may be, some sort of approximationto them, quite sufficient to destroy the validity of this absolutescepticism, must, if a person honestly confesses the truth, and doesnot dissimulate out of intellectual pride, have entered into theexperience of every human being. 

Let us, however, consider the kind of dogmatic language whichthese sceptics use. They speak of "life" as a thing which soperpetually changes, expands, diminishes, undulates, advances, recedes, evolves, revolves, explodes, precipitates, lightens, darkens, thins, thickens, hardens, softens, over-brims, concentrates, grows shallow, grows deep, that it were ridiculous even to attemptto create an equilibrium, or rhythmic "parting-of-the-ways, "out of such evasive and treacherous material. 

My answer to this sceptical protest is a simple one. It is an appealto human experience. I maintain that this modern tendency to talkdogmatically and vaguely about "the evasive fluidity of life" isnothing more than a crafty pathological retreat from theformidable challenge of life. It is indeed a kind of mental drug orspiritual opiate by the use of which many unheroic souls hidethemselves from the sardonic stare of the eternal Sphinx. It is aweakness comparable to the weakness of many premature religioussyntheses; and it has the same soothing and disintegrating effectupon the creative energy of the mind. 

What, as a matter of fact, hurts us all, much more than anytendency of life to be over-fluid and over-evasive, is the atrocioustendency of life to be inflexible, rigorous, implacable, harshlyimmobile. This vague dogmatic sentiment about "the fluidity oflife, " is one of the instinctive ways by which we try to pretend thatour prison-walls are not walls at all, but only friendly and flowingvapour. None of the great works of art and poetry, the austerebeauty of which reflects the real nature of the universe, couldcontinue to exercise their magical power upon us, could continueto sustain us and comfort us, if those tragic ultimate realities werenot ultimate realities. 

The sublime ritual of art, which at its noblest has the character ofreligion, could not exist for a moment in a world as softlyfluctuating and as dimly wavering as this modern scepticismwould make it. Life is at once more beautiful and far more tragic. Though surrounded by mystery the grand outlines of the worldremain austerely and sternly the same. The sun rises and sets. Themoon draws the tides. Man goes forth to his work and his labouruntil the evening. Man is born; man loves and hates; man dies. And over him the same unfathomable spaces yawn. And underhim the same unfathomable spaces yawn. Time, with its seasons, passes him in unalterable procession. From birth to death his soulwrestles with the universe; and the drama of which he is theprotagonist lifts the sublime monotony of its scenery from thezenith to the nadir. 

Let any man ask himself what it is that hurts him most in life andyet seems most real to him. He will be compelled to answer . . . "the atrocious regularity of things and their obscene necessity. "The very persons who talk so glibly about the "fluidity" and"evasiveness" of life are persons in whose own flesh thewedge-like granite of fate has lodged itself with crushing finality. Life has indeed been too rigid and too stark for them; and inplace of seizing it in an embrace as formidable as its own, they goaside muttering, "life is evasive; life is fluid; life brims over. "

This sceptical dogma of "evasiveness" is generally found inalliance with some vague modern "religion" whose chief object isto strip the world of the dignity of its real tragedy and endow itwith the indignity of some pretended assurance. This is the role ofthat superficial optimism so inherently repugnant to the aestheticsense. 

Such apologists for a shallow and ignoble idealism are in the habitof declaring that "the tendency of modern thought" is to render"materialism" unthinkable; but when these people speak ofmaterialism they are thinking of the austere limits of that vastobjective spectacle into which we are all born. This spectacle isindeed mysterious. It is indeed staggering and awful. But it isirrevocably _there_. And no vague talk about the "evasiveness"and "over-brimmingness" of life can alter one jot or tittle of itseternal outlines. 

From the sublime terror of this extraordinary drama such personsare anxious to escape, because the iron of it has entered into theirsouls. They do not see that the only "escape" offered by the realityof things is a change of attitude towards this spectacle, not anassertion that the form of this spectacle is unfixed and wavering. No psychological or mathematical speculation has the power toalter the essential outlines of this spectacle. 

If such speculations could alter it, then the aesthetic sense ofhumanity would be driven to transform itself; and a new aestheticsense, adapted to this new "evasiveness of life, " would have totake its place. Attempts are indeed being made at this very hour to"start fresh" with a new aesthetic sense and only the winnowingprocess of time and the pressure of personal experience can refutesuch attempts. Meanwhile all we can do is to note the rejection ofsuch attempts by the verdict of the complex vision; a rejectionwhich indicates that if such attempts are to be successful they mustimply the substitution of a new complex vision for the one whichhumanity has used since the beginning. 

In other words they must imply a radical change in the basicattributes of human nature. Humanity, to justify them, mustbecome some sort of super-humanity; and a new world inhabitedby a new race must take the place of the world we know. Such anattempt to substitute a new humanity for the old is alreadyconscious of itself in those curious experiments of psychicalresearch which are based upon the hypothesis that some completelynew organs of sense are on the point of being discovered. Philosopherswho believe in the inherent unchangeableness of our present instrumentof research--the complex vision as it now exists--can only look on atthese experiments with an attitude of critical detachment; and waituntil time and experience have justified or refuted them. 

Philosophers who believe in the unchangeableness of the complexvision are bound to recognize that the human will, which is a basicattribute of this vision, must in any case play a considerable part inthe creation of the future. But from their point of view the will is, after all, only one of these basic attributes. There is also theaesthetic sense. And the aesthetic sense is totally averse to thisnew kind of humanity and this new kind of world. The eternalvision of those invisible "sons of the universe, " the proof of whoseexistence is a deduction from the encounters of all actual soulswith one another, would seem to be entirely irreconcilable withany new complex vision whose nature had been completelychanged. 

The visible spectacle of the world with its implied "eternalarbiters" would be transmuted and transfigured by such anupheaval. For as long as the human will, as we know it now, remains in association with the aesthetic sense as we know it now, the creation of the future--however yielding and indetermined--must depend upon the form, the shape, the principle, the prophecy, the premonition, existing from the beginning in the nature ofthings. And it is precisely this shape, this form, this principle, thishope, this dream, this essential motive of those sons of theuniverse whose existence is implied "when two and three aregathered together, " which would be destroyed and annihilated, ifthe complex vision were transformed into something else and anew world took the place of the old. 

It is the existence of these real "immortals" confronting this realuniverse which makes possible the feeling we have that in spite ofall our differences, some accumulated stream of beauty, truth andgoodness, does actually carry the past forward into the future, doesactually create the future according to a premonition and a hopewhich have been there from the beginning. 

This is the supreme act of faith of the complex vision. This is thesupreme act of faith which saves us at once from our subjectiveisolation and from the will towards the acceptance of a premature"religion. " This is what saves us from any psychological ormathematical or logical speculation, which would contradict thishope or destroy the reality of the universe from which this hopeemerges. 

When we come to a general consideration of the various attributesof the complex vision we are struck at once by the appalling powerthey each have, when not held in check, of cancelling oneanother's contribution. It is for this reason that my newly-coinedword was unavoidable if we are to emphasize the synthetic energyof the complex vision when it exercises its control over thesediverse attributes and resists their constant tendency to cancel oneanother. It was precisely to emphasize this synthetic energy ofthe soul that I have made use of the arbitrary expression"apex-thought. " For if we think of these various attributes asshooting forth like flames from the arrowhead of the individual soul, we must think of this coordinating energy as the power whichcontinually draws these flames together when they deviate fromtheir focussed intensity, and continually restores, from itsinharmonious dispersion, the concentration of their arrows' point. If we are permitted to use this image of a horizontal pyramid offlames it will be seen how important a part is played by thisapex-thought in concentrating the energies of the complex vision sothat it can "drive" or "burn" or "pierce" its way into the surroundingmystery. 

For this image of an arrow-head of focussed flame which is inconstant danger of being dispersed as the flames recede from oneanother and are blown backwards is only a symbolic way ofindicating how difficult it is to pierce with our complicatedinstrument of research the vast mystery which surrounds us. 

All this is mere pictorial metaphor; but in visualizing the humansoul as a moving arrow-head, composed of flickering flames thatonly now and then combine into a sharp point, while at other timesthe wind drives them apart and bends them back, I am suggestingthat the ultimate reality of things is a state of confused movementcontinually becoming a state of concentrated movement. I amsuggesting that the secrets of life only yield themselves up to amovement of desperation. I am suggesting that the spirit ofcreation is also the spirit of destruction, and that the real objectof the energy of creation is to pierce with its burning light thedarkness of the objective mystery. 

As proof of the necessity of keeping this apex-thought in constantpoise, let me reiterate one or two of the philosophical disasterswhich result from a cessation of its rhythmic function. When thereason, for instance, usurps the whole field and acts in isolationfrom the imagination and the intuition, it tends to persuade us todeny the very existence of that deepest and most vivid reality ofall, the handle of our spear-head, the base of our pyramid, themysterious entity within us, which we have come, following thetraditions of the centuries, to name the "soul. " And not only doesthe soul disappear when the reason thus isolates itself, but anotherprimary revelation of the complex vision, I mean that half-created, half-discovered object of the senses popularly called "matter, "disappears with it. 

Man's self-consciousness is thus left suspended "in vacuo" with noconcrete reality within it and no concrete reality outside it; and"thought-in-the-abstract" becomes the only truth. 

But not only can reason thus set itself up in isolated usurpationagainst such other activities as imagination, intuition, will or taste;it can also divide itself against itself and emerge in completelycontradictory functions. In the form of mathematical logic, forinstance, it can dispose most drastically of that living organicworld which in the form of experimental science it assumes to bethe only truth. Again it may happen that reason will arbitrarily allyitself with one or the other of the other attributes and on thestrength of such an alliance seek to obliterate all the rest. Thuswhile it is impossible to avoid the admission that of all these basicattributes reason is the most important, because without it all therest would be inarticulate and dumb, it remains true that to holdreason in balanced relation to all the rest and to hold its owncontradictory tendencies in balanced relation to one another is anundertaking of such extraordinary difficulty that if it were not forthe complex vision's possession of that co-ordinating power whichI have named its apex-thought, one might well pardon the mood ofthose persons who use reason to drug reason and who steer theirboat into some unruffled backwater of dogma or mysticism. 

The necessity of such an infinitely delicate poise or balance orrhythm in these high matters, the necessity of keeping all theseconflicting attributes at this exquisite point of suspense betweenabysses of contradiction, is a necessity which compels us torecognize that philosophy is nothing more or less than the supremeart, and the most difficult of all arts. 

Certainly, it seems as though thought has to become in a profoundsense rhythmical, has to take to itself the nature of music, before itcan become the truth. For the truth does not seem to be a merepicture of the system of things, reflected in the mirror of the mind. The truth seems to be the very system of things itself, becomeconscious and volitional, changing, growing, living, destroying, creating. Thus it comes about that the thought which plunges intothe universe must of necessity, even in that very act, remould andre-fashion the universe. Thus Nature perpetually recreates herselfby the passion of her children and is forever re-born as the child ofher own offspring. 

But if the supreme difficulty of the art of life lies in themaintenance of this rhythm between these primary attributes, itmust never be forgotten that these "attributes" are, after all, only_aspects_ of the soul. The soul _is_ each of them, not _in_ each ofthem. They are not "faculties" through which the soul acts. Theyare never absolutely distinct from one another. There is somethingof each of them in every one of them, and every attempt whichthey make to establish themselves in an independent existence isonly an attempt of the soul itself to live a perverted and adiscordant, instead of a natural and a harmonious life. 

The rarity and difficulty of that high art which brings all theseorchestral players into harmony is sufficient cause to account forthe scarcity of genuine philosophical thought in this confusedworld. The human soul, looking desperately round for some calmyet passionate light to save its hours from ruinous waste, turnsaway in bitter disillusion from the thin dust and the swollenvapour that are offered it. 

Out of the logical laboratories of the abstract reason this thin dustis offered; and out of the ideal factories of the wish for superficialcomfort this iridescent vapour is poured forth. That burning secretof life, that lovely and terrible reality for which the soul pines isnot to be found in any mere outward fact or in any mere subjectiveintuition. 

Such a fact may crumble to pieces and give place to another. Suchan intuition may melt into air under the shock of experience. Thecraving of the soul is not satisfied by the discovery that "matter"resolves itself into "energy, " nor is the misery of the heartassuaged by the theory that time is an attribute of fourth-dimensionalspace. The lamentable beating of blood-stained hands upon theultimate walls does not cease when we learn that two straight linescan or cannot meet in infinity; nor does the knowledge that historyis an "ideal evolution" heal the aching of the world-sorrow. 

Could we know for certain that the dead were raised up, even thatknowledge would not reduce to silence the bitter cry of theoutraged generations. So poisonous and so deep is the pain of lifethat no kind of knowledge, not even the knowledge that annihilationmust at last, sooner or later, end it all, can really heal it. 

But truth is not knowledge. Truth is not the recognition of anexternal fact. Truth is a creative gesture. It is a ritual, a rhythmicpoise, a balance deliberately sustained between eternalcontradictions. It is the magical touch which reduces to harmonythe quivering vibrations of many opposites. It is the dramaticmovement of a supreme actor at the climax of an unfathomabledrama. It is music resting upon itself; music so exquisite as toseem like silence, music so passionate as to have become calm. 

The apex-thought of that pyramid of conflicting flames which wecall the complex vision holds itself together at one concentratedpoint. And this point is the arrow point of our human soul; thatsoul which is shot across immensity in the eternal war between lifeand the opposite of life. 

Although for the purpose of emphasizing and elucidating theessential nature of this apex-thought it has been found advisable touse such metaphorical and pictorial images as the one justindicated, it must be remembered that what we are actually and indirect experience confronted with is the mystery of a real humanpersonality inhabiting a real human body. 

This real personal soul inhabiting a real objective body andsurrounded on all sides by a real unfathomable universe, is theoriginal revelation of the complex vision from which there is noescape except by death. 

The philosophy of the complex vision finds its starting point in anacceptance of this situation which is nothing more than anacceptance of the complex vision's own harmonious activity. Anacceptance of the reality of the human body is an essential part ofthis harmonious activity because among the aspects of thecomplex vision are to be found certain attributes, such assensation, instinct and imagination, which would be negated andrendered abortive if the human body were an illusion. 

If the "starting point" of our philosophy demands recognition ofthe reality of the body, the "ideal" of our philosophy must have aplace for the body also. Flesh and blood must therefore play theirpart in the resultant harmony at which we are all the while aiming;and no contempt for the body, no hatred of the body, no refusal torecognize the supreme beauty and sacredness of the body, can beallowed to distort or pervert our vision. 

The activity of the apex-thought, though we have a right to useany metaphorical image we please about it in order to elucidate itsnature, must always be considered as using the bodily senses in itsresultant rhythm. It must always be considered as using thatportion of the objective universe which we name the body as aninevitable "note" in its musical flight from darkness to darkness. Itmust always be conceived as following the attraction of an eternalvision, in which "the idea of the body" is an imperishable element. 

This "eternal vision, " which it is the rhythmic motive of theapex-thought to seek, carries with it the witness and "imprimatur" ofthe gods; and although no man has ever "beheld" the gods, andalthough the gods by reason of their omnipresent activity, cannotbe thought of as being "incarnated, " yet since they are living souls, even as we are, and since every living soul has, as the substratumof its identity, what might be called a "spiritual body, " there isnothing in the revelation made to us through the activity of ourcomplex vision to forbid our free and even fanciful speculation asto its use, by the very highest of superhuman personalities, even, let us say, by the Christ himself, of this mysterious energy of thesoul which I have named the "apex-thought. "

CHAPTER IV. 

THE REVELATION OF THE COMPLEX VISION

Using then, as our instrument of research, that totality of attributesby which the soul in its rare moments of rhythmic consummationvisualizes the world, the question arises--what, in plainuntechnical terms, is the revelation made to us by this complexmedium? Here, as before, I am anxious, before I venture uponsuch a hazardous undertaking as an answer to this question, toindicate clearly that what I am attempting to state is a revelationwhich is common to the experience of all souls, wherever such athing as the soul exists. The question as to whether or not such anuniversal revelation is an illusion does not concern us. To call anyuniversal experience "an illusion" is no more and no lessilluminating than to call it "an ultimate truth. " It is the onlyreality we are at present in possession of; and we must accept it, or remain in complete scepticism; which is only another name forcomplete chaos. 

The first important discovery which the complex vision makes isthe fact that the revelation, thus half-offered to it and half-createdby it, is presented simultaneously in all its various aspects. It doesnot appear to us bit by bit or in succession but "en masse" and inits complete "ensemble. " It is of course unavoidable that itsaspects should be enumerated one by one and that in such anenumeration one aspect should be placed first and another last. Nevertheless, this "first" and "last" must not be regarded as of anyreasonable importance; but as nothing more than an accident ofarbitrary choice. All the aspects of this original revelation arelinked together. All are dependent upon one another. Among themthere is no "first" and "last. " All are equally real. All are equallynecessary. All are equally inescapable. 

The activity of the complex vision, then, makes us aware that wehave within us an integral irreducible self, the living personalsubstratum of our self-consciousness, the "I" of our primordial "Iam I. " This living personal self is the background of our complexvision. It is the personal "visionary" whose vision we are using. Isay we have "within us" such a self. This "within us" is one of theinescapable original revelations. For though our consciousnesswill be found in its full circle to invade obscure shores andwavering margins, there must always be a return, however far itmay wander, to this definite "something" within us which uttersthe happy or unhappy "I am I. "

It is precisely here, in regard to the nature of this "I am I, " that itis essential to let the totality of our complex vision speak, and notone or other of its attributes. Nowhere has the fantastic anddesolating power of pure abstract reason left to itself done more todistort the general situation than in this matter. It has distorted itin two opposing ways. 

It has distorted it metaphysically by completely eliminating thisrevelation of a personal self, "within us, " and it has distorted itscientifically by reducing this personal self to an automaticmechanical phenomenon produced by the action and interaction ofunconscious chemical "forces. "

To the logic of metaphysical reason there is no concrete living selfwhich can say "I am I" from that definite point in space and timewhich we indicate by the use of the phrase "within us. " Accordingto such logic our "I am I" becomes "an infinity of consciousness"with no local habitation. It becomes a consciousness whichincludes both the "within" and the "without, " a consciousness inwhich our actual personal self is nothing but an illusoryphenomenon, a consciousness which is outside both time andspace, a consciousness whose centre is everywhere and itscircumference nowhere, a consciousness which is pure disembodied"thought, " thought without any "thinker, " thought contemplatingitself as thought, thought in an absolutely empty void. 

When to this ultimate "unity of apperception, " suspendedin a vacuum, consciousness of self is added; when this"consciousness-in-the-abstract" is regarded as an universalself-consciousness, the resultant "I am I" of such an omnipresentbeing becomes an infinite "I am I" which is nothing less than theunfathomable universe conscious of itself in its totality. Whetherconsciousness of self be added to this "consciousness-in-the-abstract"or not, it is hard to see how out of this unruffled ocean of identitythe actual multifarious world which we feel around us, this world ofplants and planets and birds and fishes and mortal men and immortalgods, ever succeeded in getting itself produced at all. 

The vague metaphysical phrases about the One issuing forth intothe Many, in order to make Itself more completely Itself than itwas before, seem to us, when under the influence of our complexvision, no other than the meaningless playing with cosmic tennisballs of some insane universal Juggler. 

The second way in which reason, left to itself, has distorted whatthe complex vision reveals to us about the "I am I, " is the scientificor evolutionary way. According to this view which assumes thatthe objective process of evolution is our only knowable reality, theindividual personal "I am I" finds itself resolved into a fatalautomatic phenomenon of cause and effect; a phenomenon whichhas as its "cause" nothing, but the prehistoric chemical movementsof "matter" or "energy. " The personal self thus consideredbecomes a momentary vortex in a perpetually changing stream of"states of consciousness" or "ripples of sensation" to each ofwhich vast anterior tides of atavistic forces have contributed theirmechanical quota. 

The chemical fatality of our nerve-tissues, the psychologicalfatality of our motive-impulses, leave no space, when they have allbeen summed up, for any free arbitrary action of an independentself. 

And so, just as according to the metaphysical view, the souldisappears in a blur of ideal fatality, according to the scientificview the soul disappears in a nexus of mechanical determinism. As against both these errors, to the complex vision this "soul"within us appears to be something altogether different from thephysical body. The experience we have of it, the feeling we haveof it, is that it is a definite "something" dwelling "within" thephysical body. 

This revelation with regard to it is as unmistakable as it is difficultto analyze. That it is here, within us, we feel and know; but assoon as we attempt to subject it to any exact scrutiny it seems tomelt away under our hands. The situation is indeed a kind ofphilosophical tragic-comedy; and is only too indicative of thebaffling whimsicality of the whole system of things. Contradictionand paradox at the very basis of life mock our attempt to utter oneintelligible word about the thing which is the most real of allthings to us. 

We are vividly aware of this mysterious personality within us, "theguest and companion of the body, " but directly we attempt to layhold upon the actual substance of it it seems to vanish into thin air. But at least our complex vision, which is _its_ complex vision, reveals to us the fact of its existence; and with its existence onceacknowledged, however impossible analysis of it may be, we areable to give a plain and unequivocal denial to all the impersonalconclusions reached by metaphysic and science. 

This categorical pronouncement of the complex vision with regardto the "I am I, " namely that it is the voice of a living concrete soulwithin us, is supported historically by an immense weight ofhuman tradition. Belief in the reality of the soul is older and moretenacious than any other human doctrine which our race has everheld. The use of the term "soul" is no more than a bare recognitionthat behind the consciousness which says "I am I" there is a livingentity whose consciousness this is. 

With this bare recognition the revelation of the complex visionabruptly stops. It stops with that peculiar and disconcertingsuddenness with which it seems to be its nature to stop, wheneverit reaches the limit of its scope in any direction. It stops here, with regard to the soul, just as it stops when confronted with theconception of limitlessness, both with regard to space and withregard to time. But the soul at least is ours; a fact that cannot beexplained away. 

And although we have no right to go a step beyond the barerecognition of its existence and although all words regarding it aremisleading if used in any other than a symbolic sense, we mustremember that since the complex vision is conscious of itself as aunity, whatever this "something" may be which is the centre andcore of our living personality, it must at least be a definiteirreducible "monad, " "something" that cannot be resolved intoanything else, or accounted for by anything else, or explained interms of anything else, or "caused" by anything else; "something"that may, perhaps, at last be annihilated; but that while it livesmust remain the vividest reality we know. 

Insanity and disease may obstruct and cloud the soul. Outwardcircumstances may drive the soul back upon itself. But while itlives it lives in its totality and when it perishes, if it be itsdestiny to perish, it perishes in its totality. 

While the soul lives we may sink into it and have no fear; and yetall the while we have no right to say anything about it except thatit exists. Truly it is a tragic commentary upon the drama that wecall our life, that we should find our ultimate "rest" and "peace" inso bare, so stark, so austere, so irrational a revelation as this!

But surrounded as we are by the menace of eternal nothingness itis at least something to have at the background of our life a livingpower of this kind, a power which can endure unafraid the verybreaking point of disaster, a power which can contemplate thepossibility of annihilation itself with equanimity and unperturbedcalm. 

It will be noted that I have been compelled to use once and againthe term "eternal nothingness. " This is indeed an inevitable aspectof what the soul visualizes as possible. For since the soul is thecreator and discoverer of all life, when once the soul has ceased toexist, non-existence takes the place of existence, and nothingnesstakes the place of life. 

Speculatively we have the right, although the complex vision issilent on that tremendous question, to dally with the idea of thesurvival of the soul after the death of the body. But this must forever be an open question, not to be answered either negatively oraffirmatively, not to be answered by the intelligence of any livingman. All we can say is that it seems as if the death of the bodydestroyed the complex vision; and if the complex vision isdestroyed it seems as though non-existence were bound to take theplace of existence, and as though nothingness were bound to takethe place of everything. The oriental conception of "Nirvana" is nomore than a soothing opiate administered to a soul that has grownweary of its complex vision and weary of its irreduciblepersonality. To imagine oneself freed from the burden of personalconsciousness, and yet in some mysterious way conscious of beingfreed from consciousness, is a delicious and delicate dream oflife-exhausted souls. 

As a speculation it has a curious attraction; as a reality it hasnothing that is intelligible. But though the tragedy of life to allsensitive spirits is outrageous and obscene, at least we may saythat the worst conceivable possibility is not likely to occur. Theworst conceivable possibility would be to be doomed to animmortal personal life without losing the restrictions andlimitations of our present personal life. If the soul survives thebody it must do so on the strength of its possession of sometransforming energy which shall enable it to supply the place in itsorganic being which is at present occupied by the attribute ofsensation. It is quite obvious that if the life of the soul dependsupon the active functioning of all its attributes; and if one of itsattributes, namely sensation, is entirely dependent for its activefunctioning upon the life of the body; the life of the soul itselfmust also depend upon the life of the body, unless, as I havehinted, it can transmute its attribute of sensation into some otherattribute suitable to some unknown plane of spiritual existence. 

There are indeed certain ecstatic moments when the soul feels as ifsuch a power of liberation from the bodily senses were actuallywithin its grasp; but it will inevitably be found, when the greatrhythmic concentration of the apex-thought is brought to bearupon such a feeling as this, that it either melts completely away, oris relegated to unimportance and insignificance. Such a feeling, ecstatic and intense though it may have been, has been nothingmore than a disproportioned activity of the attribute of intuition;intuition misled in favour of the immortality of the soul, even asthe pure reason is often misled in the direction of the denial of thesoul's existence. 

The revelation of the complex vision has no word to say, on eitherside, with regard to whether the soul does or does not survive thedeath of the body; but it has a very distinct word to say as to theimportance of this whole question; and what it says in regard tothis is--that it is not important at all! The revelation of the complexvision implies clearly enough that what man were wise to"assume"--leaving always the ultimate question as an openquestion--is that the individual soul and the individual body perishtogether. 

This assumption is in direct harmony with what we actually _see_;even though it is in frequent collision with what we sometimes_feel_. But the essence of the matter is to be found in this, that ourassumption as to the soul's perishing, when the body perishes, isan assumption, untrue though it may turn out to be, which the soulitself, when under the power of its apex-thought, is compelled tomake. And it is compelled to make this assumption by reason ofthe inherent nature of love. For it is of the nature of love whenconfronted by two alternatives one of which lays the stress uponpersonal advantage and the other _upon love itself_ apart from anypersonal advantage, whether one's own or another's, to choose, asthe assumption upon which it shall live, the latter of these twoalternatives. For it is the nature of love to seek love and nothingelse than love. And as long as the assumption which the soulmakes is the assumption that it survives the death of the body, thatemotion of love which is the soul's creative essence is debarredfrom the full and complete integrity of its desire. 

For the desire of love is not for immortality but for the eternal; andthe eternal is not something that depends upon the survival of anyindividual soul, whether our own or another's. The eternal issomething which can be realized in one single moment; somethingwhich completely destroys in us any desire for survival afterdeath; something which reconciles us to existence _considered inthe light of love alone_; something that does not assume anythingat all about the universe, except that love exists. 

Thus we return to that assumption about the soul, which it isbetter--leaving the open question still an open question--for themind to accept as its working assumption; namely that the souluses the body in its own ends, is conscious of its existence throughthe senses of the body, lives _in_ the body, and perishes when thebody perishes. Nor is it only the emotion of love which rejects thedogma of the immortality of the soul. Were the soul provedbeyond all possibility of doubt to be immortal, there would at oncefall upon us a despair more appalling than any which we haveknown. For just as the idea of the eternal satisfies the very depthsof our soul with an infinite peace, so the idea of immortalitytroubles the very depths of our soul with an infinite doubt. Something unutterable in our aesthetic sense demands that lifeshould be surrounded by death and ended by death. Thus and nototherwise should we ourselves have created the world at thebeginning. Thus and not otherwise by the rhythmic play of thecomplex vision, do we create the world. 

But meanwhile, whatever happens, as long as we live we possessthe reality of the soul. This is, and always has been, therallying-ground of heroic and sensitive personalities, struggling withthe demons of circumstance and chance. This is that unconquerable"mind-within-themselves" into which the great Stoics of Antiquitywithdrew at their will, and were "happy, " beyond the reach ofhope and fear. This is the citadel from the security of which all themartyrs for human liberty have mocked their tormentors. This isthe fortress from which the supreme artists of the world havelooked forth and moulded the outrage of life's dilemma intomonumental forms of imaginative beauty. This is the sanctuaryfrom which all human personalities, however weak and helpless, have been permitted to endure the cruelty and pitilessness of fate. 

After all, it does not so greatly matter that we are unable to domore than know that this thing, this indescribable "something, "really exists. Perhaps it is because its existence is more real thananything else that we are unable to define it. Perhaps we can onlydefine those attributes which are the outward aspects of our realbeing. Perhaps it is simply because the soul is nothing less thanour very self, that our analytical power stops, helpless, in itspresence. _We_ are what it is; and for this very cause itperpetually evades and escapes us. 

The reality of the soul, therefore, is the first revelation of thecomplex vision. The second revelation is the objective reality ofthe outward visible universe. Left to itself, in its isolated activity, our logical reason is capable of throwing doubt upon thisrevelation also. For it is logically certain that what we are actuallyconscious of is no more than a unified stream of various mentalimpressions, reaching us through our senses, and never interruptedexcept in moments of unconscious sleep. 

It is therefore quite easy for the logical reason, functioning in itsisolation from the other attributes, to maintain that this stream ofmental impressions _is all that there is_, and that we have no rightto call the universe real and objective, except in the ambiguoussense of a sort of permanent illusion. But as soon as the complexvision, in its totality, contemplates the situation, the thing takes ona very different aspect. The pure reason may be as sceptical as itpleases about the static solidity of what is popularly called"matter. " It may use the term energy, or movement, or ether, orforce, or electricity, or any other name to describe that _permanentsensation of outward reality_ which our complex vision reveals. 

But one thing it has no right to do. It has no right to utter the word"illusion" with regard to this objective universe. The apparentsolidity of matter may be rationally resolved into energy ormovement, just as the apparent objectivity of matter may berationally resolved into a stream of mental impression. But thecomplex vision still persists in asserting that this _permanentsensation of outward reality_, which, except in dreamless sleep, isnever normally interrupted, represents and bears witness to the realexistence, outside ourselves, of "something" which corresponds tosuch a sensation. It is just at this point that the soul--helped byinstinct, imagination, and intuition--makes its great inevitableplunge into the act of primordial faith. 

This act of primordial faith is the active belief of the soul not onlyin an objective universe outside itself, but also in the objectiveexistence of other individual souls. Without this primordial act offaith the individual soul can never escape from itself. For the purereason not only reduces the whole universe to an idea in the mind;but it also reduces all _other_ minds to ideas in _our_ mind. Inother words the logical reason imprisons us fatally and hopelesslyin a sort of cosmic nut-shell of our own mentality. 

And there would, actually, be no escape from this appallingimprisonment, according to which the individual soul becomes asolitary circle, the centre and circumference of all possibleexistence, if it were not that the soul possesses other organs ofresearch, in addition to reason and self-consciousness. Directly wetemper reason with these other activities the whole situation has adifferent look. It is a thing of small consequence what word weuse to describe that external cause of the flowing stream of mentalimpressions. The important point is that we are compelled toassume, as representing a real outward fact, this permanent senseof objectivity from which there is no escape. 

And as the existence of the objective universe is established by aprimordial act of faith, so it is also established that these alienbodily personalities, whose outward appearance stands and fallswith the objective universe, possess "souls, " or what we havecome to name "complex visions, " comparable with our own. Andthis is the case not only with regard to other human beings, butwith regard to all living entities whether human or non-human. Asto how the "souls" of plants, birds, and animals, or of planets orstars, differ in their nature from human souls we can only vaguelyconjecture. But to refuse some degree of consciousness, somemeasure of the complex vision, to any living thing, is to be false tothat primordial act of faith into which the original revelation of thecomplex vision compels us to plunge. 

The inevitableness of this act of faith may be perhaps more vividlyrealized when we remember that it includes in its revelation theobjective reality of our own physical body. Our evidence for thereal outward existence of our own body is no surer and no moresecure than our evidence for the outward existence of other"bodies. "

They stand or fall together. If the universe is an illusion then ourown physical body is an illusion also. 

And precisely as the "stuff" out of which the universe is made maybe named "energy" or "ether" or "force" or "electricity, " ratherthan "matter, " so also the "stuff" out of which the body is mademay be named by any scientific term we please. The term used isof no importance as long as the thing represented by it is acceptedas a permanent reality. 

We are now able to advance a step further in regard to therevelation of the complex vision. Granting, as we are compelled togrant, that the other "souls" in the universe possess, each of them, its own "vision" of this same universe; and assuming that each"vision" is so coloured by the individuality of the "visionary" as tobe, in a measure, different from all the rest, it becomes obviousthat in a very important sense there is not only one universe, butmany universes. These many universes, however, are "caused, " orevoked, or created, or discovered, by the encounter of variousindividual souls with that one "objective mystery" which confrontsthem all. 

What a naive confession it is of the limitation of the human mindthat we should be driven, after all our struggles to articulate thesecret of life, to accept, as our final estimate of such a secret justthe mysterious "something" which is the substratum of our ownsoul, confronted by that other mysterious "something" which is thesubstratum of all possible universes! With the complex vision'srevelation that the objective universe really exists comes theparallel revelation that time and space really exist. Here, for thethird time, are we faced with critical protests from the isolatedactivity of the logical reason. 

Metaphysic reduces both time and space to categories of the mind. Mathematical speculation hints at the existence of somemysterious fourth-dimensional space. Bergsonian dialectic regardsordinary "spatial" time as an inferior category; and finds the realmovement of life in a species of time called "duration, " which canonly be detected by the interior feeling of intuition. 

But while we listen with interest to all these curious speculations, the fact remains that for the general vision of the combinedenergies of the soul the world in which we find ourselves is aworld entirely dependent upon what must be recognized as a_permanent sensation_ of "ordinary" space and "ordinary" time. And as we have shown in the case of the objective existence ofwhat we call Nature, when any mental impression reaches thelevel of becoming a _permanent sensation_ of all living souls itceases to be possible to speak of it as an illusion. 

It is well that we should become clearly conscious of this"reality-destroying" tendency of the logical reason, so that wheneverit obsesses us we can undermine its limited vision by an appeal tothe complex vision. Shrewdly must we be on our guard againstthis double-edged trick of logic, which on the one hand seeks todestroy the basis of its own activity, by disintegrating the unity ofthe soul, and on the other hand seeks to destroy the material of itsown activity by disintegrating the unity of the "objective mystery. "

The original revelation of the complex vision not only puts us onour guard against this disintegrating tendency of the pure reason, but it also explains the motive-force behind this tendency. Thismotive-force is the emotion of malice, which naturally andinevitably seeks to hand us over to the menace of nothingness; inthe first place of nothingness "within" us, and in the second placeof nothingness "without" us. That the logic of the pure reasonquickly becomes the slave of the emotion of malice may be provedby both introspection and observation. For we note, both inourselves and others, a peculiar glow of malicious satisfactionwhen such logic strikes its deadliest blows at what it wouldpersuade us to regard as the illusion of life. 

Life, just because its deepest secret is not law, determined by fate, but personality struggling against fate, is always found to display acertain irrationality. And the complex vision becomes false toitself as soon as it loses touch with this world-deep irrationality. 

We have now therefore reached the conception of reality asconsisting of the individual soul confronted by the objectivemystery. That this objective mystery would be _practically_ thesame as _nothing_, if there were no soul to apprehend it, must beadmitted. But it would not be _really_ the same as _nothing_;since as soon as any kind of soul reappeared upon the scene theinevitable material of the objective mystery would at oncere-appear with it. The existence of the objective mystery as apermanent possibility of material for universe-building is a factwhich surrounds every individual soul with a margin ofunfathomable depth. 

At its great illuminated moments the complex vision reduces thelimitlessness of space to a realizable sensation of liberty, and the"flowingness" of time to an eternal now; but even at thesemoments it is conscious of an unfathomable background, oneaspect of which is the immensity of space and the other theflowingness of time. 

The revelation of the complex vision which I have thus attemptedto indicate will be found identical with the natural conclusions ofman in all the ages of his history. The primeval savage, the ancientGreek, the mediaeval saint, the eighteenth century philosopher, themodern psychologist, are all brought together here and are allcompelled to confess the same situation. 

That we are now living personalities, possessed of soul and body, and surrounded by an unfathomable universe, is a revelation aboutwhich all ages and all generations agree, whenever the complexvision is allowed its orchestral harmony. The primeval savagelooking up at the sky above him might regard the sun and moon asliving gods exercising their influence upon a fixed unmovingearth. In this view of the sun and the moon and the stars such asavage was perfectly within his right, because always along with iteven to the most anthropomorphic, there came the vague sense ofunfathomableness. 

The natural Necessity of the ancient Greeks, the trinitarian Godof the mediaeval school-man, the great First Cause of theeighteenth-century deist, the primordial Life-Force of the modernman of science, are all on common ground here in regard to theunfathomableness of the ultimate mystery. 

But the revelation of the complex vision saves us from the logicalboredom of the word "infinite. " The idea of the infinite is merely atedious mathematical formula, marking the psychological pointwhere the mind finds its stopping-place. All that the complexvision can say about "infinite space" is that it is a real experience, and that we can neither imagine space with an end nor without anend. 

The "Infinite" is the name which logic gives to this psychologicalphenomenon. The fact that the mind stops abruptly and breaks intoirreconcilable contradictions when it is confronted withunfathomable space is simply a proof that space without an end isas unimaginable as space with an end. It is no proof that space ismerely a subjective category of the human mind. One, thing, however, it is a proof of. It is a proof that the universe can neverbe satisfactorily explained on any materialistic hypothesis. 

The fact that we all of us, at every hour of our common day, aresurrounded by this unthinkable thing, space without end, is aneternal reminder that the forms, shapes and events of habitualoccurrence, which we are inclined to take so easily for granted, arepart of a staggering and inscrutable enigma. 

The reality of this thing, actually there, above our heads and underour feet, lodges itself, like an ice cold wedge of annihilatingscepticism, right in the heart of any facile explanation. We cannotinterpret the world in terms of what we call "matter" when whatwe call "matter" has these unthinkable horizons. We may take intoour hands a pebble or a shell or a grain of sand; and we may feelas though the universe were within our grasp. But when weremember that this little piece of the earth is part of a continuousunity which recedes in every direction, world without end, we aredriven to admit that the universe is so little within our grasp thatwe have to regard it as something which breaks and baffles themind as soon as the mind tries to take hold of it at all. 

The reason does not advance one inch in explaining the universewhen it utters the word "evolution" and it does not advance onethousandth part of an inch--indeed it gives up the task altogether--when it informs us that infinite space is a category of the humanmind. We must regard it, then, as part of the original revelation ofthe complex vision, that we are separate personal souls surroundedby an unfathomable mystery whose margins recede into unthinkableremoteness. 

The ancient dilemma of the One and the Many obtrudes itself atthis point; and we are compelled to ask how the plurality of theseseparate souls can be reconciled with the unity of which they forma part. That they cannot be regarded as absolutely separate is clearfrom the fact that they can communicate with one another, notonly in human language but in a thousand more direct ways. Butgranting this communication between them, does the mereexistence of myriads of independent personalities, living side byside in a world common to all, justify us in speaking of theoriginal system of things as being pluralistic rather than monistic?

Human language, at any rate, founded on the fact that theseseparate souls can communicate with one another, seems veryreluctant to use any but monistic terms. We say "the system ofthings, " not "the systems of things. " And yet it is only by an act offaith that human language makes the grand assumption that thecomplex vision of all these myriad entities tells the same story. 

We say "the universe"; yet may it not be that there are as many"universes" as there are conscious personalities in thisunfathomable world? If there were no closer unity between theseparate souls which fill the universe than the fact that they areable, after one primordial act of faith, to communicate with oneanother, these monistic assumptions of language might perhaps bedisregarded and we might have a right to reject such expressionsas "system of things" and "cosmos" and "universe" and "nature. "

But it still remains that they are connected, in space and in time, by the medium, whatever it may be, which fills the gulfs betweenthe planets and the stars. As long as these separate souls areinvariably associated as they are, with physical bodies, and as longas these physical bodies are composed of the same mysteriousforce which we may call earth, fire, water, air, ether, electricity, energy, vibration, or any other technical or popular name, so longwill it be legitimate to use these monistic expressions with whichhuman language is, so to speak, so deeply stained. As a matter offact we are not left with only this limited measure of unity. Thereare also certain psychological experiences--experiences which Ibelieve I have a right to regard as universal--which bring theseseparate souls into much closer connection. 

Such experiences can be, and have been, ridiculously exaggerated. But the undeniable fact that they exist is sufficient to prove that inspite of the pluralistic appearance of things, there is still enoughunity available to prevent the Many from completely devouringthe One. The experiences to which I am referring are experienceswhich the complex vision owes to the intuition. And though thisexperience has been made unfair use of, by both mystics andmetaphysicians, it cannot be calmly disregarded. 

The intuition, which is, as I have already pointed out, the femininecounterpart to the imagination, is found, with regard to thisparticular problem, uttering so frequent and impressive an oraclethat to neglect its voice, would be to nullify and negate the wholeactivity of the intuition and deny it its place among the ultimateenergies of vision. 

There is always more difficulty in putting into words a revelationwhich the complex vision owes to intuition than in regard to anyother of its attributes. Reason in his matter, and sensation andimagination also, have an unfair advantage when it comes to_words_. For human language is compelled to draw its imagesfrom sensation and its logic from reason. But intuition--thepeculiarly feminine attribute of the soul--finds itself dealing withwhat is barely intelligible and with what is profoundly irrational. Thus it naturally experiences a profound difficulty in getting itselfexpressed in words at all. 

And, incidentally, we cannot avoid asking ourselves the curiousquestion whether it may not be that language, which is sodependent upon the peculiarly masculine attributes of reason andsensation, has not become an inadequate medium for theexpression of what might be called the feminine vision of theworld? May we not indeed go so far as to hazard the suggestionthat when this fact, of the masculine domination of language, has been adequately recognized, there will emerge upon theearth women-philosophers and women-artists who will throwcompletely new light upon many problems? The difficulty whichwomen experience in getting expressed in definite terms, whetherin philosophy or art, the co-ordinated rhythm of _their_ complexvision, may it not be largely due to the fact that the attribute ofintuition which is their most vital organ of research has remainedso inarticulate? And may not the present wave of psychological"mysticism, " which just now is so prominent a psychic phenomenon, be due to the vague and, in many cases, the clumsy attempt, whichwomen are now making to get their intuitive contribution intoline with the complex vision of the rest?

When the universe is referred to as "Nature, " may it not be that itis this very element, this strange wisdom of the abysmal"Mothers, " which humanity thinks of as struggling to utter itsunutterable secret?

How, then, for the sake of its contribution to the ultimate rhythm, does the complex vision articulate this mysterious oracle from thefeminine principle in life, as it brokenly and intermittently lifts upits voice?

One aspect of this oracle's voice is precisely what we areconcerned with now. I mean the problem of the relation of the Oneto the Many. The merely logical conception of unity is misleadingbecause the wavering mass of impression which makes up our lifehas a margin which recedes on every side into unfathomableness. This conception has two aspects. In the first place it implies_continuity_, by which I mean that everything in the world is intouch with everything else. 

In the second place it implies _totality_, by which I mean thateverything in the world can be considered as one rounded-off andcomplete "whole. " According to this second aspect of the case, wethink of the world as an integral One surrounded by nothingness, in the same way that the individual soul is surrounded by theuniverse. 

The revelation of the complex vision finds the second of these twoaspects entirely misleading. It accepts the conception of_continuity_, and rejects the conception of _totality_. It rejects theconception of "totality, " because "totality, " in this cosmic sense, isa thing of which it has no experience; and the revelation of thecomplex vision is entirely based on experience. The margins of theworld, receding without limit in every direction, prevent us fromever arriving at the conception of "totality. "

What right have we to regard the universe as a totality, when allwe are conscious of is a mass of wavering impression continuedunfathomable in every direction? In only one sense, therefore, have we a right to speak of the unity of the system of things; andthat is in the sense of continuity. Since this mass of impression, which we name the universe, is on all sides lost in a margin ofunfathomableness, it is, after all, only a limited portion of it whichcomes into the scope of our consciousness. It is one of the curiousexaggerations of our logical reason that we should be tempted to"round off" this mystery. The combined voices of imagination andintuition protest against such an enclosed circle. 

The same revelation of the complex vision which gives objectivereality to what is outside our individual soul insists that thisobjective reality extends beyond the limited circle of ourconsciousness. The device by which the logical reason "roundsoff" the conception of _continuity_ by the conception of _totality_is the device of the mathematical formula of "infinity. "

The imaginative movement by which the complex vision of thesoul plunges into the abysses of stellar space, seeking to fathom, atleast in a mental act, immensity beyond immensity, and gulfbeyond gulf, is a definite human experience. It is the actualexperience of the soul itself, dropping its plummet into immensity, and finding immensity unfathomable. But as soon as the logicalreason dominates the situation, in place of this palpable plungeinto a real concrete experience, with its accompanying sensation ofappalling wonder and terrible freedom, we are offered nothing buta thin, dry, barren mathematical formula called "infinity, " the meremention of which freezes the imagination at its source. 

What, in fact, the complex vision reveals to us is that all these aridformulae, such as infinity, the Absolute Being, and the UniversalCause, are conceptions projected into the real and palpable bosomof unfathomable life by the very enemy and antagonist of life, theaboriginal emotion of inert malice. This is why so often in thehistory of the human race the conception of "God" has been theworst enemy of the soul. The conception of "God" by its alliancewith the depressing mathematical formula of "infinity" has indeeddone more than any other human perversion to obliterate thebeauty and truth of the emotional feeling which we name"religion. "

The revelation of the complex vision makes it clear to us that theidea of "God, " in alliance with the idea of "Infinity, " is aprojection, into religious experience, of the emotion of inertmalice. As soon as the palpable unfathomableness of space isreduced to the barren notion of a mathematical "infinity" all thefree and terrible beauty of life is lost. We have pressed our handsagainst our prison-gates and found them composed of a materialmore rigid than adamant, the material of "thought-in-the-abstract. "

Now although our chief difficulty in regard to this insistentproblem of the One and the Many has been got rid of by eliminatingfrom the notion of the One all idea of totality, it is stilltrue that something in us remains unsatisfied while our individualsoul is thought of as absolutely isolated from all other souls. It ishere, as I have already said, that the peculiarly feminine attributeof intuition comes to our rescue. The fact that we cancommunicate together by human and sub-human language, doesnot, though it implies a basic similarity in our complex vision, really satisfy us. 

A strange unhappiness, a vague misery, a burden of unutterablenostalgia, troubles the loneliness of our soul. And yet it is not, thisvague longing, a mere desire to break the isolating circle of the "Iam I" and to invade, and mingle with, other personalities. It issomething deeper than this, it is a desire to break the isolation ofall personalities, and to enter, in company with all, some larger, fuller, freer level of life, where what we call "the limits ofpersonality" are surpassed and transcended. 

This underlying misery of the soul is, in fact, a constantrecognition that by the isolated loneliness of our deepest self weare keeping at a distance something--some unutterable flow ofhappiness--which would destroy for us all fears and all weariness, and would end for ever the obscene and sickening burden of thecommonplace. It is precisely at this point that the intuition comesto the rescue; supplying our complex vision with that peculiar"note, " or "strain of music, " without which the orchestral harmonymust remain incomplete. 

In seeking to recall those great moments when the "apex-thought"of the complex vision revealed to us the secret of things, we findourselves remembering how, when in the presence of somesupreme work of art, or of some action of heroic sacrifice, or ofsome magical effect of nature, or of some heart-breaking gestureof tragic emotion in some simple character, we have suddenlybeen transported out of the closed circle of our personal life intosomething that was at once personal and impersonal. At such amoment it seems as if we literally "died" to ourself, and becamesomething "other" than ourself; and yet at the same time "found"ourself, as we had never "found" ourself before. 

What the complex vision seems to reveal to us about this greathuman experience is that it is an initiation into an "eternal vision, "into a "vision of the immortals, " into a mood, a temper, a "musicof the spheres, " wherein the creative mystery of the emotion oflove finds its consummation. The peculiar opportunity of anexperience of this kind, its temporal "occasion, " shall we say, seems to be more often supplied by the intuition, than by any otherattribute of the complex vision. 

Intuition having this power, it is not surprising that many soulsshould misuse and abuse this great gift. The temptation to allowthe intuition to absorb the whole field of consciousness is tocertain natures almost irresistible. And yet, when intuition isdivorced from the other aspects of the rhythm of life, its tendencytowards what might be called "the passion of identity" very easilylapses into a sort of spiritual sensuality, destructive to the creativefreedom of the soul. Woe to the artist who falls into the quagmireof unbalanced intuition! It is as if he were drugged with a spirituallust. 

To escape from self-loathing, to escape from the odious monotonyand the indecent realism of life--what a relief! How desirable to beconfronted no longer by that impassable gulf between one's ownsoul and all other living souls! How desirable to cross the abysswhich separates the "something" which is the substance of ourbeing from the "something" which is the substance of the"objective mystery"!

And yet, according to the revelation of the complex vision, this"spiritual ecstasy" is a perversion of the true art of life. The trueart of life finds in "the vision of the immortals, " and in "the visionof the immortals" alone, its real escape from evil. This "passion ofidentity, " offered us by the vice, by the madness of intuition, is notin harmony with the great moments of the soul. Its "identity" is buta gross, mystical, clotted "identity"; and its "heaven" is not the"heaven" of the Christ. 

If the "ecstasy of identity, " as the unbalanced attribute of intuitionforces it upon us, were in very truth the purpose of life, howgrotesque a thing life would be! It would then be the purpose oflife to create personality, only in order to drown it in theimpersonal. In other words it would be the purpose of life to createthe "higher" in order that it should lose itself in the lower. At itsvery best this "ecstasy of identity" is the expression of what mightbe called the "lyrical" element in things. But the secret of life isnot lyrical, as many of the prophets have supposed, but dramatic, as all the great artists have shown. For the essence of life iscontradiction. And contradiction demands a "for" and an "against, "a protagonist and an antagonist. What the revelation of thecomplex vision discloses is the inherent duality of all things. Pleasure and pain, night and day, man and woman, good and evil, summer and winter, life and death, personality and fate, love andmalice, the soul and the objective mystery, these are the threadsout of which the texture of existence is woven; and there is noescape from these, except in that eternal "_nothingness_" whichitself is the "contradiction" or "opposite" of that "_all_, " which itreduces to chaos and annihilation. Thus runs the revelation of thecomplex vision. 

This integral soul of ours, made of a stuff which for ever defiesanalysis; this objective mystery, made of a stuff which for everdefies analysis; these two things perpetually confront one anotherin a struggle that only annihilation can end. The vision of theeternal implies the passing of the transitory. For what cannot ceasefrom being beautiful has no real beauty; and what cannot ceasefrom being true has no real truth. The art of life according to therevelation of the complex vision, consists in giving to thetransitory the form of the eternal. It is the art of creating a rhythm, a music, a harmony, so passionate and yet so calm, that the merefact of having once or twice attained it is sufficient "to redeem allsorrows. "

The assumption that death ends it all, is an assumption which thevery nature of love calls upon us to make; for, if we did not makeit make it, something different from love would be the object andpurpose of our life. But the revelation of the complex vision, inour supreme moments, discloses to us that love itself is the onlyjustification for life; and therefore, by making the assumption thatthe soul perishes, we put once and for all out of our thought thatformidable revival of love, the idea of personal immortality. 

For the idea of personal immortality, like the idea of an AbsoluteGod, is a projection of the aboriginal "inert" malice. It must beremembered that the revelation of the complex vision, by layingstress upon the creative energy of the soul in its grappling with theobjective mystery, implies an element of _indeterminism_, or freechoice, in regard to the ultimate nature of the world. Man, in avery profound sense, perpetually creates the world according to hiswill and desire. Nor can he ever know at what point, in thestruggle between personality and destiny, the latter is bound towin. Such a point may _seem_ to be reached; until some astounding"act of faith" on the part of the soul flings that "point"into a yet further remoteness. And this creative power in the soulof man may apply in ways which at present our own race hashardly dared to contemplate. It may apply, for instance, to the ideaof personal immortality. 

Personal immortality may be a thing which the soul, by aconcentrated act of creative will, can secure for itself, or canreject for itself. It may be, if we take the whole conscious andsubconscious purpose of a man's life, a _matter of choice_. 

But when a man makes a choice of such a kind, when a manconcentrates his energy upon surviving the death of his body, he isdeliberately selecting a "lower" purpose for his life in place of a"higher. " In other words, instead of concentrating his will upon theevocation of the emotion of love, he is concentrating his will uponself-realization or self-continuance. What he is really doing is evenworse than this. For since what we call "emotion" is an actualprojection into the matrix of the objective mystery, of the verysubstance and stuff of the soul, when the will thus concentratesupon personal immortality, it takes the very substance of the souland perverts it to the satisfaction of inert malice. In other words itactually transforms the stuff of the soul from its positive to itsnegative chemistry, and produces a relative victory of malice overlove. 

The soul's desires for personal immortality is one of the aspects ofthe soul's "possessive" instinct. The soul desires to "possess"itself--itself as it exactly is, itself in its precise and complete"status quo"--without interruption for ever. But love has a verydifferent desire from this. Love is not concerned with time at all--for time has a "future"; and any contemplation of a "future"implies the activity of something in the soul which is differentfrom love, implies something which is concerned with outwardevents and occurrences and chances. But love is not concernedwith outward events, whether past or future. Love desires eternityand eternity alone. Or rather it does not "desire" eternity. It _is_eternity. It is an eternal Now, in which what _will_ happen andwhat _has_ happened are irrelevant and unimportant. 

All this offers us an intelligible explanation of a very bewilderingphenomenon in human life. I mean the instinctive disgustexperienced by the aesthetic sense when men, who otherwise seemgentle and good, display an undue and unmeasured agitation aboutthe fate of their souls. 

Love never so much as even considers the question of the fate ofthe soul. Love finds, in the mere act of loving, a happiness soprofound that all such problems seem tiresome and insignificant. The purpose of life is to attain the rhythmic ecstasy of all love'sintrinsic potentialities. This desire for personal immortality is notone of love's intrinsic potentialities. When a human soul has lostby death the one person it has loved, the strength of its love ismeasured by the greater or less emphasis it places upon theproblem of the lost one's "survival. "

The disgust which the aesthetic sense experiences when itencounters a certain sort of mystical and psychic agitation over thequestion as to whether the lost one "lives still somewhere" is adisgust based upon our instinctive knowledge that this particularkind of inquiry would never occur to a supreme and self-forgetfullove. For this enquiry, this agitation, this dabbling in "psychicevidences, " is a projection of the baser nature of the soul; is, infact, a projection of the "possessive instinct, " which is onlyanother name for the original inert malice. 

In the "ave atque vale" of the Roman poet, there is much more ofthe absolute quality of great love than in all these psychicdabblings. For in the austere reserve of that passionate cry there isthe ultimate acceptance, by Love itself, of the tragedy of havinglived and loved at all. There is an acceptance of that aspect of the"vision of the immortals" which implies that the possessiveinstinct has no part or lot in the eternal. 

The inhuman cruelties which have been practised by otherwise"good" men under the motive of "saving" other people's souls, andthe inhuman cruelties which have been practised by otherwise"good" men under the motive of saving their own souls, have, each of them, the same evil origin. Love sweeps aside, in one greatwave of its own nature, all these doubts and ambiguities. It lifts theobject of its love into its own eternity; and in its own eternity theultimate tragedy of personal separation is but one chord of itsunbroken rhythm. 

The tragedy of personal separation is not a thing which loverealizes for the first time when it loses the object of its love. It isa thing which is of the very nature of the eternity in which lovehabitually dwells. For the eternity in which love habitually dwellsis its vision of the tragedy of all life. 

This, then, is the original revelation of the complex vision. Thesoul is confronted by an ultimate duality which extends throughthe whole mass of its impressions. And because this dualityextends through every aspect of the soul's universe and can bechanged and transformed by the soul's will, it is inevitable thatwhat the world has hitherto named "philosophy" and has regardedas the effort of "getting hold" of a reality which exists already, should be named by the complex vision the "art of life" and shouldbe regarded as the effort of reducing to harmony the unrulyimpulses and energies which perpetually transform and change theworld. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE ULTIMATE DUALITY

What we are really, all of us, in search of, whether we know it ornot, is some concrete and definite symbol of life and the "object"of life which shall gather up into one living image all the broken, thwarted, devious, and discordant impressions which make up ourexperience. What we crave is something that shall, in somepermanent form and yet in a form that can grow and enrich itself, represent and embody the whole circle of the joy and pain ofexistence. What we crave is something into which we can throwour personal joys and sorrows, our individual sensations and ideas, and know of a certainty that thrown into that reservoir, they willblend with all the joys and sorrows of all the dead and all theliving. 

Such a symbol in order to give us what we need must represent theultimate reach of insight to which humanity has attained. It mustbe something that, once having come into existence, remainsindependent of our momentary subjective fancies and our passingmoods. It must be something of clearer outlines and more definitelineaments than those vague indistinct ecstasies, half-physiologicaland half-psychic, which the isolated intuition brings us. 

Such a symbol must represent the concentrated struggle of thehuman soul with the bitterness of fate and the cruelty of fate, itslong struggle with the deadly malice in itself and the deadlymalice in nature. 

There is only one symbol which serves this purpose; a symbolwhich has already by the slow process of anonymous creation anddiscovery established itself in the world. I mean the symbol of thefigure of Christ. 

This symbol would not have sufficed to satisfy the craving ofwhich I speak if it were only a "discovery" of humanity. The"God-man" may be "discovered" in nature; but the "Man-god"must be "created" by man. 

We find ourselves approaching this symbol from many points ofview, but the point of view which especially concerns us is to notehow it covers the whole field of human experience. In this symbolthe ultimate duality receives its "eternal form" and becomes aneverlasting standard or pattern of what is most natural and mostrhythmic. As I advance in my analysis of the relation of theultimate duality to this symbolic figure of Christ, it becomesnecessary to review once more, in clear and concise order, thevarious stages of thought by means of which I prove the necessityof some sort of universal symbol, and the necessity of mouldingthis symbol to fit the drama of One ultimate duality. 

A summary of the stages of thought through which we havealready passed will thus be inevitable; but it will be a summary ofthe situation from the view-point of a different angle. 

Philosophy then is an attempt to articulate more vividly the natureof reality than such "reality" can get itself articulated in theconfused pell-mell of ordinary experience. The unfortunate thingis that in this process of articulating reality philosophy tends tocreate an artificial world of its own, which in the end gets so faraway from reality that its conclusions when they are confrontedwith the pell-mell of ordinary experience appear remote, strange, fantastic, arbitrary, and even laughable. 

This philosophical tendency to create an artificial world whichwhen confronted with the real world appears strange and remote isdue to the fact that philosophers, instead of using as theirinstrument of research the entire complex vision, use first one andthen another of its isolated attributes. But there must comemoments when, in the analysis of so intricate and elaborate a thingas "reality" by means of so intricate and elaborate an instrument, as the complex vision, the most genuine and the least artificial ofphilosophies must appear to be following a devious and serpentinepath. 

These moments of difficulty and obscurity are not, however--aslong as such a philosophy attaches itself closely to "reality" andflows round "reality" like a tide flowing round submerged rocks orliquid metal flowing round the cavities of a mould--a sign thatphilosophy has deserted reality, but only a sign that the curves andcontours and jagged edges of reality are so intricate and involvedthat only a very fluid element can follow their complicated shape. But these moments of difficulty and obscurity, these vague andimpalpable links in the chain, are only to be found in the_process_ by which we arrive at our conclusion. When ourconclusion has been once reached it becomes suddenly manifest tous that it has been there, with us, all the while, implicit in ourwhole argument, the secret and hidden cause why the argumenttook the form it did rather than any other. The test of anyphilosophy is not that it should appeal immediately and directly towhat is called "common-sense, " for common-sense is no betterthan a crude and premature synthesis of superficial experiences; asynthesis from which the supreme and culminating experiences ofa person's life have been excluded. For in our supreme andculminating experiences there is always an element of what mightbe called the "impossible" or of what must be recognized as amatter of faith or imagination. It is therefore quite to be expectedthat the conclusions of a philosophy like the philosophy of thecomplex vision, which derives its authority from the exceptionaland supreme experiences of all souls, should strike us in ourmoments of "practical common-sense" as foolish, impossible, ridiculous and even insane. All desperate and formidable effortstowards creation have struck and will strike the mood of "practicalcommon-sense" as ridiculous and insane. This is true of everycreative idea that has ever emanated from the soul of man. 

For the mood of "practical common-sense" is a projection of thebaser instinct of self-preservation and is penetrated through andthrough with that power of inert malice which itself might becalled the instinct of self-preservation of the enemy of life. "Practical common-sense" is the name we give to that superficialsynthesis of our baser self-preservative instincts, which, when it isreinforced and inspired by "the will of malice" out of the evildepths of the soul, is the most deadly of all antagonists of new life. 

We need suffer, therefore, no surprise or pain if we find theconclusions of the philosophy of the complex vision ridiculousand "impossible" to our mood of practical common-sense. If onthe contrary they did not seem insane and foolish to such a moodwe might well be profoundly suspicious of them. For althoughthere are very few certainties in this world, one thing at least iscertain, namely that for any truth or reality to satisfy the creativespirit in us it must present itself as something dangerous, destructive, ridiculous and insane to that instinct in us whichresists creation. 

But although "the appeal to common-sense" is no test of the truthof a philosophy, since common-sense is precisely the thing in uswhich has a malicious hostility to the creative spirit, yet nophilosophy can afford to disregard an appeal to actual experienceas long as actual experience includes the rare moments of our lifeas well as all the rest. Here is indeed a true and authentic test ofphilosophic validity. If we take our philosophical conclusions, soto speak, in our hands, and plunge with them into the very depthsof actual experience, do they grow more organic, more palpableand more firm, or do they melt away into the flowing waters?

Who is not able to recall the distress of bitter disillusionmentwhich has followed the collapse of some plausible system of"sweet reasonableness" under the granite-like impact of a rock ofreality which has knocked the bottom out of it and left it a derelictupon the waves? This collapse of an ordered and reasonablesystem under the impact of some atrocious projection of "crasscasuality" is a proof that if a philosophy has not got in it some"iron" of its own, if it has not got in it something formidable andunfathomable, something that can destroy as well as create, it isnot of much avail against the winds and storms of destiny. 

For a philosophy to be a true representation of reality, for it to bethat reality itself, become conscious and articulate, it is necessarythat it should prove most vivid and actual at those suprememoments when the soul of man is driven to the ultimate wall andis at the breaking-point. 

The truth of a philosophy is not to be tested by what we feel aboutit in moods of practical common-sense; for in these moods wehave, for some superficial reason, suppressed more than half of theattributes of our soul. The truth of a philosophy can only be testedin those moments when the soul, driven to the wall, gathers itselftogether for one supreme effort. But there is, even in less stark anddrastic hours, an available test of a sound and organic philosophywhich must not be forgotten. I refer to its capacity for beingvividly and emphatically summed up and embodied in someconcrete image or symbol. 

If a philosophy is so rationalistic that it refuses to lend itself toa definite and concrete expression we are justified in being morethan suspicious of it. 

And we are suspicious of it not because its lack of simplicitymakes it intricate and elaborate, for "reality" is intricate andelaborate; but because its inability to find expression for itsintricacy in any concrete symbol is a proof that it is too simple. For the remote conclusions of a purely logical and rationalisticphilosophy are made to appear much less simple than they reallyare by reason of their use of remote technical terms. 

What the soul demands from philosophy is not simplicity butcomplexity, for the soul itself is the most complex thing we know. The thin, rigid, artificial outlines of purely rationalistic systemscan never be expressed in ritual or symbol or drama, not becausethey are too intricate, but because they are not intricate enough. 

A genuine symbol, or ritualistic image, is a concrete living organicthing carrying all manner of magical and subtle associations. It isan expression of reality which comes much nearer to reality thanany rationalistic system can possibly do. A genuine symbolic orritualistic image is a concrete expression of the complexity of life. It has the creative and destructive power of life. It has theformidable mysteriousness of life, and with all this it has theclear-cut directness of life's terrible and exquisite tangibility. 

When suddenly confronted, then, in the mid-stream of life, by thenecessity of expressing the starting-point, which is also theconclusion, of the philosophy of the complex vision, whatsynthetic image or symbol or ritualistic word are we to use inorder to sum up its concrete reality?

The revelation of life, offered to us by the complex vision, is, aswe have seen, no very simple or logical affair. We axe left withthe spectacle of innumerable "souls, " human, sub-human andsuper-human, held together by some indefinable "medium" whichenables them to communicate with one another. Each one of these"souls" at once creates and discovers its own individual "universe"and then by an act of faith assumes that the various "universes"created and discovered by all other souls are identical with itsown. 

That they _are_ identical with its own the soul is led to assumewith more and more certainty in proportion as its communion withother souls grows more and more involved. This identity betweenthe various "universes" of alien souls is rendered more secure andmore objective by the fact that time and space are found to beessential peculiarities of all of them alike. For since time and spaceare found to enter into the original character of all these"universes, " it becomes a natural and legitimate conclusion that allthese "universes" are in reality the same "universe. "

We are left, then, with the spectacle of innumerable soulsconfronting a "universe" which in their interaction with oneanother they have half-created and half-discovered. There is noescape from the implication of this phrase "half-discovered. " Thecreative activity of the complex vision perpetually modifies, clarifies and moulds the mystery which surrounds it; but that thereis an objective mystery surrounding it, of which time and space arepermanent aspects, cannot be denied. 

The pure reason's peculiar power of thinking time and space away, or of lodging itself outside of time and space, is an abstractionwhich leads us out of the sphere of reality; because, in its resultantconception, it omits the activity of the other attributes of thecomplex vision. 

The complex vision reveals to us, therefore, three aspects ofobjective mystery. It reveals to us in the first place the presence ofan objective "something" outside the soul, which the soul by itsvarious energies moulds and clarifies and shapes. This is that"something" which the soul at one and the same moment "half-discovers"and "half-creates. " It reveals to us, in the second place, the presenceof an indefinable objective "something" which is the mediumthat makes possible the communion of one soul with another and with"the invisible companions. "

This is the medium which holds all these separate personalitiestogether while each of them half-creates and half-discovers hisown "universe. "

In the third place it reveals to us the presence, in each individualsoul, of a sort of "substratum of the soul" or something beyondanalysis which is the "vanishing point of sensation" and thevortex-point or fusion-point where the movement which we call"matter" loses itself in the movement which we call "mind. "

In all these three aspects of objective mystery, revealed to us bythe united activities of the complex vision, we are compelled, ashas been shown, to use the vague and obscure word "something. "We are compelled to apply this unilluminating and tantalizingword to all these three aspects of "objective mystery, " because noother word really covers the complex vision's actual experience. 

The soul recognizes that there is "something" outside itself whichis the "clay" upon which its energy works in creating its"universe, " but it cannot know anything about this "something"except that it is "there"; because, directly the soul discovers it, itinevitably moulds it and recreates it. There is not one minutestdivision of time between this "discovery" and this "creation"; soall that one can say is that the resultant objective "universe" ishalf-created and half-discovered; and that whatever thismysterious "something" may be, apart from the complex vision, itat any rate has the peculiarity of being forced to submit to thecomplex vision's creative energy. 

But not only are we compelled to apply the provoking andunilluminating word "something" to each of these three aspects ofobjective mystery which the complex vision reveals; we are alsocompelled to assume that each one of these is dominated by timeand space. 

This implication of "time and space" is necessitated in a differentway in each of these three aspects of what was formerly called"matter. " In the first aspect of the thing we have time and space asessential characteristics of all the various "universes, " reduced byan act of faith to one "universe, " of the souls which fill the world. 

In the second aspect of it we have time and space as essentialcharacteristics of that indefinable "medium" which holds all thesesouls together, and which by holding them together makes it easierto regard their separate "universes" as "one universe, " since theyfind their ground or base in one universal "medium. "

In the third aspect of it we have time and space as essentialcharacteristics of that "substratum of the soul" which is thevanishing-point of sensation and the fusion-point of "mind" and"matter. "

We are thus inevitably led to a further conclusion; namely, that allthese three aspects of objective reality, since they are alldominated by time and space, are all dominated by the _same_"time" and the same "space. " And since it is unthinkable that threecoexistent forms of objective reality should be all dominated bythe same time and space and remain absolutely distinct from oneanother, it becomes evident that these three forms of objectivemystery, these three indefinable "somethings, " are not separatefrom one another but are in continual contact with one another. 

Thus the fact that all these three aspects of objective reality areunder the domination of the same time and space is a furtherconfirmation of the truth which we have already assumed byan act of faith, namely that all the various "universes, "half-discovered and half-created by all the souls in the world, arein reality "one universe. "

The real active and objective existence of this "one universe" ismade still more sure and is removed still further from allpossibility of "illusion, " by the fact that we are forced to regard itas being not only "our" universe but the universe also of those"invisible companions" whose vision half-creates it andhalf-discovers it, even as our own vision does. It is true that tocertain types of mind, for whom the definite recognition of mystery isrepugnant, it must seem absurd and ridiculous to be driven to theacknowledgment of a thing's existence, while at the same time wehave to confess complete inability to predicate anything at allabout the thing except that it exists. 

It must seem to such minds still more absurd and ridiculous thatwe should be driven to recognize no less than three aspects of thismysterious "something. "

But since they are included in the same time and space, and since, consequently, they are intimately connected with one another, itbecomes inevitable that we should take the yet further step andregard them as three separate aspects of one and the same mystery. Thus we are once more confronted with the inescapable trinitariannature of the system of things; and just as we have three ultimateaspects of reality in the monistic truth of "the one time and space, "in the pluralistic truth of the innumerable company of living soulsand the dualistic truth of the contradictory nature of all existence;so we have three further ultimate aspects of reality, in theincomprehensible "something" which holds all souls together; inthe incomprehensible "something" out of which all souls create theuniverse; and in the incomprehensible "something" which formsthe substratum both of the souls of the invisible "companions ofmen" and of the soul of every individual thing. 

The supreme unity, therefore, in this complicated world, thusrevealed to us by the activity of the complex vision is the unity oftime and space. This unity is eternally reborn and eternallyre-discovered every time any living personality contemplates thesystem of things. And since "the sons of the universe" must beregarded as continually contemplating the system of things, struggling with it, moulding it, and changing it, according to theirpre-existent ideal, we are compelled to assume that time and spaceare eternal aspects of reality and that their eternal necessity givesthe system of things its supreme unity. 

No isolated speculation of the logical reason, functioning apartfrom the other attributes of the complex vision, can undermine thissupreme unity of time and space. The "a priori unity ofapperception" is an unreality compared with this reality. Theall-embracing cosmic "monad, " contemplating itself as its eternalobject, is an unreality compared with this reality. 

We are left with a pluralistic world of individual souls, findingtheir pattern and their ideal in the vision of the "immortal gods"and perpetually rediscovering and recreating together "a universe"which like themselves is dominated by time and space and whichlike themselves is for ever divided against itself in an eternal andunfathomable duality. 

The ultimate truth of the system of things according to therevelation of the complex vision is thus found to consist in themystery of personality confronting "something" which _seems_impersonal. Over both these things, over the personal soul andover the primordial "clay" or "energy" or "movement" or "matter"out of which the personal soul creates its "universe, " time andspace are dominant. But since we can predicate nothing of thisoriginal "plasticity" except that it is "plastic" and that time andspace rule over it, it is in a strict sense illegitimate to say thatthis primordial "clay" or "world stuff" is in itself divided into aduality. We know nothing, and can never know anything about it, beyondthe bare fact of its existence. Its duality comes from the duality inus. It is we who create the contradiction upon which its lifedepends. It is from the unfathomable duality in the soul of the"companions of men" that the universe is brought forth. 

The ultimate duality which perpetually creates the world is theultimate duality in all living souls and in the souls of "the sons ofthe universe. " But although it is we ourselves who in the primalact of envisaging the world endow it with this duality, it would bean untrue statement to say that this duality in the material universeis an "illusion. " It is no more an illusion than the objectivematerial world itself is an illusion. Both are created by theinter-action between the mystery of personality and the mystery of whatseems the impersonal. Thus it remains perfectly true that what wesometimes call "brute matter" possesses an element of malignantinertness and malicious resistance to the power of creation. Thismalice of the impersonal, this malignant inertness of "matter, " isan ultimate fact; and is not less a fact because it depends upon theexistence of the same malice and the same inert resistance in ourown souls. 

Nor are we able to escape from the conclusion that this malignantelement in the indefinable "world-stuff" exists independently ofany human soul. It must be thought of as dependent upon the sameduality in the souls of "the sons of the universe" as that whichexists in the souls of men. For although the primordial ideas oftruth and nobility and beauty, brought together by the emotion oflove, are realized in the "gods" with an incredible and immortalintensity, yet the souls of the "gods" could not be souls at all ifthey were not subject to the same duality as that which struggleswithin ourselves. 

It follows from this that we are forced to recognize the presence ofa potentiality of evil or malice in the souls of "the sons of theuniverse. " But although we cannot escape from the conclusion thatevil or malice exists in the souls of the immortals as in all humansouls, yet in their souls this evil or malice must be regarded asperpetually overcome by the energy of the power of love. Thisovercoming of malice by the power of love, or of evil by "good, "in the souls of "the sons of the universe, " must not be regarded asa thing once for all accomplished, but as a thing eternallyre-attained as the result of an unceasing struggle, a struggle sodesperate, so passionate and so unfathomable, that it surpasses alleffort of the mind to realize or comprehend it. 

It must not, moreover, be forgotten that what the complex visionreveals about this eternal struggle between love and malice in thesouls of "the sons of the universe" and in the souls of all livingthings, is not that love and malice are vague independentelemental "forces" which obsess or possess or function _through_the soul which is their arena, but rather that they themselves _are_the very stuff and texture and essence of the individual soul itself. 

Their duality is unfathomable because the soul is unfathomable. The struggle between them is unfathomable because the strugglebetween them is nothing less than the intrinsic nature of the soul. The soul is unthinkable without this unfathomable struggle in itsinherent being between love and malice or between life and whatresists life. We are therefore justified in saying that "the universe"is created by the perpetual struggle between love and malice orbetween life and what resists life. But when we say this we mustremember that this is only true because "the universe" ishalf-discovered and half-created by the souls of "the sons of theuniverse" and by the souls of all living things which fill theuniverse. This unfathomable duality which perpetually re-createsNature, does not exist in Nature apart from living things, althoughit does exist in nature apart from any individual living thing. 

All those aspects of the objective universe which we usually call"inanimate, " such as earth, water, air, fire, ether, electricity, energy, movement, matter and the like, including the stellar andplanetary bodies and the chemical medium, whatever it may be, which unites them, must be regarded as sharing, in someinscrutable way, in this unfathomable struggle. We are unable toescape from this conception of them, as thus sharing in thisstruggle, because they are themselves the creation and discoveryof the complex vision of the soul; and the soul is, as we have seen, dependent for its every existence upon this struggle. 

In the same way, all those other aspects of the universe which are"animate" but sub-human, such as grass, moss, lichen, plants, sea-weed, trees, fish, birds, animals and the like, must be regardedas sharing in a still more intimate sense in this unfathomablestruggle. This conception has a double element of truth. For notonly do these things depend for their form and shape and realityupon the complex vision of the soul which contemplates them; butthey are themselves, since they are things endowed with life, possessed of some measure or degree of the complex vision. 

And if the souls of men and the Souls of the "sons of the universe"are inextricably made up of the very stuff of this unfathomablestruggle, between life and what resists life, we cannot escape fromthe conclusion that the souls of plants and birds and animals andall other living things are inextricably made up of the stuff of thesame unfathomable struggle. For where there is life there must bea soul possessed of life. Life, apart from some soul possessed withlife, is an abstraction of the logical reason and a phantom of nomore genuine reality than the "a priori unity of apperception" or"the universal self-conscious monad. "

What we call reality, or the truth of the system of things, isnothing less than an innumerable company of personalitiesconfronting an objective mystery; and while we are driven toregard the "inanimate, " such as earth and air and water and fire, asthe bodily expressions of certain living souls, so are we muchmore forcibly driven to regard the "animate, " wherever it is found, as implying the existence of some measure of personality andsome degree of consciousness. 

Life, apart from a soul possessing life, is not life at all. It is anabstraction of the logical reason which we cannot appropriate toour instinct or imagination. A vague phrase, like the phrase"life-force, " conveys to us whose medium of research is the complexvision, simply no intelligible meaning at all. It is on a par with the"over-soul"; and, to the philosophy of the complex vision, both the"life-force" and the "over-soul" are vague, materialistic, metaphorical expressions which do not attain to the dignity of alegitimate symbolic image. 

They do not attain to this, because a legitimate symbolic imagemust appeal to the imagination and the aesthetic sense by thepossession of something concrete and intelligible. 

Any individual personal soul is concrete and intelligible. Thepersonal souls of "the sons of the universe" are concrete andintelligible. But the "over-soul" and the "life-force" are neitherconcrete nor intelligible and therefore cannot be regarded aslegitimate symbols. One of the most important aspects of themethod of philosophical enquiry which the philosophy of thecomplex vision adopts is this use of legitimate symbolic images inplace of illegitimate metaphorical images. 

This use of concrete, tangible, intelligible images is a thing whichhas to pay its price. And the price which it has to pay is the priceof appearing childish, absurd and ridiculous to the type of mindwhich advocates the exclusive use of the logical reason as the soleinstrument of philosophical research. This price of appearingnaive, childish and ridiculous has to be paid shamelessly and infull. 

The type of mind which exacts this price, which demands in factthat the concrete intelligible symbols of the philosophy of thecomplex vision should be regarded as childish and ridiculous, isprecisely the type of mind for whom "truth" is a smoothlyevolutionary affair, an affair of steady "progress, " and for whom, therefore, the mere fact of an idea being "a modern idea" impliesthat it is "true" and the mere fact of an idea being a classical ideaor a mediaeval idea implies that it is crude and inadequate if notcompletely "false. "

To the philosophy of the complex vision "truth" does not presentitself as an affair of smooth and steady historical evolution but assomething quite different from this--as a work of art, in fact, dependent upon the struggle of the individual soul with itself, andupon the struggle of "the souls of the sons of the universe" withthemselves. And although the struggle of the souls of "the sons ofthe universe" towards a fuller clarifying of the mystery of life mustbe regarded as having its concrete tangible history in time andspace, yet this history is not at all synonymous with what isusually called "progress. "

An individual human soul, the apex-thought of whose complexvision has attained an extraordinary and unusual rhythm, must beregarded as having approached nearer to the vision of "the sons ofthe universe" although such an one may have lived in the days ofthe patriarchs or in the Greek days or in the days of mediaevalismor of the renaissance, than any modern rationalistic thinker who isobsessed by "the latest tendencies of modern thought. "

The souls of "the immortals" must certainly be regarded asdeveloping and changing and as constantly advancing towards therealization of their hope and premonition. But this "advance" isalso, as we have seen, in the profoundest sense a "return, " becauseit is a movement towards an idea which already is implicit andlatent. And in the presence of this "advance, " which is also a"return, " all historic ages of individual human souls are equal andco-existent. 

All real symbols are "true, " wherever and whenever they areinvoked, because all real symbols are the expression of that rareunity of the complex vision which is man's deepest approximationto the mystery of life. The symbol of the cross, for instance, hasfar more truth in it than any vague metaphorical expression suchas the "over-soul. " The symbolic ritual of the Mass, for instance, has far more truth in it than any metaphorical expression such asthe "life-force. " And although both the Cross and the Mass areinadequate and imperfect symbols with regard to the vision of "thesons of the universe, " because they are associated with the idea ofan historic incarnation, yet in comparison with any modernrationalistic or chemical metaphor they are supremely true. 

The philosophy of the complex vision, just because it is thephilosophy of personality, must inevitably use images whichappear to the rationalistic mind as naive and childish andridiculous. But the philosophy of the complex vision prefers toexpress itself in terms which are concrete, tangible and intelligible, rather than in terms which are no more than vague projections ofphantom logic abstracted from the concrete activity of realpersonality. 

In completing this general picture of the starting point of thephilosophy of the complex vision there is one further implicationwhich ought to be brought fully into the light. I refer to a doctrinewhich certain ancient and mediaeval thinkers adopted, and whichmust always be constantly re-appearing in human thought becauseit is an inevitable projection of the human conscience when thehuman conscience functions in isolation and in disregard of theother attributes. I mean the doctrine of the essentially evil, character of that phenomenon which was formerly called "matter"but which I prefer to call the objective mystery. 

According to this doctrine--which might be called the eternalheresy of puritanism--this objective mystery, this world-stuff, thiseternal "energy" or "movement, " this "flesh and blood" throughwhich the soul expresses itself and of which the physical body ismade, is "evil"; and the opposite of this, that is to say "mind" or"thought" or "consciousness" or "spirit" is alone "good. "

According to this doctrine the world is a struggle between "thespirit" which is entirely good and "the flesh" which is entirely evil. To the philosophy of the complex vision this doctrine appearsfalse and misleading. It detects in this doctrine, as I have hinted, an attempt of the conscience to arrogate to itself the whole field ofexperience and to negate all the other attributes, especiallyemotion and the aesthetic sense. 

Such a doctrine negates the whole activity of the complex visionbecause it assumes the independent existence of "flesh and blood"as opposed to "mind. " But "flesh and blood" is a thing which hasno existence apart from "mind, " because it is a thing "half-created"as well as "half-discovered" by "mind. "

It negates the aesthetic sense because the aesthetic sense requiresthe existence of "the body" or of "flesh and blood" or of what wecall "matter, " and cannot exert its activity without the reality ofthis thing. 

It negates emotion, because the emotion of love demands, for itsfull satisfaction, nothing less than "the eternal idea of flesh andblood. " And since love demands the "eternal idea of flesh andblood, " "flesh and blood" cannot be "evil. "

This doctrine of the evil nature of "matter" is obviously aperversion of what the complex vision reveals to us about theeternal duality. According to this doctrine, which I call the puritanheresy, the duality resolves itself into a struggle between the spiritand the flesh. But according to the revelation of the complexvision the true duality is quite different from this. In the trueduality there is an evil aspect of "matter" and also an evil aspect of"mind. "

In the true duality "spirit" is by no means necessarily good. Forsince the true duality lies in the depths of the soul itself, what wecall "spirit" must very often be evil. According to the revelation ofthe complex vision, evil or malice is a positive force, of malignantinertness, resisting the power of creation or of love. It is, as wehave seen, the primordial or chaotic weight which opposes itself tolife. 

But "flesh and blood" or any other definite form of "matter" hasalready in large measure submitted to the energy of creation and istherefore both "good" and "evil. " That original shapeless "clay" or"objective mystery" out of which the complex vision creates theuniverse certainly cannot be regarded as "evil, " for we can neverknow anything at all about it except that it exists and that it lendsitself to the creative energy of the complex vision. And in so far asit lends itself to the creative energy of the complex vision itcertainly cannot be regarded as entirely evil, but must obviouslybe both good and evil; even as the complex vision itself, being thevision of the soul, is both good and evil. 

According to the philosophy of the complex vision then, what wecall "mind" is both good and evil and what we call "matter" beingintimately dependent upon "mind" is both good and evil. We areforced, therefore, to recognize the existence of both spiritual "evil"and spiritual "good" in the unfathomable depths of the soul. Butjust because personality is itself a relative triumph of good overevil it is possible to conceive of the existence of a personality inwhom evil is perpetually overcome by good, while it is impossibleto conceive of a personality in whom good is _perpetually_overcome by evil. 

In other words, all personalities are relatively good; and somepersonalities namely those of "the immortals" are, as far as we areconcerned, absolutely good. All personalities including even thepersonalities of "the immortals" have evil in them, but nopersonality can be the embodiment of evil, in the sense in which"the sons of the universe" are the embodiment of good. 

I thus reach the conclusion of this complicated summary of thenature of the ultimate duality and the necessity of finding a clearand definite symbol for it. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE ULTIMATE IDEAS

It now becomes necessary to consider in greater detail thoseprimary human conceptions of truth, beauty, and goodness, whichI have already referred to as the soul's "ultimate ideas. " Let no onethink that any magical waving of the wand of modern psychologycan explain away these universal human experience. They may benamed by different appellations; but considering the enormousweight of historical tradition behind these names it would seemabsurd and pedantic to attempt to re-baptize them at this late hour. 

Human nature, in its essentials, has undergone no material changesince we have any record of it; and to use any other word than"beauty" for what we mean by beauty, or than "goodness" for whatwe mean by goodness, would seem a mere superstition of originality. The interpretation offered, in what follows, of the existenceof these experiences is sufficiently startling to require noassistance from novelty of phrasing to give it interest andpoignancy. That our souls are actually able to touch, in thedarkness which surrounds us, the souls of super-human beings, and that the vision of such super-human beings is the "eternalvision" wherein the mystery of love is consummated, is a doctrineof such staggering implications that it seems wise, in making ourway towards it, to use the simplest human words and to avoid any"stylistic" shocks. 

It seems advisable also to advance with scrupulous leisureliness inthis formidable matter and at certain intervals to turn round as itwere, and survey the path by which we have come. The existenceof super-human beings, immeasurably superior to man, is in itselfa harmless and natural speculation. It is only when it presents itselfas a necessary link in philosophical discussion that it appearsstartling. And the mere fact that it does appear startling whenintroduced into philosophy shows how, lamentably philosophy hasgot itself imprisoned in dull, mechanical, mathematical formulae;in formulae so arid and so divorced from life, that the conceptionof personality, applied to man or to the gods, seems to us asexciting as an incredible fairy story when brought into relationwith them. 

As the souls of men, then, each with its own complex vision, moveside by side along the way, or across one another's path, they aredriven by the necessity of things to exchange impressions withregard to the nature of life. In their communications with oneanother they become aware of the presence, at the back of theirconsciousness, of an invisible standard of truth, of beauty, ofgoodness. It is from this standard of beauty and truth andgoodness, from this dream, this vision, this hope, that all thesesouls seem to themselves to draw their motive of movement. But though they seem to themselves to be "moving" into anindetermined future still to be created by their wills, they alsoseem to themselves to be "returning" towards the discovery of thatinvisible standard of beauty, truth and goodness, which has as theirmotive-impulse been with them from the beginning. This implicitstandard, this invisible pattern and test and arbitrament of allphilosophizing, is what I call "the vision of the immortals. " Someminds, both philosophical and religious, seem driven to think ofthis invisible pattern, this standard of truth and beauty, as the_parent_ of the universe rather than as its offspring. I cannot bringmyself to take this view because of the fact that the ultimaterevelation of the world as presented, to man's complex vision isessential and unfathomably _dualistic_. 

A "parent" of the universe can only be thought of as astopping-place of all thought. He can only be _imagined_--forstrictly speaking he cannot be thought of at all--as some unutterablemystery out of which the universe originally sprang. From thisunutterable mystery, to which we have no right to attribute either amonistic or a pluralistic character, we may, I suppose, imagine toemerge a perpetual torrent of duality. 

Towards this unutterable mystery, about which even to say "it is"seems to be saying too much, it is impossible for the complexvision to have any attitude at all. It can neither love it nor hate it. It can neither reject it nor accept it. It can neither worship it norrevolt against it. It is only _imaginable_ in the illegitimate sense ofmetaphor and analogy. It is simply the stopping-place of thecomplex vision; that stopping-place beyond which anything ispossible and nothing is thinkable. 

This thing, which is at once everything and nothing, this thingwhich is _no thing_ but only the unutterable limit where all thingspass beyond thought, cannot be accepted by the complex vision asthe parent of the universe. The universe has therefore no parent, noorigin, no cause, no creator. Eternally it re-creates itself andeternally it divides itself into that ultimate duality which makescreation possible. 

That monistic tendency of human thought, which is itself anecessary projection of the monistic reality of the individual soul, cannot, except by an arbitrary act of faith, resolve this ultimateduality into unity. Such a primordial "act of faith" it can and mustmake with regard to the objective reality of other souls. But suchan "act of faith" is not demanded with regard to the unutterablemystery behind the universe. We have not, strictly speaking, eventhe right to use the expression "an unutterable mystery. " All wehave a right to do is just to titter the final judgment--"beyond thislimit neither thought nor imagination can pass. "

What the complex vision definitely denies to us, therefore, is theright to regard this thing, which is _no_ thing, with any emotion atall. The expression "unutterable mystery" is a misleading onebecause it appears to justify the emotions of awe and reverence. We have no right to regard this thin simulacrum, this mathematicalformula, this stopping-place of thought, with any feelings of aweor reverence. We have not even a right to regard it with humorouscontempt; for, being nothing at all, it is beneath contempt. 

Humanity has a right to indulge in that peculiar emotional attitudewhich is called "worship" towards either side of the ultimateduality. It has a right to worship, if it pleases--though to do soseveral attitudes of the complex vision must be outraged andsuppressed--the resistant power of malice. It has even a right toworship the universe, that turbulent arena of these primalantagonists. What it has no right to worship is the "unutterablemystery" _behind the universe_; for the simple reason that theuniverse is unfathomable. 

Human thought has its stopping-place. The universe is unfathomable. Human thought has a definite limit. The universe has nolimit. The universe is "unutterably mysterious"; and so alsois the human soul; but as far as the soul's complex vision isconcerned there can be no reality "behind the appearances ofthings" except the reality of the soul itself. Thus there is no"parent" of man and of the universe. But "the immortal companions"of men are implied from man's most intimate experiences of life. For if there were no invisible watchers, no arbiters, no standards, no tests, no patterns, no ideals; our complex vision, in regard tocertain basic attributes, would be refuted and negated. 

Every soul which exists must be thought of as possessing theattribute of "emotion" with its duality of love and malice, theattribute of "taste" with its duality of beauty and hideousness, ofconscience with its duality of good and evil, and the attribute of"reason" with its duality of the true and the false. Every one ofthese basic attributes would be reduced to a suicidal confusion ofabsolute sceptical subjectivity if it could not have faith in someobjective reality to which it can appeal. 

Such an appeal, to such an objective reality, it does, as a matter offact, continually make, whether it makes it consciously orsub-consciously. And just as the soul's basic attributes of emotion, taste, conscience, and reason indicate an implicit faith in theobjective reality of the ideas of beauty and nobility and truth; sothe soul's basic attribute of self-consciousness indicates an implicitdemand that the objective reality of these ideas should be unitedand embodied in actual living and self-conscious "souls" externalto other "souls. "

The most dangerous mistake we can make, and the most deadly inits implications, is to reduce these "companions of men" to amonistic unity and to make this unity what the metaphysicians call"absolute" in its embodiment of these ultimate ideas. 

In comparison with the fitful and moody subjectivity of ourindividual conceptions of these ideas the vision of the immortalsmay be thought of as embodying them absolutely. But in itself itcertainly does not embody them absolutely; otherwise the wholemovement of life would end. It is unthinkable that it should everembody them absolutely. For it is in the inherent nature of such avision that it should be growing, living, inexhaustible. The mostwithering and deadly of all conceivable dogmas is the dogma thatthere is such a thing as absolute truth, absolute beauty, absolutegood and absolute love. 

The attraction of such a dogma for the mind of man is undoubtedlydue to the spirit of evil or of malice. For nothing offers a morefrozen resistance to the creative power than such a faith. Compared with our human visions of these ideas the vision ofthese "companions of men" must be thought of as relativelycomplete. And complete it is, with regard to its general synthesisand orientation. But it is not really complete; and can never be so. For when we consider the nature of love alone, it becomesridiculous to speak of an absolute or complete love. If the love ofthese "companions of men" became at any moment incapable of adeeper and wider manifestation, at that very moment the wholestream of life would cease, the malice of the adversary wouldprevail, and nothingness would swallow up the universe. It isbecause we are compelled to regard the complex vision, includingall its basic attributes, as the vision of a personal soul, that it isa false and misleading conception to view these "companions ofmen" as a mere ideal. 

An ideal is nothing if not expressed in personality. Subjectivelyevery ideal is the ideal of "some one, " an ideal of a conscious, personal, and living entity. Objectively every ideal must beembodied in "some one": and must be a standard, a measure, arhythm, of various energies synthesized in a living soul. This isreally the crux of the whole matter. Vaguely and obscurely do weall feel the pressure of these deep and secret impulses. Profoundlydo we feel that these mysterious "ideas, " which give life itsdramatic intensity, are part of the depths of our own soul and partof the depths of the souls of the immortals. And yet though theyare so essentially part of us and part of the universe, they remainvague, obscure, contradictory, confused, inchoate; only graduallyassuming coherent substance and form as the "rapport" betweenman and his invisible companions grows clearer and clearer. 

We are confronted at this point by one of the most difficult of alldilemmas. If by reason of the fact that we are driven to regardpersonality as the most real thing in the universe we are compelledtoward the act of faith which recognizes one side of the eternalduality of things as embodied in actual living souls, how is it thatwe are not equally compelled to a similar act of faith in relation tothe other side of this duality? In simpler words, how is it that whilewe are compelled to an act of faith with regard to the existence ofpowers which embody the spirit of love, we are not compelled toan act of faith with regard to the existence of powers whichembody the spirit of malice?

How is it that while we have a right to regard the ideas of truth, beauty, goodness as objectively embodied in living personalitieswe have no right to regard the ideas of falseness, hideousness, eviland malice, as objectively embodied in living personalities? Toanswer this question it is necessary to define more clearly theessential duality which we discover as the secret of the universe. 

One side of this duality is the creative power of life, the other sideis the resistant power which repels life. The emotion of love is themotive-force of the power of creation, a force which we have torecognize as containing in itself the power of destruction; fordestruction is necessary to creation and is inspired by the creativeenergy. 

The other side of the eternal duality is not a destructive force, but aresistant force. That is why it is necessary to define the opposite oflove, not as hate--but as malice, which is a resistant thing. Thus itbecomes clear why it is that we are not driven by the necessity ofthe situation to any act of faith with regard to the existence ofliving souls which embody evil and malice. We are not compelledtowards this act of faith because the nature of the "other side" ofthe eternal duality is such that it cannot be embodied, in anycomplete or objective way, in a living personality. It can and itdoes appear in every personality that has ever existed. We arecompelled to assume that it exists, though in a state ofsuppression, even in the souls of the immortals. If it did not exist, in some form or other, in the souls of the immortals, the ideas oftruth, beauty, and goodness would be absolute in them, and the lifeof the universe would cease. 

For the nature of this eternal duality is such that the life of theuniverse depends upon this unending struggle between whatcreates and what resists creation. The power that creates must beregarded as embodied in personality, for creation always impliespersonality. But the power that resists creation--though present inevery living soul--cannot be embodied in personality becausepersonality is the highest expression of creation. 

Every soul born into life must possess the attributes of taste, reason, conscience and emotion. And each of these attributesimplies this fundamental duality; being resolvable into a choicebetween hideousness, falsehood, evil, malice, and the opposites ofthese. But the soul itself, being a living and personal thing, cannever, however deeply it plunges into evil, become the embodimentof evil, because by the mere fact of existing at all it hasalready defeated evil. 

Any individual soul may give itself up to malice rather than tolove, and may do its utmost to resist the creative power of love. But one thing it cannot do. It cannot become the embodiment ofevil, because, by merely being alive, it is the eternal defiance ofevil. Personality is the secret of the universe. The universe existsby reason of a struggle between what creates and what resistscreation. Therefore personality exists by reason of a strugglebetween what creates and what resists creation. And the existenceof personality, however desperate the struggle within itself maybe, is a proof that the power of life is stronger than the powerwhich resists life. 

But we have to consider another and yet deeper dilemma. Sincethe existence of the universe depends upon the continuance of thisunfathomable struggle and since the absolute victory of life overdeath, of love over malice, of truth over falsehood, of beauty overhideousness and of nobility over ignobility, would mean that theuniverse would end, are we therefore forced to the conclusion thatevil is necessary to the fuller manifestation of good?

Undoubtedly we _are_ forced to this conclusion. Not one of theseprimordial ideas, which find their synthesis in "the invisiblecompanions of men, " can be conceived without its opposite. Andit is in the process of their unending struggle that the fullerrealization of all of them is attained. And this struggle mustinevitably assume a double character. It must assume the characterof a struggle within the individual soul and of a struggle of theindividual soul with other souls and with the universe. Such astruggle must be thought of as continually maintained in the soulof the "invisible companions of men" and maintained there with adepth of dramatic intensity at which we can only guess. 

Only less false and dangerous than the dogma that the absolutevictory of good over evil has already been achieved, is the dogmathat these two eternal antagonists are in reality one and the samething. They are only one and the same thing in the sense thatneither is thinkable without the other; and in the sense that theycreate the universe by their conflict. 

It is important in a matter as crucial as this matter, concerning "theinvisible companions of men, " not to advance a step beyond ourstarting-point till we have apprehended it from several differentaspects and have gone over our ground again and again--even asbuilders of a bridge might test the solidity of their fabric stone bystone and arch by arch. By that "conscience in reason" whichnever allows us pleasantly to deceive ourselves, we are bound totouch, as it were with our very hands, every piece of stone workand every patch of cement which holds this desperate bridgetogether over the dark waters. 

We have not, then, a right to say that every energy of the complexvision depends for its functioning upon the existence of theseinvisible companions. We have not a right to say--"if there wereno such beings these energies could not function; but they dofunction; therefore there are such beings. " What we have a right tosay is simply this, that it is an actual experience that when two ormore personalities come together and seek to express their varioussubjective impressions of these ultimate ideas there is always atacit reference to some objective standard. 

This objective standard cannot be thought of apart frompersonalities capable of embodying it. For these ultimate ideas areonly real and living when embodied in personality. Apart frompersonality we are unable to grasp them; although we mustrecognize that the universe itself is composed of the very stuff oftheir contention. We have in the first place, then, completelyeliminated from our discussion that "inscrutable mystery"behind the universe. In every direction we find the universeunfathomable; and though our power of thought stops abruptly at acertain limit, we have no reason to think that the universe stopsthere; and we have every reason to think that it continues--togetherwith the unfathomable element in our souls--into impenetrablyreceding depths. 

The universe, as we apprehend it, presents itself as a congeries ofliving souls united by some indefinable medium. These livingsouls are each possessed of that multiform activity which I havenamed the complex vision. Among the basic energies of thisvision are some which in their functioning imply the pre-existenceof certain primordial ideas. 

These ideas are at once the eternally receding horizon and theeternally receding starting-point--the unfathomable past and theunfathomable future--of this procession of souls. The crux of thewhole situation is found in the evasive and tantalizing problem ofthe real nature of these primordial ideas. Can "truth, " can "beauty, "can "goodness" be conceived of as existing in the universe apartfrom any individual soul?

They are clearly not completely exhausted or totally revealed bythe vision of any individual human soul or of any number ofhuman souls. The sense which we all have when we attempt toexchange our individual feelings with regard to these things is thatwe are appealing to some invisible standard or pattern whichalready exists and of which we each apprehend a particular facetor aspect. 

All human intercourse depends upon this implicit assumption; ofwhich language is the outward proof. 

The existence of language goes a long way in itself to destroy thatisolation of individual souls which in its extreme form wouldmean the impossibility of any objective truth or beauty or nobility. Language itself is founded upon that original act of faith by whichwe assume the independent existence of other souls. And the sameact of faith which assumes the existence of other souls assumesalso that the vision of other souls does not essentially differ fromour own vision. 

Once having got as far as this, the further fact that these othervisions do vary considerably, though not essentially, differ fromour own leads us by an inevitable, if not a logical, step to theassumption that all our different visions are the imperfectrenderings of one vision, wherein the ideas of truth, beauty andnobility exist in a harmonious synthesis. 

There is no reason why we should think of this objective synthesisof truth, beauty, and goodness as absolute or perfect. Indeed thereis every reason why we should think of it as imperfect andrelative. But it is imperfect and relative only in its relation to itsown dream, its own hope, its own prophecy, its own premonition, its own struggle towards a richer and fuller manifestation. In itsrelation to our broken, baffled, and subjective visions it is alreadyso complete as to be relatively absolute. To this objective ideal ofour aesthetic and emotional values, I have given the name "thevision of the immortals" because we are unable to disassociate itfrom personality; and because, while the generations of man passaway, this vision does not pass away. 

Have I, in giving to this natural human ideal, such a formidablename--a name with so many bold and startling implications--beenmerely tempted into an alluring metaphorical image, or have Ibeen driven to make use of this expression by reason of theintrinsic nature of life itself?

I think that the latter of these two alternatives is the true one. The"logic" by which this conclusion is reached differs from the"logic" of the abstract reason in the sense of being the organic, dynamic, and creative "logic" of the complex vision itself, usingthe very apex-thought of its pyramidal activity in apprehending amystery which is at once the secret of its own being and the secretof the unfathomable universe into the depths of which it forces itsway. 

The expression, then, "the vision of the immortals" is not a merepictorial image but is the definite articulation of a profound realityfrom which there is no escape if certain attributes of the humansoul are to be trusted at all. We cannot get rid of this dilemma, oneof those dilemmas which offer alternative possibilities soappallingly opposite, that the choice between them seems like achoice between two eternities. 

Is the vision of these immortals, the existence of which as astandard of all philosophical discussion seems to be implied by thevery nature of man's soul, to be regarded or not to be regarded asthe vision of real and living personalities?

In other words, to put the case once more in its rigid outlines, isthat objective vision of truth, beauty, and goodness of which ourindividual subjective visions are only imperfect representations, the real vision of actual living "gods" or only the projection, uponthe evasive medium which holds all human souls together, of suchbeauty and such truth and such goodness as these souls find thatthey possess in common?

This is the crux of the whole human comedy. This is the throw ofthe dice between a world without hope and a world with hope. Philosophers are capable of treating this subject with quietintellectual curiosity; but all living men and women--philosophersincluded--come, at moments, to a pitiless and adamantine"impasse" where the eternal "two ways" branch off in unfathomableperspective. 

In our normal and superficial moods we are able to find a plausibleexcuse for our struggles with ourselves, in a simple acceptance ofthe ultimate duality. 

It is enough for us, in these moods, that we have on the one hand aconsciousness of "love" and on the other a consciousness of"malice. " It is enough for us, in these moods, that we have on theone hand a consciousness of truth and beauty and nobility; and onthe other a consciousness of unreality, of hideousness, and of evil. But there come other, deeper, more desperate moods, when, out ofintolerable and unspeakable loneliness our soul sinking back intoits own depths refuses to be satisfied with a mere recognition ofthis ultimate duality. 

At these moments the soul seems to rend and tear at the very rootsof this duality. It takes these ideas of beauty and truth andgoodness and subjects them to a savage and merciless analysis. Ittakes the emotion of love and the emotion of malice and tries toforce its way behind them. It turns upon itself, in its insanetrouble, and seeks to get itself out of its own way and to effaceitself, so that "something" beyond itself may flow into its place. 

At these moments the soul's complex vision is roused to a supremepitch of rhythmic energy. The apex-thought of its focussedattributes gathers itself together to pierce the mystery. Like a strainof indescribable music the apex-thought rests upon itself andbrings each element of its being into harmony with every other. 

This ultimate harmony of the complex vision may be compared toa music which is so intense that it becomes silence. And in this"silence, " wherein the apex-thought becomes at once a creator anda discoverer, the pain and distress of the struggle seems suddenlyto disappear and an indescribable happiness flows in upon thesoul. At this moment when this consummation is reached thesoul's complex vision becomes aware that the ideas of beauty, truth and goodness are not mental abstractions or material qualitiesor evolutionary by-products, but are the very purpose and meaningof life. It becomes aware that the emotion of love is not a mentalabstraction or a psychological accident or a biological necessitybut the secret of the whole struggle and the explanation of thewhole drama. 

It becomes aware that this truth, this beauty, this nobility find theirunity and harmony in nothing less than in the emotion of love. Itbecomes aware that these three primordial "ideas" are only varyingfacets and aspects of one unfathomable secret which is the activityof love. It becomes aware that this activity of love is the creativeprinciple of life itself; that it alone is life, and the force whichresists it is the enemy of life. 

Such, then, is the ultimate reality grasped in its main outlines bythe rhythmic energy of the soul's apex-thought when, in itsdesperate and savage struggle with itself, the complex visionreaches its consummation. And this reality, thus created and thusdiscovered by the apex-thought of the complex vision, demandsand requires that very revelation, towards which we have beenmoving by so long a road. 

It requires the revelation, namely, that the emotion of love ofwhich we are conscious in the depths of our being, as an emotionflowing through us and obsessing us, should be conceived of asexisting in a far greater completeness in these silent "watchers"and "companions" whom we name "the immortal gods. " It requires, therefore, that these immortal ones should be regarded asconscious and living "souls"; for the ultimate reach of the complexvision implies the idea of personality and cannot interpret lifeexcept in terms of personality. 

As I said above, there come moments in all our lives, when, rending and tearing at the very roots of our own existence, we seekto extricate ourselves from ourselves and to get ourselves out ofthe way of ourselves, as if we were seeking to make room forsome deeper personality within us which is ourself and yet notourself. This is that impersonal element which the aesthetic sensedemands in all supreme works of art so that the soul may find atonce its realization of itself and its liberation from itself. 

The "watchers" and "companions" of men must therefore beimmortal and living "souls" existing side by side with our human"souls" and side by side with all other "souls, " super-human orsub-human, which the universal medium of the world holdstogether. In arriving at this conclusion which seems to me to bethe consummation vouched for and attested by the rhythmicenergy of the complex vision, I have refused to allow anyparticular attribute of this vision, such as the will or the intuitionor the conscience, to claim for its isolated discoveries anyuniversal assent. 

The soul's emotion of love passionately craves for the realexistence of these "invisible companions. " The soul's emotion ofmalice displays an abysmal resistance to such a reality. This isnaturally a fact that we cannot afford to disregard. But in our finaldecision in so high and difficult a matter nothing can be allowed toclaim an universal assent except the rhythmic activity of the soul'sapex-thought in its supreme moments. 

At this point in our argument it is advisable to glance backwardover the way we have come; because the reality of this "eternalvision" depends, more than has as yet been understood, upon ourwhole attitude to the mystery of personality, and to the place ofpersonality, as the secret of the world. 

The feeling which we have about the emotion of love, as if it werea thing pouring through us from some unfathomable depth, doesnot imply that "the invisible companions" are themselves thatdepth. The "invisible companions" are not in any sense connectedwith the conception of an "over-soul. " That "depth, " from whichthe power of creative love pours forth, is not the "depth" of any"over-soul" but is the depth of our own unfathomable nature. 

The introduction of "something behind the universe, " theintroduction of some "parent" or "first cause" of the universe, fromwhich we have to suppose this secret of love as emerging, is asunnecessary as it is unbeautiful. It does nothing but fling themystery one step further back without in the least elucidating it;and in thus throwing it back it thins it out and cheapens it. There isnothing which appeals to the aesthetic sense about this hypothesisof an "over-soul" from whose universal being the ideas of beautyand truth and goodness may be supposed to proceed. It is a clumsyand crude speculation, easy to be grasped by the superficial mind, and with an air of profundity which is entirely deceptive. 

So far from being a spiritual conception, this conception of anover-soul, existing just behind the material universe and pouringforth indiscriminately its "truth, " "beauty, " "nobility" and "love, "is an entirely materialistic one. It is a clumsy and crude metaphoror analogy drawn from the objective world and projected into thatregion of sheer unfathomableness which lies beyond humanthought. 

When the conception of the over-soul is submitted to analysis it isfound to consist of nothing else than vague images drawn frommaterial sensation. We think of the world for instance as a vastporous sponge continually penetrated by a flood of water or air orvapour drawn from some hidden cistern or reservoir or cosmiclake. The modern theological expression "immanent" has doneharm in this direction. There is nothing profound about thisconception of "immanence. " It is an entirely materialisticconception drawn from sense analogy. 

The same criticism applies to much of the vague speculationwhich is usually called "mysticism. " Mysticism is not a spiritualattitude. It is often no more than the expression of thwartedsex-desire directed towards the universe instead of towards the personwho has repulsed it. The basic motive of mysticism, although inthe highest cases it springs from intuition, is very often only anextension into the unknown of physiological misery or ofphysiological well-being. 

The word "spiritual" retains, by some instinctive wisdom in humanlanguage, a far nobler significance than the word "mystical. "

It is, so to speak, a purer word, and has succeeded, in its progressdown the ages, in keeping itself more clear of physiologicalassociations than any other human word except the word "soul. " Itmust, however, be recognized, when we submit the two words toanalysis, that the word "spirit" is less free from metaphoricalmaterialism than the word "soul. "

The word "spirit" is a metaphorical word derived from the materialphenomenon of breath. For the purest and least tangible of allnatural phenomena, except perhaps "ether" or electricity, isobviously nothing less than the wind. "The wind bloweth where itlisteth, " and this elementary "freedom of the wind, " combinedwith our natural association of "breath" and "breathing" with allorganic life, accounts for the traditional nobility of the word spirit. 

"Spirit" and "life" have become almost interchangeable terms. Themodern expression "the life-force" is only a metaphoricalconfusion of the idea conveyed by the word "spirit" or "breath"with the idea conveyed by the word "consciousness" whenabstracted from any particular conscious soul. The use of the term"spirit" as applied to what metaphysical idealists name "theabsolute" is the supreme example of this metaphorical confusion. 

According to this use of the term "spirit" we have an arbitraryassociation of the ultimate fact of self-consciousness--a fact drawnfrom the necessity of thought--with that attenuated and etherialmaterialism implied in the words "breath" or "breathing" and inthe elemental "freedom of the wind. " The word "spiritual" is apurer and nobler word than the word "mystical" for the samereason that the word "soul" is a purer and nobler word than theword "spirit. "

The historic fact must, however, be recognized that in theevolution of human thought and in the evolution of philosophicalsystems the word "spirit" has in large measure usurped theposition that ought to belong to the word "soul" as the highest andpurest expression of what is most essential and important in life. 

The history of this usurpation is itself a curious psychologicaldocument. But I cannot help feeling that the moment has arrivedfor reinstating the word "soul" in its rightful place and altering thisfalse valuation. 

The word "soul" is the name given by the common consent oflanguage to that original "monad" or concrete unity or living "self"which exists, according to universal experience, "within" thephysical body and is the indescribable "substratum" ofself-consciousness and the unutterable "something" which gives areal concrete permanence to what we call "personality. "

Here also we are confronted by the metaphorical danger, which isa danger springing from the necessity of thought itself; thenecessity under which thought labours of being compelled to usesense-impressions if it is to function at all. But though thoughtcannot exist as thought without the use of sense-impressions it canat least concentrate its attention upon this primal necessity and beaware of it and cautious of it and hypercritical in its use. It can domore than this. It can throw back, so to speak, the whole weight ofthe mystery and drive it so rigorously to the ultimate wall, that thematerialistic and metaphorical element is reduced to a mere gap orspace or lacuna in the mind that only a material element can filland yet that we cannot imagine being filled by any materialelement which we are able to define. 

This is precisely what we have to do with regard to that"vanishing-point of sensation" which is the substratum of the soul. The situation resolves itself into this. The highest, deepest, mostprecious thing we know or can imagine is _personality_. Personality is and must be our ultimate synthesis, our final ideal, and the origin of all our ideals. Nothing can be conceived moretrue, more real, more spiritual than personality. 

All conceptions, qualities, principles, forces, elements, thoughts, ideas, are things which we abstract from personality, and projectinto the space which surrounds us, as if they could be independentof the personal unity from which they have been taken. We arecompelled by the inevitable necessity of thought itself, whichcannot escape from the world of sense-impressions, to think ofpersonality as possessing for its "substratum" "something" whichgives it concrete reality. This "something" which is utterlyindefinable, is the last gesture, so to speak, made by thesense-world before it vanishes away. 

This "something" which is the substratum of the soul and the thingwhich gives unity and concreteness to the soul is the thinnest andremotest attenuation of the world of sense-impression. It is farthinner and more remote than the sense-element in our conceptionof spirit. Why, it may be asked, can we not get rid of this"something" which fills that gap or lacuna in the identity of thesoul which can only be thought of in material terms?

We cannot get rid of it because directly we attempt to do so we areleft with that vague idealistic abstraction upon our hands which wecall "thought-in-the-abstract"--or "pure thought" or "pureself-consciousness. " But it may be asked--"Why cannot the physicalbody serve this necessary purpose of giving personality a local andconcrete identity?"

First--and this is the psychological reason--it cannot do so becauseour feeling of the soul as "something within" our physical body isan ultimate fact of experience which would then remain as anexperience denied and contradicted. 

Secondly--and this is the metaphysical reason--it cannot do sobecause our physical body is itself only a part of that objectiveuniverse of sense-impressions which the soul is conscious of asessentially distinct from its own inmost identity. 

Metaphysical idealism seems to hold that the ultimate monad ofself-consciousness is not this personal micro-cosmic monad whichI am conscious of as the empirical self or "soul" but an impersonalmacrocosmic monad or "unity of apperception" which underliesthe whole field of impressions and is unable, by reason of itsinherent nature, to contemplate itself as an "object" at all. 

What the complex vision seems to me to disclose, is a revelationwhich includes at one and the same moment "the universalmonad" and the "personal monad"; but it indicates clearly enoughthat the former is an abstraction from the latter. My thought cancertainly think of the whole universe, including time and space, asone enormous mass of impressions or ideals presenting itselfinside the circle of my mind. 

Of this mass of impressions, including time and space, mythought, thus abstracted from my personal soul, becomes thecircumference. Outside my thought there is nothing at all. Insidemy thought there is all that is. The metaphysical reason insists thatthis all-comprehensive thought or all-embracing consciousnesscannot contemplate itself as an object but is compelled to remainan universal subject whose object can only be the mass ofimpressions which it contains. 

If it is possible to speak of this "a priori" background of allpossible perception as a "monad" at all, it is a monad whichcertainly lacks the essential power of the individual monad whichwe know as our real self, for this latter can and does contemplateitself as an object. 

But as I have hinted before, the complex vision's attribute ofself-consciousness projects a second abstraction, which takes its placebetween this ultimate monad which is pure "subject" and our realpersonal self which is so much more than subject and objecttogether. 

This second abstraction, "thrown off" by our pure self-consciousnessjust as the first one is "thrown off" by our pure reason, becomes therefore an intervening monad which exists midwaybetween the monad which is pure "subject"--if that can becalled a monad at all--and the actual individual soul which is theliving reality of both these thought-projections. 

The whole question resolves itself into a critical statement of thepeculiar play of thought when thought is considered in its owninherent nature apart from concrete objects of thought. Thisoriginal play of thought, apart from what it may think, can result innothing better than isolated abstractions; because thought, apartfrom concrete objects of thought, is itself nothing more than oneattribute of the complex vision, groping about in a vacuum andfinding nothing. We are, however, bound by the "conscience ofreason, " and by what might be called reason's sense of honour toarticulate as clearly as we can all these movements of pure thoughtworking in the void; but we certainly are forbidden by the originalrevelation of the complex vision to accept them as the startingpoint of our philosophical enquiry. And we cannot accept them asa starting point, because the complex vision includes much morethan self-consciousness and reason. It includes indeed so muchmore than these, that these, when indulging in their isolatedconjuring-tricks, seem like irrelevant and tiresome clowns whoinsist upon interrupting with their fantastic pedantry the greattragic-comedy wherein the soul of man wrestles with its fate. 

As I have already indicated, it is necessary in dealing with a matteras dramatic and fatal as this whole question of ultimate reality, torisk the annoyance of repetition. It is important to go over ourtracks again so that no crevice should be left in this perilous bridgehung across the gulf. Reason, then, working in isolation, providesus with the recognition of an ultimate universal "subject" or, inmetaphysical language, with an "a priori unity of apperception. "Simultaneously with this recognition, self-consciousness, alsoworking in isolation, provides us with the recognition of anuniversal self-conscious "monad" or "cosmic self" which is notonly able but is compelled to think of itself as its own object. 

Both these recognitions imply a consciousness which is outsidetime and space; but while the first, the outer edge of thought, canonly be regarded as "pure subject, " the second can be regarded asnothing else than the whole universe contemplating itself as itsown object. 

In the third place the complex vision, working with all itsattributes together, provides us with the recognition of a personalor empirical self which is the real "I am I" of our integral soul. This personal self, or actual living soul, must be thought of aspossessing some "substratum" or "vanishing point of sensation" asthe implication of its permanence and continuous identity. This"vanishing point of sensation, " or in other words this attenuatedform of "matter" or "energy" or "movement, " must not be allowedto disappear from our conception of the soul. If it _were_ allowedto disappear, one of the basic attributes of the soul's complexvision, namely its attribute of sensation, would be negated andsuppressed. 

Directly we regarded the "I am I" within us as independent of sucha "vanishing point of sensation" and as being entirely free fromany, even from the most attenuated form, of what is usually called"matter, " then, at that very moment, the complex vision'srevelation would be falsified. Then, at that very moment, theintegrity of the soul would dissolve away, and we should bereduced to a stream of sensations with nothing to give themcoherence and unity, or to that figment of abstract self-consciousness, "thought-in-itself, " apart from both the thing "thinking"and the thing "thought. " The soul, therefore, must be conceivedif we are to be true to the original revelation of the complexvision, as having an indefinable "something" as its substratumor implication of identity. And this something, althoughimpossible to be analysed, must be regarded as existingwithin that mysterious medium which is the uniting force of theuniverse. The soul must, in fact, be thought of as possessing somesort of "spiritual body" which is the centre of its complex visionand which, therefore, expresses itself in reason, self-consciousness, will, sensation, instinct, intuition, memory, emotion, conscience, taste, and imagination. All this must necessarily imply that thesoul is within, and not outside, time and space. It must furtherimply that although the physical body, which the soul uses at itswill, is only one portion of the objective universe which confrontsit, this physical body is more immediately connected with the soul'scomplex vision and more directly under the influence of it thanany other portion of the external universe. 

The question then arises, can it be said that this "vanishing point ofsensation, " this "substratum" composed of "something" which weare only able to define as the limit where the ultimate attenuationof what we call "matter" or "energy" passes into unfathomableness, this centre of the soul, this "spiritual body, " this invisible"pyramid base" of the complex vision, is also, just as the physicalbody is, a definite portion of that objective universe which weapprehend through our senses?

The physical body is entirely and in all its aspects a portion of thisobjective universe. Is the substratum of the soul a portion of italso? I think the answer to this question is that it _is_ and also _isnot_ a portion of this universe. This "spiritual body, " this"vanishing point of sensation, " which is the principle ofpermanence and continuity and identity in the soul, is obviouslythe very centre and core of reality. Being this, it must necessarilybe a portion of that objective world whose reality, after the realityof the soul itself, is the most vivid reality which we know. 

The complex vision demands and exacts the reality of theobjective world. The whole drama of its life depends upon this. Without this the complex vision would not exist. And just as thecomplex vision could not exist without the reality of the objectiveworld, so the objective world could not exist without the reality ofthe complex vision. These two depend upon one another andperpetually recreate one another. 

Any metaphysical system which denies the existence of theobjective world, or uses the expression "illusion" with regard to it, is a system based, not upon the complex vision in its entirety, butupon some isolated attribute of it. The "substratum" of the soul, then, must be a portion of the objective world so as to givevalidity, so to speak, and assurance that this objective world withits mysterious medium crowded with living bodies and inanimateobjects is not a mere illusion. But the "substratum" of the soulmust be something else in addition to this. Being the essentialmeeting-point between what we call thought on the one hand, andwhat we call "matter" or "energy" on the other, the "substratum" ofthe soul must be a point of perpetual movement where the life ofthought passes into the life of sensation. 

The "substratum" of the soul must be regarded as the ultimateattenuation of "matter" on the one hand, and on the other asperpetually passing into "mind. " For since it is the centre-point oflife it must be composed of a stuff woven, so to speak, out all thethreads of life. That is to say it must be the very centre and vortexof all the contradictions in the universe. 

Since the "substratum" or "spiritual body" of the soul is the mostreal thing in the universe it must, in its own nature, partake ofevery kind of reality which exists in the universe. It must thereforebe, quite definitely, a portion of the objective world existingwithin time and space. But it must also be the ultimate unity of"the life of thought. " And since, as we have seen, it is within thepower of reason and self-consciousness to isolate themselves fromthe other attributes of the soul and to project themselves outside ofspace and time, it must be the perpetual fatality of the"substratum" of the soul to recall these wanderers back to the truereality of things, which does not lie outside of space and time butwithin space and time, and which must justify time and space assomething very different from illusion. 

But because, within time and space, the universe is unfathomable, and because, also within time and space, personality isunfathomable, the "substratum" of the soul, which is the pointwhere the known and the unknown meet, must be unfathomablealso, and hence must sink away beyond the limit of our thoughtand beyond the limit of our sensation. 

Since it does this, since it sinks away beyond the limit of ourthought, it must be regarded as "something" whose reality is partlyknown and partly unknown. Thus it is true to say that the"substratum" of the soul _is_ and _is not_ a portion of theobjective universe. The substratum of the soul is, in fact, theessential and ultimate reality, where all that we know loses itself inall that we do not know. Because we are compelled to admit thatonly one aspect of the "substratum" of the soul is a portion of theobjective universe as we know it, this does not justify us inasserting that the "substratum" of the soul is at once within spaceand time and outside of space and time. 

Nothing is outside of space and time. This conception of "outside"is, as we have seen, an abstraction evoked by the isolated activityof the logical reason. The fact that only one aspect of the"substratum" of the soul--and even that one with the barest limit ofdefinition--can be regarded as a portion of the objective universedoes not give the soul any advantage over the universe. For theuniverse, like the soul, has also its unfathomable depths. Thatindefinable medium, for instance, which we are compelled to thinkof as making it possible that various souls should touch oneanother and communicate with one another, is in precisely thesame position as regards any ultimate analysis as is the soul itself. It also sinks away into unfathomableness. It also becomes aportion of that part of reality which we do _not_ know. 

At this point in our enquiry it is not difficult to imagine somematerialistic objector asking the question how we can conceivesuch a vaguely denned entity as the soul possessing such verydefinite attributes as those which make up the complex vision. 

Is it not, such an one might ask, a fantastic and ridiculousassumption to endow so obscure a thing as this "soul" with suchvery definite powers as reason, instinct, will, intuition, imagination, and the rest? Surely, such an one might protest, it isin the physical body that these find their unity? Surely, if we musthave a meeting-place where thought and the objects of thoughtlose themselves in one another, such a meeting-place can benothing else than the cells of the brain?

The answer to this objection seems to me quite a final one. Thephysical body cannot supply us with the true meeting-placebetween "the life of thought" and "the life of sensation"because the physical body does not _in itself_ sink away intounfathomablenesss as does the substratum of the soul. Thephysical body can only be regarded as unfathomable whendefinitely included in the whole physical universe. But thesubstratum of the soul is doubly unfathomable. It is unfathomableas being the quintessence or vanishing-point of "matter" or"energy, " and it is unfathomable as being the quintessence of thatpersonal self which confronts not only the objective universe butthe physical body also as part of that universe. It is undoubtedlytrue that this real self which is the centre of its own universe isbound to contemplate itself as occupying a definite point in spaceand time. 

This is one of its eternal contradictions; that it should be at thesame time the creator of its universe and an unfathomable portionof the very universe it creates. The answer which the philosophyof the complex vision makes to the materialistic questioner whopoints to the "little cells of the brain" may be briefly be put thus. 

The soul functions through the physical body and through the cellsof the brain. The soul is so closely and so intimately associatedwith the physical body that it is more than possible that the deathof the physical body implies the annihilation of the soul. But whenit comes to the question as to where we are to look for the essentialself in us which is able to say "I am I" it is found to be much morefantastic and ridiculous to look for it in the "little cells of thebrain" than in some obscure "something, " or "vanishing point ofsensation, " where mind and matter are fused together. That this"something" which is able to say "I am I" should possess instinct, reason, will, intuition, conscience and the rest, may be hard toimagine. But that the "little cells of the brain" should possess theseis not only hard to imagine--it is unimaginable. The mysteriousrelation which exists between our soul and our body lends itself toendless speculation; and much of this speculation tends to becomefar more fantastic and ridiculous than any analysis of the attributesof the soul. Experiment and experience alone can teach us how farthe body is actually malleable by the soul and amenable to thesoul's purpose. 

The arbitrary symbol which I have made use of to indicate thenature of the soul's essential reality, the image of a pyramidalwedge of flames, is certainly felt to be but a thin and rigid fancywhen we consider how in the actual play of life the soul expressesitself through the body. 

As I have already indicated, the original revelation of the complexvision accepts without scruple the whole spectacle of natural life. The philosophy of the complex vision insists that no rationalisticnecessity of pure logic gives it the right to reject this naturalobjective spectacle. The philosophy of the complex vision insiststhat this obvious, solid, external, so-called "materialistic" spectacleof common life, be accepted, included and continually returned to. It insists that the word "illusion" be no more used about thisspectacle. It insists that this vast unfathomable universe of timeand space be recognized as an ultimate reality, and that all theseprojected images of the pure reason, all these circles, cubes, squares and straight lines, all these "unities of apperception, "universal "monads" and the like, be recognized as by-products ofthe abstracting energy of human logic and as entirely withoutreality when compared with this objective spectacle. My ownsymbolic or pictorial image of the activity of the complex vision, this pyramidal wedge or arrow-head of concentrated and focussedflames, must be recognized as no more adequate or satisfactorythan any of these. 

The complex vision, with its rhythmic apex-thought, is not really a"pyramid" or a "wedge of flame" any more than it is a circle or acube or a square or an "a priori synthetic unity of apperception" or"an universal self-conscious monad. " It is the vision of a livingpersonality, surrounded by an unfathomable universe. 

To keep our thoughts firmly and harmoniously fixed on the realobjective spectacle of life and on the real subjective "soul, " orpersonality, contemplating this spectacle, it is advisable to revertto the magical and mysterious associations called up by theclassical word _Nature_. The mere utterance of the word "Nature"serves to bring us back to the things which are essential andorganic, and to put into their proper place of comparative unrealityall these "unities" and circles, all these pyramids and "monads. "When we think of the astounding beauty and intricacy of theactual human body; when we think of the astounding beauty andintricacy of the actual living soul which animates this body, andwhen we think of the magical universe which surrounds themboth, we are compelled to recognize that in the last resort Natureherself is the great mystery. The word "Nature" conveys a moreliving and less metaphysical connotation than the word "universe, "and may be regarded as implying more of that in-determinedfuture of all living souls, which is still in the process of creation. 

The "universe" is a static conception. Nature is a dynamicconception. When we speak of Nature we think of the wholestruggle towards a fuller life of all the living entities which theindefinable medium of the universe contains. Nature from thispoint of view becomes the whole unfathomable spectacle, seen assomething living and growing and changing. 

The "invisible companions" of men who supply the pattern andstandard of all human ideas, become in this way the immortalchildren of Nature. The creative energy of the complex vision isitself an integral portion of the creative energy of Nature; for"Nature" is no more than the beautiful and classical word whichrecalls us to the objective spectacle which is the ultimaterevelation of the complex vision. Nature is the supreme artist; butthe apex-point of her artistry is nothing less than the apex-point ofthe artistry of the immortal gods. 

The artistry of the human soul, when its rhythm is mostharmonious and complete, implies the magical artistry of Nature, for "Nature" is nothing more than the whole objective spectaclefinding its myriad creative centres of new life in all living souls. The value of the word Nature, the value of the conception ofNature, is that it reminds us that, held together by the indefinablemedium which fills the universe, there are innumerable entitiesboth subhuman and super-human, all of whom, in their variousdegrees, possess living souls. 

Nature's supreme art is nothing more than the natural impulses ofall these, as they are thus held together, and to "return to Nature" isnothing more than to return to the objective spectacle of real life, and to the objective ideal of real life as it is embodied in "theinvisible companions. "

These "invisible companions" just because they are the most"natural" of all living personalities, are the supreme manifestationof the secret of Nature. It is because the objective spectacle of life, the spectacle which includes the stars, the planets, plants, trees, grass, moss, lichen, earth, birds, fish, animals, is a spectaclecontinually shifting and changing under the pressure ofinnumerable conscious and sub-conscious souls, that we findourselves turning to these invisible companions whose supreme"naturalness" is the test and pattern of all Nature. 

And it is because our physical bodies in their magical mysteriousnessare so much more real than any rationalistic symbols, such ascircles, cubes, squares, wedges, pyramids, and the like, thatwhen we seek to visualize the actual appearance of these"invisible companions, " it seems much more appropriate toimage their souls as clothed, like the souls of plants, trees, grass, planets, animals and men, in some tangibleness of physical form, than in nothing but the insubstantial stuff of air or wind or vapour, or "spirit. "

But since all that we call "Nature" continually changes, passesaway in dissolution and is reborn again in other forms; and sinceno physical body is exempted from death, it is apparent that if the"immortals" possessed physical bodies such as our own, they alsowould be subject to this law along with the rest of the universe. But the generations of mankind come and go and the "invisiblecompanions" of men remain; therefore the "invisible companions"cannot be supposed, except pictorially and in a symbolic sense, tobe subject to the laws which govern our mortal bodies. 

It is this freedom from the laws which govern the physical bodyand from all the intimate and intricate relations which existbetween our human soul and our human body, which makes itpossible for these companions of men to remain in perpetualcontact with every living soul born into the world. The difficultywe experience in realizing the nearness to our individual souls ofthese invisible companions, is due to a false and exaggeratedemphasis laid upon the material spectacle of nature. 

This spectacle of the objective universe is undoubtedly one of theultimate realities revealed to us by the complex vision; but it isonly one of these ultimate realities. The complex vision is itselfanother one of these; and the real existence of the soul is impliedin the activity of the complex vision. The reality of the externaluniverse, the reality of Nature, is so closely associated with theactivity of the soul that it is impossible to think of the one apartfrom the other. 

The soul's attribute of sensation is alone responsible for the greaterportion of this objective spectacle; for apprehended through anyother senses than the ones we possess the whole universe would betransformed. It is only when the soul's essential part in the creationof Nature is fully realized that we see how false and exaggeratedan emphasis we are placing upon this "externality" when wepermit it to hinder our recognition of the nearness of the immortalgods. 

The laws which govern the physical body and "the thousand illsthat flesh is heir to" obstruct, confuse, conceal, and distort the souland hold the gods at a distance. But although the brain and thesenses may be tortured, atrophied, perverted; and although the soulmay be driven back into its unfathomable depths and held there asif in prison; and although madness intervene between the soul'svision and the world, and sleep may fling it into oblivion, anddeath may destroy it utterly; tortured or perverted or atrophied orsemi-conscious or unconscious, while the soul _lives_, the"invisible companions of men" remain nearer to it than anyoutward accident, chance, circumstance, fatality or destiny, andare still the arbiters of its hope. 

Retracing once more our steps over this perilous bridge of ultimatethought, we may thus indicate the situation. Our starting-pointcannot be the "a priori synthetic unity of apperception, " becausethis is an abstraction of the pure reason, and if accepted as a realfact would contradict and negate all the other attributes of the soul. 

Our starting-point cannot be the universal "monad" ofself-consciousness, because this is an abstraction of the "I am I" andif accepted as a real fact would negate and suppress every attributeof the soul except the attributes of self-consciousness and emotion. 

Our starting-point cannot be the objective world, considered in itsevolutionary externality, because this external world depends forits very existence upon the attributes of the soul, especially uponthe attribute of sensation. 

Our starting-point can therefore be nothing less than the complexvision, which on the one hand implies the reality of the soul andon the other the reality of the external world, and which itself isthe vision of a real concrete personality. The individual is thusdisclosed as something more than the universal, the microcosm assomething more than the macrocosm, and any living personality assomething more than any conceivable absolute being. 

By an original act of faith, towards which we are helped by thesoul's attribute of imagination, we are compelled to conceive ofevery other soul in the world as being the centre of a universemore or less identical in character with the universe of which ourown soul is the centre. These separate universes we have toconceive as being subjective impressions of the same objectivereality, the beauty, truth, and goodness of which are guaranteed forus by those "invisible companions of men" in whose eternal visionthey find their synthesis. 

The tragedy of our life consists in the fact that it is only in rareexalted moments, when the rhythmic harmony of the complexvision is most intense and yet most calm, that the individual soulfeels the presence of those supreme companions whose real andpersonal existence I have attempted to indicate. These ideal andyet most real companions of humanity make their presence felt bythe soul in just the same immediate, direct and equivocal way inwhich we feel the influence of a friend or lover whose spirit, in hisbodily absence, is concentrated upon our spirit, even as ours isupon his. 

To the larger vision of these "invisible companions" we findourselves consciously and sub-consciously turning whenever theburden of our flesh oppresses us more than we can bear. We arecompelled to turn to them by reason of the profound instinct in uswhich recognizes that our ideas of truth, of beauty, and goodnessare not mere subjective fancies but are actual objective realities. These ideas do not spring from these "companions" or find theirorigin and cause in them, any more than they spring from someimaginary "parent" of the universe and find their origin and causein something "behind life. " They do not "spring" from anything atall; but are the very stuff and texture of our own unfathomablesouls, just as they are the very stuff and texture of theunfathomable souls of the immortal gods. What we are consciousof, when our complex vision gathers itself together, is the fact thatthe inevitable element of subjectivity in our individual feelingabout these things is transcended and supplemented by an invisiblepattern or standard or ideal in which these things are reconciledand fused together at a higher pitch of harmony than we individually, or even in contact with one another, are capable of attaining. 

The vision of these "invisible companions"--absolute enough inrelation to our own tragic relativity--is itself relative to its ownhope, its own dream, its own prophecy, its own premonition. Thereal evolution of the world, the real movement of life, takestherefore a double form. It takes the form of an individual _return_to the fulness of ideas which have always been implicit and latentin our individual souls. And it takes the form of a co-operative_advance_ towards the fulness of ideas which are foreshadowedand prophesied in the vision of these immortals' companions. Thusfor us, as well as for them, the eternal movement is at once anadvance and a return. Thus for us, as well as for them, the eternalinspiration is at once a hope and a reminiscence. 

It will be seen from what I have said that this philosophy of thecomplex vision finds a place for all the nobler and more desperatestruggles of the human race towards a solution of the mystery oflife. It accepts fully the fact that the human reason playing isolatedgames with itself, is driven by its own nature to reduce "all objectsof all thought" to the circle of one "synthetic unity" which is theimplied "a priori" background of all actual vision. It accepts fullythe fact that human self-consciousness, playing isolated gameswith itself, is driven by the necessity of its own nature to reduce allseparate "selves" to one all embracing "world self" which is theuniverse conscious of itself as the universe. 

It accepts fully the fact that we have to regard the apparentobjectivity of the external universe, with its historic process, as anessential and unalterable aspect of reality, so grounded in truth thatto call it an "illusion" is a misuse of language. But although itaccepts both the extreme "materialistic" view and the extreme"idealistic" view as inevitable revelations of reality, it does notregard either of them as the true starting-point of enquiry, becauseit regards both these extremes as the result of the isolated play ofone or the other of the complex vision's attributes. 

The philosophy of the complex vision refuses to accept as itsstarting-point any "synthetic unity" other than the synthetic unityof personality; because any other than this it is compelled toregard as abstracted from this by the isolated play of someparticular attribute of the mind. The philosophy of the complexvision refuses to accept as its starting-point any attenuatedmaterialistic hypothesis, such as may be indicated by the arbitrarywords "life" or "movement" or "ether" or "force" or "energy" or"atoms" or "molecules" or "electrons" or "vortices" or "evolutionaryprogress, " because it recognizes that all these hypotheticalorigins of life are only projected and abstracted aspectsof the central reality of life, which is, and always must be, personality. 

But what is the relation of the philosophy of the complex vision tothat modern tendency of thought which calls itself "pragmatism"and which also finds in personality its starting-point and centre?The philosophy of the complex vision seems to detect in thepragmatic attitude something which is profoundly unpleasing to itstaste. Its own view of the art of life is that it is before everythingelse a matter of rhythm and harmony and it cannot help discerningin "pragmatism" something piece-meal, pell-mell and "hand-to-mouth. "It seems conscious of a certain outrage to its aestheticsense in the method and the attitude of this philosophy. Thepragmatic attitude, though it would be unfair to call it superficial, does not appeal to the philosophy of the complex vision as beingone of the supreme, desperate struggles of the human race toovercome the resistance of the Sphinx. The philosophy of thecomplex vision implies the difficult attainment of an elaborateharmony. It regards "philosophy" as the most difficult of all"works of art. " What it seems to be suspicious of in pragmatism isa tendency to seek mediocrity rather than beauty, and a certainhumorous opportunism rather than the quiet of an eternal vision. Itseems to look in vain in "Pragmatism" for that element of the_impossible_, for that strain of Quixotic faith, in which no highwork of art is found to be lacking. It seems unable to discover inthe pragmatic attitude that "note of tragedy" which the fatality ofhuman life demands. 

It certainly shares with the pragmatic philosophy a tendency to laymore stress upon the freedom of the will than is usual amongphilosophies. But the "will" of the complex vision moves in closerassociation with the aesthetic sense than does the "will" ofpragmatism. It is perhaps as a matter of "taste" that pragmatismproves most unsatisfactory to it. It seems to be conscious ofsomething in pragmatism, which, though itself perhaps notprecisely "commercial, " seems curiously well adapted to acommercial age. It is aware, in fine, that certain high andpassionate intimations are roused to unmitigated hostility by thewhole pragmatic attitude. And it refuses to outrage theseintimations for the sake of any psychological contentment. 

In regard to the particular kind of "truth" championed bypragmatists, the "truth" namely which gives one on the whole thegreatest amount of practical efficiency, the philosophy of thecomplex vision remains unconvinced. The pragmatic philosophyjudges the value of any "truth" by its effective application toordinary moments. The philosophy of the complex vision judgesthe value of any "truth" by its relation to that rare and difficultharmony which can be obtained only in extraordinary moments. To the pragmatic philosopher a shrewd, efficient and healthy-mindedperson, with a good "working" religion, would seem the luckyone, while to the philosophy of the complex vision somedesperate, unhappy suicidal wastrel, who by the grace of theimmortals was allowed some high unutterable moment, mightapproach much more closely to the vision of those "sons of theuniverse" who are the pattern of us all. 

This comparison of the method we are endeavouring to followwith the method of "pragmatism" helps to throw a clear light uponwhat the complex vision reveals about these "ultimate ideas" in theflow of an indiscriminate mass of mental impression. 

To the passing fashion of modern thought there is something stiff, scholastic, archaic, rigid, and even Byzantine, about the words"truth, " "beauty, " "goodness, " thus pedestalled side by side. Butjust as with the old-fashioned word "matter" and the old-fashionedword "soul, " we must not be misled by a mere "superstition ofnovelty" in these things. 

Modern psychology has not been able, and never can be able, toescape from the universal human experiences which theseold-fashioned words cover; and as long as the experiences arerecognized as real, it surely does not make much difference what_names_ we give to them. It seems, indeed, in a point so humanand dramatic as this, far better to use words that have alreadyacquired a clear traditional and natural connotation than to inventnew words according to one's own arbitrary fancy. It would not bedifficult to invent such words. In place of "truth" one could say"the objective reality of things" rhythmically apprehended by thecomplex vision. Instead of "beauty" one could say "the world seenunder the light of a peculiar creative power in the soul whichreveals a secret aspect of things otherwise concealed from us. "Instead of "goodness" one could say "the power of the consciousand living _will_, when directed towards love. " And in place of"love" itself one could say "the projection of the essence of thesoul upon the objective plane; when such an essence is directedtowards life. "

But it would be futile to continue this "fancy-work, " of definitionby an individual temperament. The general traditional meaning ofthese words is clear and unmistakable; though there may beinfinite minute shades of difference between one person'sinterpretation of such a meaning and another's. What it all reallyamounts to is this. No philosophic or scientific interpretation oflife, which does not include the verdict of life's own mostconcentrated moments, can possibly be adequate. 

Human nature can perfectly well philosophize about its normalstream of impressions in "cold blood, " so to speak, and accordingto a method that discounts all emotional vision. But the resultantconclusions of such philosophizing, with their easy-goingassumption that what we call "beauty" and "goodness" have noconnection with what we call "truth, " are conclusions sounsatisfying to more than half of our being that they carry theirrefutation on the face of them. 

To be an "interpretation of life" a philosophical theory cannotafford to disregard the whole turbulent desperate dramatic contentof emotional experience. It cannot disregard the fact, for instance, that certain moments of our lives bring to us certain reconciliationsand revelations that change the whole perspective of our days. To"interpret life" from the material offered by the uninspiredunconcentrated unrhythmical "average" moods of the soul is liketrying to interpret the play of "Hamlet" from a version out ofwhich every one of Hamlet's own speeches have been carefullyremoved. Or, to take a different metaphor, such pseudo-psychologicalphilosophy is like an attempt to analyse the nature of fireby a summary of the various sorts of fuel which have beenflung into the flame. 

The act of faith by which these ultimate ideas are reduced to thevision of living personalities is a legitimate matter for criticalscepticism. But that there are such ultimate ideas and that lifecannot be interpreted without considering them is not a matter forany sort of scepticism. It is a basic assumption, without whichthere could be no adequate philosophy at all. It is the onlyintelligible assumption which covers the undeniable humanexperience which gathers itself together in these traditional words. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE NATURE OF ART

The only adequate clue to the historic mystery of that thing whichthe human race has come to call "beauty, " and that other thing--there-creation of this through individual human minds--which wehave come to call "art"--is found, if the complex vision is to betrusted at all, in the contact of the emotion of love with the"objective mystery, " and its consequent dispersion, as the otheraspects of the soul are brought to bear upon it, into the threeprimordial ideas of goodness, beauty, and truth. 

The reason why this one particular aspect of the soul which wecall emotion is found to be the synthesis of what is discovered byall the other aspects of the soul functioning together is that thenature of emotion differs radically from reason, conscience, will, imagination, taste, and the rest, in that it is not only a clarifying, directing and discriminating activity but is also--as none of theseothers are--an actual mood, or temper, or state of the soul, possessing certain definite vibrations of energy and a certain sortof psychic fluidity or outflowing which seems perpetually tospring up from an unfathomable depth. 

This synthetic role played by emotion in unifying the otheractivities of the complex vision and preparing the psychic materialfor the final activity of the apex-thought may perhaps beunderstood better if we think of emotion as being an actualoutflowing of the soul itself, springing up from unfathomabledepths. Thinking of it in this way we may conceive the actual sizeor volume of the "soul monad" to be increased by this centrifugalexpansion. 

By such an increase of the soul's volume we do not mean an actualincrease; because the depths of all souls are equally unfathomablewhen their recession inwards is considered. By such an increasewe refer to the forth-flowing of the soul as it manifests itselfthrough the physical body. Thus our theory brings us back, as alltheories must if they are consonant with experience, to thetraditional language of the human race. For in ordinary languagethere is nothing strange about the expression "a great soul. " Suchan expression simply refers to the volume of the soul's outflowingthrough the body. And this outflowing is the fulness, more or less, of the soul's well-spring of emotion. 

A "great soul" is thus a soul whereof the outflowing emotion--onboth sides of its inherent duality--is larger in volume as itmanifests itself through the body than in normal cases; and a"small soul" is a soul whose volume of outflowing emotion is lessthan in normal cases. 

It must be remembered, however, when we speak of the outflowingemotion of the soul that we do not mean that there _pours through_the soul from some exterior source a stream of emotion distinctfrom the integral being of the soul itself. What we mean is thatthe soul itself finds itself divided against itself in an eternalcontradiction which may be compared to the positive and negativepole of electricity. 

This outflowing of emotion is not, therefore, the outflowing ofsomething which emerges from the soul but is the outflowing, orthe expansion and dilation through the body, or the soul itself. What we are now indicating, as to the less or greater degree ofvolume in the soul's manifestation through the body, is bornewitness to in the curious fact that the bodies of persons understrong emotion--whether it be the emotion of love or the emotionof malice--do actually seem to dilate in bulk and stature. 

All that we have been saying has a clear bearing upon the problemof the relation between the emotional aspect of the soul and theother aspects. The emotion of the soul is the outflowing of the soulitself, on one side or other of its inherent duality; while the otheraspects of the soul--such as will, taste, imagination, reason, and soforth--are the directing, selecting, clarifying, interpretingactivities of the soul as it flings itself upon the objective mystery. Thus, while it is by means of that activity of the soul which we callconscience that we distinguish between good and evil; and bymeans of that activity called the aesthetic sense that we distinguishbetween beauty and hideousness; and by means of that activitycalled reason that we distinguish between reality and unreality; itis all the while from its own emotional outflowing that the souldirected and guided by these critical energies, creates the universewhich becomes its own, and then discovers that the universewhich it has created is also the universe of the immortals. 

It is because this emotional duality of love and malice is theinherent "psychic stuff" of all living souls whether mortal orimmortal that the soul of man comes at last to comprehend thatthose primordial ideas of goodness, beauty and truth, out of whichthe universe is half-created and half-discovered, draw, so to speakthe sanction of their objective reality from the eternal vision of theimmortals. 

The distinction we have thus insisted upon between the nature ofemotion and the nature of the other aspects of the soul makes itnow clear how it is that we are compelled to regard these threeprimordial ideas of beauty, truth and goodness as finding theirunity and their original identity in the emotion of love. 

It has been necessary to consider these ultimate movements of thesoul in order that we may be in a position to understand thegeneral nature of this mysterious thing we call "art, " and be able totrack its river-bed, so to speak, up to the original source. From aconsideration of the fact that the outflowing of the soul takes theform of emotion, and that this emotion is at perpetual war withinitself and is for ever contradicting itself, we arrive at our firstaxiomatic principle with regard to art, namely that art is, and mustalways be, penetrated through and through by the spirit ofcontradiction. Whatever else art may become, then, one thing wecan predicate for certain with regard to it, namely that it springsfrom an eternal conflict between two irreconcilable opposites. 

We are, further than this, able to define the nature of theseopposites as the everlasting conflict between creation and whatresists creation, or between love and malice. It is just here, inregard to the character of these opposites, that the philosophy ofthe complex vision differs from the Bergsonian philosophy of the"élan vital. "

According to Bergson's monistic system the only genuine reality isthe flux of spirit The spirit of some primordial self-expansionprojects what we call "matter" as its secondary manifestation andthen is condemned to an unending and exhausting struggle withwhat it has projected. 

Spirit, therefore, is pure energy and movement and matter is pureheaviness and resistance. Out of the necessity of this conflictemerge all those rigid logical concepts and mathematicalformulae, of which space and time, in the ordinary sense of thosewords, are the ultimate generalization. 

Our criticism of this theory is that both these things--this "spirit"and this spirit-evoked "matter"--are themselves meaninglessconcepts, concepts which, in spite of Bergson's contempt forordinary metaphysic, are in reality entirely metaphysical, being infact, like the old-fashioned entities whose place they occupy, nothing but empty bodiless generalizations abstracted from theconcrete living reality of the soul. But quite apart from ourcriticism of the Bergsonian "spirit" and "matter" on the ground oftheir being unreal conceptions illegitimately abstracted from realpersonality we are compelled to note a second vivid differencebetween our point of view and his in regard to this matter ofopposites and their contradiction. Bergson's monism, as we haveseen, resolves itself into a duality which may be defined asconscious activity confronted by unconscious inertness. 

Our duality, on the contrary, which has behind it, not monism, butpluralism, may be denned as conscious creation, or conscious love, confronted by conscious resistance to creation, or conscious inertmalice. Thus while Bergson finds his ultimate axiomatic "data" inphilosophical abstractions, we find our ultimate axiomatic "data"in the realities of human experiences. Bergson seeks to interprethuman life in terms of the universe. We seek to interpret theuniverse in terms of human life. And we contend that we arejustified in doing this since what we call "the universe, " as soon asit is submitted to analysis, turns out to be nothing but an act offaith according to which an immense plurality of separate personaluniverses find a single universe of inspiration and hope in thevision of the immortal gods. 

The ultimate duality revealed by the complex vision is aduality on both sides of which we have unfathomable abysses ofconsciousness. On the one side this consciousness is eternallycreative. On the other side this consciousness is eternallymalicious, in its deliberate inert resistance to creation. It isnatural enough, therefore, that while Bergson's "creative evolution"resolves itself into a series of forward-movements which are aseasy and organic as the growth of leaves on a tree, our advancetoward the real future which is also a return to the ideal past, resolves itself in a series of supremely difficult rhythms, whereineternally conscious "good" overcomes eternally conscious "evil. "

Our philosophy, therefore, may, in the strictest sense, be calleda "human" philosophy in contra-distinction to a "cosmic"philosophy; or, if you please, it may be called a "dramatic"philosophy in contra-distinction to a "lyric" philosophy. From allthis it will be clearly seen that it would be impossible for us tohypostasize a super-moral or sub-moral universe in completedisregard of the primordial conscience of the human soul. It willbe equally clearly seen that it would be impossible for us to projecta theoretical universe made up of "cosmic streams of tendency, "whether "spiritual" or "material, " in complete disregard of thesoul's primordial aesthetic sense. 

The logical scrupulosity and rationalistic passion which drive acosmic philosopher forward, in his attempt to construct a universein disregard of the human conscience and the human aestheticsense, are themselves evidence that while he has suppressed inhimself the first two of the three primordial ideas of which wespeak, he has become an all-or-nothing slave of the last of thesethree ideas--namely, the idea of truth. He has sacrificed hisconscience and his taste to this isolated and abstracted "truth, " thequest of pure reason alone, and, as a result of this fanaticism, thereal "true truth, " that is to say the complete rhythmic vision of thetotality of man's nature, has been suppressed and destroyed. 

It must be fully admitted at this point that the fanaticism of theso-called "pure saint" and the so-called "pure artist" who suppress, the one for the sake of "goodness" and the other for the sake of"beauty, " the third great primordial idea which we have called"truth, " is a fanaticism just as one sided and just as destructive ofthe complete harmonious vision as those other kinds. 

That this is the case can easily be proved by recalling how thin, how strained, how morbid, how ungracious, how inhuman, thoseso-called "saints" and "artists" become, when, in their neglect ofreason and truth, they persist in following their capricious, subjective, fantastic, individual dreams, out of all concrete relationto the actual world we live in. 

We arrive, therefore, at a point from which we are able to detectthe true inner spirit of the nature of art; and what we discover maythus be stated. Art is the expression, through the medium of anindividual temperament, of a beauty which is one of the primordialaspects of this pluralistic world. The eternal duality of thingsimplies that this beauty is always manifested as something inperpetual conflict with its opposite, namely with that antagonisticaspect of the universe which we name the hideous or the ugly. 

This duality exists as the eternal condition of each one of the threeprimordial ideas out of which the universe is evoked. Each ofthese three ideas is only known to us as the result of a relativevictory over its opposite. Beauty is known to us as a relativevictory over hideousness. Goodness is known to us as a relativevictory over evil. Truth is known to us as a relative victory overthe false and the unreal. The fact that each of these ideas can onlybe known in a condition of conflict with its opposite and in acondition of relative victory over its opposite is due to the fact thatall three of them are in their own nature only clarifying, selecting, and value-giving activities; whereas the actual material uponwhich they have to work, as well as the energy from which theyderive their motive-power, is nothing else but that mysteriousoutflowing of the soul itself which we call emotion. 

For since emotion is eternally divided against itself into love andmalice, the three primordial ideas which deal this emotion are alsoeternally divided against themselves, into beauty and hideousness, into goodness and evil, into reality and unreality. And since thevery existence of emotion depends upon the struggle between loveand malice, in the same way the very existence of our aestheticsense depends upon the struggle between beauty and hideousness;and the very existence of reason depends upon the strugglebetween reality and unreality. The only love we can possibly haveto deal with is a love which is for ever overcoming malice. Theonly beauty we can possibly have to deal with is a beauty which isfor ever overcoming hideousness. 

And the same assertion must be made both with regard togoodness and with regard to truth. If any one of them absolutelyovercame the other, so as completely to destroy it, the ebb andflow of life would at that moment cease. 

A world where all minds could apprehend all truth without anyillusion or admixture of unreality, would not be a world at all, aswe know the world. It would be the colourless dream of animmobile plurality of absolutes. As far as we are concerned itwould be synonymous with death. Thus the ultimate nature of theworld is found to be unfathomably dualistic. A sharp dividing lineof irreconcilable duality intersects every living soul; and the secretof life turns out to be the relatively victorious struggle ofpersonality with the thing that in itself resists its fuller life. 

This verdict of the complex vision is in unison with the naturalfeeling of ordinary humanity and it is also in unison with thesupreme illuminated moments when we seem to apprehend thevision of the gods. When once we have apprehended the inherentnature of beauty, we are in a position to understand what the spiritof art must be, whose business it is to re-create this beauty in termsof personality. The idea of beauty itself is profoundly personaleven before art touches it, since it is one of the three primordialideas with which every conscious soul sets forth. 

But it is not only personal. It is also objective and impersonal. Forit is not only the reaction of a particular soul to its own universe;it is also felt, in the rare moments when the apex-thought of thecomplex vision is creating its world rhythm, to be nothing lessthan the vision of the immortals. 

Art, therefore, which is the representation in terms of someparticular personal temperament, of that sense of beauty which isthe inheritance of all souls born into the world, must be profoundlypenetrated by the victorious struggle of the emotion of love withthe emotion of malice. For although the human sense of the beautyof the world, which may be called the objective sense of thebeauty of the world, since the vision of the immortals lies behindit, is the thing which art expresses, it must be remembered that thissense is not an actual substance or concrete entity, but is only aprinciple of selection or a process of mental reaction, in regard tolife. 

The thing which may be called an actual substance is that outflowingof the soul itself in centrifugal waves of positive andnegative vibration which we have chosen to name by the name"emotion. " This may indeed be called an actual concrete extensionof the psychic-stuff of the substantial soul. None of the threeprimordial ideas resemble it in this. They are all attitudes of thesoul; not conscious enlargements or lessenings of the very stuff; ofthe soul. 

The idea of beauty is a particular reaction to the universe. The ideaof truth is a particular reaction to the universe. The idea ofgoodness is a particular act of the will with regard to our relationto the universe. But the emotion of love, in its struggle with theemotion of malice, is much more than this. It is the actual outflowingof the soul itself; and it offers, as such, the very stuff andmaterial out of which truth and beauty and goodness aredistinguished and discerned. 

Some clear hints and intimations as to the nature of art may bearrived at from these considerations. We at any rate reach ageneral criterion, applicable to all instances, as to the presence orabsence in any particular case of the authentic and objective "note"of true art. This "note" is the presence in a work of art of thedecisive relative victory of love over malice. When, on thecontrary, in any work of art, the original struggle of love withmalice issues in a relative overcoming of love by malice, then sucha work of art belongs, ipso facto, to an inferior order of excellence. 

This criterion is one of easy intuitive application, although anyexact analysis of it, in a particular case, may be difficult andobscure. Roughly and generally expressed it amounts to this. Inthe great works of art of the world, wherein the subjective visionof the artist expresses itself in mysterious reciprocity with theobjective vision of the immortals, there is always found a certainlarge "humanity. " This humanity, wherein an infinite pity neverfor a moment degenerates into weak sentiment, reduces theco-existence of cruelty and malice to the lowest possible minimum, consonant with the ebb and flow of life. 

Some residuum of such malice and cruelty there must be, even inthe supremest work of art, else the eternal contradictions uponwhich life depends would be destroyed. But the emotion of love, in such works, will always be found to have its fingers, as it were, firmly upon the throat of its antagonist, so that the resultantrhythm shall be felt to be the ultimate rhythm of life itself, whereinthe eternal struggle of love with malice issues in the relativeovercoming of the latter by the former. 

It would be invidious perhaps to name, in this place, any particularworks of art in which the predominant element is malice ratherthan love. But such works of art exist in considerable number, andthe lacerated and distorted beauty of them remains as a perpetualwitness to what they have missed. In speaking of these inferiorworks of art the aesthetic psychologist must be on his guardagainst the confusion of such moods as the creative instinct ofdestruction or the creative instinct of simple sensuality with theinert malice we are considering. 

The instinct of destruction is essentially connected with theinstinct of creation and indeed must be regarded as an indirectexpression of that instinct; for, as one can clearly understand, almost every creative undertaking implies some kind of destructiveor at least some kind of suppressive or renunciant act whichrenders such an undertaking possible. 

In the same way it is not difficult to see that the simple impulse ofnatural sensuality, or direct animal lust, is profoundly connectedwith the creative instinct, and is indeed the expression of thecreative instinct on the plane of purely material energy. But it mustbe understood, however, that neither the will to destruction nor thewill to sensuality are by any means always as innocent as theforms of them I have indicated above. 

It often happens indeed that this destructive instinct is profoundlypenetrated by malice and derives the thrill of its activity frommalice; and this may easily be observed in certain famous but notsupreme works of art. It must also be understood that the impulseto sensuality or lust is not always the direct simple animal instinctto which I have referred. What has come to be called "Sadism" isan instance of this aberration of an innocent impulse. 

The instinct of "sadism, " or the deriving of voluptuous pleasurefrom sensual cruelty, has its origin in the legitimate association ofthe impulse to destroy with the impulse to create, as these thingsare inseparably linked together in the normal "possession" of awoman by a man. In such "possession" the active masculineprinciple has to exercise a certain minimum of destruction with aview to a certain maximum of creation; and the normal resistanceof the female is the mental corollary of this. 

The normal resistance of the artist's medium to the activity of hisenergy is a sort of aesthetic parallel to this situation; and it iseasy to see how, in the creation of a work of art, this aestheticovercoming of resistance may get itself mentally associated withthe parallel sensation experienced on the sensual plane. The pointwe have to make is this: that while in normal cases the impulse tosensuality is perfectly direct, innocent, animal, and earth-born; inother cases it becomes vitiated by the presence in it of a largeramount of destructive energy than can be accounted for by theoriginal necessity. 

Thus in a great many quite famous works of art there will be foundan element of sadism. But it will always remain that in thesupreme works of art this sadistic element has been overcome andtransformed by the pressure upon it of the emotion of love. Thereexists, however, other instances, when the work of art in questionis obviously inferior, in which we are confronted by somethingmuch more evil than the mere presence of the sadistic impulse. What I refer to is a very subtle and complicated mood wherein thesimple sadistic impulse to derive sensual pleasure from thecontemplation of cruelty has been seized upon and takenpossession of by the emotion of malice. 

The complicated mood resulting from this association of sadisticcruelty with inert malice is perhaps the most powerful engine ofevil that exists in the world; although a pure unmitigated conditionof unsensualized, unimpassioned, motiveless malice is, in itsinmost self, more essentially and profoundly evil. For while theenergy of sadism renders the actual destructive power of malicemuch more formidable, we must remember that what reallyconstitutes the essence of evil is never the energy of destructionbut always the malicious inertness of resistance to creation. Wehave thus arrived at some measure of insight as to the nature of artand we find that whatever else it may be it must be penetratedthrough and through by the overcoming of malice by love. It must, in other words, have the actual outflowing of the soul as theinstrument of its expression and as the psycho-material mediumwith which it inscribes its vision upon the objective mystery thatconfronts it. 

We have at least arrived at this point in our search for a definitecriterion: that when in any work of art a vein of excessive crueltyor, worse still, a vein of sneering and vindictive malice, dominatesthe emotional atmosphere, such a work of art, however admirableit may be in other respects, falls below the level of the mostexcellent. The relation between the idea of beauty as expressed bythe aesthetic sense and those other ideas, namely of truth andgoodness, which complete the circle of human vision, is a relationwhich may be suggested thus. 

Since all three of these primordial ideas are unified by the emotionof love it is clear that the emotion of love is the element in whicheach of them severally moves. And since it is impossible that loveshould be antagonistic to itself we must conclude that the lovewhich is the element or substratum of beauty is the same love thatis the element or substratum of goodness and truth. And since allthese three elements are in reality one element, which is indeednothing less than the dominant outflowing of the soul itself, itfollows that those portions of the soul's outflowing which havebeen directed by reason and by conscience, which we call the ideaof truth and the idea of goodness, must have an ultimate identitywith that portion of the soul's outflowing which has been directedby the aesthetic sense and which we call the idea of beauty. 

This identity between truth and goodness on the one hand andbeauty on the other cannot be regarded as an absolute identity. Theidea of truth continues to represent one facet of the universe, theidea of goodness another, and the idea of beauty another or a third. What we mean by the use of the term "identity" is simply this: thatthe universe revealed by each one of these three ideas is the sameuniverse as is revealed by the others, and the emotionalout-flowing of the individual soul, which reveals each of theseseparate facets or aspects of the universe, is the same in each ofthe three ideas which govern its direction. 

It is, however, only at their supreme point, when they are fusedtogether by the apex-thought of the complex vision, that theactivity of these separate ideas is found to be in completeharmony. Short of this extreme limit they tend to deviate fromeach other and to utter contradictory oracles. We may therefore layit down as an unalterable law of their activity that when any one ofthese ideas contradicts another it does so because of a weaknessand imperfection in its own intensity or in the intensity of the ideait contradicts. 

Thus if an idea of goodness is found irreconcilable with an idea ofbeauty, something is wrong with one or the other of these ideas, orperhaps with both of them. And we are not only able to say thatsomething is wrong with such ideas when they contradict oneanother, we are able to predicate with certainty as to whatprecisely is wrong. For the "something wrong" which leads to thiscontradiction, the "something wrong" which stands in the way ofthe rhythmic activity of the soul's apex-thought, will invariably befound to be a weakening of the outflowing of the emotion of lovein one or other or perhaps all three of the implicated ideas. 

For the outflowing of the soul's emotion is not only the life of theroot of this "tree of knowledge"; it is also the life of the sap of theuttermost branches; it is the force that makes the fragrance of eachtopmost leaf mingle with that of all the rest, in that unified breathof the whole tree which loses itself in the air. 

Thus we arrive at our final conclusion as to the nature of art. Andwhen we apply our criterion to any of the supreme works of art ofthe world we find it does not fail us. The figure of Christ, forinstance, remains the supreme incarnation of the idea of goodnessin the world; and few will deny that the figure of Christ representsnot only the idea of goodness but the ideas of truth and beautyalso. If one contemplates many another famous "good man" ofhistory, such as easily may be called to mind, one is at onceconscious that the "goodness" of these admirable persons is a thingnot altogether pleasing to the aesthetic taste, and a thing which insome curious way seems to obscure our vision of the real truth oflife. 

A great work of art, such as Leonardo's "Virgin of the Rocks, " orDostoievsky's "Idiot, " is intuitively recognized as being not onlyentirely satisfying to the aesthetic sense but also entirely satisfyingto our craving for truth and our longing for the inmost secret ofgoodness. Every great work of art is the concentrated essence of aman's ultimate reaction to the universe. It has an undertone ofimmense tragedy; but in the depths of this tragedy there is nodespair, because an infinite pity accompanies the infinite sorrow, and in such pity love finds itself stronger than fate. No work of art, however appealing or magical, can carry the full weight of what itmeans to be an inheritor of human tradition, of what it means to bea living soul, until it has arrived at that rhythm of the apex-thoughtwhich is a fusion of what we call the "good" with what we call the"beautiful" and the "true. "

It is only when our notion of what _is_ good and what is true fallsshort of the austere demands of the aesthetic sense that a certainuneasiness and suspicion enters into a discussion of this kind. Andsuch an uneasiness is justified by reason of the fact that thepopular notion both of goodness and truth does so often falllamentably short of such demands. The moral conscience ofaverage humanity is a thing of such dull sensibility, of suchnarrow and limited vision, that it is inevitable that its "goodness"should clash with so exacting a censor as the aesthetic sense. 

The rational conscience of average humanity is a thing of suchdense and rigid and unimaginative vision that it is inevitable thatits "truth" should clash with the secrets revealed by the aestheticsense. The cause, why the aesthetic sense seems to come on thescene with an apparatus of valuation so much more advanced andrefined than that possessed by the conscience or by the reason, isthat both conscience and reason are continually being applied toaction, to conduct, to the manipulation of practical affairs, and arebound in this commerce with superficial circumstance to grow alittle blunt and gross and to lose something of their fine edge. 

Conscience and reason, in the hurly-burly and pell-mell of life, aredriven to compromise, to half-measures, to the second-best. 

Conscience is compelled to be satisfied with something less thanits own rigid demands. Reason is compelled to accept somethingless than its own rigid demands. Both of these things tendto become, under the pressure of the play of circumstance, pragmatical, time-serving, and opportunist. But the aestheticsense, although in itself it has always room for infinite growth, isin its inherent nature unable to compromise; unable to bend thisway and that; unable to dally with half-measures. 

Any action, in a world of this kind, necessarily impliescompromise; and since goodness is so largely a matter of action, goodness is necessarily penetrated by a spirit of compromise. Indeed it may be said that a certain measure of common-sense isof the very essence of goodness. But what has common-sense todo with art? Common-sense has never been able, and never will beable, to understand even the rudiments of art. For art is thehalf-discovery of something that must always seem an impossibility tocommon-sense; and it is the half-creation of something that mustalways render common-sense irrelevant and unimportant. Truth, again, in a world of so infinite a complication, must frequentlyhave to remain an open question, a suspended judgment, anantinomy of opposites. The agnostic attitude--as, for instance, inthe matter of the immortality of the soul--may in certain casescome to be the ultimate gesture of what we call the truth. 

But with the aesthetic sense there can never be any suspension ofjudgment, never any open question, never any antinomy ofopposites, never the least shadow of the pragmatic, or "working"test. It is therefore natural enough that when persons possessed ofany degree of cultivated taste hear other persons speak of"goodness" or "truth" they grow distrustful and suspicious, theyfeel uneasy and very much on guard. For they know well that theconscience of the ordinary person is but a blunt and clumsyinstrument, quite as likely to distort and pervert the essential spiritof "goodness" as to reveal it, and they know well that the "truth"of the ordinary person's reason is a sorry compound of logicalrigidity and practical opportunism; with but small space left in itfor the vision of imagination. 

It is because of their primary importance in the sphere of practicalaction that the conscience and the reason have been developed outof all proportion to the aesthetic sense. And it is because thedeplorable environment of our present commercial system hasemphasized action and conduct, out of all proportion tocontemplation and insight, that it is so difficult to restore thebalance. The tyranny of machinery has done untold evil inincreasing this lack of proportion; because machinery, by placingan unmalleable and inflexible material--a material that refuses tobe humanized--between man's fingers and the actual element heworks in, has interrupted that instinctive aesthetic movement ofthe human hands, which, even in the midst of the most utterclumsiness and grossness, can never fail to introduce some touchof beauty into what it creates. 

We have thus arrived at a definite point of view from which weare able to observe the actual play of man's aesthetic sense as, inits mysterious fusion with the energy of reason and conscience, itinterprets the pervading beauty of the system of things, accordingto the temperament of the individual. It remains to note how in thesupreme works of art this human temperamental vision is caughtup and transcended in the high objectivity of a greater and moreuniversal vision; a vision which is still personal, becauseeverything true and beautiful in the universe is personal, butwhich, by the rhythm of the apex-thought, has attained a sort ofimpersonal personality or, in other words, has been brought intoharmony with the vision of the immortals. 

The material upon which the artist works is that original "objectivemystery, " confronting every individual soul, out of which everyindividual soul creates its universe. The medium by means ofwhich the artist works is that outflowing of the very substance ofthe soul itself which we name by the name of emotion. This actualpassing of the substantial substance of the soul into whatever formor shape of objective mystery the soul's vision has half-discoveredand half-created is the true secret of what happens both in the caseof the original creation of the artist and in case of the reciprocalre-creation of the person enjoying the work of art. 

For Benedetto Croce, the Italian philosopher, is surely right whenhe asserts that no one can enter into the true spirit of a work of artwithout exercising upon it something of the same creative impulseas that by the power of which it originally came into existence. Inthe contemplation of a statue or a picture or a piece of bric-a-brac, in the enjoyment of a poem or an exquisite passage of prose, justas much as in the hearing of music, the soul of the recipient isprojected beyond its normal limitation in the same way as the soulof the creator was projected beyond its normal limitation. 

The soul which thus gives itself up to Beauty is actually extendedin a living ecstasy of vibration until it flows into, and through, andaround, the thing it loves. But even this is an inadequateexpression of what happens; for this outflowing of the soul is thevery force and energy which actually is engaged in re-creating thisthing out of what at present I confine myself to calling the"objective mystery. "

The emotion of the soul plays therefore a double part. Ithalf-discovers and half-creates the pervading beauty of things; and italso loses itself in receptive ecstasy, in embracing what it hashalf-created and half-found. 

We have now reached a point from which we are able to advanceyet another step. 

Since what we call beauty is the evocation of these two confrontedexistences, the existing thing which we call the soul and theexisting thing which we call the objective mystery, it follows thatthere resides, as a potentiality, in the nature of the objectivemystery, the capacity for being converted into Beauty at the touchof the soul. There is thus a three-fold complication of reality inthis thing we call the beauty of the universe. 

There is the individual, human, subjective reality of it, dependentupon the temperament of the observer. There is the universalpotential reality of it, existing in the objective mystery. And finallythere is the ideal reality of it, objective and absolute as far as weare concerned, in the vision that I have called "the vision of theimmortals. " If it be asked why, in all these ultimate problems, it isnecessary to introduce the vision of the immortals, my answer isthat the highest human experience demands and requires it. 

At those rare moments when the "apex-thought" reaches itsrhythmic consummation the soul is conscious that its subjectivevision of Truth and Beauty merges itself and loses itself in anobjective vision which carries the "imprimatur" of eternity. This isa definite universal experience which few introspective minds willdare to deny. 

But since, as we have already proved, the ultimate reality of thingsis personality, or, to be more exact, is personality, confronting theobjective mystery, it is clear that if the subjective vision of thesoul is to correspond with an objective reality outside the soul, thatobjective reality outside the soul must itself be the vision ofpersonality. It may be asked, at this point, why it is that thepotentiality or the capacity for being turned into beauty at thetouch of the soul, which resides in the objective mystery is notenough to explain this recognition by the soul of an eternalobjective validity in its ultimate ideas. 

It is not enough to explain it, because this potentiality remainsentirely unrecognized until it is touched by personality, and it istherefore quite as much a potentiality of inferior beauty, inadequate truth, and second-rate goodness, as it is a potentialityof the rarest of these things. 

The objective mystery by itself cannot explain the soul'sexperience of an eternal validity in its deepest ideas because theobjective mystery in its role of pure potentiality is capable ofbeing moulded into the form of _any_ ideas, whether deep orshallow. Thus our proof of the real existence of "the vision of theimmortals" depends upon two facts. 

It depends upon the fact that the soul experiences an intuitiveassurance of objective reality in its ideas. And it depends upon thefact that there is no other reality in the world, with any definiteform or outline, except the reality of personality. For an idea to beeternal, therefore, it must be the idea of a personality, or of manypersonalities, which themselves are eternal; and since we have noevidence that the human soul is eternal and does not perish withthe body we are compelled to assume that somewhere in theuniverse there must exist beings whose personality is able to resistdeath and whose vision is an immortal vision. 

It might be objected at this point, by such as follow the philosophyof Epicurus, that, even though such beings exist, we have no rightto assume that they have any regard for us. My answer to this isthat in such moments as I have attempted to describe, when therhythmic activity of the soul is at its highest, we become directlyand intuitively conscious of an immense unutterable harmonypervading all forms of life, whether mortal or immortal; aharmony which could not be felt if there were not some mysteriouslink binding all living souls together. 

We become aware at such moments that not only are all livingsouls thus bound together but that all are bound together by thefact that the ideal vision of them all is one and the same. This isnot only my answer to such as maintain that though there may beBeings in the system of things superior to man, such Beings haveno necessary connection with man; it is also my answer to thequestion as to how, considering the capricious subjectivity of ourhuman vision, we can be assured that the ideal vision of theimmortals does not vary in the same way among themselves. Weare assured against both these possibilities; against the possibilityof the immortals being indifferent to humanity, and against thepossibility of the immortals being divided among themselves, bythe fact that, according to the very basic revelation of the complexvision, wherever there is a living soul, that living soul is dependentfor its continued existence upon the overcoming of malice by love. 

This duality is so much the essence of what we call personalitythat we cannot conceive of personality without it. If, therefore, theimmortals are possessed of personality they must be subject to thisduality; and the fact that they are subject to it puts themnecessarily in at least a potential "rapport" with all other livingsouls, since the essence of every living soul is to be found in thesame unfathomable struggle. 

But granting that there _are_ superior Beings, worthy to be calledGods, who in their essential nature resemble humanity, how canwe be assured that there is any contact between them andhumanity? We are assured of this in the intuitive revelation of amost definite human experience, an experience which fewphilosophers have been sceptical enough to deny, although theirexplanations of it may have been different from mine. 

William James, for instance, whose psychological investigationsinto the phenomena of religious feeling are so thorough andoriginal, describes the sense we have of the presence of theseunseen Powers in a very interesting and curious way. He pointsout that the feeling we experience at such moments is that thereexists below the level of our ordinary consciousness a deep andlimitless reservoir or cistern containing "more" of the same streamof spiritual emotion which we are conscious of as being our veryinmost self or soul of our soul. 

On the waves of this subconscious ocean of deeper life we are, soto speak, able to "ride"; if once, in a sudden revolution of absolutehumility, we can give ourselves up to it. 

It is needless to indicate how the Ideas of Plato, the "sub specieaeternitatis" of Spinoza, the "Liberation" from "the Will" ofSchopenhauer, the "Beatific Vision" of the Catholic saints are allanalogues and parallels, expressed under different symbols, of thesame universal feeling. The difference between these philosophicstatements of the situation and mine, is that, whereas these arecontent, with the doubtful exception of Plato, to eliminate fromthis subconscious "more" of what is "best" in our own soul, everytrace and element of personality, I am unable to escape from theconviction that compared with personality no power in theuniverse, whether it be called "Idea" or "Substance" or a "Will toannihilate Will" or "Life Force" or "Stream of consciousness" orany other name, is worthy to be regarded as the cause and origin ofthat intimation of "something more" by which our soul comes intocontact with the secret of the system of things. 

To assume that the vision of unutterable truth which is reached inthe supreme works of art is anything less than the vision ofsuper-human Personality is to assume that something other thanPeripety is the secret of life. And how can man, who feels soprofoundly conscious that his own personal "I am I" is the inmostessence of his being, when it comes to the question of the cause ofhis sensation of "riding on the waves" of this something "more, " becontent to find the cause in mere abstractions from personality, such as "streams of consciousness" or "life-force" or "AbsoluteSubstance"?

What we _know for certain_, in this strange imbroglio, is thatwhat we call Beauty is a complex of two mysteries, the mystery ofour own "I am I" and the mystery of the "objective something"which this "I am I" confronts. And if, as is the case, our mostintense and passionate experience, when the rhythm of our natureis at the fullest, is the intuition of some world-deep authority orsanction giving an eternal validity to our ideas, this authority orsanction cannot be interpreted in mere metaphors or similesabstracted from personality, or in any material substance without amind, or in any "stream of thought" without a thinker: but can onlybe interpreted in terms of what alone we have an insideconsciousness of, namely in terms of personality itself. 

To some temperaments it might seem as though this reduction ofthe immense unfathomable universe to a congeries of livingsouls were a strangling limitation. There are certain humantemperaments, and my own is one of them, whose aesthetic sensedemands the existence of vast interminable spaces of air, of water, of earth, of fire, or even of blank emptiness. To such atemperament it might seem as though to be jostled throughouteternity by other living souls were to be shut up in an unescapableprison. And when to this unending population of fellow-denizensof space we add this doctrine that our deepest ideas of Beautyremain subjective and ephemeral until they have received the"imprimatur" of some mysterious superhuman Being or Beings, such rebellious temperaments as I am speaking of mightconceivably cry aloud for the Psalmist's "wings of a dove. "

But the aspect of things which I have just suggested is after allonly a superficial aspect of the situation. Those hollow spacesof unplumbed darkness, those gulfs filled with primordialnothingness, those caverns of midnight where the hoary chemistryof matter swirls and ferments in eternal formlessness; these indeed_are_ taken away from us. But as I have indicated again and again, no movement of human logic, no energy of human reason, candestroy the unfathomableness of Nature. The immense spectacleof the material universe, with its perpetually receding backgroundof objective mystery, is a thing that cannot be destroyed. Thoseamong us who reluct at every human explanation of this panoramaof shadows, are only too easily able to "flee away and be at rest" inthe bottomless gulf they crave. 

The fact that man's apex-thought reveals the presence of anunending procession of living souls, each of whose creative energymoulds this mystery to its own vision, does not remove theunfathomableness of the world-stuff whereof they mould it. As wehave already seen, this aboriginal world-stuff, so impenetrable toall analysis, assumes as far as we are concerned a three-fold form. It assumes the form of the material element in that fusion of matterand consciousness which makes up the substance of the soul. Itassumes the form of the universal medium which binds all soulstogether. And it assumes the form of the objective mystery whichconfronts the vision of all souls. Over these three forms of the"world-stuff" hangs irrevocably the great "world-curve" or"world-circle" of omnipresent Space, which gives the final andultimate unity to all possible universes. 

The temperamental revolt, however, which I am endeavouring todescribe, against our doctrine of personality, does not stop with ademand for de-humanized air and space. It has a passionate"penchant" for the projection of such vague imaginative images as"spirit" and "life. " Forgetful that no man has ever seen or touchedthis "spirit, " apart from a personal soul, or this "life, " apart fromsome living thing, the temperament I am thinking of loves to makeimaginative excursions into what it supposes to be vast recedingabysses of pure "spirit" and of impersonal inhuman "life. "

It gains thus a sense of liberation from the boundaries of its ownpersonality and a sense of liberation from the boundaries of allpersonality. The doctrine, therefore, that the visible universeis a mysterious complex of many concentrated mortal visions, stamped, so to speak, with the "imprimatur" of an ideal immortalvision, is a doctrine that seems to impede and oppose such atemperament in this abysmal plunge into the ocean of existence. But my answer to the protest of this temperament--and it is ananswer that has a certain measure of authority, since thistemperament is no other than my own--is that this feeling of"imprisonment" is due to a superficial understanding of thedoctrine against which it protests. It is superficial because it doesnot recognize that around, above, beneath, within, every form ofpersonality that the "curve of space" covers, there is present theaboriginal "world-stuff, " unfathomable and inexplicable, out ofwhich all souls draw the material element of their being, in whichall souls come into contact with one another, and from which allsouls half-create and half-discover their personal universe. 

It was necessary to introduce this question of temperamentalreaction just here, because in any conclusion as to the nature ofBeauty it is above all things important to give completesatisfaction to every great recurrent exigency of human desire. And this desire for liberation from the bonds of personality is oneof the profoundest instincts of personality. 

We have now arrived at a point of vantage from which it ispossible to survey the outlines of our final problem; the problem, namely as to what it really is which renders one object in naturemore beautiful than another object, and one work of art morebeautiful than another work of art. We know that in the intuitivejudgment which affixes these relative valuations there must be thethree elements of mortal subjective vision, of immortal objectivevision, and of the original "world-stuff" out of which all visionsare made. 

But upon what criteria, by what rules and standards, do webecome aware that one tree is more beautiful than another tree, one landscape than another landscape, one poem or person orpicture than another of the same kind? The question has alreadybeen lifted out of the sphere of pure subjective taste by what hasbeen said with regard to the eternal Ideal vision. But are there anypermanent laws of Beauty by which we may analyse the verdict ofthis objective vision? Or are we made aware of it, in eachindividual case, by a pure intuitive apprehension?

I think there _are_ such laws. But I think the "science, " so to say, of the aesthetic judgment remains at present in so rudimentary astage that we are not in a position to do more than indicate theirgeneral outline. The following principles seem, as far as I am ableto lay hold upon this evasive problem, of more comprehensiveapplication than any others. 

A thing to be beautiful must form an organic totality, even thoughin some other sense it is only a portion of a larger totality. 

It must carry with it the impression, illusive or otherwise, that itis the outward form or shape of a living personal soul. 

It must satisfy, at least by symbolic association, the physicaldesires of the body. 

It must obey certain hidden laws of rhythm, proportion, balance, and harmony, both with regard to colour and form, and withregard to magical suggestiveness. 

It must answer, in some degree, the craving of the human mind forsome symbolic expression of the fatality of human experience. 

It must have a double effect upon us. It must arouse the excitementof a passion of attention, and it must quiet us with a sense ofeternal rest. 

It must thrill us with a happiness which goes beyond the pleasureof a passing physical sensation. 

It must convey the impression of something unique and yetrepresentative; and it must carry the mind through and beyonditself, to the very brink and margin of the ultimate objectivemystery. 

It must suggest inevitableness, spontaneity, a certain monumentalease, and a general feeling of expansion and liberation. 

It must, if it belong to nature, convey that magical and world-deepsadness which springs from an inarticulate appeal; or, if it belongto art, that wistful loneliness which springs from the creation ofimmortality by the hands of mortality. 

The above principles are not offered as in any way exhaustive. They are outlined as a temporary starting point and suggestion forthe more penetrating analysis which the future will surely provide. And I have temporally excluded from them, as can be seen, allreferences to those auxiliary elements drawn from reason andconscience which, according to the philosophy of the complexvision, must be included in the body of art, if art is to be the finalexpression of human experience. 

But after gathering together all we have accumulated among thesevarious paths leading to the edge of the mystery of art, what weare compelled to recognize, when we confront the palpable thingitself, is that, in each unique embodiment of it, it arrests andentrances us, as with a sudden transformation of our entireuniverse. 

Out of the abysses of personality--human or super-human--everynew original work of art draws us, by an irresistible magnetism, into itself, until we are compelled to become _what it is_, until weare actually transformed into its inmost identity. 

What hitherto has seemed to us mere refuse and litter anddreariness and debris--all the shards and ashes and flints andexcrement of the margins of our universe--take upon themselves, as they are thus caught up and transfigured, a new and ineffablemeaning. 

The terrible, the ghastly, the atrocious, the abominable, theapparently meaningless and dead, suddenly gather themselvestogether and take on strange and monumental significance. 

What has hitherto seemed to us floating jetsom and blindwreckage, what has hitherto seemed to us mere brutal lumps ofprimeval clay tossed to and fro by the giant hands of chaos, whathas hitherto seemed to us slabs of inhuman chemistry, suddenlyassumes under the pressure of this great power out of the abyss astrange and lovely and terrible expressiveness. 

Deep calls to Deep; and the mysterious oceans of Personalitymove and stir in a terrific reciprocity. 

The unfathomable gulfs of the eternal duality within us are rousedto undreamed-of response in answer to this abysmal stirring of thepowers that create the world. 

What is good in us is enlarged and heightened; what is evil in us isenlarged and deepened; while, under the increasing pressure ofthis new wave of the perilous stuff "of emotion, " slowly, little bylittle, as we give ourselves up to the ecstasy of contemplation, theintensified "good" overcomes the intensified "evil. "

It is then that what has begun in agitation and disturbance sinks bydegrees into an infinite peace; as, without any apparent change orconfusion, the waves roll in, one after another, upon our humanshore, and we are lifted up and carried out on that vast tide into thegreat spaces, beneath the morning and the evening, where theeternal vision awaits us with its undescribable calm. 

Let art be as bizarre, as weird, as strange, as rare, as fantastic, asyou please, if it be true art it must spring from the aboriginalduality in the human soul and thus must remain indestructiblypersonal. But since the two elements of personality wrestletogether in every artist's soul, the more personal a work of artbecomes the more comprehensive is its impersonality. 

For art, by means of the personal and the particular, attains theimpersonal and the universal. By means of sinking down into thetransitory and the ephemeral, by means of moulding chance andaccident to its will, it is enabled to touch the eternal and theeternally fatal. 

From agitation to peace; from sound to silence; from creation tocontemplation; from birth and death to that which is immortal;from movement to that which is at rest--such is the wayfaring ofthis primordial power. 

It is from the vantage-ground of this perception that we are ableto discern how the mysterious beauty revealed in apparently"inhuman" arrangements of line and colour and light and shade isreally a thing springing from the depths of some personal andindividual vision. 

The controversy as to the superior claims of an art that is just "art, "with an appeal entirely limited to texture and colour and line andpure sound, and an art that is imagistic, symbolic, representative, religious, philosophical, or prophetic, is rendered irrelevant andmeaningless when we perceive that all art, whether it be a thing ofpure line and colour or a thing of passionate human content, mustinevitably spring from the depths of some particular personalvision and must inevitably attain, by stressing this personalelement to the limit, that universal impersonality which is impliedin the fact that every living soul is composed of the sameelements. 

It may require no little subtlety of vision to detect in the purebeauty of line, colour, and texture that compose, say, some lovelypiece of bric-a-brac, the hidden presence of that primordial dualityout of which all forms of beauty emerge, but the metaphysicalsignificance latent in the phrase "the sense of difficulty overcome"points us towards just this very interpretation. The circumstantialand the sexual "motifs" in art, so appealing to the mob, may ormay not play an aesthetic part in the resultant rhythm. If they do, they do so because such "interest" and such "eroticism" were anintegral portion of the original vision that gave unity to the workin question. If they do not, but are merely dragged in by theun-aesthetic observer, it is easy enough for the genuine virtuoso todisregard such temptation and to put "story, " "message, ""sentiment, " and "sex-appeal" rigidly aside, as he seeks to respondto the primordial vision of an "unstoried" non-sexual beautyspringing from those deeper levels of the soul where "story, ""sentiment, " and sex have no longer any place. 

More dangerous, however, to art, than any popular craving for"human interest" or for the comfort of amorous voluptuousness, isthe unpardonable stupidity of puritanical censorship. Suchcensorship, in its crass impertinence, assumes that its miserableand hypocritical negations represent that deep, fierce, terrible"imperative" uttered by the soul's primordial conscience. 

They represent nothing of the sort. 

The drastic revelations of "conscience" are, as I have pointed outagain and again, fused and blended in their supreme moments withthe equally drastic revelations of reason and the aesthetic sense. 

They are inevitably blended with these, because, as we haveproved, they are all three nothing less than divergent aspects of theone irresistible projection of the soul itself which I have named"creative love. "

Thus it comes about that in the great, terrible moments of tragic artthere may be an apparent catastrophic despair, which in ournormal moods seems hopeless, final, absolute. 

It is only when the complex rhythm of the apex-thought is broughtto bear upon these _moments of midnight_ that a strange andunutterable healing emerges from them, a shy, half-hinted whisperor something deeper than hope, a magical effluence, a "still, smallvoice" from beneath the disastrous eclipse, which not only "purgesour passions by pity and terror" but evokes an assured horizon, beyond truth, beyond beauty, beyond goodness, where the mysteryof love, in its withdrawn and secret essence, transforms all thingsinto its own likeness. 

The nature of art is thus found to be intimately associated with theuniversal essence of every personal life. Art is not, therefore, athing for the "coteries" and the "cliques"; nor is it a thing for theexclusive leisure of any privileged class. It is a thing springingfrom the eternal "stuff of the soul, " of every conceivable soul, whether human, sub-human, or super-human. 

Art is nearer than "philosophy" or "morality" to the creativeenergy; because, while it is impossible to think of art as"philosophy" or "morality, " it is inevitable that we should think ofboth of these as being themselves forms and manifestations of art. 

All that the will does, in gathering together its impressions of lifeand its reactions to life, must, even in regard to the most vague, shadowy, faint and obscure filcherings of contemplation, beregarded as a kind of intimate "work of art, " with the soul as the"artist" and the flow of life as the artist's material. 

Every personal soul, however "inartistic, " is an artist in this sense;and every personal life thus considered is an effective orineffective "work of art. "

The primal importance of what in the narrow and restricted sensewe have come to call "art" can only be fully realized when wethink of such "art" as concentrating upon a definite materialmedium the creative energy which is for ever changing the worldin the process of changing our attitude to the world. 

The deadly enemy of art--the power that has succeeded, in thesecommercial days, in reducing art to a pastime for the leisured andwealthy--is the original inert malice of the abyss. 

This inert malice assumes, directly it comes in contact withpractical affairs, the form of the possessive instinct. And theattitude towards art of the "collector" or the leisured "epicurean, "for whom it is merely a pleasant sensation among other sensations, is an attitude which undermines the basis of its life. The veryessence of art is that it should be a thing common to all, within thereach of all, expressive of the inherent and universal nature of all. And that this is the nature of art is proved by the fact that art isthe personal expression of the personal centrifugal tendency in allliving souls; an expression which, when it goes far enough, becomes _impersonal_, because, by expressing what is common toall, it reaches the point where the particular becomes theuniversal. 

It thus becomes manifest that the true nature of art will only beincidentally and occasionally manifested, and manifested amongus with great difficulty and against obstinate resistance, until thehour comes when, to an extent as yet hardly imaginable, thecentripetal tendency of the possessive instinct in the race shallhave relinquished something of its malicious resistance to theout-flowing force which I have named "love. " And this yielding of thecentripetal power to that which we call centrifugal can only takeplace in a condition of human society where the idea ofcommunism has been accepted as the ideal and, in some effectivemeasure, realized in fact. 

For every work of art which exists is the rhythmic articulation, interms of any medium, of some personal vision of life. And themore entirely "original" such a vision is, the more closely--such isthe ultimate _paradox_ of things--will it be found to approximateto a re-creation, in this particular medium, of that "eternal vision"wherein all souls have their share. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE NATURE OF LOVE

The secret of the universe, as by slow degrees it reveals itself tous, turns out to be personality. When we consider, further, theform under which personality realizes, itself, we find it to consistin the struggle of personality to grapple with the objectivemystery. When, in a still further movement of analysis, weexamine the nature of this struggle between the soul and themystery which surrounds the soul, we find it complicated by thefact that the soul's encounter with this mystery reveals theexistence, in the depths of the soul itself, of two conflictingemotions, the emotion of love and the emotion of malice. 

The word "love" has been used so indiscriminately in its surprisinghistory that it becomes necessary to elucidate a little the particularmeaning I give to it in connection with this ultimate duality. Astrange and grotesque commentary upon human life, these variouscontradictory feelings that have covered their "multitude of sins"under this historic name!

The lust of the satyr, the affectionate glow of the domestichabitué, the rare exalted passion of the lover, the cold, clearattraction of the intellectual platonist, the will to possession of thesex-maniac, the will to voluptuous cruelty of the sex-pervert, thematernal instinct, the race-instinct, the instinct towardsfetish-worship, the instinct towards art, towards nature, towards theultimate mystery--all these things have been called "love" that weshould follow them and pursue them; all these things have beencalled "love" that we should avoid them and fly from them. 

The emotion of love in which we seem to detect the ultimatecreative force is not precisely any of these things. Of all normalhuman emotions it comes nearest to passionate sympathy. But it ismuch more than this. The emotion of love is not a simple nor aneasily defined thing. How should it be that, when it is one aspectof the outpouring of the very stuff of the soul itself? How should itbe that when it is the projection, into the heart of the objectivemystery, of the soul's manifold and complicated essence?

The best definition of love is that it is the creative apprehension oflife, or of the objective mystery, under the form of an eternalvision. At first sight this definition might seem but a cold andintellectual account of love; an account that has omitted allfeeling, all passion, all ecstasy. 

But when we remember that what we call "the eternal vision" isnothing less than the answer of love to love, nothing less than thereciprocal rhythm of all souls, in so far as they have overcomemalice, with one another and with the mystery which surroundsthem, it will be seen that the thing is something in which what wecall "intellect" and what we call "feeling" are both transcended. Love, in this sense, is an ecstasy; but it is an ecstasy from whichall troubling, agitating, individual exactions have been obliterated. It is an ecstasy completely purged of the possessive instinct. It isan ecstasy that brings to us a feeling of indescribable peace andcalm. It is an ecstasy in which our personal self, in the fullestrealization of its inmost identity, loses itself, even at the momentof such realization, in something which cannot be put intowords. At one moment our human soul finds itself harassed by athousand vexations, outraged by a thousand miseries. Physicalpain torments it, spiritual pain torments it; and a great darknessof thick, heavy, poisonous obscurity wraps it round like agrave-cloth. Then, in a sudden movement of the will, the soul criesaloud upon love; and in one swift turn of the ultimate wheel, thewhole situation is transformed. 

The physical pain seems to have no longer any hold upon the soul. The mental misery and trouble falls away from it like anunstrapped load. And a deep, cool, tide--calm and still and full ofinfinite murmurs--rolls up around it, and pours through it, andbrings it healing and peace. The emotion of love in whichpersonality, and therefore in which the universe, finds the secret ofits life, has not the remotest connection with sex. Sexual passionhas its place in the world'; but it is only when sexual passionmerges itself in the sort of love we are now considering that itbecomes an instrument of real clairvoyance. 

There is a savage instinct of cruel and searching illumination insexual passion, but such an instinct is directed towards deathrather than towards life, because it is dominated, through all itsmasks and disguises, by the passion of possession. 

Like the passion of hate, to which it is so closely allied, sexualpassion has a kind of furious intensity which is able to revealmany deep levels of human obliquity. But one thing it cannotreveal, because of the strain of malice it carries with it, and that isthe spring of genuine love. "Like unto like" is the key to thesituation; and the deeper the clairvoyance of malice digs into thesubterranean poison of life, the more poison it finds. For in findingpoison it creates poison, and in finding malice it doubles malice. 

The great works of art are not motivated by the clairvoyance ofmalice; they are motivated by the clairvoyance of love. It is onlyin the inferior levels of art that malice is the dominant note; andeven there it is only effective because, mixed with it, there is anelement of destructive hatred springing from some perversion ofthe sexual instinct. Whatever difficulty we may experience infinding words wherewith to define this emotion of love, there isnot one of us, however sceptical and malign, who does notrecognize it when it appears in the flesh. Malice displays itsrecognition of it by a passion of furious hatred; but even thishatred cannot last for ever, because in every personality that existsthere must be a hidden love which answers to the appeal of love. 

The feeling which love has, at its supreme moments, is the feelingof "unity in difference" with all forms of life. Love mayconcentrate itself with a special concentration upon one person orupon more than one; but what it does when it so concentrates itselfis not to make an alliance of "attack and defence" with the personit loves, but to flow outwards, through them and beyond them, until it includes every living thing. Let it not, however, be for amoment supposed that the emotion of love resembles that vague"emotion of humanity" which is able to satisfy itself in its ownremote sensationalism without any contact with the baffling anddifficult mystery of real flesh and blood. 

The emotion of love holds firmly and tightly to the pieces andfragments of humanity which destiny has thrown in its way. Itdoes not ask that these should be different from what they are, except in so far as love inevitably makes them different. It acceptsthem as its "universe, " even as it accepts, without ascetic dismay, the weakness of the particular "form of humanity" in which itfinds _itself_ "incarnated. "

By gradual degrees it subdues these weaknesses of the flesh, whether in its own "form" or in the "form" of others; but it is quitecontrary to the emotion of love to react against such weaknesses ofthe flesh with austere or cruel contempt. It is humorouslyindulgent to them in the form of its own individual "incarnation"and it is tenderly indulgent to them in the form of the "incarnation"of other souls. 

The emotion of love does not shrink back into itself because in theconfused pell-mell of human life the alien souls which destiny haschosen for its companions do not satisfy, in this detail or the otherdetail, the desire of its heart. The emotion of love is alwayscentrifugal, always outflowing. It concentrates itself upon thisperson or the other person, as the unaccountable attractions oflikeness and difference dictate or as destiny dictates; but thedeepest loyalty of love is always directed to the eternal vision; forin the eternal vision it not only becomes one with all living soulsbut it also becomes one--though this is a high and difficultmystery--with all the dead that have ever loved and with all theunborn that will ever love. For the apprehension of the eternalvision is at once the supreme creation and the supreme discoveryof the soul of man; and not of the soul of man alone, but of allsouls, whether of beasts or plants or demi-gods or gods, who fillthe unfathomable circle of space. 

The secret of this kind of love, when it comes to the matter ofhuman relationships, may perhaps best be expressed in thosewords of William Blake which imply the difficulty which lovefinds in overcoming the murderous exactions of the possessiveinstinct and the cruel clairvoyance of malice. "And throughout alleternity, I forgive you: you forgive me: As our dear Redeemersaid--This is the wine: this is the bread. "

This "forgiveness" of love does not imply that love, as the oldsaying runs, is "blind. " Love sees deeper than malice; for malicecan only recognize its own likeness in everything it approaches. Itmust be remembered too that this process of laying bare the faultsof others is not a pure process of discovery. Like all other forms ofapprehension it is also a reproduction of itself. The situation, infact, is never a static one. These "faults" which malice, in itsreproductive "discoveries" lays bare, are not fixed, immobile, dead. They are organic and psychic conditions of a living soul. They are themselves in a perpetual state of change, of growth, ofincrease, of withering, of fading. They are affected at everymoment by the will and by the emotion of the subject of them. They project themselves; they withdraw themselves. They dilate;they diminish. Thus it happens that at the very touch of this"discovering, " the malice which is thus "discovered" dilates withimmediate reciprocity to meet its "discoverer"; and this canoccur--such is the curious telepathic vibration between livingthings--without any articulate act of consciousness. 

The art of psychological investigation is therefore a verydangerous organ of research in the hands of the malicious; for itgoes like a reproductive scavenger through the field of humanconsciousness increasing the evil which it is its purpose to collect. The apostolic definition of "charity" as the thing which "thinkethno evil" is hereby completely justified; and the profound Goetheanmaxim, that the way to enlarge the capacities of human beings isto "assume" that such capacities are larger than they really are, isjustified also. 

Malice naturally assumes that the "faults" of people are "static, "immobile, and unchanging. It assumes this even in the very act ofincreasing these faults. For the I static and unchanging is preciselywhat malice desires and seeks to find; for death is its ideal; and, short of pure nothingness, death is the most static thing we know. 

Love is not blind or fooled or deluded when it waives aside thefaults of a person and plunges into the unknown depths of such aperson's soul. It is not blind, when, in the energy of the creativevision, such faults subside and fall away and cease to exist. It iscompletely justified in its declaration that what it sees and feels insuch a person is a hidden reservoir of unsatisfied good. It does seethis; it does feel this; because there arises, in answer to itsapproach, an upward-flowing wave of its own likeness; because insuch a person's inmost soul love, after all, remains the creativeimpulse which is the life of that soul and the very substance of thatsoul's personality. 

The struggle between the emotion of love and the emotion ofmalice goes on perpetually, in the depths of life, below a thousandshifting masks and disguises. What we call the "universe" isnothing but a congeries of innumerable "souls, " manifested ininnumerable "bodies, " each one confronted by the objectivemystery, each one surrounded by an indescribable ethereal"medium. "

What we call the emotion of love is the outflowing of any one ofthese souls towards the body and soul of any other, or again, in astill wider sense, towards all bodies and souls covered by theunfathomable circle of space. 

I will give a concrete example of what I mean. Suppose a man tobe seated in the yard of a house with a few patches of grass infront of him and the trunk of a solitary tree. The slanting sunshine, we will suppose, throws the shadows of the leaves of the tree andthe shadows of the grass-blades upon a forlorn piece of troddenearth-mould or dusty sand which lies at his feet. Something aboutthe light movement of these shadows and their delicate play uponthe ground thrills him with a sudden thrill; and he finds he "loves"this barren piece of earth, these grass-blades, and this tree. He doesnot only love their outward shape and colour. He loves the "soul"behind them, the "soul" that makes them what they are. He lovesthe "soul" of the grass, the "soul" of the tree, and that dim, mysterious, far-off "soul" of the planet, of whose "body" thisbarren patch of earth is a living portion. 

What does this "love" of his actually imply? It implies anoutflowing of the very stuff and substance of his own towards thething he loves. It implies, by a mysterious vibration of reciprocity, an indescribable response to his love from the "soul" of the tree, the plant, and the earth. Let an animal enter upon the scene, or abird, or a windblown butterfly, or a flickering flight of midges orgnats, their small bodies illumined by the sun. These new comershe also loves; and is obscurely conscious that between their"souls" and his own there vibrates a strange reciprocity. Let ahuman being enter, familiar or unfamiliar, and if his will be setupon "love, " the same phenomenon will repeat itself, only with amore conscious interchange. 

But what of "malice" all this time? Well! It is not difficult toindicate what "malice" will seek to do. Malice will seek to find itsaccount in some physical or mental annoyance produced in us byeach of these living things. This annoyance, this jerk or jolt to ourphysical or mental well-being, will be what to ourselves we namethe "fault" of the offending object. 

The shadows will tease us by their incessant movement. The treewill vex us by the swaying of its branches. The grass will presentitself to us as an untidy intruder. The barren patch of earth will fillus with a profound depression owing to its desolate lack of life andbeauty. The dog will worry us by its fuss, its solicitation, its desireto be petted. The gnats or midges will stir in us an indignanthostility; since their tribe have been known to poison the blood ofman. The human invader, above all; how loud and unpleasing hisvoice is! The eternal malice in the depths of our soul pounces uponthis tendency of grass to be "a common weed, " of gnats to bite, ofdogs to bark, of shadows to flicker, of a man to have an eviltemper, of a woman to have an atrocious shrewishness, or anappalling sluttishness; and out of these annoyances or "faults" itfeeds its desire; it satisfies its necrophilistic lust; and it rousesin the grass, in the earth, in the tree, in the dog, in the humanintruder, strange and mysterious vibrations of response which addto the general poison of the world. But the example I have selectedof the activity of emotion may be carried further than this. Allthese individual "souls" of human, animal, vegetable, planetaryembodiment, are confronted by the same objective mystery andsurrounded by the same ethereal "medium. "

By projecting a vision poisoned by malice into the matrix of theobjective mystery, the resultant "universe" becomes itself apoisoned thing, a thing penetrated by the spirit of evil. It isbecause the universe is always penetrated by the malice of thevarious visions whose "universe" it is, that we suffer so cruellyfrom its ironic "diablerie. " A universe entirely composed of thebodies and souls of beings whose primordial emotion is so largelymade up of malice is naturally a malicious universe. The age-oldtradition of the witchery and devilry of malignant Nature is a proofas to how deep this impression of the system of things has sunk. Certain great masters of fiction draw the "motive" of their art fromthis unhappy truth. 

And just as the universe is penetrated through and through by themalice of those whose universe it is, so we may suppose that theethereal "medium" which surrounds all souls, before they havevisioned their various "universes" and found them to be one, is athing which also may be affected by malice. It is an open questionand one which, in the words of Sir Thomas Browne, "admits awide solution, " whether or not this ethereal "medium, " which in asense is of one stuff both with the objective mystery and with thesubstratum of the soul, is itself the "elemental body, " as it were, ofa living ubiquitous soul. 

If this should be the case--and it is no fantastic hypothesis--we arethen provided with an explanation of the curious malignantimpishness of those so-called "elementals" who tease, with theirenigmatic oracles, the minds of unwise dabblers in "psychicmanifestations. "

But what we are concerned with noting now is that just as theprimordial malice of all the souls it contains continually poisonsthe universe, so the primordial love of all the souls it containscontinually redeems and transforms the universe. In other words itis no exaggeration to say that the unfathomable universe iscontinually undergoing the same ebb and flow between love andmalice, as are the souls and bodies of all the living things whereofit is composed. 

And what precisely is the attitude of love towards the physicalbody? Does it despise the physical body? Does its activity implyan ascetic or a puritanical attitude towards the body and theappetites of the body? The truth is quite the contrary of this. Whatthe revelation of the complex vision indicates is that this loathingof the body, this revulsion against the body, this craving to escapefrom the body, is a mood which springs up out of the eternalmalice. It is from the emotion of love in its attitude to the bodythat we arrive at the idea of the sacredness of the body and at theidea of what might be called "the eternal reality of the body. "

This idea of the eternal reality of the body springs directly fromthose ideas of truth, beauty and goodness which are pre-existent inthe universe and therefore springs directly from that emotion oflove which is the synthesis of these. 

The forms and shapes of stars and plants and rivers and hills areall realized and consummated in the form and shape of the humanbody. The magic of the elements, the mystery of earth and air andwater and fire, are incarnated in this miracle of flesh and blood. Inthe countenance of a human child, in the countenance of a man ora woman, the whole unfathomable drama of life is expressed. Themost evil of the children of men, asleep or dead, has in his facesomething more tragic and more beautiful than all the waters andall the land. 

Not to "love" flesh and blood, not to will the eternal existence offlesh and blood, is not to know "love" at all. To loathe flesh andblood, to will the annihilation of flesh and blood, is to be a victimof that original "motiveless malignity" which opposes itself to thecreative force. 

This insistence upon "the eternal idea of the body" does notnecessarily limit "the idea of the body" to the idea of the humanbody; but practically it does so. And it practically does so becausethe human body evidently incarnates the beauty and the nobility ofall other forms and shapes and appearances which make up ourexisting universe. 

There may be other and different bodies in the unfathomablespaces of the world; but for those among us who are content todeal with the actual experiences which we have, the human body, summing up the magical qualities of all other terrestrial forms andshapes, must, as far as we are concerned, remain our permanentstandard of truth and beauty. 

The substitution in art, in philosophy, and in religion, of othersymbols, for this natural and eternal symbol of the human body isalways a sign of a weakening of the creative impulse. It is a signof a relative disintegration of the power of "love" and a relativeconcentration of the power of "malice. " Thus when, by an abuse ofthe metaphysical reason, "thought-in-the-abstract" assumes therights of a personality the principle of love is outraged, becausethe eternal idea of the body is denied. 

And when, by an abuse of the psychological reason, the otheractivities of the soul are so stressed and emphasized that theattribute of sensation is forgotten, the principle of love is outraged, because the eternal idea of the body is denied. The principle oflove, by the necessity of its own nature, demands that thephysiological aspect of reality should retain its validity. 

When, therefore, we come to consider the relation of this "eternalidea of the body" to those invisible "sons of the universe" whosepower of love is inconceivably greater than our own, we arecompelled, by the necessity of the complex vision, to encounterone of those ultimate dilemmas from which there appears to be noescape. The dilemma to which we are thus led may be defined inthe following manner. 

Because the secret of the universe and the ultimate harmonybetween the pre-existent ideas by which all souls must live can benothing less than what, in this rarified and heightened sense, wehave named "love" and because the objective pattern and standardof this love is the creative energy of those personal souls we havenamed "the sons of the universe, " therefore "the sons of theuniverse" must be regarded as directing their desire and their willtowards what satisfies the inherent nature of such love. Andbecause the inherent nature of such love demands nothing lessthan the eternalizing of the idea of flesh and blood, therefore the"sons of the universe" must be regarded as directing their desireand their will towards the eternalizing of the idea of flesh andblood. 

And just as the will and desire of these "invisible companions ofmen" must be regarded as directed towards the eternalizing of thisidea whose magical "stuff of dreams" is one of the objects of theirlove, so the will and desire of all living souls must be directedtowards the eternalizing of this same reality. And because the loveof all living souls remains restless and unsatisfied when directed toany object except the "eternal vision" and because when directedto the "eternal vision" such love loses the misery of its craving andbecomes satisfied, therefore the "eternal vision" must be regardedas the only object which can ultimately and really satisfy theeternal restlessness of the love of all living souls. 

But the inherent nature of love demands, as we have seen, thepermanent reality of the physiological aspect of the universe. Thatis to say, the inherent desire of the love of all living souls isdirected towards the eternalizing of the idea of flesh and blood. From this it follows that since the "eternal vision" satisfies thedesire of love "the eternal vision" must include within it theeternal idea of the body. 

Both "the sons of the universe, " therefore, and all other livingsouls are compelled, in so far as they give themselves up to thecreative energy, to direct their will towards the eternalization ofthis idea. But is there not an inevitable frustration and negation ofthis desire and this will?

Are not both the "companions of men" and men themselves deniedby the very nature of things the realization of this idea? Is not thelove of man for "the sons of the universe" frustrated in its desire inso far as "the sons of the universe" cannot be embodied in fleshand blood? And is not the love of "the sons of the universe" forman frustrated in its desire in so far as the physical form of eachindividual soul is destroyed by death?

It seems to me that this dilemma cannot be avoided. Love insistson the eternity of the idea of the body. Therefore every soul wholoves "the sons of the universe" desires their incarnation. But if"the sons of the universe" could appear in flesh and blood for thesatisfaction of any one of their lovers, all other souls in the wideworld would lose them as their invisible companions. But althoughthis dilemma cannot in its literal outlines be avoided, it seems thatthe same inherent nature of love which leads to this dilemma leadsalso to the vanishing point or gap or lacuna in thought where thesolution, although never actually realized, may conceivably exist. 

What love desires is the eternalizing of the idea of flesh and blood. It desires this because the idea of flesh and blood is a necessaryaspect of the fulness and completeness of personality. But thoughthe idea of flesh and blood is a necessary aspect of personality, every actual incarnation of personality leaves us aware that theparticular soul we love has something more of beauty and nobilitythan is expressed. 

This "something more" is not a mere hypothetical quality but is anactual and real quality which we must assume to exist in the verystuff and texture of the soul. It exists, therefore, in that"vanishing-point of sensation, " as I called it, which we have to thinkof, although we cannot define it, as constituting the soul's essentialself. Those pre-existed ideas which find their synthesis in theemotion of love are undoubtedly part of the unfathomableuniverse. But they are this only because they are interwovenwith the unfathomable soul which exists in each of us. The"something, " therefore, which is the substratum of the soul and itscentre of identity is a thing woven out of the very stuff of theseideas. 

This is the "vanishing point of sensation" to which I have referred, the point namely where what we call "mind" blends indissolublywith what we call "matter. " The emotion of love which desires theeternalization of the idea of flesh and blood would be on the wayto satisfaction, even if it never altogether reached it, if it were ableto feel that this beauty and nobility and reality which exist in this"vanishing point of sensation" which is the very self of the soulwere actually the living essence of flesh and blood, were, in fact, areal "spiritual body, " of which the material body was the visibleexpression. 

It is the inherent nature of love itself, with its craving for reality, which leads us to the verge of this conception; and although thisconception can never, as we have seen, become more than a"vanishing-point of sensation" we have at least the satisfaction ofknowing that if we were able to define the thing more clearly itwould cease at once to be the object of love; because it wouldcease to be that mysterious fusion of "mind" and "matter" which itis the nature of love to crave. 

Without the necessity then that these immortal ones whom I callthe "sons of the universe" should satisfy the love of human soulsby any physical incarnation, they may be considered as leadingsuch love upon the true way by simply being what they are; that isby being living souls. For, as living souls, they also must possessas the centre of their being, a "spiritual body, " or fusion-point of"mind" and "matter, " which is the inner reality of flesh and blood. 

This "spiritual body" of "the gods" or the "sons of the universe"must necessarily be more noble and more beautiful than anyvisible embodiment of them could possibly be; though humanimagination and human art have a profound right to attempt tovisualize such an impossible embodiment; and the purest and mostnatural form of "religion" would be the form which struggled mostsuccessfully to appropriate such a visualization. 

And just as the human soul can satisfy something, though not all, of its desire for the eternalizing of flesh and blood in the "spiritualbodies" of these "invisible companions, " so the gods canthemselves satisfy something, though not all, of their love for theindividual soul in the reality of the soul's "spiritual body. "

All this may carry to certain minds an ambiguous and evendistasteful association; but I think it will only do so to such mindsas are reluctant to analyse, to the furthest limit, their own capacityfor the kind of "love" I have attempted to describe; and possiblyalso such minds as are debarred, by some sub-conscious elementof "malice" in them, from even desiring to develop such acapacity. 

The ambiguity and unsatisfactory vagueness in what I have beenattempting to indicate may perhaps be in a measure dissipated by adirect appeal to concrete experience. When one analyses thisemotion of love in relation to any actual human object I think itbecomes clear that in our attitude to the physical body of theperson we love there is a profound element of pity. 

The sexual emotion may destroy this pity; and any emotion whichis sensual as well as sexual may not only destroy it but turn it intoa very different kind of pity; into the "pity, " namely, of a torturerfor his victim. But I feel I am not wrong in my analysis of the kindof "love" I have in my mind, when I say that the element of pityenters profoundly into our attitude towards the body of the personwe love. 

It enters into it for this reason; namely because the physical bodyof the person we love does so inadequately and so imperfectedlyexpress the beauty of such a person's soul. "Love is not love"when the blemishes and defects and maladies of the physical formof the person loved interfere with our love and cause it todiminish. And such blemishes and defects and maladies _would_interfere with love if love were not in its essence profoundlypenetrated by pity. 

It may be asked--"how can love, which is naturally associated withbeauty and nobility, endure for a moment in the presence of suchlamentable hideousness and repulsiveness and offensiveness, asexists in some degree in the physiological aspects of us all?" It isable to endure because in the presence of this what it desires is, asI have said, not so much the actual physical body of the object ofits love as the "eternal idea" of such a body. 

When the individual soul allows itself to demand with toodesperate a craving the actual incarnation of these "sons of theuniverse" it is in reality false to its desire for the "eternal idea ofthe body, " because no actual incarnation of these immortal onescould realize in any complete sense this "eternal idea. "

In the same way when we feel the emotion of love towards anyhuman soul, our attitude towards the physical form of such a soulmust of necessity be profoundly penetrated by pity and by a tenderand humorous recognition that such a physical form onlyexpresses a very limited portion of the unfathomable soul whichwe love. 

If, with a desperate craving to contradict the essential nature oflove, we insist upon regarding the physical body as the completeexpression of the soul, we fall into the same fatal weakness as thatinto which those fall who demand a physical incarnation of the"companions of men, " and along with such as these we are false tolove's true craving for the "eternal idea of flesh and blood. "

In other words, this craving of love for "the eternal idea of thebody" does not imply that we are false to love when we are unableto change our natural repugnance in the presence of the repulsiveand the offensive into attraction to these things. Love certainlydoes not mean a morbid attraction to what is unattractive. Thesexual emotion, the emotion which we call "being in love, " doessometimes include this morbidity, just because, by reason of itsphysiological origin, it tends to remain the slave of thephysiological. But although love does not imply a morbidattraction to the repulsive and the offensive, and although thepresence of the repulsive and offensive in connection with thosewe love is a proof to us that "the eternal idea of the body, " is notrealized in the actual body, it is clear that "love is not love" whenit allows itself to be diminished or destroyed by the presence ofthese things. 

What love really demands, both with regard to the universe andwith regard to any individual soul in the universe, is not so muchthe retention of the physiological aspect of these things, _as weknow them now_, but of the physiological aspect of them impliedin such a phrase as "the eternal idea of matter" or "the eternal ideaof flesh and blood. "

It may be put still more simply by saying that what love demandsis the existence of something in what we call "matter" or the"body" which guarantees the eternal reality of these aspects of life. It does not demand that we should love the repulsive, theoffensive, the false, or the evil, because these exist in the bodiesand the souls of those we love. 

Everything in the universe partakes of the eternal duality. Thehideous, the false and the evil are not confined to what we call"mind" but exist in what we call "matter" also. Consequently love, when in its craving for complete reality it demands "the eternalidea of the body" does not demand that this eternal idea should berealized in any actual body. 

When a demand of this kind is made, it is not made by love but bythe sexual instinct, and it is invariably doomed to a ghastlydisillusion. For it is just this very craving, namely that in someactual human body "the eternal idea of the body" should berealized, that the sweet and terrible madness of sexual lovecontinually implies. But real love, the love which is the supremesynthesis of those ideas which represent the creative power in theultimate duality, can never be disillusioned. 

And it cannot be disillusioned because it is able to see, beneath thechaotic litter and unessential debris of "matter, " the eternal idea of"matter" and because it is able to see, under the lamentablerepulsiveness and offensiveness of so much actual flesh andblood, "the eternal idea of flesh and blood. "

Love's attitude toward this element of litter and chaos in theuniverse is sometimes an attitude of humorous toleration andsometimes an attitude of destructive fire. Love's attitude towardsthe repulsive and the offensive in human souls and bodies issometimes an attitude of humorous toleration and sometimes anattitude of destructive fire. 

But along with this passion of destruction, which is so essential apart of the passion of creation, and along with this humorousindulgence, there necessarily mingles, where human beings areconcerned, an element of profound pity. The best concreteexample of the mood I am trying to indicate is the emotion whichany one would naturally feel in the presence of some torturer ortyrant whom he had slain, or even whom he had surprised asleep. For the prerogative of both sleep and death is that they obliteratethe repulsive elements of flesh and blood and set free its eternalidea. 

And this is true of death even after the ghastly process of chemicaldissolution has actually begun. A loathing of matter as matter, ahatred and contempt for the body as the body, is therefore amanifestation not of love but of the opposite of love. Such aloathing of the physiological is a sign of a weakening of thecreative energy. It is also a sign of the stiffening of the resistant"malice, " or "motiveless malignity, " which opposes creation. Whatthe energy of love directs its desire and its will towards, is first the"eternal idea of the soul, " the idea of the rhythmic harmony of"mind" and "matter" fused and lost in one another, and then "theeternal idea of the body, " the idea of the rhythmic projection ofthis invisible harmony upon the visible fabric of the world. 

Thus we arrive at the only definition of the nature of love which issatisfactory to the deepest moments of feeling experienced by thehuman soul. In such moments the soul gathers itself together onthe verge and brink of the unknown. Something beyond the powerof our will takes possession then of all that we are. In ourmomentary and transitory movement of the complex vision we arepermitted to pass across the ultimate threshold. 

We enter then that mysterious rhythm which I have called "TheEternal Vision"; and in place of our desire for personalimmortality, in place of our desire for the possession of any personor thing, in place of our contemplation of "forces" and "energies"and "evolution" or "dissolution, " in place of our struggle for"existence" or for "power, " we become suddenly aware that in theoutflowing and reciprocal inter-action of the emotion of love thereis something that reduces all these to insignificance, somethingthat out of the very depths of the poisonous misery of the worldand the irony of the world and the madness of the world utters itsdefiant Rabelaisian signal, "Bon espoir y gist au fond. "

CHAPTER IX. 

THE NATURE OF THE GODS

We must now return to our original definition of the truephilosophical instrument of research in order to see if we cansecure from it a clearer notion as to the nature of the Gods. Suchan instrument is, as we have seen, the apex-thought of the complexvision using all its attributes in rhythmic unison. For the complexvision using all its attributes in unison is only another name for thesoul using the body and using something more than the body. 

If the soul could use no attributes except those given to it by thebody, it might, or it might not, arrive at the idea of the "sons of theuniverse. " It certainly could not enter into any relation with suchimmortal beings. But since it has arrived at such a conception "it isimpossible for it ever to fall entirely away from what it hasreached. " For the same unfathomable duality which gave birth tothe sons of the universe has given birth to men; and between thesetwo, between the ideal figures who cannot perish and thegenerations of souls who for ever appear and for ever pass awaythere is an eternal understanding. And the understanding betweenthese two depends upon the fact that they are both children of thesame unfathomable duality. 

But this duality which is the cause why the universe is the universeand not something other than the universe, must remain as great amystery to the souls of the "companions of men" as it is to all thesouls in the world who recognize them as their ideal. 

We cannot escape the impression that this complex vision ofours, which is our instrument of research and which leaves us inthe presence of an unfathomable duality, finds a parallel in thecomplex vision of the sons of the universe which is theirinstrument of research and which leaves them also in the presenceof an unfathomable duality. We cannot escape from the impressionthat to these children of the eternal duality the mystery of thisduality is as dark as it is to ourselves. 

They find themselves struggling to overcome malice with love, even as we find ourselves struggling to overcome malice withlove. They find themselves driven to creation and destruction. Thecomplex vision, which is their instrument of research, is baffled inthe same way as the complex vision which is our instrument ofresearch. 

If, therefore, in our desperate struggle with the unfathomablenature of this duality, we demand why it is that the gods havefailed, in spite of their love, to give us any clue to some ultimatereconciliation, the answer must be that such an ultimatereconciliation is as much beyond the reach of their vision as it isbeyond the reach of ours. The attainment of such a reconciliationwould seem to mean the absolute end of life as we know it and ofcreation as we know it. Such a reconciliation would seem to meannothing less than the swallowing up of the universe in unthinkablenothingness. 

The truth is that in this ultimate revelation of the complex visionwe are confronted with an inevitable triad, or trinity, of primordialaspects. We are compelled to think of a plurality of living soulsof which our own is one; of certain ideal companions of all soulswhose vision gives to our vision its objective value; and of anexternal universe which is the creation of this vision. 

What the complex vision indicates, therefore, is a system of thingswhich has a monistic aspect, for there is only one space and onlyone succession of time; a pluralistic aspect, for the system ofthings gives birth continually to innumerable individual souls; anda dualistic aspect, for the universe itself is created by the strugglebetween love and malice. 

What the complex vision does not indicate is any ultimateprinciple which reduces this complex system of things to theunbroken mass of one integral unity. The nearest approach to suchan unbroken, integral unity is to be found in that indefinable"medium" which makes it possible for the innumerable soulswhich compose the universe to communicate with one another andwith their invisible pre-existent companions. It is only theexistence of this indefinable medium which makes it possible forus to speak of a universe at all. For this medium is the objectiveground, or basis, so to say, from the midst of which eachindividual vision creates its own universe, always appealing as itdoes so to that objective standard or pattern of truth offered by thevision of man's invisible companions. What we roughly andloosely call "the universe" or "nature" is therefore an accumulatedprojection or creation of all the souls which exist, held together bythis pervading medium which enables them to communicate withone another. In this eternal process of creating the universe bytheir united visions, all these souls must inevitably appeal, consciously or unconsciously, to the vision of their pre-existentcompanions. 

The best justification which can be offered for the expression_sons_ of the universe as applied to these invisible companions isto be found in the inevitable anthropomorphism of all humanthought. The breaking point, so to speak, of man's vision, thatecstasy of comprehension which I call his apex-thought, is themoment which makes him aware of these companions' existence. And, at this ecstatic moment, all individual souls find theirpersonality deepened to such a point that they feel themselvespossessed of the very secret of the ultimate duality, feelthemselves to be, in fact, unfathomable personifications of thatduality. And their intimation or vision with regard to the godspresents itself to them at that moment as the very nature and truebeing of the gods. Yet it must be remembered that this intimationis a thing which we reach only by pain and exquisite effort; is athing, in fact, which is the culminating point of an elaborate anddifficult "work of art" requiring a rhythm and a harmony in ournature attained by no easy road. 

Since, therefore, the reality of these invisible companions thoughimplied in all our intercourse with one another, is only visualizedas actual and authentic when our subjective vision is at its highestpoint, and since when our subjective vision is at its highest point itconveys the sensation, rightly or wrongly, that what we call our"universe" is _their_ universe also, it is not without justificationthat we use the anthropomorphic expression "the sons of theuniverse" to describe these invisible companions. 

This expression, the sons of the universe, this idea of an objectivestandard of all ideas, is something that we attain with difficultyand not something that we just pick up as we go along. The"objective, " in this sense, is the supreme attainment of the"subjective. " And although when we have found these companionsthey become real and actual, we must not forget that, in the longprocess of escaping from the subjectivity of ourselves into theobjectivity of their existence, it was our own subjective visionwith the rhythmic ecstasy of its apex-thought which led us to thebrink of this discovery. Thus the expression "the sons of theuniverse" finds its justification. For they are the objectivediscovery, as well as the objective implication, of all our humanand subjective visions. We and they together create the universeand together become the "children" of the world we create. 

And although the universe when thus created remains the creationof man, assisted by the gods, it now presents itself to us, in itsacquired and attained objectivity, as a pre-existent thing which israther our parent than our creation. This objective reality of it, with the inevitable implication that it existed before we came onthe scene at all, and will exist after we have disappeared from thescene, is a truth towards which our subjective vision has led us, but which, when once we reach it, seems to become independentof our subjective vision. 

Here again, therefore, in connection with the universe as inconnection with the gods, the creation of our subjectivity is foundto be something independent of our subjectivity and somethingthat, all the while, has been implicit in the energy of our subjectivevision. And precisely as the subjective vision of man creates thecompanions of men and then discovers them to be an objectivereality, so the subjective vision of man creates the universe andthen discovers the universe to be an objective reality. And in bothcases this discovering finds its justification in a recognition thatthe idea of this resultant objectivity was implicit in the subjectiveenergy from the beginning. But the universe once created ordiscovered, is found to be the eternal manifestation of that ultimateduality which is the essence of our own souls and of the souls ofthe immortals. 

In no other way can we think of the objectivity of the universe; forin no other way can we think of ourselves. And because it is theevocation of that ultimate duality which is the very stuff andtexture of our creative vision, the universe becomes naturally theparent of man's invisible companions as it becomes the parent ofman himself. And thus are we justified in speaking of thesemysterious ones as the "sons of the universe. "

It is out of pain and grief that we arrive at the conception of thenature of the gods. "Those who have not eaten their bread withtears, they know them not, the Heavenly Powers!" Pain andsorrow, both physical and mental, seem to soften the porous shell, so to speak, of the human intelligence, seem to throw back certainshutter-like shards or scales with which it protects its malignantignorance. 

It is when our loneliness becomes intolerable, it is when thepoisonous teeth of the eternal malice in Nature have us by thethroat, it is when our malice rises up, in the miserable torture ofhatred, to answer the malice of the system of things, that, out ofthe depths, we cry to the darkness which surrounds us for somevoice or some signal that shall give us an intimation of help. Merely to know that our wretched pain is known to some onebesides ourselves is an incredible relief. Merely to know that somesort of superhuman being, even without special preoccupationwith human fate, can turn an amused or an indulgent clairvoyancetowards our wretchedness, can "note" it with dispassionatesympathy, as we note the hurts of animals or plants, is a sort ofconsolation. It is a relief to know that what we feel when we arehurt to the breaking-point is not absolutely wasted and lost in thevoid, but is stored up in an immortal memory along with manyother pains of the same kind. That cry, "Only He do know what Ido suffer" of the Wessex peasant is a cry natural to the wholehuman race. It is not that we ask to be confronted and healed byour immortal friend. We ask merely that our sorrows should notbe altogether drowned in the abyss as though they had never been. There is a certain outrage about this annihilation of the verymemory of pain against which humanity protests. 

But it is necessary at this point to beware of the old patheticfallacy of human thought, the fallacy of assuming that to be true, which we desire to be true. What our complex vision reveals as tothe nature of the gods does not satisfy in any obvious or facilemanner this bitter need of humanity. If it did so satisfy it, then forsome profound and mysterious reason man's own aesthetic sensewould revolt against it, would indignantly reject it, as too smoothan answer to life's mystery. 

For man's aesthetic sense seems in some strange way to be inleague with a certain inveterate tragedy in things, which no facileoptimism can ever cajole or melt. 

That the gods are aware of our existence can hardly be doubted. Thatthey feel pity for us, in this or that significant hour, can easilybe imagined. That the evil in us draws towards us what is evil inthem seems likewise a not unnatural possibility. That the love inus draws towards us the love in them is a thing in completeaccordance with our own relation to forms of life lower thanourselves. That even at certain moments the gods may, by a kindof celestial vampirizing, use the bodily senses of men to "fill out, "as it were, what is lacking in their own materiality, is aconceivable speculation. 

But it is not in any definite relation between the individual soul ofman and the individual soul of any one of the immortals that ourhope lies. If this were all that we could look for, our conditionwould be as miserable as the condition of those unhappy ones whoseek intermittent and fantastic relief in attempted intercourse withthe psychic and the occult. 

Our hope lies in that immemorial and traditional human gesturewhich has, in the unique figure of Christ, gathered up and focussed, as it were, all the vague and floating intimations of super-humansympathy, all the shadowy rumours and intimations of super-humanhelp, which move to and fro in the background of our apprehension. 

The figure of Christ has thus become something more than a merename arbitrarily given by us to some nameless god. The figure ofChrist has become a symbol, an intermediary, a kind of cosmichigh-priest, standing between all that is mortal and all that isimmortal in the world, and by means of the love and pity that is inhim partaking of the nature of every living thing. 

When, therefore, out of the bitterness of our fate we cry aloudupon the Unknown, the answer to our cry comes from the heartof Christ. In other words it comes from the epitome andpersonification of all the love in the universe. For to the figure ofChrist has been brought, down the long ages of the world, all thebaffled, thwarted, broken, unsatisfied love in every soul that hasever lived. It is in the heart of Christ that all the nameless sorrowsand miseries, of the innumerable lives that Nature gives birth to, are stored up and remembered. Not one single pang, felt by plantor animal or bird or fish or man or planet, but is embalmed forever in that mysterious store-house of the universal pity. Thus, ifthere were no other superhuman Beings in the world and if apartfrom the creative energy of all souls Christ would never haveexisted, as it is now He _does_ exist because He _has_ beencreated by the creative power of all souls. 

But while in one sense the figure of Christ is the supreme work ofart of the world, the culminating achievement of the anonymouscreative energy of all souls, the turning of the transitory into theeternal, of the mortal into the immortal, of the human into thedivine; in another sense the figure of Christ is a real and livingpersonality, the one personality among the gods, whose nature wemay indeed assume that we understand and know. 

How should we not understand it, when it has been in so large ameasure created by our sorrow and our desire?

But the fact that the anonymous striving of humanity with theobjective mystery has in a sense created the figure of Christ doesnot reduce the figure of Christ to a mere Ideal. As we have seenwith regard to the primordial ideas of truth, beauty, and goodness, nothing can be an Ideal which has not already, in the eternalsystem of things, existed as a reality. 

What we call the pursuit of truth, or the creation of truth, what wecall the pursuit of beauty or the creation of beauty, is always a_return_ to something which has been latent in the eternal natureof the system of things. In other words, in all creation there is arediscovery, just as in all discovery there is creation. 

The figure of Christ, therefore, the everlasting intermediarybetween mortality and immortality, has been at once created anddiscovered by humanity. When any living soul approaches thefigure of Christ, or cries aloud upon Christ out of the depths of itsmisery, it cries aloud upon all the love that has ever existed in theworld. It enters at such a moment into definite communion with allthe suffering of all the dead and with all the suffering of all theunborn. 

For in the heart of Christ all the dead are gathered up intoimmortality, and all their pain remembered. In the heart of Christall the unborn live already, in their pain and in their joy; for suchpain and such joy are latent in the ultimate duality of love andmalice, and in the heart of Christ this ultimate duality struggleswith such terrible concentration that all the antagonisms which theprocession of time evokes, all the "moments" of this abysmaldrama, in the past, in the present, in the future, are summed up andcomprehended in what that heart feels. 

The ancient human doctrine of "vicarious suffering, " the doctrinethat upon the person of Christ all the sins and sorrows of the worldare laid, is not a mere logical conclusion of a certain set oftheological axioms; but is a real and true secret of life, discoveredby our most intimate experience. 

The profoundest of all the oracles, uttered out of the depths, is thatsaying of Jesus about the "losing" of life to "save" it. This "losingof life" for Christ's sake is that ultimate act of the will by whichthe lusts of the flesh, the pride of life, the possessive instinct, thehatred of the body, the malice which resists creation, the power ofpride, are all renounced, in order that the soul may enter into thatsupreme vision of Christ, wherein by a mysterious movement ofsympathy, all the struggles of all living things are comprehendedand shared. 

Thus it is true to say that the object of life for all living souls isthe eternal vision. Towards the attainment of the eternal vision thelove in all living souls perpetually struggles; and against theattainment of the eternal vision the malice in all living soulsperpetually struggles. We arrive, therefore, at the only adequateconception of the nature of the gods which the complex visionpermits us. 

The nature of the gods, or of the immortals, or, as I have preferredto call them, the sons of the universe, is a nature whichcorresponds to our nature, even as our nature corresponds to thenature of animals or of plants. The ultimate duality is embodied inthe nature of the gods more richly, more beautifully, more terribly, in a more dramatic and articulate concentration, than it isembodied in our nature. Between us and the gods there must be areciprocal vibration, as there is a reciprocal vibration between usand plants and beasts and oceans and hills. The precise nature ofsuch reciprocity may well be left a matter for vague andunphilosophical speculation; because the important aspect of it, inregard to the mystery of life and the object of life, is not themethod or manner of its functioning but the issue and the result ofits functioning. And this issue and result of the reciprocitybetween mortal and immortal, between man and his invisiblecompanions, is the eternal vision which they both share, the visionin which love attains its object. 

And the eternal vision, which was, and is, and is to come, is thevision in which Christ, the Intermediary between the transitory andthe permanent, contemplates the spectacle of the unfathomableworld; and is able to endure that spectacle, by reason of thecreative power of love. 

CHAPTER X. 

THE FIGURE OF CHRIST

In considering the figure of that great Intermediary betweenmortality and immortality whom we have come to name Christ, the question arises, in view of the historic existence of otherworld-saviours, such as the Indian Buddha, whether it would notbe better to invent, out of our arbitrary fancy, some completelynew symbol for the eternal vision which should be entirely freefrom those merely geographical associations which have limitedthe acceptance of this Figure to so much less than one-half of theinhabitants of our planet. 

The question arises--can there be invented any concrete, tangiblesymbol which shall appeal to every attribute of the complex visionand be an accumulated image of that side of the unfathomableduality from which we draw our ideas of truth, beauty, andgoodness?

For the complex vision itself I have projected my own arbitraryimage of an arrow-head of many concentrated flames; but whenwe approach a matter as important as the choice of a symbolicimage for the expression of the ultimate synthesis of the good ascontrasted with the evil something very different from a meresubjective fancy is required. 

If it were possible for me, the present writer, to give myself up socompletely to the creative spirit as to become suddenly inspiredwith the true idea of such a symbolic image, even then my imagewould remain detached, remote and individualistic. If it werepossible for me to gather up, as it were, and to bring into focus allthe symbolic images used by all the supreme prophets and artistsand poets of the world, my synthetic symbol, including all thesedifferent symbols, would still remain remote and distant from thefeelings and experiences of the mass of humanity. 

But the ideas of truth, beauty, goodness, together with thatemotion of love which is their synthesis, are not confined to thegreat artists and prophets of the world. They are felt andexperienced by the common mass of humanity. They have indeedan even wider scope than this, since they exist in the depths of thesouls of the sons of the universe, and in the depths of thatunfathomable universe whose objective reality depends upon theirenergy. They have the widest scope which it is possible for thecomplex vision to grasp. Wherever time and space are, they are;and, as we have seen, time and space make up the ultimate unitywithin whose limits the drama of life proceeds. 

Although the universe depends for its objective reality upon thevision of the immortals and incidentally upon all the visions of allthe souls born into the world, it is not true to say that either thevision of the immortals or the visions of all souls, or even both ofthese together, exhaust the possibilities of the universe and soundthe depths of its unfathomableness. The complex vision of manstops at a certain point; but the unfathomable nature of theuniverse goes on beyond that point. The complex vision, of theimmortals stops at a definite point; but the unfathomable nature ofthe universe goes on beyond that point. 

If it be asked, "how can it be said that an universe, which dependsfor its objective reality upon the complex vision, goes on beyondthe point where the complex vision stops?" I would answer thatthe complex vision does not only create reality; it discoversreality. There is always the primordial objective mystery outsidethe complex vision; that objective mystery, or world-stuff, orworld-clay, out of which, in its process of half-creation andhalf-discovery, the complex vision evokes the universe. 

And although apart from the activity of the complex vision thisprimordial world-clay or objective mystery is almost nothingbecause it is only of its bare existence that we are aware, yet it isnot altogether nothing, because it is, in a sense, the origin ofeverything we discover. When, therefore, we speak of theunfathomable as receding into depths beyond the point where thevision of man stops and beyond the point where the vision of theimmortals stops, we do not contradict the statement that the visionof man and the vision of the immortals create the universe. Theycreate the universe in so far as they discover the universe; but theuniverse must be thought of as always capable of being furtherdiscovered and further created. Perhaps the most adequate way ofputting the situation would be to image the objective mystery as akind of colourless screen across which a coloured picture is slowlymoved. This coloured picture is the universe as we know it. Without the white screen as a background there could be no picture. All the colours of the picture are latent and potential in thewhiteness of the screen; but they require the focussed lime-light ofthe magic-lantern to call them forth. The lantern from which thelight comes, half-creates, so to speak, and half-discovers theresultant colours. 

When we say, therefore, that the universe, although created by thecomplex vision, recedes into unfathomable depths beyond thereach of the complex vision, what we mean is that the boundaryline between the moving colour-picture, which is the universe, andthe original whiteness of the screen across which the picture ismoved, which is the objective mystery, is capable of endlessrecession. The blank whiteness of the part of the screen overwhich the picture has not yet moved is capable of revealing everykind of colour as soon as the focussed lime-light of the complexvision reaches it. The colours are in the whiteness of the screen aswell as in the lime-light which is thrown upon the screen; butneither the lantern which throws the light nor the screen uponwhich the light is thrown, can, in isolation from one another, produce colour. 

The universe, therefore, is half-created and half-discovered by thecomplex vision; and it may be said to go on beyond the pointwhere the complex vision stops, although strictly speaking whatgoes on beyond the stopping place of the complex vision is not theuniverse as we know it but a potential universe as we may come toknow it; a universe, in fact, which is at present held in suspense inthe unfathomable depths of the objective mystery. 

This potential universe, this universe which will come intoexistence as soon as the complex vision discovers it and creates it, this universe across which gathers already the moving shadow ofthe complex vision, is not a new universe but only an extensioninto a further depth of the objective mystery, of the universe whichwe already know. 

We are not justified in saying of this objective mystery or of thiswhite screen across which the colours will presently flow, that it isoutside time and space. We are not justified in saying anything atall about it, except that it exists and that it lends itself to theadvance of the complex vision. If in place of a white screen wecould figure to ourselves this objective mystery as a mass ofimpenetrable darkness, we should thus be able to envisage thecomplex vision as I have tried to envisage it, namely as a movingarrow-head of focussed flames with the point of it, or what I havenamed the apex-thought of it, illuminating that mass of darknesswith all the colours of life. 

But, as I have said, none of these subjective images can serve asthe sort of symbol we are in search of, because by reason of theirbeing arbitrary and individualistic they lack the organic andmagical associations which cling round such symbols as havebecome objective and historical. We can content ourselves withsuch fanciful symbols as white screens and arrow-heads andpyramids of fire in regard to the organ of our research and theoriginal protoplasmic stuff out of which this organ of researchcreates the world; but when it comes to the purpose of life and themeaning of life, when it comes to that unfathomable duality whichis the essence of life, we require for our symbol something that hasalready gathered about it the whole desperate stream of life's tearsand blood and dreams and ecstasies and memories and hopes. 

We can find no symbol for the adversary of life, no symbol for themalignant obscurantism and the sneering malice that resistcreation. To endow this thing which is in the way, this unfathomabledepth of spiritual evil, with the vivid and imaginative lifeof a symbolic image would be to change its inherent nature. No adequate symbol can be found for evil, any more than acomplete embodiment can be found for evil. Directly evilbecomes personal it ceases to be evil, because personalityis the supreme achievement of life. And directly evil is expressed ina living, objective, historic, mythological image it ceases to beevil, because such an image instantaneously gathers to itself somepotency of creative energy. Evil is a positive thing, a spiritualthing, an eternal thing; but it is positive only in its opposition tocreation, in its corruption of the soul, and in its subtle underminingof the divine moments of the soul by the power of eternaldreariness and disillusion. 

What we need above everything is a symbolic image which shallrepresent the creative energy of life, the creative power of love, and those eternal ideas of truth and beauty and nobility whichseem in some mysterious way derogated from, rendered lessformidable and unfathomable, by being named "the good. "

The desire for a symbol of this kind, which shall gather togetherall the tribes and nations of men and all conflicting ideals ofhumanity, is a desire so deep and universal as to be perhaps thesupreme desire of the human race. No symbol arbitrarily inventedby any one man, even though he were the greatest genius that everlived, could supply this want or satisfy this desire. And it could notdo so because it would lack the organic weathering and bleaching, so to speak, of the long panorama of time. An individualgenius might hit upon a better symbolic image, an image morecomprehensive, more inclusive, more appealing to the entirenature of the complex vision; but without having been subjected tothe sun and rain of actual human experience, without havingendured the passion of the passing of the generations, such animage would remain, for all its appropriateness, remote, intellectual and barren of magical suggestiveness. 

I do not mean to indicate that there is necessarily any determinedor fatalistic process of natural selection in these things by whichone symbol rather than another gathers about it the hopes and fearsof the generations. Chance no doubt plays a strange part in all this. But the concrete necessities of living human souls play a greaterpart than chance; and without believing in any steady evolutionaryprocess or even in any law of natural selection among theevocations of human desire, it must still remain that the symbolwhich survives will be the symbol adapted to the deepest instinctsof complicated souls and at the same time palpable and tangible tothe touch of the crudest and most simple. 

It cannot be denied that there are serious difficulties in the way ofthe acceptance of any historic symbol, the anonymous evocationof the generations of men. Just because it has a definite place inhistory such a symbol will necessarily have gathered to itself muchthat is false and much that is accidental and unessential. It willhave entered into bitter controversies. It will have been hardenedand narrowed by the ferocious logic of rationalistic definition. Itwill have been made the rallying cry of savage intolerances andthe mask for strange perversions. Evil will naturally have attacheditself to it and malice will have left its sinister stain upon it. Because chance and accident and even evil have had much to dowith its survival, it may easily happen that some primary attributeof the complex vision, such for instance as the aesthetic sense withits innate awareness of the humorous and the grotesque, will havebeen forgotten altogether in the stuff out of which it is made. 

Considering such things, considering above all this final fact that itmay not satisfy every attribute of the complex vision, and mayeven completely suppress and negate some essential attribute, itremains still a perilous question whether it were not, after all, better to invent a new symbol that shall be deliberately adapted tothe entire complex vision, than to accept an already existingsymbol, which in the shocks and jolts and casualties, of history hasbeen narrowed, limited and stiffened by the malice of attack anddefence. 

This narrowing and hardening process by which such a symbol, the anonymous creation of humanity under the shocks of circumstance, becomes limited and inadequate, is a process frequently assistedby those premature and violent syntheses of the ultimatecontradiction which we name dogmatic religions. To make sucha symbol once more fluid and flexible, to restore it to itsplace in the organic life of the soul, it is necessary to extricate itfrom the clutch of any dogmatic religion. I do not say that it isnecessary to extricate it from religion, or even from every aspectof dogma; for it is of the very essence of such symbol to be astimulus to the religious ecstasy and there are many dogmas whichare full of imaginative poetry. 

But it is necessary to extricate it from dogmatic religion becausedogmatic religion may be defined as a premature metaphysicalsynthesis, masquerading beneath a system of imaginative ritual. The truth of religion is in its ritual and the truth of dogma is in itspoetry. Where a dogmatic religion becomes dangerous to anyhuman symbol is when it tries to rationalize it and interpret itaccording to a premature metaphysical synthesis. In so far as itremains purely symbolic and does not attempt to rationalize itssymbolism, a dogmatic religion must always contain within thecircle of its creed many profound and illuminating secrets. Thefalse and ephemeral portion of a dogmatic religion is itsmetaphysical aspect, because the whole science of metaphysics isan ambiguity from the start, since it is a projection of one isolatedattribute of the complex vision. 

What the apex-thought of the complex vision does is to underminemetaphysic; not by the use of metaphysic but by the use of therhythmic totality of all the attributes of the soul. The philosophy ofthe complex vision has its metaphysical, as it has its psychologicaland its physiological aspect, but its real starting point musttranscend all these, because it must emanate from personality. Andpersonality is something super-metaphysical; as it is somethingsuper-psychological, and super-physiological. 

The creed of a dogmatic religion is not to be condemned because itcalls upon us to believe the impossible. Some sort of belief in theimpossible, some primordial act of faith is an essential part of theprocess of life and, without it, life could not continue. It is wheredogmatic religion attempts to justify its belief in the impossible bythe use of metaphysical reason that we must regard it as an enemyof the truth of its own symbolism. 

The supreme example of the evil and dangerous influence ofmetaphysic upon religion is to be found in connection with thatinscrutable nothingness behind the universe, and also behind theobjective mystery out of which the soul creates the universe. Irefer to that ambiguous and unbeautiful phantom, which hasacquired for itself the name of "the absolute, " or the parent or firstcause of life. 

That the conception of "the sons of the universe, " to which certainbasic facts and experiences in regard to the intercourse betweenliving human souls has led humanity, is not a metaphysicalconception, is proved by the fact that it is a conception of a realityexisting inside and not outside the ultimate unity of time andspace. Any pure metaphysical conception must, as we have seen, remain outside the categories of time and space, and remainingthere bear perpetual witness to its essential unreality. 

The sons of the universe are living personal souls; and being this, they must be, as all personalities are, super-metaphysical, super-psychological, and super-physiological. 

The perilous choice between the invention of an arbitrary symbolwhich shall represent in its full complexity this idea of the sons ofthe universe, and the acceptance of a symbol already supplied bythat chaotic mixture of accident and human purpose which we callhistory is a choice upon which more than we can imagine orsurmise may ultimately depend. It is necessary in all matters ofthis kind, wherein the rhythmic totality of the complex vision isinvolved, to remain rigorous in our suppression of any particularusurpation of the whole field by any isolated attribute of the soul. It is a most evil usurpation, for instance, an usurpation of whichthe sinister history of dogmatic religion is full, when theconscience is allowed to introduce the conception of a "duty, " ofan "ought, " of a "categorical" imperative, into such a choice asthis. There is no ought in philosophy. There is no ought in faith. And there can be, in no possible way, any ought of the usurpingconscience, in regard to this choice of an appropriate symbolwhich shall represent a thing so entirely beyond the conception ofany single attribute, as this eternal protagonist of the ultimatestruggle. The risk of choosing for our symbol a mere arbitraryinvention is that it should remain thin and cold and unappealing. 

The risk of choosing for our symbol a form, a figure, a gesture, aname, offered us by history, is that it should carry with it too manyof the false accretions of accident, chance, the passions ofcontroversy and the hypocrisies of malice. But after all theanonymous creative spirit of the generations is so full of thewisdom of the earth and so involved with the rhythmic inspirationof innumerable souls, that it would seem better to risk the presenceof certain sinister accretions, than to risk the loss of so muchmagical suggestiveness. 

If we do select for our symbol such a form, such a shape, such agesture and such a name, as history may offer, we shall at any ratebe always free to keep it fluid and malleable and organic. We shallbe free to plunge it, so to speak, again and again into the livingreality which it has been selected to represent. We shall be free toextricate it completely from all its accretions of chance andcircumstance and material events. We shall be free to extricate itfrom all premature metaphysical syntheses. We shall be free todraw it from the clutches of dogmatic religion. We shall be freeto make it, as all such symbols should be made, poeticaland mythological and, in the aesthetic sense, shamelesslyanthropomorphic. Above all we shall be completely free, since itrepresents for us those sons of the universe who are theembodiment of the creative energy, to associate it with everyaspect of the life of the soul. We shall be free to associate it withthose aspects of the soul which in the process of its slow inventionby the generations have, it may be, been disassociated from it andseparated from it. We shall be free to use it as a symbol for thefuller, complete life of the future, and for every kind of revolt, into which the spirit of creation may drive us, against the evilobscurantism and malicious inertness which resist the power oflove. The conclusion to which we are thus led, the choice whichwe are thus compelled to make, is one that has been anticipatedfrom the beginning. No other name except the name of Christ, noother figure except the figure of Christ, can possibly serve, if weare to make any use of history at all, as our symbol for the sons ofthe universe. 

The choice of Christ as our symbol for these invisible companionsdoes not imply that we are forced to accept in their entirety thescriptural accounts of the life of Jesus, or even that we are forcedto assume that the historic Jesus ever lived at all. The desire whichthe soul experiences for the incarnation of Christ does not provethat Christ has already been incarnated, or ever will be incarnated. And it does not prove this because, in the greater, nobler, andmore spiritual moods of the soul, there is no need for theincarnation of Christ. In these rare and indescribable moments, when the past and future seem annihilated and we experience thesensation of eternity, Christ is felt to be so close to us that nomaterial incarnation could make him any closer. 

The association of Christ with the figure of Jesus is a sublimeaccident which has had more influence upon the human soul thanany other historic event; and it must be confessed that the idea ofChrist has been profoundly affected by this association. It has beenso deepened and enlarged and clarified by it that the substitutionof the religion of Jesus for the religion of Christ has been analmost entirely fortunate event, since it has furnished the soul witha criterion of the true nature of love which otherwise it mightnever have gained. 

Jesus undoubtedly came so much nearer than any other to theunderstanding of the nature of love, and consequently of the natureof "the immortals, " that the idea of the incarnation--that beautifulconcession to the weakness of the flesh--emanated with an almostinevitable naturalness from their association. Jesus himself felt inhis own soul the presence of the invisible companions; although hewas led, by reason of his peculiar religious bent, and by reason ofthe influences that surrounded him, to speak of these companionsas a "heavenly father. "

But the words of Jesus which carry with them the very magic oftruth are not the words in which he speaks of his "father, " but thewords in which he speaks of himself as if he were the veryincarnation of Love itself. There is no doubt that the sons of theuniverse found in Jesus a soul so uniquely harmonious withtheir own that there existed between them a sympathy and anunderstanding without parallel in the history of humanity. 

It is this sympathy which is the origin of those unequalled wordsused by the son of Mary in which he speaks as if he were himselfin very truth an incarnation of the vision of the immortals. Thewhole situation is one which need have little mystery for thosewho understand the nature of love. In moment after moment ofsupreme ecstasy Jesus felt himself so given up to the will of theinvisible companions that this own identity became lost. Inspeaking for himself he spoke for them; in suffering for himself hesuffered for them, and in the great hours of his tragic wayfaring hefelt himself so close to them that, by reason of his love, he knewhimself able to speak of the secret of life even as the immortalsthemselves would speak. 

We are permitted indeed in reading the divine narrative todistinguish between two moods in the soul of Jesus. In one ofthese moods he refers to his "father" as if his father were distinctand separate from him and even very distant. In the other mood hespeaks as if he himself were in very truth a god; and were able, without any appeal to any other authority, to heal the wounds ofthe world and to reveal to mankind the infinite pity of the lovewhich is beyond analysis. 

It is towards the words and gestures of the son of Mary, when hespoke of himself rather than of his "father" that we are inevitablydrawn, in our search for an adequate symbol for the eternal vision. It is when he speaks with authority as if he himself were animmortal god, as if he himself were one of the invisiblecompanions, that his words and gestures carry the very breath andfragrance of truth. 

As the drama of his life unfolds itself before us we seem to growmore and more aware of these two aspects of his soul. It was hisreason, brooding upon the traditions of his race, that led him intothat confusion of the invisible witnesses with the jealous tribalGod of his father David. It was the rhythmic harmony of his soul, rising up out of the depths of his struggle with himself, that ledhim, in his passionate submission to the will of his invisiblefriends, to feel as if he were identical with those friends, as if hewere himself the "son of man" and the incarnation of man'ssupreme hope. 

It is the emphasis laid by Jesus upon his identity with his "father"which has produced the tragic results we know. For although thiswas the personal conception of the noblest of all human souls, itremains a proof of how much even the soul of Jesus was limitedand restricted by the malicious power which opposes itself to love. 

The living companions of men are as we have seen a necessaryanswer to the craving of the complex vision for some objectivestandard of beauty and reality, which shall give these things aneternal unity and purpose. Such a vision is an answer to our desirethat the spirit of creative love, which is one side of theunfathomable duality, should be embodied in personality. 

And we have a right to use the name of Christ in this sense; and toassociate it with all that immortal anonymous company, sobeautiful, so pitiful, so terrible, which the name of "_the gods_"has, in its turbulent and dramatic history, gathered about itself. 

The idea of Christ is older than the life of Jesus; nor does the lifeof Jesus, as it has come down to us in ecclesiastical tradition, exhaust or fulfil all the potentialities latent in the idea of Christ. What the complex vision seems to demand is that the invisiblecompanions of men should be regarded as immortal gods. If, therefore, we throw all hesitancy and scruple aside and risk theapplication of the name of Christ to this vision of the sons of theuniverse, then we shall be compelled to regard Christ as animmortal God. 

The fact that there must be some objective standard which shallsatisfy all the passionate demands of the complex vision is thepath by which we reach this conception of Christ. But once havingreached him he ceases to be a mere conception of the intellect, andbecomes an objective reality which we can touch and appeal towith our emotion, our imagination, and our aesthetic sense. But although Christ as our symbolic image of the invisiblecompanions, must be assumed to be the objective standard of allour ideas of truth, it is obvious that we cannot escape fromsubjectivity in our individual interpretation of his deeper and truervision. 

Thus there are two parallel streams of growth and change. There isgrowth and change in the soul of Christ as he continuallyapproximates nearer and nearer to his eternally receding ideal. And there is growth and change in the accumulated harmony ofour individual ideas about his ideal, as each human soul and eachgeneration of human souls restates this ideal in terms of its ownlimited vision. 

Each new restatement of this accumulated interpretation of theideal of the son of man brings necessarily with it an innateconviction of its truth because it finds an immediate response inevery individual soul in so far as such individual souls are able toovercome their intrinsic evil or malice. 

What Jesus did for the universe was to recognize in it the peculiarnature of that love which is its essential life. He would have doneyet more for it had he been able to disassociate his vision from theconception of an imaginary father of the universe and from histraditional interest in the tribal god of his ancestors. But Jesusremains the one human soul who has revealed to us in his ownsubjective vision the essential secret of the vision of theimmortals. And that he has done so is proved by the fact that allhis words and actions have come to be inextricably associated withthe Christ-idea. 

In this way Jesus remains the profoundest of all human philosophersand the subtlest of all human psychologists; and althoughwe have the right to disassociate the Christ-idea from thesublime illusion of Jesus which led him to confuse the invisiblecompanions of humanity with the tribal God of the Hebrews, weare compelled to recognize that Jesus has done so much forhumanity by the depth of his psychological insight that we do notexperience any shock when in the ritual of the Church the name ofthe son of David becomes identical with the name of Christ. 

The essential thing to establish is that there are greater depths inthe Christ-idea than even Jesus was able to fathom; and thatcompared with the soul of Jesus or with the soul of any other manor god or spiritual entity, the figure of Christ has come now at lastto be for humanity the only god we need; for he is the only godwhose love for all living things is beyond question and dispute, and whose existence is assumed and implied when any soul in theuniverse loves any other soul. 

It is necessary then to do two things. To accept without reserve thevision which Jesus had as to the secret of love; because to nothingless than this does the love which we possess in our own soulsrespond. And in the second place to be merciless and drastic, evenat the risk of pain to the weakness of our human flesh, inseparating the personality of Christ, the immortal god, from thehistoric figure of the traditional Jesus. By doing these two things, and by this alone, we establish what the complex vision desires, upon a firm ground. For we retain what the vision of Jesus hasrevealed to us as to the inherent nature of the invisible companionsand we are saved from all controversy as to the historic reality ofthe life of Jesus. 

It does not matter to us whether Jesus "really lived"; or whether, like other great figures, his personality has been created by theanonymous instinct of humanity. What matters to us is thathumanity itself, using the vision of Jesus as its organ of researchor as the focus point of its own passionate clairvoyance has insome way or another recognized that the secret of the universe isto be found in the unfathomable duality of love and malice. Fromthis point, now it has been once reached, the intrinsic nature of allhuman souls makes sure that humanity cannot go back. And it isbecause, either by his own sublime insight or by the accident andchance of history, the figure of Jesus has become associated withthe reality of the immortal gods that we are justified in using forour symbol of these sons of the universe no other name than thename of Christ. 

We shall, however, be doing wrong to our conception of Christ, if, while recognizing that the kind of love, of which Jesus revealedthe secret, is the essence of Christ's soul, we refuse to find in himalso many aspects and attributes of life which occupy but littleplace or no place at all in the traditional figure of Jesus. 

All that is most beautiful and profound, all that is most magicaland subtle, in the gods of the ancient world, must be recognized asexistent in the soul of Christ who is our true "Son of the Morning. "The earth-magic of the ancient gods must be in him; and theTitanic spirit which revolted against such gods must be in himalso. The mystery of the elements must be interwoven with thevery stuff of his being and the unfathomable depths of Naturemust be a path for his feet. In him all mythologies and all religionsmust meet and be transcended. He is Prometheus and Dionysus. He is Osiris and Balder. He is the great god Pan. "All that we havebeen, all that we are, and all that we hope to be, is centred in himalone. " His spirit is the creative spirit which moves for ever uponthe face of the waters. In him all living souls find the object oftheir love. Against him the unfathomable power of evil struggleswith eternal demonic malice. In his own soul it struggles againsthim; and in the universe which confronts him it struggles againsthim. His inmost being is made up of the duality of this struggleeven as is the inmost being of all that exists. If it were not for thepresence of evil in him his passion of love would be as nothing. For without evil there can be no good, and without malice therecannot be love. His soul and our human souls remain the ultimatereality. These alone are concrete, definite, actual and personal. Allexcept these is ambiguous, half-real and unstable as water. Theseand the universe which they create are the true truth; andcompared with these every other "truth" is dubious, shadowy andunsubstantial. 

These are the true truth, because these are personal; and we knownothing in life, and can know nothing, with the interiorcompleteness with which we know personality. And the essence ofthat interior knowledge with which we know personality is ourrecognition of the unfathomable duality within ourselves. Wecannot imagine the good in us as existing without the evil in us;and we cannot imagine the evil in us as existing without the goodin us. 

And this ultimate essence of reality must apply to the soul ofChrist. And this duality has no reconciliation except thereconciliation that it is a duality in ourselves and a duality in him. For both the good and the evil in us recede into unfathomabledepths. So that the ultimate reality of the universe is to be found inthe two eternal emotions which perpetually contradict and opposeone another; of which the only unity and reconciliation is to befound in the fact that they both belong to every separate soul; andare the motive power which brings the universe into existence; andin bringing the universe into existence find themselves under thedomination of time and space. 

Every individual soul in the world is composed of two unfathomableabysses. From the limitless depths of each of these emanatesan emotion which is able to obsess and preoccupy the wholefield of consciousness. Every individual soul has depths, therefore, which descend into unfathomable recesses; and we areforced into the conclusion that the unfathomable recesses in thesoul of Christ are subject to the same eternal duality as the souls ofmen. 

Every movement of thought implies an evocation of the opposingpassion of these two emotions. For no movement of thought cantake place without the activity of the complex vision; and sinceone of the basic attributes of the complex vision is divided intothese two primary emotions, we are compelled to conclude that itis impossible to think any thought at all without some evocation ofthe emotion of love and some evocation of the emotion of malice. 

The emotion of love is the power that brings together andsynthesizes those eternal ideas of truth and beauty and nobilitywhich find their objective standard in the soul of Christ. Theemotion of malice is the power that brings together andsynthesizes and harmonizes those eternal ideas of unreality andhideousness and evil with which the love of Christ strugglesdesperately in the unfathomable depths of his soul. It matters to uslittle or nothing that we have no name to give to any among thegods except to this god; for in this god, in this companion of men, in this immortal helper, the complex vision of man finds all itneeds, the embodiment of Love itself. 

We arrive, therefore, at the very symbol we desire, at the symbolwhich in tangible and creative power satisfies the needs of thesoul. We owe this symbol to nothing less than the free giftof the gods themselves; and to the anonymous strivings ofthe generations. And once having reached this symbol, thisname of Christ, the same phenomenon occurs as occurs in theestablishment of the real existence of the external universe. _That_, like this, was at first only a daring hypothesis, only asupreme act of faith, reached by the subjective effort of theinnumerable individual souls. But once having been reached, itbecame, as this has become, a definite objective fact, whose realityturns out to have been implicit from the beginning. 

Thus the name, the word, which we arrive at as the only possiblesymbol of our hope is found to be, as soon as we reach it, nolonger merely a symbol but the outward sign of an invisible andeternal truth. And thus although it remains that we are forced torecognize that the world is full of gods and that the Person wename Christ is only one of an innumerable company of invisiblecompanions to whom in our loneliness we have a right to turn, yetjust because the vision of humanity has found in Christ acompleter, subtler, more beautiful, more revolutionary figure uponwhich to fix its hope than it has found in Buddha or Confucius orMahomet, or any other name, the figure of Christ has become thesupreme and solitary embodiment of the Ideal to which we look, and about this figure has come to gather itself and focus itself allthe hopeless longing with which the soul of man turns to the soulsof the immortals. 

These divine people of the abyss, these sons of the universe, arefor us henceforth and must be now for us for ever summed up andembodied in this one figure, the only one among them all whosenature and being has been drawn so near to us that we canappropriate it to ourselves. 

It remains that the unity of time and space contains animmeasurable company of immortals; but of these immortals onlyone has been articulated and outlined, and so to speak "touchedwith the hand, " by the troubled passion of humanity. Henceforth, therefore, while the necessity of the complex vision compels us tothink of the invisible company of the sons of the universe as a vasthierarchy of supernatural beings, the necessity of the complexvision compels us also to recognize, that of this company, onlyone--only one until the end of time--can be the true symbol ofwhat our heart desires. 

It is better to think of the evocation of this figure as due to the pityof the gods themselves and to the anonymous craving of humanitythan to think of him as dependent upon the historic evidence as tothe personality of Jesus. The soul requires something more certainthan historic evidence upon which to base its faith. It requiressomething closer and more certain even than the divine "logoi"attributed to the historic Jesus. It requires a living and a personalsoul for ever present to the depths of its own nature. It requires aliving and a personal soul for ever ready to answer the cry of itslove. The misery and unhappiness, the restlessness and pain of allour human "loves, " is due to the fact that the only eternal responseto Love as it beats its hands against the barriers set up against it, is the embodiment of Love itself as we feel it present with us in thefigure of Christ. 

The love which draws two human souls together can only becomeeternal and indestructible when it passes beyond the love of thetwo for one another into the love of both of them for the Loverwho is immortal. This merging of the love of human lovers intothe love of the immortal Lover does not imply the lessening ordiminishing of the love which draws them together. The nature ofthis love cries out against their separation, cries out that they twoshall become one. And yet if they actually and in very truthbecame one, that unity in difference which is the very essence oflove would be destroyed. But though they know this well enoughthere still remains the desperate craving of the two that theyshould become one; and this is of the very nature of love itself. Thus it may be seen that the only path by which human lovers canbe satisfied is by merging their love for one another into their lovefor Christ. In this way, in a sense profounder than mortal flesh canknow, they actually do become one. They become so completelyone that no power on earth or above the earth can ever separatethem. For they are bound together by no mortal link but by theeternal love of a soul beyond the reach of death. Thus when one ofthem comes to die the love which was of the essence of that soullives on in the soul of Christ; and when both of them are dead itcan never be as though their love had not been, for in the eternalmemory of Christ their love lives on, increasing the love of Christfor others like themselves and continually drawing the transitoryand the mortal nearer to the eternal and the immortal. 

It therefore becomes evident why it is that the vision of theinvisible companions which remains our standard of reality and ofbeauty is not broken up into innumerable subjective visions but isfixed and permanent and sure. All the unfathomable souls of theworld, and all souls are unfathomable whether they are the souls ofplants or animals or planets or gods or men, are found, the closerthey approach one another, to be in possession of the same vision. For this immortal vision, in which what we name beauty, and whatwe name "reality, " finds its synthesis, is found to be nothing lessthan the secret love. And while the great company of the immortalcompanions are only known to us by the figure of one amongthem, namely by the figure of Christ, this figure alone is sufficientto contain all that we require of life; for being the embodiment oflove this figure is the embodiment of life, of which love is thecreator and the sustainer. 

Thus what the apex-thought of man's complex vision reveals is notonly the existence of the gods but the fact that the vision of thegods is not broken up and divided but is one and the same; and isyet for ever growing and deepening. And the only measure of thevision of the gods which we possess is the figure of Christ; for ithas come about by reason of the anonymous instinct of humanity, by reason of the compassion of the immortals, and by reason ofthe divine insight of Jesus, that the figure of Christ contains withinit every one of those primordial ideas from which and towardswhich, in a perpetual advance which is also a perpetual return, thesouls of all living things are for ever journeying. 

Whether the souls of men and of beasts, of plants and of planetaryspheres survive in any form after they are dead we know not andcan never know. But this at least the revelation of the complexvision makes clear, that the secret of the whole process is to befound in the mystery of love; and to the mystery of love we can, atthe worst, constantly appeal; for the mystery of love has been atlast embodied for us in a living figure over whom Death has nocontrol. 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER

The philosophy of the complex vision is based, as I have shown, upon nothing less than the whole personality of man becomeconscious of itself in the totality of its rhythmic functioning. Thispersonality, although capable of being analysed in its constituentelements, is an integral and unfathomable reality. And just becauseit is such a reality it descends and expands on every side intoimmeasurable depths and immeasurable horizons. 

We know nothing as intimately and vividly as we know personalityand every knowledge that we have is either a spiritual ora material abstraction from this supreme knowledge. Thisknowledge of personality which is our ultimate truth, implies abelief in the integral and real existence of what we call the soul. And because personality implies the soul and because we have noultimate conception of any other reality in the world except thereality of personality, therefore we are compelled to assume thatevery separate external object in Nature is possessed of a soul. 

The peculiar psychological melancholy which sometimes seizes usin the presence of inanimate natural objects, such as earth andwater and sand and dust and rain and vapour, objects whoseexistence may superficially appear to be entirely chemical ormaterial, is accounted for by the fact that the soul in us is baffledand discouraged and repulsed by these things because by reason oftheir superficial appearance they convey the impression ofcomplete soullessness. In the presence of plants and animals andall animate things we are also vaguely conscious of a strangepsychological melancholy. But this latter melancholy is of aless poignant character than the former because what we seemsuperficially conscious of is not "soullessness" but a psychic lifewhich is alien from our life, and therefore baffling and obscure. 

In both of these cases, however, as soon as we are bold enough toapply the conclusions we have arrived at from the analysis of theknowledge which is most vivid and real to us, namely, theknowledge of our own soul, this peculiar psychological melancholyis driven away. It is a melancholy which descends upon us when in any disintegrated moment the creative energy inus, the energy of love in us, is overcome by the evil and inertnessof the aboriginal malice. Under the influence of this inert malice, which takes advantage of some lapse or ebb of the creative energyin us, the rhythmic activity of our complex vision breaks down;and we visualize the world through the attributes of reason andsensation alone. And the world, visualized through reason andsensation alone, becomes a world of uniform, and homogeneousmonotony, made up either of one all-embracing material substance, or of one all-embracing spiritual substance. In either casethat living plurality of real separate "souls" which correspondto our own soul vanishes away, and a dreary and devastatingoneness, whether spiritual or chemical, fills the whole field. Theworld which is the emanation of this atrophied and distorted visionis a world of crushing dreariness; but it is an unreal world becausethe only vivid and unfathomable reality we know is the reality ofinnumerable souls. The curious thing about this world ofsuperficial chemical or spiritual uniformity is that it seems thesame _identical_ world in the case of all separate souls whosecomplex vision is thus distorted by the prevalence of that whichopposes itself to creation and by the consequent ebb andweakening of the energy of love. It is impossible to be assured thatthis is the case; but all evidence of language points towards suchan _identity of desolation_ between the innumerable separate"universes" of the souls which fill the world, when such soulsvisualize existence through reason and sensation alone. 

This also is a portion of the same "illusion of impersonality" intowhich the inert malice of the ultimate "resistance" betrays us withdemonic cunning. What man is there among us who does notrecall some moment of visionary disintegration, when, in thepresence of both these mysteries, an unspeakable depression ofthis kind has overtaken him? He has stood, perhaps, on some wetautumn evening, watching the soulless reflection of a dead moonin a pond of dead water; while above him the motionless distortedtrunk of some goblinish tree mocks him with its desolateremoteness from his own life. 

At that moment, with his abortive and atrophied complex vision, all he sees is the eternal soullessness and deadness of matter; deadmoonlight, dead water, dead mud and slime and refuse, dead mistand vapour, dead earth-mould and dead leaves. And while thedesolate chemistry of nothingness grips him with its dead fingersand he turns hopelessly to the silent tree-trunk at his side, that alsorepels him with the chill breath of psychic remoteness; and itseems to him that that also is strange and impersonal andunconscious; that that also is only a blind pre-determined portionof some huge planetary life-process that has no place for a livingsoul, but only a place for automatic impersonal chemistry. Brooding in this way, with the eternal malice of the system ofthings conquering the creative impulse in the depths of his soul, hebecomes obsessed with the idea that not only these isolatedportions of Nature, but the whole of Nature, is thus alien andremote and thus given up to a desolate and soulless uniformity. Unutterable loneliness takes possession of him and he feelshimself to be an exile in a dark and hostile assemblageof elemental forces. If at such a moment by means of somepassionate invocation of the immortal gods, or by means of somedesperate sinking into his own soul and gathering together of thecreative energy in him, he is able to resist this desolation, howstrange and sudden a shifting of mood occurs! He then, by a boldmovement of imagination, restores the balance of his complexvision; and in a moment the spectacle is transfigured. 

The apparently dead pond takes to itself the lineaments of someindescribable living soul, of which that particular portion ofelemental being is the outward expression. The apparently deadmoonlight becomes the magical influence of some mysterious"lunar soul" of which the earth's silent companions is the externalform. The apparently dead mud of the pond's edge becomes aliving portion of that earth-body which is the visible manifestationof the soul of the earth. The motionless tree-trunk at his side seemsno longer the desolate embodiment of some vague "psychic life"utterly alien from his own life but reveals to him the immediatemagical presence of a real soul there, whose personality, thoughnot conscious in the precise manner in which he is conscious, hasyet its own measure of complex vision and is mutely strugglingwith the cruel inertness and resistance which blocks the path of theenergy of life. When once, by the bold synthesis of reason andsensation with those other attributes of the complex vision whichwe name instinct, imagination, intuition, and the like, the soulitself comes to be regarded as the substratum of personalexistence, that desolating separation between humanity and Natureceases to baffle us. As long as the substratum of personal life isregarded as the physical body there must always be this desolatingdifference and this remoteness. 

For in such a case the stress is inevitably laid upon thephysiological and biological difference between the body of a manand the body of the earth or the moon or the sun or any plant oranimal. But as soon as the substratum of personal life is regardednot as the body but as the sour it ceases to be necessary to lay somerciless a stress upon the difference between man's elaboratephysiological constitution and the simpler chemical constitution oforganic or inorganic objects. 

If the complex vision is the vision of the soul, if the soul uses itsbodily sensation as only one among its other instruments ofcontact with life, then it is obvious that between the soul of a manand the soul of a planet or a plant there need be no such appallingand desolating gulf as that which fills us with such profoundmelancholy when we refuse to let the complex vision have itscomplete rhythmic play and insist on sacrificing the revelationsmade by instinct and intuition to the falsifying conclusions ofreason and sensation, energizing in arbitrary solitude. 

The "mort-main" or "dead-hand" of that aboriginal malice whichresists life is directly responsible for this illusion of "unconsciousmatter" through the midst of which we grope like outlawedexiles. Reason and the bodily senses, conspiring together, areperpetually tempting us to believe in the reality of this desolatephantom-world of blind material elements; but the unreality of thiscorpse-life becomes evident directly we consider the revelation of thecomplex vision. 

For the complex vision reveals to us that what we call "theuniverse" is a thing which is for ever coming newly and freshlyinto life, for ever being re-born and re-constituted by the interplaybetween the individual soul and the "objective mystery. " Of theobjective mystery itself, apart from the individual soul, we are ableto say nothing. But since the "universe" is the discovery andcreation of the individual soul, there must be as many different"universes" as there are living souls. 

Our belief in "one universe, " whose characteristics are relativelyidentical in the case of all the souls which contemplate it, is abelief which in part results from an original act of faith and in partresults from an implicit appeal to those "invisible companions"whose concentrated will towards "reality" and "beauty" and"nobility" offers us our only objective standard of these ideas. From the ground, therefore, of this trinity of incomprehensiblesubstances, namely the substance which is the substratum of theindividual soul, the substance which is "the objective mystery" outof which the individual soul creates its universe, and the substancewhich is the "medium" or "link" which enables these individualsouls to communicate with one another, emerge the only realitieswhich we can know. And since this trinity of incomprehensiblesubstances, thus divided one from another, must be thought of asdominated by the same unity of time and space, it is inconceivablethat they should be anything else than three aspects of one and thesame incomprehensible substance. From this it follows that fromthe ground of one incomprehensible substance which in its firstaspect is the substratum of the soul, in its second aspect is theobjective mystery confronting the soul, in its third aspect is themedium which holds all souls together, there must be evoked allthe reality which we can conceive. 

And this reality must, from the conclusions we have alreadyreached, take two forms. It must take the form of a plurality ofsubjective "universes" answering to the plurality of living souls. And it must take the form of one objective "universe, " answeringto the objective standard of truth, beauty, and nobility, togetherwith the opposites of these, which is implied in the tacit appeal ofall individual souls to their "invisible companions. "

In this double reality; the reality of one objective universeidentical in its appearance to all souls but dependent for its identityupon an implicit reference to the "invisible companions, " and thereality of as many subjective universes as there are living souls; inthis double reality there is obviously no place at all for thatphantom-world of unconscious "matter, " which in the form ofsoulless elements, or soulless organic automata, fills the humanmind with such devastating melancholy. 

The dead pond with its dead moonlight, with its dead mud and itsdead snow, is therefore no better than a ghastly illusion whenconsidered in isolation from the soul or the souls which look forthfrom it. To the soul of which those elements are the "body" neithermud nor water nor rain nor earth-mould can appear desolate ordead. To the soul which contemplates these things there can be noother way of regarding them, as long as the rhythm of its vision isunimpeded, than as the outward manifestation of a personal life, orof many personal lives, similar in creative energy to its own. 

Between the soul, or the souls, of the elements of the earth, and thesoul of the human spectator there must be, if our conclusions areto be held good at all, a natural and profound reciprocity. Theapparent "deadness, " the apparent automatism of "matter, " whichprojects itself between these two and resists with corpse-likeopacity their reciprocal understanding, must be one of the ghastlyillusions with which the sinister side of the eternal dualityundermines the magic of life. 

But although in its objective isolation, as an absolute entity, this"material deadness" of earth and water and rain and snow and ofall disintegrated organic chemistry must be regarded as an"illusion, " it would be a falsifying of the reality of things to denythat it is an "illusion" to which the visions of all souls aremiserably subject. They are for ever subject to it because it isprecisely this "illusion" which the unfathomable power hostile tolife for ever evokes. 

Nor must we for a moment suppose that this material objectivity, this pond, these leaves, this mud, this snow, are altogether unreal. Their reality is demanded by the complex vision and to deny theirreality would be the gesture of madness. They are only unreal, they are only an "illusion, " when they are considered as existingindependently of the "souls" of which they are the "body. " As theexpression and manifestation of such "souls" they are entirely real. They are indeed, in this sense, as real as our own human body. 

The human soul, when it suffers from that malignant power which hasits positive and external existence in the soul itself, feels itselfto be absolutely alone in the midst of a dark chaotic welter ofmonstrous elemental forces. In a mood of this kind the thought ofthe huge volumes of soulless water which we call "oceans" and"seas" crushes us with a devastating melancholy. The thought ofthe interminable deserts of "dead" sand and the vast polar icefields and the monstrous excrescences that we call "mountains"have the same effect. But the supreme example of the kind ofmaterial ghastliness which I am trying to indicate, is, as may easilybe surmised, nothing less than the appalling thought of theunfathomable spatial gulfs through which our whole stellar systemmoves. Here also, in this supreme insistence of objective"deadness, " the situation is relieved when we realize that thisunthinkable space is nothing more than the material expression ofthat indefinable "medium" which holds all souls together. 

Moreover we must remember that these stellar gulfs cannot bethought of except as the habitation of innumerable living souls, each one of which is using this very "space" as the ground of itscreation of the many-coloured impassioned "universe" which is itsown dwelling. In all these instances of "objective deadness, "whether great or small, we must not forget that the thing whichdesolates us and fills us with so intolerable a nostalgia is a thingonly half real, a thing whose full reality depends upon the soulwhich contemplates it and upon the soul's implicit assumption thatits truth is the truth of those "invisible companions" who supply uswith our perpetually renewed and reconstituted standard of what is"good" and what is "evil. "

There is an abominably vivid example of the kind of melancholyI have in my mind, which, although obviously less common tonormal human experience than the forms of it I have so farattempted to suggest, is as a rule even more crushing in its cruelty. I refer to the sight of a dead human body; and in a less degree tothe sight of a dead animal or a dead plant. 

A human corpse laid out in its coffin, or nailed down in its coffin, how exactly does the particular attitude towards life, which forconvenience sake I name the philosophy of the complex vision, find itself regarding _that_? Such a body, deserted by its livingsoul, is obviously no longer the immediate and integral expressionof a personal life. Is it therefore no more than a shred or shard orhusk or remnant of inconceivably soulless matter? The godsforbid! Certainly and most assuredly it is more than that. 

An isolated heterogeneous mass of dead chemistry is a monstrousillusion which only exists for us when the weakness of ourcreative energy and the power of the original malice in the souldestroys our vision. This dead body lying in its wooden coffin iscertainly possessed of no more life than the inanimate boards ofthe coffin in which it lies. But the inanimate boards of the coffin, together with the inanimate furniture of the house or room thatcontains it, and the bricks and stones and mortar of such a house, are themselves nothing less than inevitable portions of the vastearth-body of our planetary globe. 

And this planetary globe, this earth upon which we live, cannotunder any conceivable kind of reasoning to which imagination hascontributed its share, be regarded as a dead or a soulless thing. Inits isolated integrity, as a separate integral personality, the soulhas deserted the body and left it "dead. " But it is only "dead" whenconsidered in isolation from the surrounding chemistry ofplanetary life. And to consider it in this way is to consider itfalsely. For from the moment it ceases to be the expression of thelife of an individual human soul, it becomes the expression--through every single phase of its chemical dissolution--of the lifeof the planet. 

In so far as the human soul, which has deserted it, is concerned itis assuredly no better than a dead husk; but in so far as the soul ofthe planet is concerned it is an essential portion of that planet'sliving body and in this sense is not dead at all. 

Its chemical elements, as they resolve themselves slowly back intotheir planetary accomplices, are part and parcel of that general"body of the earth" which is in a state of constant movement, andwhich has the "soul of the earth" as its animating principle ofpersonality. And just as the human corpse, when the soul hasdeserted it, becomes a portion of those chemical elements whichare the body of the planet's "personal soul, " so do the dead bodiesof animals and plants and trees become portions of the sameterrestrial bodies. 

Thus strictly speaking there is no single moment when anymaterial form or body can be called "dead. " Instantaneously withthe departure of its own individual soul it is at once "possessed" bythe soul of that planetary globe from whose chemistry it drew itselemental life and from whose chemistry, although the form of ithas changed, it still draws its life. For it is no fantasticspeculation to affirm that every living thing whether human orotherwise plays, while it lives, a triple part upon the world stage. 

It is in the first place the vehicle of the individual soul. It is inthe second place the medium of the "spiritual vampirizing" of theinvisible planetary spirits. And it is in the third place a livingportion of that organic elemental chemistry which is the body ofthe terrestrial soul. Thus it becomes manifest that that "illusion ofdead matter" which fills the human soul with so profound amelancholy is no more than an everlasting trick of the malice ofthe abyss. 

And the despair which sometimes results from it is a despairwhich issues from no "dead matter" but from the terrible livingdepths of the soul itself. It is from a consideration of the especialkind of melancholy evoked in us by the illusion of "objectivedeadness" that we are enabled to analyse those peculiarimaginative feelings which sometime or another affect us all. Irefer to the extraordinary tenacity with which we cling to ourbodily form, however grotesque it may be, and the difficulty weexperience in disassociating our living soul from its particularenvelope or habitation; and the tendency which we have, in spiteof this, to imagine ourselves transferred to an alien body. For thesoul in us has the power of "thinking itself" into any other body itmay please to select. 

And there is no reason why we should be alarmed at such animaginative power; or even associate its fantastic realization withany terror of madness. The invisible entity within us which says "Iam I" can easily be conceived as suddenly awakening out of sleepand discovering, to its astonishment, that its visible body hassuffered a bewildering transformation. 

Such a transformation can be conceived as almost unlimited inits humorous and disconcerting possibilities. But no suchtransformation of the external envelope of the soul, whether intothe form of an animal or a plant or a god, need be conceived of asnecessarily driving us into insanity. The "I am I" would remain thesame in regard to its imagination, instinct, intuition, emotion, self-consciousness and the rest. It would be only "changed" in regardto sensation, which is a thing immediately dependent upon theparticular and special senses of the human body. 

This is a truth to the reality of which the wandering fancies ofevery human child bear ample witness; not to speak of the dreamsof those childlike tribes of the race, who in our progressiveinsolence we are pleased to name "uncivilized. " The deeper we diginto the tissue of convoluted impressions that make up ouruniverse the more vividly do we become aware that our onlyredemption from sheer insanity lies in "knowing ourselves"; inother words, in keeping a drastic and desperate hold upon what, inthe midst of ambiguity and treachery, we are definitely assured of. 

And the only thing we are definitely assured of, the only thingwhich we really know "on the inner side, " and with the kind ofknowledge which is unassailable, is the reality of our soul. Weknow this with a vividness completely different from the vividnessof any other knowledge because this is not what we feel or see orimagine or think but what we _are_. And all feeling, all seeing, allimagining and all thinking are only attributes of this mysterious"something" which is our integral self. 

To the superficial judgment there is always something weird andarbitrary about this belief in our own soul. And this apparentweirdness arises from the fact that our superficial judgments arethe work of reason and sensation arrogating to themselves thewhole field of consciousness. 

But directly we bring to bear upon this mass of impressions whichis our "universe" the full rhythmic play of our complete identitythis weirdness and arbitrariness disappear and we realize that we_are_, not this thought or this sensation or even this stream ofthoughts and sensations, but the definite living "monad" whichgives these things their only link of continuity and permanence. And it is better to accept experience, even though it refuses toresolve itself into any rational unity, rather than to leaveexperience in the distance and permit our reason to evolve itsdesired unity out of its own rules and limitations. 

We must readily admit that to take all the attributes of personalityand to make them adhere in the mysterious substratum of the soulrather than in the little cells of the brain, seems to the superficialjudgment a weird and arbitrary act. But the more closely we thinkof what we are doing when we make this assumption the moreinevitable does such an assumption appear. 

We are driven by the necessity of the case to find some "point, " orat least some "gap" in thought and the system of things, wheremind and matter meet and are fused with one another. Absoluteconsciousness does not help us to explain the facts of experience;because "facing" absolute consciousness, directly it isolates itself, we are compelled to recognize the presence of "something else, "which is the material or object of which absolute consciousness isconscious. 

And what we do when we assume the little cells of the physicalbrain to be the point in space or "the gap in thought" where mindand matter meet and become one is simply to place these twoworlds in close juxtaposition and then assert that they are one. Butthis placing them side by side and asserting that they are one doesnot make them one. They are just as far apart as ever. The cells ofthe brain remain material and the phenomenon of consciousnessremains immaterial and they are still as remote from one anotherand as "unfused" as if consciousness were outside of time andspace altogether. 

It is only when we come to regard the "fusion-point" of these twothings as being itself a living and personal thing; it is only whenwe come to regard the substratum of the soul as a mysterious"something" which is, at one and the same time, both what we call"mind" and what we call "matter, " that the difficulty I havedescribed disappears. For in this case we are dealing withsomething which, unlike the little cells of the brain, is totallyinvisible and totally beyond all scientific analysis; and yet withsomething which, because it is affected by bodily sensations andbecause it is under the sway of time and space, cannot be regardedas utterly outside the realm of material substance. We are in fact, in this case, dealing with something which we feel to be theintegral and ultimate reality of ourselves, as we certainly do notfeel the little cells of the brain to be; and we are dealing withsomething that is no mere stream of impressions, but is theconcrete permanent reality which gives to all impressions, whethermaterial or immaterial, their unity and coherence. 

When once we are put into possession of this, when once we cometo recognize our invisible soul as the reality which is our true self, it is found to be no longer ridiculous and arbitrary to endow thissoul with all those various attributes, which, after all, are onlyvarious aspects of that unique personality which is the personalityof the soul. To say "the soul has imagination, " or "the soul hasinstinct, " or "the soul has an aesthetic sense, " has only a ridiculoussound when under the pressure of the abysmal malice whichopposes itself to life we fall into the habits of permitting thoseusurping accomplices, pure reason and pure sensation, to destroythe rhythmic harmony of the complex vision. 

When once we are in full possession of our own soul it is no merefanciful speculation but an inevitable act of faith which compels usto envisage the universe as a thing crowded with invisible souls, who in some degree or other resemble our own. If this is"anthropomorphism, " though strictly speaking it ought to becalled "pan-psychism, " then it is impossible for us to betoo anthropomorphic. For in this way we are doing the onlyphilosophical thing we have a right to do--namely, interpreting theless known in the terms of the more known. 

When we seek to interpret the soul, which we vividly know, interms of chemical or spiritual abstractions of which we have nodirect knowledge but which are merely rationalized symbols, weare proceeding in an illegitimate and unphilosophical manner tointerpret the more known in terms of the less known, which is inthe true sense ridiculous. 

The only escape from that profound melancholy so easily engulfedin sheer insanity, which is the result of submission to "the illusionof dead matter, " lies in this tenacious hold upon the concreteidentity of the soul. So closely are we linked, by reason of thechemistry of our mortal body, to every material-element; that it isonly too easy for us to merge our personal life by a perverted useof the imagination in that phantom-world of supposedly "deadmatter" which is the illusive projection of the abysmal malice. 

Thus just as the soul is driven by extreme physical pain torelinquish its identity and to become "an incarnate sensation, " sothe soul is driven by the power of malice to relinquish itscentrifugal force and to become the very mud and slime andexcremental debris which it has endowed with an illusivesoullessness. 

The clue to the secret pathology of these moods, to whose brinkreason and sensation have led us and into whose abyss pervertedimagination has plunged us, is therefore to be found in theunfathomable duality of good and evil. If it seems to the kind ofmind that demands "rational unity" at all costs, even at the cost oftruth to experience, that this duality cannot be left unreconciled, the answer which the philosophy of the complex vision mustmake, is that any reconciliation of such a sort, any reduction tomonistic unity of the eternal adversaries out of whose struggle lifeitself springs, would bring life itself back to nothingness. 

The argument that because, in the eternal process of destructionand creation, life or love or what we call "the good" depends forits activity upon death or malice or what we call "evil, " theseopposites are one and the same, is shown to be utterly false whenone thinks of the analogy of the struggle between the sexes. Because the activity of the male depends upon the existence of thefemale, that is no reason for concluding that the male and thefemale are one and the same thing. 

Because "good" becomes more "good" out of its conflict with"evil, " that does not mean that "good" is responsible for theexistence of "evil"; any more than because "evil" becomes more"evil" out of its conflict with "good" does it mean that "evil" isresponsible for the existence of "good. " Neither is responsible forthe existence of the other. They are both positive and real and theyare both eternal. They are both unfathomable elements in everypersonal individual soul, whether of man or plant or animal or godor demi-god that has ever existed or will ever come to exist. 

The prevalent idea that because good "in the long run" and overvast spaces of time shows itself to be a little--just a little--morepowerful than evil, evil must be regarded as only a form of goodor a necessary negation of good is a fallacy derived from theillusion that life is the creation of a "parent" of the universe whosenature is absolutely "good. " Such a fallacy takes for granted thatsomewhere and somehow "Good" will finally triumph over "evil. "

The revelation of the complex vision destroys this fallacy. Such acomplete triumph of "good" over "evil" would mean the end ofeverything that exists because everything that exists depends uponthis abysmal struggle. But for personalities who are able torecognize that the mere fact of their being alive is already aconsiderable victory of "good" over "evil, " there is nothingoverwhelming in the thought that "good" can never completelyovercome "evil. " It is enough that life has given them life; and thatin the perpetually renewed struggle between love and malice theyfind at the rare moments when love overcomes malice a flood ofhappiness which, brings with it "the sensation of eternity. "

For such souls eternity is here and now; and no anticipatedabsolute triumph of the "good" in the world over the "evil" cancompare for a moment with the indescribable happiness which this"sensation of eternity" brings. It is this happiness, evoked by therhythmic play of the soul's apex-thought in its supreme hours, which alone, even in memory, can destroy "the illusion of deadmatter. "

The psychological situation brought about by the fact that thisillusion is a perpetually recurrent one and a thing that is alwaysliable to return whenever reason and sensation are driven to isolatethemselves is a situation a good deal more complicated than I haveso far indicated. It is complicated by the fact that although incertain moods the contemplation of "the illusion of dead matter"produces profound melancholy, in other moods it produces a kindof demonic joy. It seems as though the melancholy mood, whichcarried to an extreme limit borders on absolute despair, comesabout when the creative energy in our soul, although under themomentary dominance of what resists creation, is still, so to speak, the master of our will. 

Under such circumstances the will, still resolutely turned towardslife, is confronted by what appears to be the very embodiment ofdeath. Under these conditions the will is baffled, perplexed, defeated and outraged. It beats in vain against the "inert mass"which malice has projected; and feels itself powerless to overcomeit. It then turns furiously round upon the very substratum of thesoul and rends and tears at that, in a mad effort to reach the secretof a phantom-world which seems to hold no secret. If some sort ofrelief does not come, such relief for instance as physical sleep, theinert misery of the submission of the will, following upon such adesperate struggle, may easily drift into a deadly apathy, mayeasily approach the borders of insanity. 

But there is another condition under which the soul may confront"the illusion of dead matter. " This condition comes about when thewill, instead of being turned towards creation, is definitely turnedtowards the opposite of creation. It is impossible for the will toremain in this condition for more than a limited time. Someoutward or inward shock, some drastic swing of the psychicpendulum, must sooner or later restore the balance and bring thewill back to that wavering and indecisive state--poised like thepoint of a compass between the two extremes--which seems to beits normal attitude. 

Any human will unchangeably directed towards "the good" wouldbe the will of a soul that in its inherent depths were already"absolutely good"; and this, as we have seen, is an impossiblephenomenon. The utmost reach of "wickedness" that any soul, whether it be the soul of a man or of a god, can attain to, is arecurrent concentration of the will upon evil and a recurrentovercoming, for relatively increasing spaces of time, of the powerof love. This incomplete and constantly interrupted concentrationupon evil is the nearest approach to "the worship of Satan" whichany will is able to reach. The exquisite pleasure, therefore, culminating in a kind of insane ecstasy, which the soul can enjoywhen, in the passion of its evil will, it leaps to welcome "theillusion of dead matter, " is a pleasure that in the nature of thingscannot last. And the condition of inert malignant apathy whichfollows such an "ecstasy of evil" is perhaps the nearest approach toa consciousness of "eternal death" which the soul can know. 

And it is in this malignant apathy, rather than in the demonicexultation of the mood that preceded it, that the extreme oppositeof love finds its culmination. For in its hour of demonic exultation, when the will to evil buries itself with insane joy in "the illusion ofdead matter, " it is drawing savagely upon the energy of life. Itcorrupts such energy as it draws upon it and distorts it from itsnatural functions; but the energy itself, although "possessed" bythe abysmal malice, is living and intense; and therefore cannot beregarded as so entirely the opposite of love as that inert conditionof malignant lifelessness which inevitably succeeds it. 

The demonic ecstasy, full of invincible magnetism, which looksforth from the countenance of a soul obsessed with, evil, has muchmore in common with the magnetic exultation of a soul possessedwith love than has that ghastly inertness, with its insane malignantattraction to death. For out of the countenance of this latter looksforth everything that is hostile to life; and its expression has in itthe obscene cunning, mixed with frozen despair, of a corpse whichhas become utterly dehumanized. 

It is frequently a matter of surprise to minds whose view of what is"good" has excluded the concept of energy that persons obviouslyunder the obsession of "evil" are able to display such immensereserves of inexhaustible power. But this surprise disappears whenit is realized that such "worshippers of Satan" are drawing uponthe creative energy and corrupting it, in the process of drawingupon it, by the malignant power which resists creation. 

The "illusion of dead matter" conceived as we have conceived it, as a thing made up of unconscious chemical elements, is after allonly one aspect of the phantom-world of illusive soullessnesswhich the abysmal malice delights to project. It is only toparticular sensitive natures that this peculiar "despair of theinanimate" takes the form of mud or sand or refuse or water ordead planetary bodies or empty space. 

To other natures it may take the form of those innumerableoff-shoots of economic necessity, which are not themselves necessaryeither to human life or human welfare but which are the arbitrarycreations of economic avarice divorced from necessity andindulged in out of an inert hatred of what is beautiful and real. Anylabour, whether mental or physical, which directly satisfies theeconomic needs of humanity carries with it the unfathomable thrillof creative happiness. But when we come to consider thoseinnumerable forms of financial and commercial enterprise whichin no way satisfy human needs but exist only for the sake ofexploitation we find ourselves confronted by a weight of unrealsoulless hideousness which by reason of the fact that it isdeliberately protected by organized society is a more devastatingexample of "the thing which is in the way" than any amount ofmud and litter and refuse and excremental debris. For thisunproductive commercialism, this "unreal reality" projected by themalignant power which resists creation, is not only an obsceneoutrage to the aesthetic sense; it is actually an assassination oflife. When, therefore, a philosopher who uses the complex vision ofthe soul as his organ of research is asked the question, "where are weto look for the type of human being most entirely evil?" theanswer which he is compelled to give is not a little surprising tomany minds. 

For there are many minds whose physiological timidity corruptstheir judgment, and who lack the clairvoyance to unmask withinfallible certainty that look of sneering apathy which is the pureexpression of malice. And to such minds some wretched devil of acriminal, driven to crime by an insane perversion of the creativeinstinct--for creation and destruction are not the true opposites--might easily seem the ultimate embodiment of evil. 

Whereas the particular type of human being from whom thephilosopher of the complex vision would draw his standard of evilwould be a type very different from any perverted type even fromthose whose mania might take the form of erotic cruelty. It wouldbe a type whose recurrent "evil" would take the form of a sneeringand malignant inertness, the form of a cold and sarcasticdisparagement of all intense feeling. It would be a type entirelyobsessed by "the illusion of dead matter"; not so much the"illusion of dead matter" where Nature is concerned, but where theeconomic struggle has resulted in some unnecessary and purelycommercial activity, altogether divorced from the basic necessitiesof human life. A person of this type would, in his evil moods, bemore completely dominated by a malignant resistance to everymovement of the creative spirit than any other type, unless it wereperhaps one whom the heavy brutality of "officialdom" hadblunted into inhuman callousness. 

Compared with persons such as these, by whom no actual positive"wickedness" may have ever been perpetrated, the confessedcriminal or the acknowledged pervert remains far less committedto the depths of evil. For in persons who have habitually lentthemselves to "the illusion of dead matter, " whether in regard toNature or in regard to commercial or financial exploitation, thereoccurs a kind of "death-in-life" which gives the sneering malignityof the abyss its supreme opportunity, whereas in the souls of thosewho have committed "crimes, " or have been guilty of passionatecruelty, there may easily remain a vivid and sensitive response tosome form of reality or beauty, or self-annihilating love. 

For "the illusion of dead matter" is the most formidable expressionof evil which we know; and it can only be destroyed by the magicof that creative spirit whose true "opposite" is not hatred or crueltyor violence or destruction, but the motiveless power of a deadlyobscurantism. 

CHAPTER XII. 

PAIN AND PLEASURE

Since neither pleasure nor pain can be experienced withoutconsciousness; and since consciousness finds its substratum not inthe body but in the soul; we are driven to the conclusion that whatwe call the capacity of the body for pleasure and pain is really thecapacity of the soul for pleasure and pain. But the capacity of thesoul for pleasure and pain is not confined to its functioningthrough the body. Sensation, that is to say, the use of the bodilysenses, gives the soul one particular form of pain and oneparticular form of pleasure; but that the soul possesses other formsof pleasure and pain independently of the body is proved by thepsychological fact that intense bodily pain is sometimesaccompanied by intense spiritual pleasure and intense bodilypleasure is sometimes accompanied by intense spiritual pain. 

What is called "the pursuit of pleasure, " that rationalisticabstraction from our real psychological experience, thatabstraction which has been made the basis of the false philosophycalled "hedonism, " cannot stand for a moment against therevelation of the complex vision. Under certain rare and morbidconditions, when reason and sensation, in their conspiracy ofassassination, have usurped for a while the whole fieldof consciousness, such a "pursuit of pleasure" may becomea dominant motive. But even under these conditions thereoften comes a shifting of the stage according to which thepleasure-seeker, sick to death of pleasure, deliberately"pursues" pain. 

If it be said that this change is no real change because what is thenpursued is the pleasure of "contrast" or even "the pleasure ofpain, " the retort to such reasoning can only be that in this case thewhole hedonistic theory has been given up; for what is really then"pursued" is neither pleasure nor pain but the sensation of noveltyor the sensation of new experience. 

Pleasure and pain are emotionalized sensations accompanyingvarious physical and mental states. The psychological truth abouttheir "pursuit" is simply that we "pursue" certain objects orconditions because of their immediate attractiveness or "attractiveterribleness, " and that the accompanying pleasure becomes first akind of orchestral background to our pursuit; and then, later, becomes, by the action of the law of association, part and parcel ofthe thing's attractiveness or "attractive terribleness. " Thus whatreally occurs is precisely opposite to the hedonist's contention. Forthe thing "pursued" swallows up and appropriates to itself thepleasure and pain of the pursuit; and, by the law of association, becomes more vividly, even than at the start the motive forcewhich lures us. 

The most ghastly, the most obscene, the most intolerable thing inthe world is when the pain of pure sensation, the pain of the body, is accentuated to such a pitch of atrocious suffering that the otherattributes of the soul are annihilated; and the humanity of theperson thus suffering is temporarily destroyed; so that what "lives"at such a moment is not a person at all but an incarnate pain. 

That this ultimate ghastliness, this dehumanization by pain, canonly occur where the aboriginal malice of the soul has previouslyweakened the soul's independent life, is proved by the fact that themost atrocious tortures have been successfully endured, even untothe point of death, by such as have been martyrs for an idea. Andthe reason of this endurance, the reason why, in the case of suchmartyrizing, the victim has been able to resist dehumanization isfound in the fact that the soul's creative energy or the power oflove has been so great that it has been able to assert itsindependence of bodily torment, even to the last moment ofhuman identity. 

Since pain and pleasure, although so often the direct evocation ofthe soul's attribute of bodily sensation, are always composed of theprimordial "stuff" of emotion; and since emotion is a projection ofthe soul independently of the body, it is natural that the soulshould, in the reverse manner, colour its emotion with the memoryof sensation. Thus it follows that although it is possible for thesoul, when its emotional feeling is outraged or excited, toexperience pain or pleasure apart from sensation, there is usuallypresent in such an emotional pain or pleasure a residual element ofsensation; for the soul is not a thing which simply "possesses"certain functions; but a thing which is present in some degree orother in all its various aspects of energy. 

What we call "memory" is nothing more than the plastic consciousnessof personal identity and continuity. And when once the painor pleasure of a bodily sensation has been lodged in thesoul, that pain or pleasure becomes an integral portion of the soul'slife, to be worked upon and appropriated for good or evil by thesoul's intrinsic duality. 

Thus although the creative energy in the soul, emerging fromfathomless abysses, can enable the soul to endure until death themost infernal torments, the fact remains that since the attribute ofsensation, which depends entirely upon the existence of the bodilysenses, is one of the soul's basic attributes and has its ground in thevery substratum of the soul, the sensations of pain and pleasurewhether coloured by emotion and imagination or left "pure" inthe clear element of consciousness, are sensations from which thesoul cannot escape. 

From this we are forced to conclude that to affirm that the soul canremain wholly untouched and unaffected by bodily pain orpleasure is ridiculous. Bodily pain and pleasure are the soul's painand pleasure; because the attribute of sensation, through which thebodily senses feed the soul, is not the body's attribute of sensationbut the soul's attribute of sensation. 

To say, therefore, that the soul can "conquer" the body or be"indifferent" to the body is as ridiculous as to say that the bodycan "conquer" the soul or be "indifferent" to the soul. The fact thatthe attribute of sensation is a basic attribute of the soul and thatthe attribute of sensation is dependent upon the bodily senses mustinevitably imply that the pressure or impact of the bodily sensesdescend to the profoundest depths of the soul. 

The thing that "conquers" pain in the invincible martyr is love, or"the energy of creation, " in the soul. The abysmal struggle is notbetween the soul and the body or between the flesh and the spirit, but between the power of life and love, in the body and the soultogether, and the power of death or malice, in the body and thesoul together. 

What we are compelled to assume with regard to those "sons ofthe universe, " whose existence affords a basis for the objectivity ofthe "ultimate ideas, " is that, with them, what I have called "theeternal idea of the body" takes the place in their complex vision ofour actual physical body. Their complex vision must be regarded, if our philosophy is to remain boldly and shamelessly anthropomorphic, as possessing, even as our own, the basic attribute of sensation. 

But since their essential invisibility, and consequent upon this theirubiquity under the dominant categories of time and place, precludes any possibility of their incarnation, we are compelled topostulate that their complex vision's attribute of sensation, in theabsence of any bodily senses, finds its contact with "the objectivemystery" and with the objective "universe" in some definite andpermanent "intermediary" which serves in their case the sameprimal necessity as is served in our case by the human body. 

If no such "intermediary" existed for them, we should becompelled to relinquish the idea that they possessed a complexvision at all, for not only the attribute of sensation, but theattribute of emotion also, demands for its activity something thatshall represent the human body and occupy in their objective"universe" the place occupied by our physical bodies in our"universe. "

As we have already shown, this primary demand for the "eternalizingof flesh and blood" is a demand which springs from the profoundestdepths of the soul, for it is a demand which springs fromthe creative energy itself, the eternal protagonist in theworld-drama. We must conclude, therefore, that althoughthese super-human children of Nature cannot in the ordinary senseincarnate themselves in flesh and blood they can and doappropriate to themselves out of the surrounding body of the ether, and out of the body of any other living thing they approach, acertain attenuated essence of flesh and blood which, thoughinvisible to us, supplies with them the place of our human body. This, therefore, is the "intermediary" which, in the "invisiblecompanions" of our planetary struggle, occupies the place which isoccupied by the physical element in our human life. And this isevoked by nothing less than that "eternal idea of the body, " or"that eternal idea of flesh and blood, " which the creative energy oflove demands. A very curious and interesting possibility followsfrom this assumption; namely, that by a process which might becalled a process of "spiritual vampirizing" the same creativepassion which demands satisfaction in the eternalizing of "the ideaof the body" actually suffers, by means of its vivid sympathy withliving bodies, the very pains and pleasures through which thesebodies pass. 

The possibility that "the invisible companions, " or in moretraditional language that the "immortal gods, " should be driven bythe passion of their creative love, to suffer vicarious pain andpleasure through the living bodies of all organic existences, is apossibility that derives a certain support from two considerations, both of which are drawn directly from human experiences. It iscertainly a matter of common human experience to be conscious, for good and for evil, of a kind of obsession of one's body bysome sort of spiritual power. We may regard these moments ofobsession, with their consequent exhilaration or profound gloom, as due purely to the activity of our own soul; and doubtless veryoften this is the explanation of them. But it is conceivable also thatsuch obsessions are actually due to the presence near us andaround us of the "high immortal ones. "

That when we experience this "spiritual vampirizing" of ourmortal bodies by immortal companions, such an obsession is notnecessarily "for good, " is a thing inevitably implied in ourprimary conception of personality. For although a purely demonicpersonality is an impossibility, owing to the fact that personalityis, in itself, an achieved triumph over evil, it must still remain truethat the eternal duality of creation and "what resists creation" mustfind an arena in the soul of an "immortal" even as it finds an arenain the soul of a "mortal. "

Therefore we are driven to regard it as no fantastic speculation butas only too reasonable a possibility, that when a physicaldepression takes possession of us it is due to this "spiritualvampirizing, " in an evil sense, by the power of some immortalwhose "malice" at that particular moment has overcome "love. "But just as the power of physical pain may be dominated andovercome by the energy of love arising from the depths of our ownsoul, so this vampirizing by the malice of an "invisiblecompanion, " may be dominated and overcome by the energy oflove from the depths of our own soul. 

It may indeed be regarded as certain that it is when the malice inour own soul is in the ascendant, rather than the love, that we fallvictims to this kind of obsession. For evil eternally attracts evil;and it is no wild nor erratic fancy to maintain that the malice in thehuman soul naturally draws to itself by an inevitable and tragicreciprocity the malice in the souls of the "immortal companions. "

The second consideration derived from human experience whichsupports this view of the vicarious pain and pleasure experiencedby the gods through the bodies of all organic entities is thepsychological fact of our own attitude towards plants and animals. Any sensitive person among us will not hesitate to admit that inwatching animals suffer, he has suffered _with_ such animals; oragain, that in watching a branch torn from its trunk, leaving anopen wound out of which the sap oozes, he has suffered _with_the suffering of the tree. And just as the phenomenon of bodilyobsession by some immortal god may be either "for good" or "forevil" as our own soul dictates, so the sympathy which we feel forplants and animals may be either "for good" or "for evil. "

And this also applies to the relation between these bodiless"immortals" and the bodies of all organic planetary life. Accordingto the revelation of the complex vision, with its emphasis upon theultimate duality as the supreme secret of life, both pain andpleasure are instruments, in the hands of love, for rousing the soulout of that sleep of death or semi-death which is the abysmalenemy. 

The philosophies which oppose pain to pleasure, and insist uponthe "good" of pain and the "evil" of pleasure, are no lessmisleading than the philosophies which oppose flesh to spirit, ormatter to mind, calling the one "good" and the other "evil. " Suchphilosophies have permitted that basic attribute of the complexvision which we call conscience to usurp the place occupied, in thetotal rhythm, by imagination; with the result of a completefalsifying of the essential values. 

In a question of such deadly import as this, we have, more thanever, to make our appeal to those rare moments of illuminationwhich we have attained when the rhythmic intensity of thearrow-point of thought was most concentrated and piercing. And thetestimony of these moments is given with no uncertain sound. Inthe great hours of our life, and I think all human experiencesjustify this statement, both pain and pleasure are transcended andflung into a subordinate and irrelevant place. Something which itis very difficult to describe, a kind of emotion which resembleshappiness, flows through us; so that pain and pleasure seem tocome and go almost unremarked, like dark and light shadowsflung upon some tremendous water-fall. 

What we are compelled to recognize, therefore, is that pain andpleasure are both instruments of the creative power of life. Theyonly become evil or are used for purposes of evil, when, by reasonof some fatal weakening in the other attributes of the soul, thepurely sensational element in them dominates the emotional andthey become something most horribly like living entities--entitieswith bodies composed of the vibrations of torment and soulscomposed of the substance of torment--and succeed in annihilatingthe very features of humanity. 

Pain and pleasure are not identical with the unfathomable dualitywhich descends into the abyss; for pain and pleasure are definitelyand quite unmistakenly fathomable; though, as the gods knowwell, few enough of the sons of mortals reach the limit of them. They are fathomable; for carried to a certain pitch of intensity theyend in ecstasy or they end in death. They are fathomable; for evenin the souls of "the immortals" they are only instruments of lifewarring against death. They are fathomable; because they haveone identical root; and this root is the ecstasy of the rhythm of thecomplex vision which transcends and surpasses them both. 

The hideous symbol of "hell" is the creation of the falsephilosophy which makes the eternal duality resolve itself into fleshand spirit or into soul and body. The power of love renders thissymbol meaningless and abortive; for personality is the supremevictory of life over what resists life; and consequently wherepersonality exists "hell" cannot exist; for personality is the scopeand boundary of all we know. The symbol of "Satan" also isrendered meaningless by the philosophy of the complex vision;unless such a symbol is used to express those appalling momentswhen the evil in the soul attracts to itself and associates with itselfthe evil in the soul of some immortal god. 

But just as no mortal can be more evil than good, so also noimmortal can be more evil than good, that is to say intrinsicallyand over a vast space of time. Momentarily and for a limited spaceof time it is obvious that the human soul can be more evil thangood; and by a reasonable analogy it is only too probable that thesame thing applies to the invisible sons of the universe. But thephilosophy of the complex vision has no place for devils ordemons in its world; for the simple reason that at the very momentany soul did become intrinsically and unchangeably evil, at thatsame moment it would vanish into nothingness, since existence isthe product of the struggle between good and evil. 

If any soul, whether mortal or immortal, became entirely andabsolutely good, it would instantaneously vanish into nothingness. For the life of no kind of living soul is thinkable or conceivableapart from the unfathomable duality. The false philosophy whichfinds its ideal in an imaginary "parent" of the universe whosegoodness is absolute is a philosophy conceived under the furtiveinfluence of the power of evil. For the essence of the power of evilis opposition to the movement of life; and no false ideal has everdone so much injury to the free expansion of life as has been doneby this conception of a "parent" of the universe who is a spirit of"absolute goodness. "

It is entirely in accordance with the unfathomable cunning of thepower of malice that the supreme historic obstacle to the power oflove in the human soul should be this conception of a "parent" ofthe universe, possessed of absolute goodness. In the deepest andmost subtle way does this conception oppose itself to thecreative energy of love. The creative energy of love demands anindetermined and malleable future. It demands an enemy withwhich to struggle. It demands the freedom of the individual will. Directly that ancient and treacherous phantom, the "inscrutablemystery" _behind_ the "universe, " is allowed to become an objectof thought; directly this mystery is allowed to take the shape of a"parent of things" who is to be regarded as "absolutely good, "then, at that very moment, the eternal duality ceases to be "eternal"and ceases to be a "duality. "

Good and evil become the manifestations of the same inscrutablepower. Love and malice become interchangeable names of littlemeaning. Satan becomes as significant a figure as Christ. Alldistinctions are then blurred and blotted out. The aesthetic sense ismade of no account; or becomes a matter of accidental fancy. Imagination is left with nothing to work upon. The rhythm of thecomplex vision is broken to pieces. All is permitted. Nothing isforbidden. The universe is reduced to an indiscriminate andformless mass of excremental substance. Indiscriminately we haveto swallow the "universe" or indiscriminately we have to let the"universe" alone. There is no longer a protagonist in the greatdrama, for there is no longer an antagonist. Indeed there is nolonger any drama. Tragedy is at an end; and Comedy is at an end. All is equal. Nothing matters. Everything is at once good and evil, beautiful and hideous, true and false. Or rather nothing isbeautiful, nothing is true. The "parent of the universe" has satisfiedhis absolute "goodness" by swallowing up the universe; and thereis nothing left for the miserable company of mortal souls to do butto bow their resigned heads and cry "Om! Om!" out of the belly ofthat unutterable "universal, " which by becoming "everything" hasbecome nothing. 

This conception of a universal being of "absolute goodness" loomslike a colossal corpse in front of all living movement. If instead of"absolute goodness" we say "absolute love, " the falseness anddeadliness of this conception appears even more unmistakable. Forlove is the prerogative of personality alone. Apart frompersonality we cannot conceive of love. And we cannot conceive ofpersonality without the struggle between love and malice. "Absolute love" is a contradiction in terms; for it is the nature oflove to be perpetually overcoming malignant opposition; and, inthis overcoming, to be perpetually approximating to a far-off idealwhich can never be completely reached. 

Devils and demons, or elemental entities of unredeemed evil, areunreal enough; and in their unreality dangerous enough to thecreative spirit; but far more unreal and far more dangerous thanany devil, is this conception of an absolute being whose"goodness" is of so spurious a nature that it obliterates alldistinction. This conception of "a parent of the universe" who isresponsible for the "eternal duality, " but in whom the "eternalduality" is reconciled, blots out all hope for mortal or immortalsouls. Between the soul of a man and the soul of an immortal god, as for instance between the soul of a man and the soul of Christ, there may be passionate and enduring love. But between the soulof a man, in whom love is desperately struggling with malice, andthis monstrous being in whom love and malice have arrived atsome unthinkable reconciliation, there can be no love. There canbe nothing but indignant unbelief alternating with profoundaversion. Towards any being in whose nature love has beenreconciled to malice, the true to the false, the beautiful to thehideous, the good to the evil, there can be no alternative tounbelief, except unmitigated hostility. 

It is especially in connection with the atrocious cruelty of physicalpain that our conscience and our tastes--unless perverted by somepremature metaphysical synthesis or by some morbid religiousemotion--reluct at the conception of a "parent" of the universe. Personal love, since it is continually being roused to activity bypain and is continually being expressed through pain and in spiteof pain, has come to find in pain, perhaps even more than inpleasure, its natural accomplice. Through the radiant well-beingwhich results from pleasure, love pours forth its influence with asun-like sweetness and profusion. But from the profound depths ofpain, love rises like silence out of a deep sea; and no path ofmoonlight upon any ocean reaches so far an horizon. 

And it is because of this intimate association of love with pain thatit is found to be impossible to love any living being who has notexperienced pain. Pain can be entirely sensational; and in this caseit needs a very passion of love to prevent it becoming obscene andhumiliating. But it also can be entirely emotional; in which case itresults directly from the struggle of malice with love. When pain isa matter of sensation or of sensationalized emotion, it depends forits existence upon the body. But when pain is entirely emotional itis independent of the body and is a condition of the soul. 

As a condition of the soul pain is inevitably associated with thestruggle between love and malice. For in proportion as loveovercomes malice, pain ceases, and in proportion as maliceovercomes love, pain ceases. A human being entirely free fromemotional pain is a human being in whom love has for the momentcompletely triumphed; or a human being in whom malice has forthe moment completely triumphed. There is an exultation of lovewhich fills the soul with irresistible magnetic power, so that it canredeem the universe. There is also an exultation of malice whichfills the soul with irresistible magnetic power, so that it can corruptthe universe. In both these extreme cases--and they are cases of nounfrequent occurrence in all deep souls--emotional pain ceases toexist. 

Emotional pain is the normal condition of the human soul; becausethe normal condition of the human soul is a wavering anduncertain struggle between love and malice; but although lovemay overcome malice, or malice may overcome love, with relativecompleteness, they neither of them can overcome the other withabsolute completeness. There must always remain in the depths ofthe soul a living potentiality; which is the love or the malice whichhas been for the moment relatively overcome by its opposite. Andjust as pain can be both emotional and sensational so pleasure canbe both emotional and sensational. Pleasure, like pain, can be athing of bodily sensation alone; in which case it tends to become athing of degrading and humiliating reality. A human entity entirelyobsessed by physical pleasure is a revolting and obscene spectacle. Even with animals it is only when their sensation of pleasure is insome degree emotionalized that we can endure to contemplate itwith sympathy. 

The soul of an animal is capable of being "de-animalized" in justas horrible a way by a pure sensation as the soul of a man iscapable of being "de-humanized" by a pure sensation. The sexualsensation of pleasure carried to the extreme limit "de-animalizes"animals as it "de-humanizes" human beings; because it drowns theconsciousness of personality. There is an ecstasy when personalityloses itself and finds itself again in a deeper personality. There isalso an ecstasy where personality loses itself in pure sensation. Inthe region of sexual sensation, just as in the region of sexualemotion, it is love alone which is able to hold fast to personality inthe midst of ecstasy; or which is able to merge personality in adeeper personality. 

It is because of love's intimate association with pain that we areunable, except under the morbid pressure of some metaphysical orreligious illusion, to regard the imaginary "parent of the universe"with anything but hostility. Both pain and pleasure are associatedwith the unfathomable duality. And although the unfathomableduality descends into abysses beyond the reach of both of these, yet we cannot conceive of either of them existing apart from thisstruggle. 

But there can be no duality, as there can be no struggle, in thesoul of a being in whom love has absolutely overcome malice. Therefore in such a soul there can be no pain. And for a soulincapable of feeling pain we can feel no love. It is of courseobvious that this whole problem is an imaginary one. We are notreally confronted with the alternative of loving or hating theunruffled soul of this absolute one. And we are not confrontedwith this problem for the simple reason that such a soul does notexist. And it does not exist because every soul, together with the"universe" created by every soul, depends for its existence uponthis ultimate struggle. 

It is from a consideration of the nature of pain and pleasure thatwe attain the clue to the ultimate duality. Pain and pleasure areconditions of the soul; conditions which have a definite and quitefathomable limit. Malice and love are conditions of the soul;conditions which have no definite limit, but which descend intounfathomable depths. Extremity of malice sinks down to an abysswhere pain and pleasure are lost and merged in one another. Extremity of love sinks down to an abyss where pain and pleasureare lost and merged in one another. But just as, apart from theindividual soul which is their possessor, pain and pleasure have noexistence at all; so, apart from the individual soul which is thearena of their struggle, malice and love have no existence at all. Because we speak of pain and pleasure as if they were "things inthemselves" and of malice and love as if they were "things inthemselves" this can never mean more than that they are eternalconditions of the soul which is their habitation. 

Apart from a personal soul, "love" has no meaning and cannot besaid to exist. Apart from a personal soul, "life" has no meaningand cannot be said to exist. There is no such thing as the"love-force" or the "life-force, " any more than there is such a thingas the "malice-force" or the "death-force, " apart from some personalsoul. The "life-force" is a condition of the soul which carried to anextreme limit results in ecstasy. The "death-force" is a condition ofthe soul which carried to an extreme limit results in ecstasy. Beyond these two ecstasies there is nothing but total annihilation;which would simply mean that the soul had become absolutely"good" or absolutely "evil. "

What we call the "death-force" in the soul does not imply realdeath, until it has reached a limit beyond ecstasy. It implies amalignant resistance to life which may be carried to a point ofindescribable exultation. As I have already hinted there is aprofound association between the duality of love and malice andthe duality of pain and pleasure. But it would be false to ourdeepest experience to say that love implies pleasure and thatmalice implies pain. As a matter of fact, they both imply a thrillingand ecstatic pleasure, in proportion as the equilibrium betweenthem, the balance of the wavering struggle between them, isinterrupted by the relative victory of either the one or the other. 

The relative victory of malice or of the "death-force" over love orover the "life-force" is attended by exquisite and poignantpleasure, a pleasure which culminates in unutterable ecstasy. Theshallow ethical thinkers who regard "evil" as a negation areobviously thinkers whose consciousness has never penetrated intothe depths of their own souls. Pain and pleasure for such thinkersmust be entirely sensationalized. They cannot have experienced, toany profound depth, the kind of pain and pleasure which arepurely emotional. 

The condition of the soul which gives itself up to the "death-force"or to the malignant power which resists creation may be sometimesa condition of thrilling and exultant pleasure. As we havealready indicated, the normal condition of the soul, waveringand hesitating between good and evil, is liable to be changed into aprofound melancholy, when it is confronted by the "illusion ofdead matter. " But, as we have also discovered, if, in the soul thuscontemplating the "illusion of dead matter, " evil is more potentthan good, there may be a thrilling and exquisite pleasure. 

The "death-force" in our own soul leaps in exultation to welcomethe "death illusion" in material objects. Upon this illusion, which ithas itself projected, it rejoices to feed. There is a "sweet pain" inthe melancholy it thus evokes; a "sweet pain" that is more delicatethan any pleasure; and it is a mistake to assume that even theinsanity which this aberration may result in is necessarily aninsanity of distress. It may be an insanity of ecstasy. All this isprofoundly associated with the aesthetic sense; and we may notethat the diabolical exultation with which many great artists andwriters fling themselves upon the obscene, the atrocious, thecruel and the abominable, and derive exquisite pleasure fromrepresenting these things is not an example of the love in themovercoming the malice but an example of the "death-force" inthem leaping to respond to the death-force in the universe. 

It is just here that we touch one of the profoundest secrets of theaesthetic sense. I refer to that condition of the soul when thecreative energy which is life and love, suffers an insidiouscorruption by the power which resists creation and which is maliceand death. This psychological secret, although assuming anaesthetic form, is closely associated with the sexual instinct. 

The sexual instinct, which is primarily creative, may easily, by theinsidious corruption of the power which resists creation, become avampirizing force of destruction. It may indeed become somethingworse than destruction. It may become an abysmal and unutterable"death-in-life. " That voluptuous "pleasure in cruelty" which is anintrinsic element of the sexual instinct may attach itself to "thepleasure in death" which is the intrinsic emotion of the aboriginalinert malice; or rather the "pleasure in death" of the adversary ofcreation may insidiously associate itself with the "pleasure incruelty" of the sexual instinct and make of "this energy of cruelty"a new and terrible emotion which is at once cruel and inert. 

All this were mere fantastic speculation if it lacked touch withdirect experience. But direct experience, if we have anypsycho-clairvoyance at all, bears unmistakable witness to what I havebeen saying. If one glances at the expression in the countenance ofany human soul who is deriving pleasure from the spectacle ofsuffering and who, under the pressure of this queer fusion of theaesthetic sense with the abysmal malice, is engaged in vampirizingthe victim of such suffering one will observe a very curious andvery illuminating series of revelations. 

One will observe, for instance, the presence of demonic energyand of magnetic dominance in such a countenance; but parallelwith this and simultaneously with this, one will observe anexpression of unutterable sadness, a sadness which is inert anddeath-like, a sadness which has the soulless rigidity and the frozenimmobility of a corpse. We are thus justified, by an impression ofdirect experience, in our contention that the peculiar pleasurewhich many artists derive from the contemplation of suffering andfrom the contemplation of what is atrocious, obscene, monstrousand revolting, is the result of a corruption of both the sexualinstinct and the aesthetic sense by the abysmal malice. 

For the pleasure which such souls derive from the contemplationof suffering is identical with the pleasure they derive fromcontemplating the "illusion of dead matter. " Philosophers whogive themselves up to the profoundest pessimism do not do so, asa rule, under the influence of love. The only exceptions to this arerare cases when preoccupation with suffering does not spring froma furtive enjoyment of the spectacle of suffering but from anincurable pity for the victims of suffering. Such exceptions are farmore rare than is usually supposed, because the self-preservativehypocrisy of most pessimists enables them to conceal theirvoluptuousness under the mask of pity. 

Nor must we hide from ourselves the fact that even pity, which inits pure form is the very incarnation of love, has a perverted formin which it lends itself to every kind of subterranean cruelty. Ourpsychological insight does not amount to very much if it does notrecognize that there is a form of pity which enhances the pleasureof cruelty. There may indeed be discovered, when we dig deepenough into the abysses of the soul, an aspect of pity which thrillsus with a most delicate sensation of tenderness and yet whichremains an aspect of pity by no means incompatible with the factthat we continue the process of causing pain to the object of suchtenderness. 

Of all human emotions the emotion of pity is capable of the mostdivergent subtleties. The only kind of pity which is entirely freefrom the ambiguous element of "pleasure in cruelty" is the pitywhich is only another name for love, when love is confronted bysuffering. There is such a thing as a suppressed envy of "thepleasure of cruelty" manifested in the form of moral indignationagainst the perpetrator of such cruelty. 

Such moral indignation, with its secret impulse of suppressedunconscious jealousy, is a very frequent phenomenon when anysexual element enters into the cruelty in question. But thepsychologist who has learnt his art from the profoundest of allpsychologists--I mean the Christ of the gospels--is not deceived bythis moral gesture. He is able to detect the infinite yearning of thesatyr under the righteous fury of the moral avenger. 

And he has an infallible test at hand by which to ascertain whetherthe emotion he feels is pure or impure pity; whether in other wordsit is merely a process of delicate vampirizing, or whether it is thecreative sympathy of love. And the test which he has at hisdisposal is nothing less than his attitude towards the perpetrator ofthe particular cruelty under discussion. If his attitude is one ofimplacable revenge he may be sure that his pity is something elsethan the emotion of love. If his attitude is one which implies pitynot only for the victim but also for the victim's torturer--whowithout question has more need for pity--then he may be sure thathis attitude is an attitude of genuine love. 

The mood of implacable revenge need not necessarily imply asuppressed jealousy or envy; but it certainly implies the presenceof an element which has its origin in the sinister side of thegreat duality. The pleasure which certain minds derive from acontemplation of the "deadness of matter" is closely associatedwith the voluptuousness of cruelty drawn from the recesses of thesexual instinct. Such cruelty finds one of its most insidiousincentives in the phenomenon of humiliation; and when thephilosopher contemplates the "deadness of matter" with exquisitesatisfaction, the pleasure which he experiences, or the "sweet pain"which he experiences, is very closely connected with the cruelidea of humiliating the pride of the human soul. 

The duality of pleasure and pain helps us to understand the natureof the duality of good and evil, for it helps us to realize that goodand evil are not separate independent existences; but are--likepleasure and pain--emotional conditions of the soul. Thus whenwe say that the ultimate duality of good and evil, or of creationand what resists creation, is the thing upon which the wholeuniverse depends, we must not for a moment be supposed to meanthat the ultimate reality of the universe consists of two opposed"forces" who, like blind chemical energies, struggle with oneanother in unconscious darkness. 

The ultimate reality of the universe is personality, or rather, let ussay, is the existence of an innumerable company of personal souls, visible and invisible, each of whom half-creates and half-discovershis own universe; each of whom finds, sooner or later, in theobjective validity of the "eternal ideas, " a universe which iscommon to them all. The unfathomable duality upon which thisobjective world, common to them all, depends for its existence is aduality which exists in every separate soul. Without such a dualityit is impossible to conceive any soul existing. And directly such aduality were resolved into unity such a soul would cease to exist. But because, without the presence of evil, good would cease toexist, we have no right to say that evil is an aspect of good. Wehave no right to say this because, if good is dependent for itsexistence upon evil, it is equally true that evil is dependent for itsexistence upon good. 

The whole question of ultimate issues is a purely speculative oneand one that does not touch the real situation. The real situation, the real fact of our personal experience--which is the onlyexperience worth anything--lies undoubtedly in this impression ofunfathomable duality. It cannot be regarded as a reconciliationbetween love and malice merely to recognize that love and maliceare not independent "forces, " such as can be compared to chemical"forces, " but are states of the soul. 

It is true that they both exist within the soul, just as the soulexists within time and space; but since the soul is unfathomable thesetwo conditions of the soul are also unfathomable. The struggleupon which the universe depends is a struggle which goes onwithin the circle of personality; but since personality isunthinkable without this struggle, it may truly be said that theexistence of personality "depends" upon the existence of thisstruggle. When we speak of pain and pleasure as if they wereindependent entities we are forgetting that it is merely as "states ofthe soul" that pain and pleasure exist. When we speak of love andmalice as independent entities we are forgetting that it is merely as"states of the soul" that love and malice exist. Love and malice, the life-force and the death-force, these are merely abstractionswhen separated from the soul which is their arena. 

It is certainly not in harmony with the revelation of the complexvision to seek to imagine some vague "beginning of things"; whensome inscrutable chemical or spiritual "energy, " called "life, "rushed into objective existence and proceeded to create livingpersonalities through which it might be able to function. 

The revelation of the complex vision is a revelation of a worldmade up of unfathomable personalities. Of this world, of theseunfathomable personalities, we are unable to postulate any"beginning. " They have always existed. They seem likely toremain always in existence. Our knowledge stops at that point;because our knowledge is the knowledge of personality. Therevelation of the complex vision is constantly warning us againstany tendency to evade the whole question of the original mysteryby the use of meaningless abstractions. 

The word "energy" is such an abstraction. So also is the word"movement. " So also are those logical formulae of the pure reason, such as the "a priori unity of apperception" and the "absolutespirit. " Apart from personality, apart from the complex vision ofthe individual soul, there is no such thing as "energy" or"movement" or "transcendental unity" or "absolute spirit. " Inthe same way we are compelled to recognize that apart frompersonality the unfathomable duality has no meaning. But in so faras it represents the eternal struggle between life and death whichgoes on all the while in every living soul, the unfathomable dualityis the permanent condition of our deepest knowledge. 

It is just here that the mystery of pain and pleasure helpsus to understand the mystery of love and malice, the sameinsensitiveness in certain souls that prevents their feeling any vividpain or any vivid pleasure, also prevents their feeling any intensemalice. But this insensitiveness which prevents their feeling anyintense malice is, more than anything else, the especial evocationof the power of malice. For intensity, even in malice, is a proofthat malice has been appropriating to its use the energy of life. Thereal opposite of intense love is not intense malice but inert malice. 

For malignant inertness is the true adversary of creation. From thisit necessarily follows that the soul which is insensitive to pain andpleasure and to malice and love is a soul in whom the profoundopposite of love has already won a relative victory. It is certainlypossible, as we have seen, for the victory of malice over love to beaccompanied by thrilling pleasure; but, when this happens malicehas lost something of its "inertness" by drawing to itself andcorrupting for its own use the dynamic energy of love. Whenmalice displays itself in an intense and vivid activity of destructionit is less "evil" and less purely "malignant" than when it remainsinsensitive and inert. For this reason it is undeniably true that aninsensitive person, although he may cause much less positive painthan a passionately cruel person, is in reality a more completeincarnation of the power of "evil" than the latter; for the latter, inthe very violence of his passion, has appropriated to himselfsomething of the creative energy. It is true that in appropriatingthis he has corrupted it, and it is true that by the use of it he cancause far more immediate pain; but it remains that in himself he isless purely "evil" than the person whose chief characteristic is amalignant insensitiveness. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE REALITY OF THE SOUL IN RELATION TO MODERN THOUGHT

It ought not to be forgotten, as at least an important historical fact, in regard to what we have asserted as the revelation of thecomplex vision concerning the reality of the soul, that the twomost influential modern philosophers deny this reality altogether. Irefer to Bergson and William James. 

In the systems of thought of both these writers there is no placeleft for that concrete, real, actual "monad, " with its semi-mental, semi-material substratum of unknown hyper-physical, hyper-psychicsubstance, which is what we mean, in philosophical as well asin popular language when we talk of the "soul. "

According to the revelation of man's complex vision thishyper-physical, hyper-psychic "something, " which is the concrete centreof will and consciousness and energy, is also the invisible core orbase of what we term personality, and, without its real existence, personality can have no permanence. Without the assumption ofits real existence personality cannot hold its own or remainintegral and identical in the midst of the process of life. 

This then being the nature and character of the soul, what weightis there in the arguments used against the soul's concrete existenceby such thinkers as James and Bergson? The position of theAmerican philosopher in regard to this matter seems less plausibleand less consistent than that of his French master. 

James is prepared to give his adherence to a belief in a soul of theearth and in planetary souls and stellar souls. He quotes withapproval on this point the writings of Gustav Theodor Fechner, theLeipzig chemist. He is also prepared to find a place in hispluralistic world for at least one quite personal and quite finitegod. 

If he is not merely exercising his philosophical fancy in all this, but is actually prepared to assume the real concrete existence of anearth-soul and of planetary souls and of at least one beneficent andquite personal god, why should he find himself unable to acceptthe same sort of real concrete soul in living human beings? Whyshould he find himself compelled to say--"the notion of thesubstantial soul, so freely used by common men and the morepopular philosophers has fallen upon evil days and has no prestigein the eyes of critical thinkers . . . Like the word 'cause' the word'soul' is but a theoretic stop-gap . . . It marks a place and claims itfor a future explanation to occupy . . . Let us leave out the soul, then, and confront the original dilemma"?

This scepticism of the pragmatic philosophy in regard to the"substantial soul" is surely an unpardonable inconsistency. For inall other problems the fact of an idea being "freely used bycommon men" is, according to pragmatic principles, an enormouspiece of evidence in its favour. The further fact that all the great "apriori" metaphysical systems have been driven by their pure logicto discredit the "substantiality" of the soul, just as they have beendriven to discredit the personality of God, ought, one would think, where "radical empiricism" is concerned, to be a still strongerpiece of evidence on the soul's side. 

James has told us that he has found it necessary to throw away"pure reason" and to assume an inherent "irrationality" in thesystem of things. Why then, when it comes to this particular axiomof irrational common-sense, does he balk and sheer off?

One cannot resist the temptation of thinking that just here the greatPragmatist has been led astray by that very philosophical pride hecondemns in the metaphysicians. One cannot help suspecting thatit is nothing less than the fact of the soul's appeal to ordinarycommon-sense that has prejudiced this philosopher of common-senseso profoundly against it. 

What James does not seem to see is that his pseudo-scientificreduction of the integral soul-monad into a wavering and fitfulseries of compounded vortex-consciousness is really a falling backfrom the empirical data of human reality into the thin abstractedair of conceptual truth. The concrete substantial soul, just becauseit is the permanent basis of personality and the only basis ofpersonality which common sense can apprehend, is precisely oneof those obstinate original particular "data" of consciousnesswhich it is the proud role of conceptual and intellectual logic toexplain away, and to explain away in favour of attenuatedrationalistic theories which are themselves "abstracted" or, shallwe say, pruned and shaved off from the very thing they aresupposed to explain. 

All these "flowing streams, " and "pulses of consciousness" andmultiple "compoundings of consciousness" and overlappings ofsub-consciousness are in reality, for all their pseudo-scientific air, nothing more or less than the old-fashioned metaphysicalconceptions, such as "being" and "becoming, " under a new name. 

Nor is the new "irrational reason" by which the pragmatist arrivesat these plausible theories really in the least different from theimaginative personal vision which, as James himself clearlyshows, was at the back of all that old-fashioned dialectic. 

The human mind has not changed its inherent texture; nor can itchange it. We may talk of substituting intuition for reason. But the"new intuition, " with its arrogant claims of getting upon the "innerside" of reality, is after all only "the old reason" functioning with afranker admission of its reliance upon that immediate personalvision and with less regard for the logical rules. 

It is not, in fact, because of any rule of "logical identity withitself" that the human mind clings so tenaciously to the notion of anintegral soul-monad. It is because of its own inmost consciousnessthat such a monad, that such a substantial integral soul, is in thedeepest sense its very self, and a denial of it a denial of its veryself. 

The attitude of Bergson in this matter is much more consistentthan that of James. Bergson is frankly and confessedly not apluralist at all, but a spiritual monist. As a spiritual monist he iscompelled to regard what we call "matter, " including in this termthe mechanical or chemical resistance of body and brain, assomething which is produced or evolved or "thrown off" by spiritand as something which, when once it has been evolved, spirit hasto penetrate, permeate, and render porous and submissive. 

The complexity of Bergson's speculations with regard to memoryand the "élan vital, " with regard above all to the "true time, " hasdone much to distract popular attention away from his real attitudetowards the soul. But Bergson's attitude towards the existence of asubstantial soul-monad is consistently and inevitably hostile. 

It could not be anything else as long as the original personal"fling" into life which gives each one of us his peculiar angle ofvision remained with him a question of one unified _spirit_--"acontinuum of eternal shooting-forth"--which functioned throughthe brain and through all personal life and perpetually created anew unforeseen universe. 

In the flux of this one universal "spirit, " whereof "duration, " in themysterious Bergsonian sense, is the functional activity, there canobviously be no place for an actual substantial soul. "Theconsciousness we have of our own self in its continual fluxintroduces us to the interior of a reality on the model of which wemust represent other realities. All reality, therefore, is a tendency, if we agree to mean by tendency an incipient change in anydirection. " And when we enquire as to the nature of this "continualflux" of which the positive and integral thing we have come to callthe soul is but a ripple, or swirling whirlpool of centripetal ripples, the answer which Bergson gives is definite enough. "We approacha duration which _strains_, contracts, and intensifies itself moreand more; at the limit would be eternity. No longer conceptualeternity, which is an eternity of death, but an eternity of life. Aliving, and therefore still moving eternity in which our ownparticular duration would be included, as the vibrations are inlight; an eternity which would be the concentration of all duration, as materiality is its dispersion. Between these two extreme limitsintuition moves, and this movement is the very essence ofmetaphysics. "

Thus according to Bergson the essential secret of life is to befound in some peculiar movement of what he calls spirit; amovement which takes place in some unutterable medium, or uponsome indescribable plane, the name of which is "pure time" or"duration. "

And listening to all this we cannot resist a sigh of dismay. Forhere, in these vague de-humanized terms--"tendency, " "flux, ""eternity, " "vibration, " "duration, " "dispersion"--we are oncemore, only with a different set of concepts, following the oldmetaphysical method, that very method which Bergson himselfsets out to confine to its inferior place. "Tendency" or "flux" or"duration" is just as much a metaphysical concept as "being" or"not being" or "becoming. "

The only way in which we can really escape from the rigidconceptualism of rational logic is to accept the judgment of thetotality of man's nature. And the judgment of the totality of man'snature points unmistakably to the existence of a real substantialsoul. Such a soul is the indispensable implication of personality. And the most interior and intimate knowledge that we are inpossession of, or shall ever be in possession of, is the knowledgeof personality. 

Bergson is perfectly right when he asserts that "the consciousnesswhich we have of our own self" introduces us "to the interior of areality, on the model of which we must represent other realities. "But Bergson is surely departing both from the normal facts ofordinary introspection and from the exceptional facts of abnormalillumination when he appends to the words "the consciousnesswhich we have of our own self" the further words in its continual"flux. " For in our normal moods of human introspection, as wellas in our abnormal moods of superhuman illumination, what weare conscious of most of all is a sense of integral continuity in themidst of change, and of identical permanence in the midst of ebband flow. 

The flux of things does most assuredly rush swiftly by us; and we, in our inmost selves, are conscious of life's incessant flow. Buthow could we be conscious of any of this turbulent movementacross the prow of our voyaging ship, if the ship itself--thesubstantial base of our living consciousness--were not anorganized and integral reality, of psycho-chemical material, able toexert will and to make use of memory and reason in its difficultstruggle with the waves and winds?

The revelation of man's complex vision with regard to thepersonality of the soul is a thing of far-reaching issues andimplications. One of these implications is that while we have theright to the term "the eternal flux" in regard to the changing wavesof sensations and ideas that pass across the horizon of the soul'svision we have no right to think of this "eternal flux" as anythingelse than the pressure upon us of the universe of our own visionand the pressure upon us of the universe of other visions, as theyseem, for this or that passing moment, to be different from ourown. 

The kind of world to which we are thus committed is a worldcrowded with living personalities. Each of these personalitiesbrings with it its own separate universe. But the fact that all theseseparate universes find their ideal synthesis or teleologicalorientation in "the vision of the immortals, " justifies us inassuming that in a certain eternal sense all these apparentlyconflicting universes are in reality one. This unity of ideas, with itspredominant aesthetic idea--the idea of beauty--and itspredominant emotional idea--the idea of love--helps us towards asynthesis which is after all only a dynamic one, a thing ofmovement, growth and creation. 

Such a teleological unity, forever advancing to a consummationnever entirely to be attained, demands however some sort of static"milieu" as well as some sort of static "material" in the midst ofwhich and out of which it moulds its premeditated future. It isprecisely this static "milieu" or "medium, " and this static"material" or formless "objective mystery, " which Bergson'sphilosophy, of the _"élan vital" of pure spirit_, spreading out intoa totally indetermined future, denies and eliminates. 

In order to justify this double elimination--the eliminationof an universal "medium" and the elimination of a formless"thing-in-itself"--Bergson is compelled to reduce _space_ to a quitesecondary and merely logical conception and to substitute for ourordinary stream of time, measurable in terms of space, analtogether new conception of time, measurable in terms of feeling. 

When however we come to analyse this new Bergsonian time, oras he prefers to call it "intuitively-felt duration, " we cannot avoidobserving that it is merely a new "mysterious something"introduced into the midst of the system of things, in order toenable us to escape from those older traditional "mysterioussomethings" which we have to recognize as the "immediate data"of human consciousness. 

It might be argued that Bergson's monistic "spirit, " functioning ina mysterious indefinable "time, " demands neither more nor less ofan irrational act of faith than our mysterious psycho-material"soul" surrounded by a mysterious hyper-chemical "medium" andcreating its future out of an inexplicable "objective mystery. "

Where however the philosophy of the complex vision has theadvantage over the philosophy of the "élan vital" is in the fact thateven on Bergson's own admission what the human consciousnessmost intensely _knows_ is not "pure spirit, " whether shaped like afan or shaped like a sheaf, but simply its own integral identity. And this integral identity of consciousness can only be visualizedor felt in the mind itself under the form of a living concretemonad. 

It will be seen, however, when it comes to a "showing up" of whatmight be called the "trump cards" of axiomatic mystery, that thecomplex vision has in reality fewer of these ultimate irrational"data" than has the philosophy of the élan vital. 

Space itself, whether we regard it as objective or subjective, iscertainly not an irrational axiom but an entirely rational and indeedan entirely inevitable assumption. And what the complex visionreveals is that the trinity of "mysterious somethings" with whichwe are compelled to start our enquiry, namely the "something"which is the substratum of the soul, the "something" which is the"medium" binding all souls together, and the "something" which isthe "objective mystery" out of which all souls create theiruniverse, is, in fact, a genuine trinity in the pure theological sense;in other words is a real "three-in-one. " And it is a "three-in-one"not only because it is unthinkable that three "incomprehensiblesubstances" should exist in touch with one another without beingin organic relation, but also because all three of them aredominated, in so far as we can say anything about them at all, bythe same universal space. 

It is true that the unappropriated mass of "objective mystery" uponwhich no shadow of the creative energy of any soul has yet beenthrown must be considered as utterly "formless and void" and thusin a sense beyond space and time, yet since immediately we try to_imagine_ or _visualize_ this mystery, as well as just logically"consider" it, we are compelled to extend over it our conception oftime and space, it is in a practical sense, although not in a logicalsense, under the real dominion of these. 

When therefore the philosophy of the complex vision places itstrump-cards of axiomatic mystery over against the similar cards ofthe philosophy of the "élan vital" it will be found that in actualnumber Bergson has one more "card" than we have. For Bergsonhas not only his "pure spirit" and his "intuitively-felt time, " but hasalso--for he cannot really escape from that by just asserting thathis "spirit" produces it--the opposing obstinate principle of"matter" or "solid bodies" or "mechanical brains" upon which hispure spirit has to work. 

It is indeed out of its difficulties with "matter, " that is to say withbodies and brains, that Bergson's "spirit" is forced to forego itsnatural element of "intuitive duration" and project itself into therigid rationalistic conceptualism of ordinary science andmetaphysic. 

The point of our argument in this place is that since the wholepurpose of philosophy is articulation or clarification andsince in this process of clarification the fewer "axiomaticincomprehensibles" we start with the better; it is decidedly to theadvantage of any philosophy that it should require at the startnothing more than the mystery of the individual soul confrontingthe mystery of the world around it. And it is to the disadvantage ofBergson's philosophy that it should require at the start, in additionto "pure spirit" with its assumption of memory and will, and "purematter" with its assumption of ordinary space and ordinary time, astill further axiomatic trump-card, in the theory of intuitive"durational" time, in which the real process of the life-flowtranscends all reason and logic. 

Putting aside however the cosmological aspect of our controversywith the "radical empirical" school of thought, we still have leftunconsidered our most serious divergence from their position. This consists in the fact that both Bergson and James have entirelyomitted from their original instrument of research that inalienableaspect of the human soul which we call the aesthetic sense. 

With only a few exceptions--notably that of Spinoza--all the greatEuropean philosophers from Plato to Nietzsche have begun theirphilosophizing from a starting-point which implied, as an essentialpart of their "organum" of enquiry, the possession by the humansoul of some sort of aesthetic vision. 

To these thinkers, whether rationalistic or mystic, no interpretationof the world seemed possible that did not start with the aestheticsense, both as an instrument of research and as a test of whatresearch discovered. 

The complete absence of any discussion of the aesthetic sense inBergson and James is probably an historic confession of thetyranny of commercialism and physical science over the presentgeneration. It may also be a spiritual reflection, in the sphere ofphilosophy, of the rise to political and social power of thatbourgeois class which, of all classes, is the least interested inaesthetic speculation. 

The philosophy of the complex vision may have to wait for itshour of influence until the proletariat comes into its own. And itdoes indeed seem as if between the triumph of the proletariat andthe triumph of the aesthetic sense there were an intimateassociation. It is precisely because these two philosophers have socompletely neglected the aesthetic sense that their speculationsseem to have so little hold upon the imagination. When once it isallowed that the true instrument of research into the secret of theuniverse is the rhythmic activity of man's complete nature, and notmerely the activity of his reason or the activity of his intuitionworking in isolation, it then becomes obvious that the universalrevelations of the aesthetic sense, if they can be genuinelydisentangled from mere subjective caprices, are an essential part ofwhat we have to work with if we are to approach the truth. 

The philosophy of the complex vision bases its entire system uponits faith in the validity of these revelations; and, as we havealready shown, it secures an objective weight and force for thisideal vision by its faith in certain unseen companions of humanity, whom it claims the right to name "the immortals. "

This is really the place where we part company with Bergson andJames. We agree with the former in his distrust of the oldmetaphysic. We agree with the latter in many of his pluralisticspeculations. But we feel that any philosophy which refuses totake account, at the very beginning, of those regions of humanconsciousness which are summed up by the words "beauty" and"art, " is a philosophy that in undertaking to explain life has begunby eliminating from life one of its most characteristic products. 

In Bergson's interpretation of life the stress is laid upon "spirit"and "intuition. " In James' interpretation of life the stress is laidupon those practical changes in the world and in human naturewhich any new idea must produce if it is to prove itself true. 

In the view of life we are now trying to make clear, philosophy isso closely dependent upon the activity of the aesthetic sense that itmight itself be called an art, the most difficult and the mostcomprehensive of all the arts, the art of retaining the rhythmicbalance of all man's contradictory energies. What this rhythmicbalance of man's concentrated energies seems to make clear is theprimary importance of the process of discrimination and valuation. 

From the profoundest depths of the soul rises the consciousness ofthe power of choice; and this power of choice to which we give, by common consent, the name of "will, " finds itself confronted atthe start by the eternal duality of the impulse to create and theimpulse to resist creation. The impulse to create we find, byexperience, to be identical with the emotion of love. And theimpulse to resist creation we find, by experience, to be identicalwith the emotion of malice. 

But experience carries us further than this. The impulse to create, or the emotion of love, is found, as soon as it begins a function, tobe itself a living synthesis of three primordial reactions to life, which, in philosophic language, we name "ideas. " These threeprimordial ideas may be summed up as follows: The idea ofbeauty, which is the revelation of the aesthetic sense. The idea ofgoodness or nobility, which is the revelation of conscience. Theidea of truth, or the mind's apprehension of reality, which is therevelation of reason, intuition, instinct, and imagination, functioning in sympathic harmony. Now it is true that by laying somuch stress upon the "élan vital" or flowing tide of creativeenergy, Bergson has indicated his acceptance of one side of theultimate duality. But for Bergson this creative impulse is notconfronted by evil or by malice as its opposite, but simply by thenatural inertness of mechanical "matter. "

And once having assumed his "continuum" of pure spirit, he dealsno further with the problem of good and evil or with the problemof the aesthetic sense. 

From our point of view he is axiomatically unable to deal withthese problems for the simple reason that his élan vital or flux ofpure spirit, being itself a mere metaphysical abstraction fromliving personality, can never, however hard you squeeze it, produce either the human conscience or the human aesthetic sense. 

These things can only be produced from the concrete activity of areal living individual soul. In the same way it is true that WilliamJames, by his emphasis upon conduct and action and practicalefficiency as the tests of truth, is bound to lay enormous stress atthe very start upon the ethical problem. 

What a person believes about the universe becomes itself anethical problem by the introduction on the one hand of theefficiency of the will to believe and on the other of the assumptionthat a person "ought" to believe that which it is "useful" to him tobelieve, as long as it does not conflict with other desirable truths. But this ethical element in the pragmatic doctrine, though it is sodominant as almost to reduce philosophy itself to a sub-division ofethics, is not, when one examines it, at all the same thing as whatthe philosophy of the complex vision means by the revelation ofconscience. 

Ethics with William James swallows up philosophy and inswallowing up philosophy the nature of Ethics is changed andbecomes something different from the clear unqualified mandateof the human conscience. With the philosophy of the complexvision the revelations of conscience are intimately associated withthe revelations of the aesthetic sense; and these again, in therhythmic totality of man's nature, with the revelations of emotion, instinct, intuition, imagination. 

Thus when it comes to conduct and the question of choice the kindof "imperative" issued by conscience has been already profoundlychanged. It is still the mandate of conscience. But it is the mandateof a conscience whose search-light has been taken possession ofby the aesthetic sense and has been fed by imagination, instinctand intuition. 

It must be understood when we speak of these various "aspects" or"attributes" of the human soul we do not imply that they exist asseparable faculties independently of the unity of the soul whichpossesses them. 

The soul is an integral and indivisible monad and throws its wholestrength along each of these lines of contact with the world. Aswill, the soul flings itself upon the world in the form of choicebetween opposite valuations. As conscience, it flings itself uponthe world in the form of motive force of opposite valuations. Asthe aesthetic sense, it flings itself upon the world in the form of yetanother motive-force of opposite valuations. As imagination, ithalf-creates and half-discovers the atmospheric climate, so tospeak, of this valuation. As intuition, it feels itself to be inpossession of a super-terrestrial, super-human authority whichgives objective definiteness and security to this valuation. Asinstinct, it feels its way by an innate clairvoyance into the organicor biological vibrations of this valuation. 

Thus we return to the point from which we started, namely that thewhole problem of philosophy is the problem of valuation. And thisis the same thing as saying that philosophy, considered in itsessential nature, is nothing less than art--the art of flinging itselfupon the world with all the potentialities of the soul functioning inrhythmic harmony. 

When Bergson talks of the "élan vital" and suggests that the actsof choice of the human personality are made as naturally andinevitably, under the pressure of the "shooting out" of the spirit, asleaves grow upon the tree, he is falling into the old traditionalblunder of all pantheistic and monistic thinkers, the blundernamely of attributing to a universal "God" or "life-force" or"stream of tendency" the actual personal achievements ofindividual souls. 

Bergson's "apologia" for free-will is therefore rendered ineffectiveby reason of the fact that it does not really leave the individualfree. The only "free" thing is the aboriginal "spirit, " pouring forthin its "durational" stream, and moulding bodies and brains as itgoes along. 

The philosophy of the complex vision does not believe in "spirit"or "life-force" or "durational streams of tendency. " Starting withpersonality it is not incumbent upon it to show how personalityhas been evolved. It is no more incumbent upon it to show howpersonality has been evolved than it is incumbent upon pantheisticidealism to show how God or how the Absolute has been evolved. Personality with its implication of separate concrete psycho-materialsoul-monads is indeed our Absolute or at any rate is as muchof an Absolute as we can ever get while we continue to recognizethe independent existence of one universal space, of one universalethereal medium, and of on universal objective mystery. 

Perhaps the correct metaphysical statement of our philosophicposition would be that our Absolute is a duality from the verystart--a duality made up on one side of innumerable soul-monadsand on the other side of an incomprehensible formless mass ofplastic material, itself subdivided into the two aspects of a mediumbinding the soul-monads together, and an objective mystery intowhich they pierce their way. 

When the evolutionists tell us that personality is a thing of lateappearance in the system of things and a thing of which we areable to note the historic or prehistoric development, out of the"lower" forms of life, our answer is that we have no right toassume that the life of the earth and of the other planetary andstellar bodies is a "lower" form of life. 

If to this the astronomer answer that he is able to carry the historyof evolution further back than any planet or star, as far back as avast floating mass of homogeneous fiery vapour, even then weshould still maintain that this original nebular mass of fire was thematerial "body" of an integral soul-monad; and that in surroundingimmensities of space there were other similar masses of nebularfire--possibly innumerable others--who in their turn were thebodily manifestations of integral soul-monads. 

When evolutionists argue that personality is a late and accidentalappearance on the world scene, they are only thinking of humanpersonalities; and our contention is that while man has a right tointerpret the universe in terms of his soul, he has no right tointerpret the universe in terms of his body; and that it is thereforequite possible to maintain that the "body" of the earth has beenfrom the beginning animated by a soul-monad whose life can in nosense be called "lower" than the life of the soul-monad whichat present animates the human body. And in support of ourcontention just here we are able to quote not only the authority ofFechner but the authority of Professor James himself approving ofFechner. 

What the philosophy of the complex vision really does is to takelife just as it is--the ordinary multifarious spectacle presented toour senses and interpreted by our imagination--and regard this, andnothing more recondite than this, as the ultimate Absolute, or asnear an Absolute as we are ever likely to get. 

From our point of view it seems quite uncalled for to summon upvague and remote entities, like streams of consciousness andshootings forth of spirit, in order to interpret this immediatespectacle. Such streams of consciousness and shootings forth ofspirit seem to us just as much abstractions and just as muchconceptual substitutions for reality as do the old-fashionedmetaphysical entities of "being" and "becoming. "

No one has ever _seen_ a life-stream or a life-force. No one hasever _seen_ a compounded congeries of conscious states. Butevery one of us has seen a living human soul looking out of aliving human body; and most of us have seen a living soul lookingout of the mysterious countenance of earth, water, air and fire. 

The philosophy of the soul-monad has at any rate this advantageover every other: namely, that it definitely represents humanexperience and can always be verified by human experience. Anyhuman being can try the experiment of sinking into the depths ofhis own identity. Let the reader of this passage try such anexperiment here and now; and let him, in the light of what hefinds, decide this question. Does he find himself flowingmysteriously forth, along some indescribable "durational" stream, and, as he flows, feeling himself to be that stream? Or does he feelhimself to be a definite concrete actual "I am I, " "the guest andcompanion of his body" and, as far as the mortal weakness of fleshallows, the motive-principle of that body?

If the philosophy of the complex vision is able to make an appealof this kind with a certain degree of assurance as to the answer, itis able to make a yet more convincing appeal, when--the soul'sexistence once admitted--it becomes a question as to that soul'sinherent quality. No human being, unless in the grasp of somemegalomania of virtue, can deny the existence, in the depths of hisnature, of a struggle between the emotion of love and the emotionof malice. 

Out of this ultimate duality under the pressure of the forms andshapes of life and the reaction against these of the imagination andthe aesthetic sense, spring into existence those primordial ideas oftruth and beauty and goodness which, are the very stuff andtexture of our fate. But these ideas, primordial though they are, areso confused and distorted by their contact with circumstances andaccident, that it may well be that no clear image of them is foundin the recesses of the soul when the soul turns its glance inward. 

No soul, however, can turn its glance inward without recognizingin its deepest being this ultimate struggle between love and malice. How then can any philosophy be regarded as a transcript andreflection of reality when at the very start it refuses to takecognizance of this fact? If the only knowledge, which is in anysense certain, is our knowledge of ourselves, and if our knowledgeof ourselves implies our knowledge of a definite "soul-monad" forever divided against itself in this abysmal struggle, how then maya philosophy be regarded as covering the facts of experience, when in place of this personal contradiction it predicates, as itsexplanation of the system of things, some remote, thin, abstracttendency, such as the "shooting forth of spirit" or thecompounding of states of consciousness?

The whole matter may be thus summed up. The modern tendenciesof thought which we have been considering, get rid of theold metaphysical notion of the logical Absolute only tosubstitute vague psychological "states of consciousness" in itsplace. But what philosophy requires if the facts of introspectiveexperience are to be trusted is neither an Absolute in whoseidentity all difference is lost nor a stream of "states ofconsciousness" which is suspended, as it were, in a vacuum. 

What philosophy requires is the recognition of real actual personswhose original revelation of the secret of life implies that abysmalduality of good and evil beyond the margin of which no living soulhas ever passed. Whether or not this concrete "monad" or livingsubstratum of personality survives the death of the body is quite adifferent question; is in fact a question to which the philosophy ofthe complex vision can make no definite response. In this matterall we can say is that those supreme moments of rhythmic ecstasy, whose musical equilibrium I have indicated in the expression"apex-thought, " establish for us a conclusive certainty as to theeternal continuance, beyond the scope of all deaths, of thatindestructible aspect of personality we have come to name thestruggle between love and malice. 

With the conclusive consciousness of this there necessarily arisesa certain attitude of mind which is singularly difficult to describebut which I can hint at in the following manner. In the very act ofrecognition, in the act by which we apprehend the secret of theuniverse to consist in this abysmal struggle of the emotion of lovewith the emotion of malice, there is an implication of a completeacceptance of whatever the emotion of love or the principle oflove is found to demand, as the terms of its relative victory over itsantagonist. Whether this demand of love, or to put it more exactlythis demand of "all souls" in whom love is dominant, actuallyissues in a personal survival after death we are not permitted tofeel with any certainty. But what we feel with certainty, when theapex-thought of the complex vision reaches its consummation, isthat we find our full personal self-realization and happiness in acomplete acceptance of whatever the demand of love may be. Andthis is the case because the ultimate happiness and fulfilment ofpersonality does not depend upon what may have happened topersonality in the past or upon what may happen to personality inthe future but solely and exclusively upon what personalitydemands here and now in the apprehension of the unassailablemoment. 

This suspension of judgment therefore in regard to the question ofthe immortality of the soul is a suspension of judgment implicit inthe very nature of love itself. For if there were anything in theworld nearer the secret of the world than is this duality of love andmalice, then that alien thing, however we thought of it, would bethe true object of the soul's desire and the victory of love overmalice would fall into the second place. 

If instead of the soul's desire being simply the victory of love overmalice it were, so to speak, the "material fruit" of such a victory--namely, the survival of personality after death--then, in place ofthe struggle between love and malice, we should be compelled toregard _personality in itself_, apart from the nature of thatpersonality, as the secret of the universe. But as we haverepeatedly shown, it is impossible to think of any livingpersonality apart from this abysmal dualism, the ebb and flow ofwhich, with the relative victory of love over malice, is our ultimatedefinition of what living personality _is_. The emotion of loveabstracted from personality is not the secret of the universe, because personality in its concrete living activity is the secret ofthe universe. It is this very abstraction of love, isolated from anyperson who loves, and projected as an abstract into the void, thathas done so much to undermine religious thought, just as that otherabsolute of "pure being" has done so much to underminephilosophic thought. 

Love and malice are unthinkable apart from personality; butpersonality divorced from the struggle between love and malice issomething worse than unthinkable. It is something most tragicallythinkable. It is in fact the plain reality of death. A dead bodyis a body in which the struggle between love and malice hascompletely ceased. A dead planet would be a planet in which thestruggle between love and malice had ceased. We cannot speak ofa "dead soul" because the soul is, according to our originaldefinition, the very fusion-point and vortex-point where not onlyconsciousness and energy meet but where love and malice meetand wage their eternal struggle. 

Strictly speaking it is not true to say that the ultimate secret of theuniverse is the emotion of love. The emotion of love, just becauseit is an _emotion_, is the emotion of a personality. It is personality, not the emotion of love, which is the secret of the universe, whichis, in fact, the very universe itself. But it is personality consideredin its true concrete life, not as a mere abstraction devoid of allcharacteristics, which is this basic thing. And personality thusconsidered is, as we have seen, a living battleground of twoultimate emotions. The complete triumph of love over malicewould mean the extinction of personality and following from thisthe extinction of the universe. 

Thus what the soul's desire really amounts to, in those rhythmicmoments when its diverse aspects are reduced to harmoniousenergy, is not the complete victory of love over malice but only arelative victory. What it really desires is that malice should stillexist, but that it should exist in subordination to love. 

The ideal of the soul therefore in its creative moments is _theprocess of the overcoming of malice_, not the completion of thisprocess. In order to be perpetually overcome by love, malice mustremain existent, must remain "still there. " If it ceased to be there, there would be nothing left for love to overcome; and the ebb andflow of the universe, its eternal contradictions, would be at an end. The soul's desire, according to this view, is not a life after deathwhere malice, shall we say, is completely overcome and "good"completely triumphant. The soul's desire is that malice, or evil, should continue to exist; but should continue to exist under thetriumphant hand of love. The desire of the soul, in such ultimatemoments, has nothing to do with the survival of the soul afterdeath. It has to do with an acceptance of the demand of love. Andwhat love demands is not that malice should disappear; but that itshould for ever exist, in order that love should for everbe overcoming it. And the ecstasy of this process, of this"overcoming, " is a thing of single moments, moments which, asthey pass, not only reduce both past and future to an eternal "now"but annihilate everything else but this eternal "now. " Thisannihilation of the past does not mean the extinction of memory orthe extinction of hope. It only means that the profoundest of ourmemories are "brought over" as it were from the past into thepresent. It only means that a formless horizon of immense hope, indefinite and vague, hovers above the present, to give itspaciousness and freedom. 

The revelation of the complex vision does not therefore answer thequestion of the immortality of the soul. What it does is to indicatethe degree of importance of any answer to this question. And thisdegree of importance is much smaller than in our less harmoniousmoments we are inclined to suppose. At certain complacentmoments the soul finds itself praying for some final assurance ofpersonal survival. At certain other moments the soul is tempted topray for complete annihilation. But at the moments when it is mostentirely itself it neither prays for annihilation nor for immortality. It does not pray for itself at all. It prays that the will of the godsmay be done. It prays that the power of love in every soul in theuniverse may hold the power of malice in subjection. 

The soul therefore, revealed as a real substantial living thing bythe complex vision, is not revealed as a thing necessarily exemptfrom death, but as a thing whose deepest activity renders it freefrom the fear of death. 

In considering the nature of the contrast between the philosophy ofthe complex vision and the most dominant philosophic tendenciesof the present time it is important to make clear what our attitudeis towards that hypothetical assumption usually known as theTheory of Evolution. 

If what is called Evolution means simply _change_, then we havenot the least objection to the word. The universe obviouslychanges. It is undergoing a perpetual series of violent andrevolutionary changes. But it does not necessarily improve orprogress. On the contrary during enormous periods of time itdeteriorates. Both progress and deterioration are of course purelyhuman valuations. But according to our valuation of good and evilit may be said that during those epochs when the malicious, thepredatory, the centripetal tendency in life predominates over thecreative and centrifugal tendency, there is deterioration anddegeneracy; and during the epochs when the latter overcomes theformer there is growth and improvement. 

It is quite obvious that from our point of view, there is no suchthing as inanimate chemical substance, no such isolatedevolutionary _phases_ of "matter, " such as the movements from"solids" to "liquids, " from "liquids" to "gases, " from "gases" to"ether, " from "ether" to "electro-magnetism. " All these apparentchanges must be regarded as nothing less than the living organicchanges taking place in the living bodies of actual personal souls. 

According to our view the real and important variations in themultiform spectacle of the universe are the variations broughtabout by the perpetual struggle between life and death, in otherwords between the personal energy of creation and the personalresistance of malice. 

For us the universe of bodies and souls is perpetually re-creatingitself by the mysterious process of birth, perpetually destroyingitself by the mysterious process of death. 

It is this eternal struggle between the impulse to create new lifeand the impulse to resist the creation of life, and to destroy or topetrify life, which actually causes all movement in things and allchange; movement sometimes forward and sometimes backwardas the great pendulum and rhythm of existence swings one way orthe other. 

And even this generalization does not really cover what we regardas the facts of the case, because this backward or forwardmovement, though capable of being weighed and estimated "enmasse" in the erratic and violent changes of history, is in reality athing of particular and individual instances, a thing that ultimatelyaffects nothing but individuals and personalities, in as much as it isthe weighing and balancing of a struggle which takes placenowhere else except in the arena of concrete separate and personalsouls. 

What is usually called Evolution then, and what may just asreasonably be called Deterioration, is as far as we are concernedjust a matter of perpetual movement and change. 

The living personalities that fill the circle of space are perpetuallyreproducing themselves in a series of organic births, andperpetually passing away in the process of death. 

We have also to remember that every living organism whethersuch an organism resemble that of a planet or a human being, isitself the dwelling-place of innumerable other living organismsdependent on it and drawing their life from it, precisely as theirparent organism depends on, and draws its life from, theomnipresent universal ether. 

What the philosophy of the complex vision denies and refutes isthe modern tendency to escape from the real mystery of existenceby the use of such vague hypothetical metaphors, all of them reallyprofoundly anthropomorphic, such as "life-force" or "hyper-space"or "magnetic energy" or "streams of sub-consciousness. "

The philosophy of the complex vision drives these pseudo-philosophersto the wall and compels them to confess that ultimately allthey are aware of is the inner personal activity of theirown individual souls; compels them to confess that when itcomes to the final analysis their "life-force" and "purethought" and "hyper-space" and "radio-magnetic activity" are allnothing but one-sided hypothetical abstractions taken from theconcrete movements of concrete individual bodies and souls whichby an inevitable act of the imagination we assume to reproduce intheir interior reactions what we ourselves experience in ours. 

To introduce such a conception as that of those mysterious superhuman beings, whom I have named "the gods, " into a seriousphilosophic system, may well appear to many modern scientificminds the very height of absurdity. 

But the whole method of the philosophy of the complex vision isbased upon direct human experience; and from my point of viewthe obscure and problematic existence of some such beings hasbehind it the whole formidable weight of universal human feeling--a weight which is not made less valid by the arrogant use of merephrases of rationalistic contempt such as that which is implied inthe word "superstition. "

From our point of view a philosophy which does not include andsubsume and embody that universal human experience covered bythe term "superstition" is a philosophy that has eliminated from itsconsideration one great slice of actual living fact. And it is in thisaspect of the problem more than in any other that the philosophyof the complex vision represents a return to certain revelations ofhuman truth--call them mythological if you please--which modernphilosophy seems to have deliberately suppressed. In the finalresult it may well be that we have to choose, as our clue to themystery of life, either "mathematica" or "mythology. "

The philosophy of the complex vision is compelled by the verynature of its organ of research to choose, in this dilemma, the latterrather than the former. And the universe which it thus dares topredicate is at least a universe that lends itself, as so many"scientific" universes do not, to that synthetic activity of the_imaginative reason_ which in the long run alone satisfies thesoul. And such a universe satisfies the soul, as these others cannot, because it reflects, in its objective spectacle of things, theprofoundest interior consciousness of the actual living self whichthe soul in its deepest moments of introspection is able to grasp. 

Modern science, under the rhetorical spell of this talismanic word"evolution, " seems to imply that it can explain the multiformshapes and appearances of organic life by deducing them, in alltheir vivid heterogeneity, from some hypothetical monisticsubstance which it boldly endows with the mysterious energycalled the "life-force" and which it then permits to project out ofitself, by some sort of automatic volition, the whole long historicprocession of living organisms. 

This purely imaginative assumption gives it, in the popular mind, asort of vague right to make the astounding claim that it has"explained" the origin of things. Little further arrogance is neededto give it, in the popular mind, the still more astounding right toclaim that it has indicated not only the nature of the "beginning" ofthings but the nature of their "end" also; this "end" being nothingless than some purely hypothetical "equilibrium" when themovement of "advance, " coming full circle, rounds itself off intothe movement of "reversion. "

The philosophy of the complex vision makes no claim to dealeither with the beginning of things or with the end of things. Itrecognizes that "beginnings" and "ends" are not things with whichwe can intelligibly deal; are, on the contrary, things which arecompletely unthinkable. 

What we actually see, feel, divine, imagine, love, hate, detest, desire, dream, create and destroy--these living, dying, struggling, relaxing, advancing and retreating things--this space, this ether, these stars and suns, these animals, fishes, birds, plants, this earthand moon, these men and these trees and flowers, these high andunchanging eternal ideas of the beautiful and the good, thesetransitory perishing mortal lives and these dimly discernedimmortal figures that we name "gods, " all these, as far as we areconcerned, have for ever existed, all these, as far as we areconcerned, must for ever exist. 

In the immense procession of deaths and births, it is indeed certainthat the soul and body of the Earth have given birth to all the soulsand bodies which struggle for existence upon her living fleshand draw so much of their love and their malice from theunfathomable depths of her spirit. But when once we accept as ourbasic axiom that where the "soul-monad" exists, whether such a"monad" be human, sub-human, or super-human, it exists in actualconcrete organic personal integrity, we are saved from thenecessity of explaining how, and by what particular series of birthsand deaths and change and variation, the living spectacle of things, as we visualize it today, has "evolved" or has "deteriorated" out ofthe remote past. 

It is in fact by their constant preoccupation with the immediate andmaterial causes of such organic changes, that men of science havebeen distracted from the real mystery. This real mystery does notlimit itself to the comparatively unimportant "How, " but isconstantly calling upon us to deal with the terrible and essentialquestions, the two grim interrogations of the old Sphinx, the"_What_" and the "_Wherefore_. "

It is by its power to deal with these more essential riddles that anyphilosophy must be weighed and judged; and it is just becausewhat we name Science stops helplessly at this unimportant "How, "that it can never be said to have answered Life's uttermostchallenge. 

Materialistic and Evolutionary Hypotheses must always, howeverfar they may go in reducing so-called "matter" to so-called "spirit, "remain outside the real problem. No attenuation of "matter" intomovement or energy or magnetic radio-activity can reach theimpregnable citadel of life. For the citadel of life is to be found innothing less than the complex of personality--whether suchpersonality be that of a planet or a plant or an animal or a man or agod--must always be recognized as inherent in an actual livingsoul-monad, divided against itself in the everlasting duality. 

Although the most formidable support to our theory of an "eternalvision, " wherein all the living entities that fill space under thevibration of an unspeakable cosmic rhythm and brought into focusby one supreme act of contemplative "love, " is drawn from therare creative moments of what I have called the "apex-thought, " itstill remains that for the normal man in his most normal hours thepurely scientific view is completely unsatisfying. 

I do not mean that it is unsatisfying because, with its mechanicaldeterminism, it does not satisfy his desires. I mean that it does notsatisfy his imagination, his instinct, his intuition, his emotion, hisaesthetic sense; and in being unable to satisfy these, it provesitself, "ipso-facto, " false and equivocal. 

It is equally true that, except for certain rare and privilegednatures, the orthodox systems of religion are equally unsatisfying. 

What is required is some philosophic system which is bold enoughto include the element of so-called "superstition" and at the sametime contradicts neither reason nor the aesthetic sense. 

Such a system, we contend, is supplied by the philosophy of thecomplex vision; a philosophy which, while remaining franklyanthropomorphic and mythological, does not, in any narrow orimpudent or complacent manner, slur over the bitter ironies of thiscruel world, or love the clear outlines of all drastic issues in avague, unintelligible, unaesthetic idealism. 

What our philosophy insists upon is that the modern tendency toreduce everything to some single monistic "substance, " which, bythe blind process of "evolution, " becomes all this passionate dramathat we see, is a tendency utterly false and misleading. For us theuniverse is a much larger, freer, stranger, deeper, morecomplicated affair than that. 

For us the universe contains possibilities of real ghastly, incredible_evil_, descending into spiritual depths, before which the normalmind may well shudder and turn dismayed away. 

For us the universe contains possibilities of divine, magical, miraculous _good_, ascending into spiritual heights andassociating itself with immortal super-human beings, before whichthe mind of the merely logical intelligence may well pause, baffled, puzzled, and obscurely indignant. 

The "fulcrum" upon which the whole issue depends, the "pivot"upon which it turns, is the existence of actual living souls fillingthe immense spaces of nature. 

If there is no "soul" in any living thing, then our whole systemcrumbles to pieces. If there are living "souls" in every living thing, then the universe, as revealed by the complex vision, is more realthan the universe as revealed by the chief exponents of modernthought. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM

The philosophy of the complex vision inevitably issues, when it isapplied to political and economic conditions, in the idea ofcommunism. The idea of communism is inherent in it from thebeginning; and in communism, and in communism alone, does itfind its objective and external expression. 

The philosophy of the complex vision reveals, as we have seen, acertain kind of ultimate duality as the secret of life. This ultimateduality remains eternally unreconciled; for it is a duality within thecircle of every personal soul; and the fact that every personal soulis surrounded by an incomprehensible substance under thedominion of time and space, does not reconcile these eternalantagonists; because these eternal antagonists are for everunfathomable, even as the personal soul, of which they are theconflicting conditions, is itself for ever unfathomable. 

It is therefore a perpetual witness to the truth that the idea ofcommunism is the inevitable expression of the complex vision thatthis idea should, more than other idea in the world, divide thesouls of men into opposite camps. If the idea of communism werenot the inevitable expression of the philosophy of the complexvision as applied to human life it would be an idea with regard towhich all human souls would hold infinitely various opinions. 

But this is not the case. In regard to the idea of communism we donot find this infinite variety of opinion. We find, on the contrary, adefinite and irreconcilable duality of thought. Human souls aredivided on this matter not, as they are on other matters, into amotley variety of convictions but into two opposite andirreconcilable convictions, unfathomably hostile to one another. 

There is no other question, no other issue, about which the souls ofmen are divided so clearly and definitely into two opposite camps. The question of the existence of a "parent of the universe" doesnot divide them so clearly; because it always remains possible forany unbeliever in a spiritual unity of this absolute kind to use theterm "parent, " if he pleases, for that incomprehensible "substance"under the dominion of space and time which takes the triple formof the "substance" out of which the substratum of the soul is made, the "substance" out of which the "objective mystery" is made, andthe substance out of which is made the surrounding "medium"which holds all personal souls together. 

The question of the mortality or the immortality of the soul doesnot divide them so clearly; because such a question is entirelyinsoluble; and a vivid consciousness of its insolubilityaccompanies all argument. The question of race does not dividethem so clearly; because both with regard to race and with regardto class the division is very largely a superficial thing, dependentupon public opinion and upon group-consciousness and leavingmany individuals on each side entirely unaffected. 

The question of sex does not divide them so clearly; because thereare always innumerable examples of noble and ignoble treacheryto the sex-instinct; not to speak of a certain intellectual neutralitywhich refuses to be biased. The idea of communism is on thecontrary so profoundly associated with the original revelation ofthe complex vision that it must be regarded as the inevitableexpression of all the attributes of this vision when such attributesare reduced to a rhythmic harmony. 

That this is no speculative hypothesis but a real fact of experiencecan be proved by any sincere act of personal introspection. 

The philosophy of the complex vision is based upon those rare andsupreme moments when the soul's "apex-thought" quivers like anarrow in the very heart of the surrounding darkness. By any honestact of introspection we can recall to memory the world-deeprevelations which are thus obtained. And among these revelationsthe one most vivid and irrefutable, as far as human association isconcerned, is the revelation of the idea of communism. 

So vivid and so dominant is this idea, that it may be said that nomotive which drives or obsesses the will in the sphere of externalrelations can approach or rival it in importance. And that this is socan be proved by the fact that the opposite of this idea, namely theidea of private property, is found when we analyse the content ofour profoundest instincts to be in perpetual conflict with the ideaof communism. 

And the inevitableness of the world-deep struggle between thesetwo ideas is proved by the fact that in no other way, as soon as theobjective world is introduced at all, can we conceive of love andmalice as expressing themselves. Love must naturally expressitself in the desire to "have all things in common"; and malicemust naturally express itself in the desire to have as little aspossible in common and as much as possible for ourselves alone. 

The "possessive instinct, " although it may often be foundaccompanying like an evil shadow some of the purest movementsof love, must be recognized as eternally arising out of the depthsof the power opposed to love. If we have any psychologicalclairvoyance we can disentangle this base element from some ofthe most passionate forms of the sexual instinct and from some ofthe most passionate forms of the maternal instinct. It is undeniablethat the possessive instinct does accompany both these emotionsand we are compelled to recognize that, whenever or wherever itappears, it is the expression of the direct opposite of love. 

So inevitably does the complex vision manifest itself in the idea ofcommunism that it would be legitimate to say that the main objectof human life as we know it at present is the realization of theideas of truth and beauty and nobility in a world-widecommunistic state. 

As far as the human soul in our present knowledge of it isconcerned there is no other synthesis possible except thissynthesis. And there is no other synthesis possible except this, because this and this alone realizes the ideal which the abysmalpower of love implies. And the power of love implies this idealbecause the power of love is the only unity which fuses togetherthe ideas of reality and beauty and nobility; and because it isimpossible to conceive the power of love as embodying itself inthese ideas except in a world-wide communistic state. 

We are able to prove that this is no speculative hypothesis but afact based upon experience, by a consideration of the oppositeideal. For evil, as we have hinted in many places, _has_ its ideal. The ideal of evil, or of what I call "malice, " is the annihilation ofthe will to creation. This ideal of malice is in fact an obstinate andcontinuous resistance to the power of creation; a resistance carriedso far as to reduce everything that exists to eternal non-existence. The profoundest experience of the human soul is to be found in theunfathomable struggle that goes on in the depths between "theideal of evil" which is universal death and "the ideal of love"which is universal life. 

Reason and sensation are used in turn by this abysmal malice ofthe soul, to establish and make objective "the idea of nothingness. "Thus reason, driven on by the power of malice, derives exquisitesatisfaction from the theory of the automatism of the will. 

The theory of the automatism of the will, the theory that the will isonly an illusive name for a pre-determined congeries of irresistiblemotives, is a theory that lends itself to the ideal of universal death. It is a theory that diminishes, and reduces to a minimum, theidentity of the personal soul. And therefore it is a theory which theisolated reason, divorced from imagination and instinct, fastensupon and exults in. 

The isolated reason, in league with pure sensation and divorcedfrom instinct, becomes very quickly a slave of the abysmalpower of malice; and the pleasure which it derives from thecontemplation of a mechanical universe predestined and pre-determined, a universe out of which the personal soul has been completelyexpurgated, is a pleasure derived directly from the power of malice, exulting in the idea of eternal death. 

Philosophers are very crafty in these things; and it is necessary todiscriminate between that genuine passion for reality whichderived from the power of love and that exultant pleasure in a"frightful" reality which is derived from intellectual sadism andfrom the unfathomable malice of the soul. 

Between a philosophic pessimism which springs from a genuinepassion for reality and from a pure "pity" for tortured sentientthings, and a philosophic pessimism which springs from a cruelpleasure in atrocious situations and an ambiguous "pity" fortortured sentient things there is an eternity of difference. 

It needs however something almost like a clairvoyance torecognize this difference; and such a clairvoyance can only beobtained when, as in the case of Christ, the soul becomes aware ofits own unfathomable possibilities of good and evil. 

A careful and implacable analysis of the two camps of opinioninto which the idea of communism divides the world reveals to usthe fact that the philosophical advocates of private property draw acertain malignant pleasure from insisting that the possessiveinstinct is the strongest instinct in humanity. 

This is tantamount to saying that the power of malice is thestrongest instinct in humanity; whereas, if the power of malice hadnot already been relatively overcome by the power of love therewould be no "humanity" at all. But the philosophical advocates ofprivate property do not confine themselves to this maligninsistence upon the basic greediness of human nature. They are inthe habit of twisting their arguments completely around andspeaking of the "rights" of property and of the "wholesome" valueof the "natural instinct" to possess property. 

This "natural instinct to possess property" becomes, when they sodefend it, something which we assume to be "good" and "noble, "and not something which we are compelled to recognize as "evil"and "base. "

It is necessary to keep these two arguments quite separate in ourminds and not to allow the philosophical advocates of privateproperty to confuse them. If the assumption is that the instinct topossess property is a "good" instinct, an instinct springing fromthe power of love in the human soul, then what we have to do is tosubject this "good instinct" to an inflexible analysis; under theprocess of which such "goodness" will be found to transform itselfinto the extreme opposite of goodness. 

If the assumption is that the instinct to possess property is an evilinstinct, but an instinct which is the strongest of all humaninstincts and therefore one which it is insane to attempt to resist, then what we have to do is to prove that the instinct or the emotionof love is stronger than the instinct or the emotion of malice and soessential to the life of the soul that if it had not already relativelyovercome the emotion of malice, the personal soul would neverhave become what it has become; in fact would never have existedat all, since its mere existence depends upon the relative victory oflove over malice. 

In dealing with the former of these two arguments, namely that theinstinct to possess property is a "good" instinct, it is advisable tosearch for some test of "goodness" which shall carry a strongerconviction to the mind of such biassed philosophers than anyappeal to the conscience or even to the aesthetic sense. Theconscience and the aesthetic sense speak with uncompromisingfinality upon this subject and condemn the possessive instinct orthe instinct to possess property with an unwavering voice. Aseternal aspects of the complex vision, both conscience and theaesthetic sense, when their power is exercised in harmony with allthe other aspects of the soul, indicate with an oracular clearnessthat the possessive instinct is not good but evil. 

The person obsessed by the idea of "nobility" and the personobsessed by the idea of "beauty" are both of them found to beextraordinarily suspicious of the possessive instinct and fiercelyanxious to destroy its power. But the test more likely to appeal tothe type of philosopher whose business it is to defend theinstitution of private property is the simple test of reality. Realityor "truth, " much more than nobility or beauty, is the idea in thesoul which is outraged by the illusion of the value of privateproperty. 

For the illusion of the value of private property is like the "illusionof dead matter. " It is a half-truth projected by the power of malice. The inherent unreality of the illusion of the value of privateproperty can be proved by the simplest examination of the facts. The illusion draws its strength from a false appeal to the genuineand basic necessities of the human mind and the human body. 

These necessities demand adequate food, adequate clothing, adequate shelter and adequate leisure. They also demand freedom, beauty, happiness, a considerable degree of solitude, and finalrelief from the intolerable fear of poverty. But the economic andintellectual resources of the human race are perfectly capable ofproviding all these things for all human beings within the limits ofa communistic society. These things and the legitimate demand forthese things must not be confused with the illusion of the value ofprivate property. Nor must the illusion of the value of privateproperty be permitted to fortify its insecure position by a falseappeal to these real values. 

The astounding achievements of modern science have brought tolight two things. They have brought to light the fact that no humanor social unit short of the international unit of the whole race canadequately deal with the resources of the planet. And they havebrought to light the fact that this inevitable internationalizing ofeconomic production must be accompanied by a co-operativeinternationalizing of economic distribution, if murderous chaoticconflict is to be avoided. 

The real values of sufficient food, clothing, shelter, leisure, and solitude can be secured for every human being inhabitingthis planet, under _a far from perfect_ organization ofworld-production and world-distribution. The astounding achievementsof modern science have made this possible. It only requires areasonable and not by any means an ideal co-operation to make itactual. 

The achievements of modern science, especially in the sphere ofindustrial machinery, have made it possible for every human beingto have sufficient food, clothing, shelter, leisure and solitude. Man, in this sense, has already conquered Nature; and has secured forhis progeny however indefinitely increased, and for the frail andincompetent ones of his race, however indefinitely increased, amore than sufficient supply of these primal necessities. 

The extraordinary power of international co-operation has beenrecently displayed during the years of the war in the production ofengines of destruction. Far less cooperation applied to theproblems of production could secure for an indefinitely multipliedpopulation, including all derelicts and all incompetents, suchprimal necessities of life as normal persons demand. The resourcesof this planet, as long as scientific distribution follows close uponscientific production, are sufficient to maintain in food, in shelter, in clothing, in leisure, in reasonable comfort, any human progeny. 

What then is the principal cause why, as things are now, suchlamentable poverty and such huge fear of lamentable povertydominate the human situation? The cause is not far to seek. It liesin the very root and ground of our existing commercial andindustrial system. It lies in the fact that economic production byreason of the illusive value of private enterprise, is directed nottowards the satisfaction of such universal and primary necessitiesas food, shelter, clothing, leisure and reasonable comfort, buttowards the creation of unnecessary luxury and artificial frippery, towards the piling up, by means of advertisement, monopoly, exploitation and every kind of chicanery of unproductiveaccumulation of private property. 

Our present commercial and industrial system is based upon whatis called "free competition. " In other words it is based upon theright of private individuals to make use of the resources of natureand the energy of labour to produce unnecessary wealth, wealthwhich does little or nothing to increase the food, shelter, clothing, leisure and comfort of the masses of mankind, wealth which isartificially maintained by artificial values and by the fantasticprocess of advertisement. 

In order to make clear and irrefutable the statement that theillusive value of private property is, like "the illusion of deadmatter, " a thing conceived, projected and maintained by theaboriginal power of evil, it is necessary to prove two things. It isnecessary to prove in the first place that the idea of privateproperty is neither beautiful nor noble nor real. And it is necessaryto prove in the second place that the defence of the idea of privateproperty arouses the most evil and most malignant passions whichit is possible for the human soul to feel. 

That private property is neither beautiful nor noble can be deducedfrom the fact that in proportion as human souls become attunedto finer, more distinguished, and more intellectual levelsthey become more and more indifferent to the "sensation ofownership. " That private property is an unreal thing can bededuced from the fact that no human being can actually "possess, "in a definite, positive, and exhaustive manner, more than he caneat or drink or wear or otherwise personally enjoy. 

His "sensation of ownership, " over lands, houses, gardens, pictures, statues, books, animals and human beings, is really andactually restricted to the immediate and direct enjoyment which heis able in person to derive from such things. Beyond thisimmediate and personal enjoyment the extension of his "sensationof ownership" can do no more than increase his general sense ofconventional power and importance. His real "possession" of hisland is actually restricted to his capacity for appreciating itsbeauty. His real "possession" of his books is actually restricted tohis personal capacity for entering into the living secrets of thesethings. Without such capacity, though he may call himself the"possessor" or "owner, " he is really no better than an official"care-taker, " whose province it is to preserve certain objects forother people to enjoy, or, shall we say, for the permanentprevention of any people ever enjoying them. And just as the"sensation of ownership" or "the idea of private property" is unrealand illusive with regard to land, houses, pictures, books, and thelike so it is unreal and illusive with regard to human beings. Noone, however maliciously he may hug to himself his possessiveinstinct, can ever actually and truly "possess" another livingperson. 

One's wife, one's paramour, one's child, one's slave, are onlyapparently and by a conventional illusion of language one's realand actual "possession. " That this is the case can be proved by thefact that any of these "human possessions" has only to commitsuicide, to escape for ever from such bondage. 

The illusion of private property derives its vigour and its obstinatevividness from two things; from the apparent increase of powerand importance which accompanies it, and from its associationwith that necessary minimum of food, shelter, clothing, leisure, comfort, freedom, solitude, and happiness, which is certainly real, essential and indispensable. 

The universal wisdom of the ages bears witness to the fact that a"moderate poverty" or a "moderate competence" is the idealoutward state for a man to find himself in. And this "moderateenjoyment" of food, shelter, clothing, comfort, leisure andemotional happiness, is a thing which, in a scientifically organizedcommunistic society, would be within the reach of even the leastefficient. 

The gloomy and melancholy argument brought forward by theenemies of "communism" that under such a condition "theincentive of private initiative would disappear" and that no othermotive could take its place, is an argument based upon theassumption that human nature derives more inspiration from theidea of dishonourable greed than it derives from the idea ofhonourable and useful labour; which is an assumption so whollyopposed to true psychology that it has only to be nakedly stated tobe seen in its complete absurdity. 

What the psychologist, interested in this abysmal struggle betweenthe idea of communism and the idea of private property, has tonote is the nature and character of the particular individual whobrings forward this argument of the "incentive of greed" or the"initiative" produced by greed. Such an individual will never befound to be a great man of science, or a great artist or scholar orcraftsman, or a first-rate engineer, or a highly trained artisan orfarmer or builder. 

The individual bringing forward this argument of the "initiative ofgreed" will invariably be found to be a member of what might becalled the "parasitic class. " He will either be an intellectuallysecond-rate minister or politician or lawyer or professor, or he willbe a commercial and financial "middleman, " whose activities areentirely absorbed in the art of exploitation and who has neverexperienced the sensation of creative work. 

If he does not himself belong to the unproductive and parasiticclass it will be easy to detect in him the unmistakable presence ofthe emotion of malice. Nowhere is the emotion of malice moreentirely in harmony with itself than when it is engaged inattributing base and sordid motives to the energy of human nature. 

This monstrous doctrine that human beings _require_ "theincentive of greed" and that without that incentive or "initiative"no one would engage in any kind of creative work, is a doctrinespringing directly from the aboriginal malice of the soul; and adoctrine which is refuted every day by every honest, healthy andhonourable man and woman. 

But all these are, after all, only negative proofs of the inevitablerise, out of the very necessity of love's nature, of the idea ofcommunism. Of all mortal instincts, the possessive instinct is themost insidious and most evil. Love is for ever being perverted andpolluted by this thing, and turned from its true essence intosomething other than itself. This is equally true of love whethersuch love is directed towards persons or towards ideas or things. 

The possessive instinct springing directly from the aboriginalmalice is perpetually deceiving itself. Apparently and superficiallywhat it aims at is the eternally "static. " In other words what it aimsat is the retention in everlasting immobility of the person or theidea or the thing into which it has dug its claws. 

Thus the maternal instinct, in its evil mood, aims at petrifying andrendering immobile that helpless youthfulness in its offspringwhich the possessive passion finds so provocative and exciting. Thus the lover in his evil mood, desires that the object of his loveshould remain in everlasting immobility, an odalisque of eternalreciprocity. That this evil desire takes the form of a longing thatthe object of his love should eternally escape and eternally berecaptured makes no difference in the basic feeling. 

Thus the collector of "works of art"--a being divided from the reallover of art by an impassable gulf--derives no pleasure from thebeauty of anything until it has become _his_, until he has hidden itaway from all the rest of the world. Thus the lover of "nature, " inhis evil mood, derives no pleasure from the fitful magic of grassand bowers and trees, until he feels happy in the mad illusion thatthe very body of the earth, even to the centre of the planet, wherethese things grow, is his "private" property and is something fixed, permanent, static, unchanging. But all this desire for the eternally"static" is superficial and self-deceiving. 

Analysed down to its very depth, what this evil possessive instinctdesires is what all malice desires, namely the annihilation of life. Pretending to itself that it desires to hug to itself, in eternalimmobility, the thing it loves, what in its secret essence it reallydesires is that thing's absolute annihilation. It wants to hug thatthing so tightly to itself that the independence of the thingcompletely vanishes. It wants to destroy all separation betweenitself and the thing, and all liberty and freedom for the thing. Itwants "to eat the thing up" and draw the thing into its own being. 

Its evil desire can never find complete satisfaction until it has"killed the thing it loves" and buried it within its own identity. Itis this evil possessive element in sexual love, whether of a man for awoman or a woman for a man, which is the real evil in the sexualpassion. It is this possessive instinct in maternal love which is theevil element in the love of a mother for a child. Both these evilemotions tend to make war upon life. 

The mother, in her secret sub-conscious passion, desires to drawback her infant into her womb, and restore it to its pre-natalphysiological unity with herself. The lover in his secret evilsub-consciousness, desires to draw his beloved into ever-increasingunity with himself, until the separation between them is at an endand her identity is lost in his identity. 

The final issue, therefore, of this evil instinct of possession, thisevil instinct of private property, can never be anything else thandeath. Death is what the ultimate emotion of malice desires; anddeath is an actual result of the instinct of possession carried to anextreme limit. 

The static immobility and complete "unchangeableness" which thepossessive instinct pretends to itself is all it desires is reallytherefore nothing but a mask for its desire to destroy. Thepossessive instinct is, in its profoundest abyss, an amorist of death. What it secretly loves is the dead; for the dead alone can neverdefraud it of its satisfaction. Wherever love exercises its creativeenergy the possessive instinct relaxes its hold. Love expands anddiffuses itself. Love projects itself and merges itself The creativeimpulse is always centrifugal. The indrawing movement, thecentripetal movement, is a sign of the presence of that inert malicewhich would reduce all life to nothingness. 

The creative energy of love issues inevitably in the ideaof communism. The idea of communism implies the completeabolition of private property; because private property, whether itbe property in persons or in things, is essentially evil, is indeed thenatural expression of the primordial inert malice, in its hostility tolife. Under any realization, in actual existence, of the idea ofcommunism the creative energy finds itself free to expand anddilate. All that heavy clogging burden of "the personallypossessed" being shaken off, the natural fresh shoots of livingbeauty rise to the surface like the new green growths of springwhen the winter's rubble has been washed away by the rain. 

The accursed system of private property, rooted in the abysmalmalice of the human heart, lies like a dead weight upon everycreative impulse. Everything is weighed and judged, everything isvalued and measured, in relation to this. 

Modern Law is the system of restriction by which we protectprivate property. 

Modern religion is the system of compensation by which wesoften the difference between inequalities in private property. Modern politics is the system of compromise by which publicopinion registers its devotion to private property. Modern moralityis the system of artificial inhibitions by which the humanconscience is perverted into regarding private property as thesupreme good. 

Modern science is the system by which private property isincreased and the uses of it made more complicated. Modern"truth" is the system of traditional opinion by which the illusion ofprivate property is established as "responsible" thinking, and"serious" thinking, and "ethical" thinking. 

Modern art is the system by which what is most gross and vulgarin the popular taste is pandered to in the interests of privateproperty. 

The creative energy in modern life is therefore restricted andopposed at almost every point by the evil instinct to possess. Ofevery new idea the question is asked, "does it conflict with privateproperty?"

Of every new aesthetic judgment the question is asked, "does itconflict with private property?"

Of every new moral valuation the question is asked, "does itconflict with private property?" And the instinct which puts thesequestions to every new movement of the creative energy is theinstinct of inert malice. The object of life can be regarded asnothing less than the realization of the vision of the Immortals;and it is only under a communistic state that the vision of theImmortals can be realized; because only in such a state is thatpetrified illusion of inert malice which we name "private property"thoroughly got rid of and destroyed. 

CONCLUSION

No attempted articulation of the mystery, life, can be worthy ofbeing named a "philosophy" unless it has a definite bearing uponwhat, in the midst of that confused "manifold" through which wemove, we call the problem of conduct. 

The mass of complicated impression, which from our first dawn ofconsciousness presses upon us, falls into two main divisions--theportion of it which comes under the power of our will and theportion of it which is supplied by destiny or circumstance, andover which our will is impotent. 

Superficially speaking what we call conduct only applies to action;but in a deeper sense it applies to that whole division of oursensations, emotions, ideas, and energies, whether it take the formof action or not, which comes in any measure under the power ofthe will. Such acts of the mind therefore, as are purely intellectualor emotional--as for instance what we call "acts of faith"--are asmuch to be considered forms of conduct as those outer visiblematerial gestures which manifest themselves in action. 

This is no fantastic or extravagant fancy. It is the old classical andcatholic doctrine, to which not only such thinkers as Plato andSpinoza have affixed their seal, but which is at the root of thedeepest instincts of Buddhists, Christians, Epicureans, Stoics, andthe mystics of all ages. It may be summed up by the statement thatlife is an art towards which the will must be directed; and that thelarger portion of life manifests itself in interior contemplation andonly the smaller part of it in overt action. 

In both these spheres, in the sphere of contemplation as much as inthe sphere of action, there exists that "given element" of destiny orcircumstance, in the presence of which the will is powerless. Butin regard to this given element it must be remembered that noindividual soul can ever, to the end of time, be absolutely certainthat in any particular case, whether his own or another's, he hasfinally arrived at this irreducible fatality. 

The extraordinary phenomenon of what religious people call"conversion, " a phenomenon which implies a change of heart sounexpected and startling as to seem miraculous, is a proof of howunwise it is to be in any particular case rigidly dogmatic asto where the sunken rock of destiny really begins. So manyappearances have taken the shape of this finality, so many miragesof "false fate" have paralysed our will, that it is wisest to believeto the very end of our days that our attitude to destiny can changeand modify destiny. 

Assuming then that the articulation of the mystery of life whichhas been outlined in this book, under the name of "the philosophyof the complex vision, " must remain the barest of intellectualhypotheses until it has manifested itself in "conduct"; andassuming further that this "conduct" includes the whole of thatportion of life, whether contemplative or active, which can bereduced to a fine art by the effort of the will; the questionemerges--what kind of effort must the will make, both interiorallyand exteriorally, if it desire to respond, by a rhythmic reciprocity, to the vision which the intellect has accepted?

It must be remembered that the vision upon which this philosophydepends and from which it derives its primordial assumptions isnot the normal vision of the human soul. The philosophy of thecomplex vision rejects the normal vision of the human soul onbehalf of the abnormal vision of the human soul. Its point of view, in this matter, is that the human soul only arrives at the secret ofthe universe in those exalted, heightened, exceptional and raremoments, when all the multiform activities of the soul's lifeachieve a musical consummation. Its point of view is that sincephilosophy, at its deepest and highest, necessarily becomes art;and since art is a rare and difficult thing requiring infiniteadjustments and reconciliations; what philosophy has really to use, in formulating any sort of adequate system, is the memory of suchrare moments after they have passed away. The point of view fromwhich we have made all our basic assumptions is the point of viewthat the secret of the universe is only revealed to man in raremoments of ecstasy; and that what man's reason has to do is togather together in memory the broken and scattered fragments ofthese moments and out of this residuum build up and round off, asbest it may, some coherent interpretation of life. 

From all this it follows that the first rhythmic reply of the humanwill to the vision to serve is a passionate act of what might becalled "contemplative tension, " in the direction of the reviving ofsuch memories, and in the direction of preparing the ground forthe return of another "moment of vision" similar in nature to thosethat have gone before. 

The secret of this act of inward contemplative tension we havealready analysed. We have found it to consist in a "complex" of allthe primordial energies of the soul, focussed and concentrated intowhat we have compared to a pyramidal apex-point by the power ofa certain synthetic movement of the soul itself which we havenamed the apex-thought. 

The reply of the will, therefore, to the vision it desires to serveconsists of a gathering together of all the energies of the soul intoa rhythmic harmony. It may well be that this premeditated anddeliberately constructed harmony will have to wait for many daysand years without experiencing the magic touch of the soul'sapex-thought. For though we may passionately desire the touch ofthis--aye, and pray for it with a most desperate prayer!--it is of thevery nature of this mysterious thing to require for the moment of itsactivity something else than the contemplative tension whichhas prepared the ground for its appearance. For this syntheticapex-thought, which is the soul's highest power, is only in a verylimited sense within the power of the will. 

The whole matter is obscure and perhaps inexplicable; but it seemsas if a place were required here for some philosophic equivalent ofthat free gift of the Gods which, in theological language, goes bythe name of "grace. " Long and long may the soul wait--with thehardly won rhythm of its multiform "complex" poised in vibrantexpectation--before the moment arrives in which the apex-thoughtcan strike its note of ecstasy. 

In the time and place of such a moment, in the accumulation ofconditions which render such a moment eternal, chance andcircumstance may play a prominent part. There is, however, aninveterate instinct in humanity--not perhaps to be altogetherdisregarded--according to the voice of which this unaccountableelement of chance and circumstance, or, shall we say, of destiny, is itself the result of the interposed influence of the invisiblecompanions. But whether this be so or not, the fact remains thatsome alien element of indeterminable chance or circumstance ordestiny does frequently enter into that accumulation of obscureconditions which seem to be necessary before the magic of theapex-thought is roused. 

This preparing of the ground, this deliberate concentration of thesoul's energies, is the first movement of the will in answer to theattraction of the eternal vision discerned so far only as a remoteideal. The second movement of the will has been already impliedin the first, and is only a lifting into clear consciousness of whatled the soul to make its initial effort. I speak of the part played bythe will in the abysmal struggle between love and malice. Thisstruggle was really implicit, in the beginning, in the effort the willmade to focus the multiform energies of the complex vision. Butdirectly some measure of insight into the secret of life hasfollowed upon this effort, or directly, if the soul's good fortune hasbeen exceptional, its great illuminative moment has been reached, the will finds itself irresistibly plunged into this struggle, findsitself inevitably ranged, on one side or the other, of the ultimateduality. 

That the first effort of the will was largely what might be called anintellectual one, though its purpose was to make use of all thesoul's attributes together, is proved by the fact that it is possiblefor human souls to be possessed of formidable insight into the secretof life and yet to use that insight for evil rather than for good. 

But the second movement of the will, of which I am now speaking, reveals without a shadow of ambiguity on which side of theeternal contest the personality in question has resolved tothrow its weight. If, in this second movement, the will answers, with a reciprocal gathering of itself together, the now far clearerattraction of the vision attained by its original effort, it will befound to range itself on the side of love against the power ofmalice. 

If, on the contrary, having made use of its original vision tounderstand the secret of this struggle, it allies itself with the powerof malice against love, it will be found to produce the spectacle ofa soul of illuminated intellectual insight deliberately concentratedon evil rather than good. 

But once irrevocably committed to the power of that creativeenergy which we call love, the will, though it may haveinnumerable lapses and moments of troubled darkness, neverceases from its abysmal struggle. For this is the conclusion of thewhole matter. When we speak of the eternal duality as consistingin a struggle between love and malice, what we really mean is thatthe human soul, concentrated into the magnet-point of apassionately conscious will, is found varying and quiveringbetween the pole of love and the pole of malice. 

The whole drama is contained within the circle of personality; andit would be of a similar nature if the personality in question wereconfronted by no other thing in the universe except the objectivemystery. I mean that the soul would be committed to a strugglebetween its creative energy and its inert malice even if there wereno other living persons in the world towards whom this love andthis malice could be directed. 

I have compared the substance of the soul to an arrowhead ofconcentrated flames, the shaft of which is wrapped in impenetrabledarkness while the point of it pierces the objective mystery. Fromwithin the impenetrable darkness of this invisible arrow-shaft thevery substance of the soul is projected; and in its projection itassumes the form of these flames; and the name I have given tothis mysterious outpouring of the soul is _emotion_, whereof theopposing poles of contending force are respectively love andmalice. The psycho-material substance of the invisible soul-monadis itself divided into this eternally alternating duality, of which theprojected "flames, " or manifested "energies" are the constantexpression. Each of these energies has as its concrete "material, "so to speak, the one projected substance of the soul; and is thuscomposed of the very stuff of emotion. 

The eternal duality of this emotion takes various forms in thesevarious manifestations of its one substance. Thus the energy orflame of the aesthetic sense resolves itself into the opposedvibrations of the beautiful and the hideous. Thus the energy, orflame, of the pure reason resolves itself into the opposedvibrations of the true and the false. Thus the energy, or flame, ofconscience resolves itself into the opposed vibrations of the goodand the evil. 

Although the remaining energies of the soul, beyond those I havejust named--such as instinct, intuition, imagination, and the like--are less definitely divided up among those three "primordial ideas"which we discern as "truth, " "beauty, " and "goodness, " they aresubject, nevertheless, since their substance is the stuff of emotion, to the same duality of love and malice. 

It is not difficult to see how this duality turns upon itself in humaninstinct, in human imagination, and in human intuition for thecreative impulse in all these energies finds itself opposed by theimpulse to resist creation. It is when the will is in question that weare compelled to notice a difference. For the will, although itself aprimal energy or projection of the soul, is in its inherent nature setapart from the other activities of the soul. 

The will is that particular aspect of the soul-monad by means ofwhich it consciously intensifies or relaxes the outward pressure ofemotion. From the point of view of the complex vision, the will, although easily differentiated from both consciousness andemotion, cannot be imagined as existing apart from these. 

Every living organism possesses consciousness in some degree, emotion in some degree, and will in some degree; and the partplayed by the will in the complicated "nexus" of the soul's life maybe compared to that of a mechanical spring in some kind of amachine. In this case, however, the spring of the machine is fed bythe oil of consciousness and releases its force upon the cogs andwheels of contradictory emotion. 

No theory of psychology which attempts to eliminate the will bythe substitution of pure "motive" playing upon pure "action" isacceptable to us. And such an elimination is unacceptable, because, in the ultimate insight of the complex vision turned roundupon itself, the soul is aware of a definite recognizablephenomenon which although present to consciousness is differentfrom consciousness, and although intensifying and lessoningemotion is different from emotion. 

In regard to this "problem of conduct, " which I refuse to interpretas anything short of the whole art of life, contemplative as well asactive, the will, being, so to say, the main-spring of the soul, naturally plays the most important part. The prominence given, inmoral tradition, to the struggle of the will with sexual desire is oneof the melancholy evidences as to how seldom the complex visionof the soul has been allowed full play. 

What is called "asceticism" or "puritanism" is the result of anover-balanced concentration of the will upon the phenomena ofsensation alone. Whereas in the rhythmic balance of the soul'scomplete faculties, what the ideal vision calls upon the will to do, is not to concentrate upon repressing sensation but to concentrateupon repressing malice and intensifying love. 

Sensation is only, after all, one of the energies, or projectedflames, of the soul, in its reaction to the objective mystery. Butemotion is, as we have seen, the very soul itself, poured forth in itsprofoundest essence, and eternally divided against itself in theultimate duality. Emotion is the psychic element which is the realsubstratum of sensation, just as it is the real substratum of reasonand taste. So that when the will concentrates itself, as ithas so often done and so often been commended for doing, uponsensation alone, it is neglecting and betraying its main function, which is the repressing of malice and the liberation of love. 

The deliberate repression of sensation does, it is true, sometimesdestroy our response to sensation; but it more often intensifies thesoul's sensational life. It is only when the will is concentrated uponthe intensifying of love and the suppression of malice thatsensation falls into its right place in the resultant rhythm. There isthen no question of either suppressing it or of indulging it. Itcomes and goes as naturally, as easily, as inevitably, as the rain orthe snow. 

When the will is concentrated upon the suppression of malice andthe intensifying of love all those cults of sensation which we callvice naturally relinquish their hold upon us. The fact that womenso rarely indulge in the worst excesses of these cults is due to thefact that in their closeness to nature they follow more easily therhythmic flow of life and are less easily tempted to isolate anddetach from the rest any particular feeling. But women pay thepenalty for this advantage when it comes to the question of theilluminative moments of the apex-thought. For in these high, rareand abnormal moments, the ordinary ebb and flow of life isinterrupted; and something emerges which resembles the finaleffluence of a work of art that has touched eternity. The rhythmicmovement of the apex-thought, when under such exceptionalconditions it evokes this effluence, rises for a moment out of theflux of nature and gathers itself into a monumental vision, calmand quiet and immortal. It is more difficult for women to attainthis vision than for men; because, while under normal conditionsthe play of their energies is better balanced and more harmoniousthan man's, it is harder for them to detach themselves from the ebband flow of nature's chemistry, harder for them to attain thepersonal isolation which lends itself to the supreme creativeact. But while such exceptional moments seem to come morefrequently to men than to women, and while a greater number ofthe supreme artists and prophets of the world are of the male sex, it cannot be denied that the average woman, in every generation, leads a more human and a more dignified life than the averageman. And she does this because the special labours which occupyher, such as the matter of food, of cleanliness, of the making andmending of clothes, of the care of children and animals andflowers, of the handling of animate and inanimate things with aview to the increase of life and beauty upon the earth, are labourswhich have gathered about them, during their long descent of thecenturies, a certain symbolic and poetic distinction which nothingbut immemorial association with mankind's primal necessities isable to give. 

The same dignity of immemorial association hangs, it is true, about such masculine labours as are connected with the tilling ofthe earth and the sailing of the sea. Certain ancient and eternallynecessary handicrafts, such as cannot be superseded by machinery, take their place with these. But since man's particular power ofseparating himself from Nature and dominating Nature by meansof logical reason, physical science and mechanical devices, putshim in the position of continuity breaking up those usages of theages upon which the ritualistic element in life depends, he hascome, by inevitable evolution, to be much more the child of thenew and the arbitrary than woman is; and in his divorce fromimmemorial necessity has lost much of that symbolic distinctionwhich the life of woman retains. 

It may thus be said that while the determining will in the soul ofthe average woman ought to be directed towards that exceptionalcreative energy which lifts the soul out of the flux of Nature andgives it a glimpse of the vision of the immortals, the determiningwill in the soul of the average man ought to be directed towardsthe heightening of his ordinary consciousness so as to bring this upto the level of the flux of nature and to penetrate it with thememory of the creative moments which he has had. 

In both cases the material with which the will has to work is theemotions of love and of malice; but in the case of man this malicetends to destroy the poetry of common life, while in the case ofwoman it tends to obstruct and embarrass her soul when the magicof the apex-thought stirs within her and an opportunity arises forthat creative act which puts the complex vision in touch with thevision of the Gods. 

The philosophy of the complex vision does not discover in itsexamination of the psycho-material organism of the soul anydifferentiated "faculties" which can be paralleled by thedifferentiated "members" of the human body. The organic unity ofthe soul is retained, in undissipated concentration, throughoutwhatever movement or action or stress of energy it is led to make. The totality of the soul becomes will, or the totality of the soulbecomes reason, or the totality of the soul becomes intuition, inthe same way as a falling body of water, or the projected stream ofa fountain _becomes_ whatever dominant colour of sky or air oratmosphere penetrates it and transforms it. What we have calledemotion, made up of the duality of love and malice, is somethingmuch more integral than this. For the totality of the soul, which_becomes_ reason, consciousness, intuition, conscience, and thelike, is always composed of the very stuff and matter of emotion. When we say "the totality of the soul becomes imagination orintuition" it is the same thing as though we said "the emotion ofthe soul becomes imagination or intuition. "

Emotion is our name, in fact, for the psycho-material "stuff" out ofwhich the organic substratum of the soul is made. And since this"stuff" is eternally divided against itself into a positive and anegative "pole" we are compelled to assert that our ultimateanalysis of the system of things is dualistic, in spite of the factthat the whole drama takes place under the one comprehensive unity ofspace. 

When we say that the totality of the soul becomes will, reason, imagination, conscience, intuition and so forth, we do not meanthat by becoming any one of these single things it is preventedfrom becoming others. We are confronted here by a phenomenonof organic life which, however inexplicable, is of frequentoccurrence in human experience. The ecclesiastical dogma of theTrinity is no fantastic invention of this or the other theologian. Itis an inevitable definition of a certain body of human experience towhich it affords a plausible explanation. 

What the philosophy of the complex vision attempts to do isto analyse into its component parts that confused mass ofcontradictory impressions to which the soul awakens as soon as itbecomes conscious of itself at all. The older philosophers begintheir adventurous journey by the discovery and proclamation ofsome particular clue, or catchword, or general principle, out of therational necessity of whose content they seek to evoke that livingand breathing universe which impinges upon us all. Modernphilosophy tends to reject these Absolute "clues, " thesesimplifying "secrets" of the system of things; but in rejecting theseit either substitutes its own hypothetical generalizations, such as"spirit, " "life-force, " or "cosmic energy, " or it contents itself withnoting, as William James does, the more objective grouping ofstates of consciousness, as they weave their pattern on the face ofthe swirling waters, without regard to any "substantial soul" whosebackground of organic life gives these "states" their concreteunity. 

The philosophy of the complex vision differs from the olderphilosophies in that it frankly and confessedly starts with thatgeneral situation which is also its goal. Its movement is therefore aperpetual setting-forth and a perpetual return; a setting forthtowards a newly created vision of the world, and a return to thatideal of such a vision which has been implicit from the beginning. And this general situation from which it starts and to which itreturns is nothing less than the huge spectacle of the visibleuniverse confronting the individual soul and implying the kindredexistence of innumerable other souls. The fact that what thecomplex vision reveals is the primary importance of personalitydoes not detract in the least degree from the unfathomablemysteriousness of the objective universe And it does not detractfrom this because the unfathomableness of the universe is not arational deduction drawn from the logical idea of what anobjective universe would be like if it existed, but is a direct humanexperience verified at every movement of the soul. The universerevealed to us by the complex vision is a universe compounded ofthe concentrated visions of all the souls that compose it, a universewhich in its eternal beauty and hideousness has received the"imprimatur of the immortal Gods. "

The fact that such a universe is in part a creation of the mind, andin part a discovery made by the mind when it flings itself uponthe unknown, does not lessen or diminish the strangeness orunfathomableness of life. The fact that the ultimate reality of sucha universe is to be found in the psycho-material substratum--wheremind and matter become one--of the individual soul, does notlessen or diminish the magical beauty or cruel terribleness of life. 

What we name by the name of "matter" is not less a permanenthuman experience, because apart from the creative energy of somepersonal soul we are not able to conceive of its existence. 

The philosophy of the complex vision reduces everything thatexists to an eternal action and re-action between the individualsoul and the objective mystery. This action and reaction is itselfreproduced in the eternal duality, or ebb and flow, whichconstitutes the living soul itself. And because the psycho-materialsubstance of the soul must be considered as identical, on itspsychic side, with the "spiritual substance" of the universe"medium" through which all souls come into contact with oneanother, and identical on its material side with the objectivemystery which is expressed in all bodies, it is impossible to avoidthe conclusion that the individual personality is surrounded by anelemental and universal "something" similar to itself, dominatedas itself is dominated by the omnipresent circle of Space. 

This universal "something" must be regarded, in spite of its doublenature, as one and the same, since it is dominated by one andthe same space. The fact that the material aspect of thispsycho-material element is constantly plastic to the creative energy ofthe soul does not reduce it to the level of an "illusion. " The mindrecreates everything it touches; but the mind cannot work in avacuum. There must be something for the mind to "touch. " Whatthe soul touches, therefore, as soon as it becomes conscious ofitself is, in the first place, the "material element" of its own inmostnature; in the second place the "material element" which makes itpossible for all bodies to come in contact with one another; and inthe third place the "material element" which is the originalpotentiality of all universes and which has been named "theobjective mystery. "

To call this universal material element, thus manifested in athree-fold form, an illusion of the human mind is to destroy theintegrity of language. Nothing can justly be called an illusion whichis a permanent and universal human experience. The name we selectfor this experience is of no importance. We can name it _matter_, or we can name it _energy_, or _movement_, or _force_. Theexperience remains the same, by whatever name we indicate it toone another. 

The philosophy of the complex vision opposes itself to allmaterialistic systems by its recognition of personality as theultimate basis of life; and it opposes itself to all idealistic systemsby its recognition of an irreducible "material element" which is theobject of all thought but which is also, in the substratum of thesoul-monad, fused and blended with thought itself. 

We now arrive at the conclusion of our philosophical journey; andwe find it to be the identical point or situation from which weoriginally started. Once and for all we are compelled to askourselves the question, whether since personality is the ultimatesecret of life and since all individual personalities, whether human, sub-human, or super-human, are confronted by one "materialelement" dominated by one universal material space, it is notprobable that this "material element" should itself be, as it were, the "outward body" of one "elemental soul"? Such an elementalsoul would have no connexion with the "Absolute Being" of thegreat metaphysical systems. For in those systems the AbsoluteBeing is essentially impersonal, and can in no sense be regarded ashaving anything corresponding to a body. 

But this hypothetical soul of the ethereal element would be just asdefinitely expressed in a bodily form as are the personalities ofmen, beasts, plants and stars. It is impossible to avoid, now we areat the end of our philosophic journey, one swift glance backwardover the travelled road; and it is impossible to avoid askingourselves the question whether this universal material elementwhich confronts every individual soul and surrounds everyindividual body may not itself be the body of an universal livingpersonality? Is such a question, so presented to us for the last time, as we look back over our long journey, a kind of faint anddespairing gesture made by the phantom of "the idea of God, " or isit the obscure stirring of such an idea, from beneath the weight ofall our argument, as it refuses to remain buried? It seems to memuch more than this. 

The complex vision seems to indicate in this matter that we have aright to make the hypothetical outlines of this thing as clear andemphatic as we can; as clear and emphatic, and also, by a rigidmethod of limitation, as little overstressed and as littleoverpowering as we can. 

The question that presses upon us, therefore, as we glancebackward over our travelled road, is whether or not, by the logic ofour doctrine of personality, we are bound to predicate some sort of"elemental soul" as the indwelling personal monad belonging tothe universal material element even as any other soul belongs to itsbody. 

Does it not, we might ask, seem unthinkable that any portion ofthis universal element should remain suspended in a vacuumwithout the indwelling presence of a definite personality of whichit is the expression? Are we not led to the conclusion that thewhole mass and volume of this material element, namely thematerial element in every living soul, the material element whichbinds all bodies together, and the material element whichcomposes the objective mystery, must make up in its total weightand pressure the _body_, so to speak, of some sort of universalelemental soul?

And because no personality, whether universal or individual, canbe regarded as absolute, since perpetual creation is the essence oflife, must it not follow that this elemental personality must itselfeternally confront and be confronted by an unfathomable depth ofobjective mystery which it perpetually invades with its creativeenergy but which it can never exhaust, or touch the limit of? Thebody of this being would be in fact its own "objective mystery, "while our "objective mystery" would be recognized as disappearingin the same reality. Does this hypothesis reduce the tragedyof life to a negligible quantity, or afford a basis uponwhich any easy optimism could be reared? It does not appear so. Wherever personality existed, there the ultimate duality wouldinevitably reign. And just as with "the invisible companions" whatis evil and malicious in us attracts towards us what is evil andmalicious in them so with the elemental personality, whateverwere evil and malicious in us would attract towards us whateverwere evil and malicious in it. The elemental personality would notnecessarily be better, or nobler, or wiser than we are. There wouldbe no particular reason why we should worship it, or give it praise. For if it really existed it could no more help being what it is thanwe can help being what we are, or the immortal gods can helpbeing what they are. 

That such an elemental personality would have to be regarded as akind of demi-god can hardly be denied; but there would be noreason for asserting that our highest moments of inspiration weredue to its love for us. As with the rest of the "immortals" it wouldbe sometimes possessed by love and sometimes possessed bymalice, and we should have not the least authority for saying thatour supreme moments of insight were due to its inspiration. Sometimes they would be so. On the other hand sometimes ourmost baffled, clouded, inert, moribund, and wretched momentswould be due to its influence. Such an elemental personalitywould have no advantage over any other personality, except in thefact of being elemental; and this would give it no absoluteadvantage, since its universality would be eternally challenged bythe unfathomable element in its own being. The "body" of such anelemental personality would have to be regarded as the actualobjective mystery which confronts both men and gods. It wouldhave to be regarded as possessing a complex vision even as everyother personality possesses it; and its soul-monad would have tobe as concrete, actual, and real, as every other soul monad. Anethereal Being of this kind, whose body were composed of thewhole mass of the material element which binds all bodiestogether, would have no closer connexion with the soul of manthan any other invisible companion. The soul of man could bedrawn to it in love or could be repelled from it by malice, just as itcan be drawn to any other living thing or repelled by any otherliving thing. 

That the human race should have sometimes made the attempt toassociate such an universal personality with the ideal figure ofChrist is natural enough. But such an association wins no sanctionor authority from the revelation of the complex vision. In onesense the figure of Christ, as the life of Jesus reveals it, is a puresymbol. In another sense, as we become aware of his love in thedepths of our own soul, he is the most real and actual of all livingbeings. But neither as a symbol of the immortal vision, nor ashimself an immortal God, have we any right to regard Christ asidentical with this elemental personality. Christ is far moreimportant to us and precious to us than such a being could possiblybe. 

And just as this hypothetical personality, whose body is thematerial element which binds all bodies together, must not beconfused with the figure of Christ, so also it is not to be confusedwith either of those primordial projections of pure reason, workingin isolation, which we have noted as the "synthetic unity ofapperception" and the "universal self, " The elemental personality, if it existed, would be something quite different from the universalself of the logical reason. For the universal self of the logicalreason includes and transcends all the other selves, whereas theelemental personality which has the whole weight of the world'smaterial element as its body could not transcend, or in any way"subsume" the least of individual things except in so far as thematerial element which is its body would surround all living thingsand bring them into contact with one another. 

The elemental personality could in no sense be called anover-soul, because, so far from being an universal self made up ofparticular individual selves, it would be a completely detachedsoul, only related to other souls in the sense that all other soulscome into contact with one another through the medium of itsspiritual substance. 

According to the revelation of the complex vision the question ofthe existence or non-existence of an elemental soul of this kind hasno relation to the problem of human conduct. For the materialelement in the individual soul is fused in individual consciousness;and therefore the spiritual medium which surrounds the individualsoul cannot impinge upon or penetrate the soul which it surrounds. And this conclusion is borne witness to in all manner of commonhuman experience. For although we all feel dimly aware of vastgulfs of spiritual evil and vast gulfs of spiritual beauty in the worldabout us, this knowledge only becomes definite and concrete whenwe think of such gifts as being entirely made up of personalmoods, the moods of mortal men, of immortal gods, and themoods, it may be, of this elemental personality. 

But the problem of conduct is not the problem of getting intoharmony with any particular individual soul. It is the problem ofgetting into harmony with the creative vision in our own soul, which when attained turns out to be identical with the creativevision of every other soul in the universe. The conception of theelemental personality does not depend, as does the existence of theimmortals, upon our consciousness of something objective andeternal in our primordial ideas. It depends upon our suspicion thatno extended mass of what we call matter, however attenuated andethereal, can exist suspended in soulless space. 

Some attenuated form of matter our universe demands, as theuniversal medium by means of which all separate bodies comeinto touch with each other; but it is hard to imagine an universalmedium hung, as it were, in an enormous vacuum. Such a mediumwould seem to demand, as a reason for its existence, some livingcentre of energy such as that which a personal soul can alonesupply. It is in this way we arrive at the hypothetical conception ofthe elemental soul. 

And our hypothesis is borne out by one very curious humanexperience. I mean the experience which certain natures have of ademonic or magnetic force in life which can be drawn upon eitherfor good or for evil, and which seems in some strange sense to bediffused round us in the universal air. Goethe frequently refers tothis demonic element; and others, besides Goethe, have hadexperience of it. If our hypothetical, elemental personality is to beregarded as a sort of demi-god, lower than the immortals andperhaps lower than man, we may associate it with those vagueintimations of a sub-human life around us which seems in someweird sense distinct from the life of any particular thing we know. 

The elemental personality, in this case, would be the cause ofthose various "psychic manifestations" which have sometimesbeen fantastically accounted for as the work of so-called"elementals. "

But the supreme moments of human consciousness, when theapex-thought of the complex vision is shooting its arrows of flameinto the darkness, are but slightly concerned with the demonicsub-human life of hypothetical elemental personalities. They areconcerned with the large, deep, magical spectacle of the greatcosmic drama as it unrolls itself in infinite perspective. They areconcerned with the unfathomable struggle, more terrible, morebeautiful, more real, than anything else in life, between theresistant power of malice and the creative power of love. Nor dothey see, these moments, the end of this long drama. The soulcreates and is baffled in its creations. The soul loves and is baffledin its loving. Good and evil grow strangely mingled as theywrestle in the bottomless abyss. And ever, above us and beneathus, the same immense space spreads out its encircling arms. Andever, out of the invisible, the beckoning of immortal beauty leadsus forward. Pain turns into pleasure; and pleasure turns into pain. Misery, deep as the world, troubles the roots of our being. Happiness, deep as the world, floods us with a flood like thewaves of the ocean. All our philosophy is like the holding up of alittle candle against a great wind. Soon, soon the candle is blownout: and the immense Perhaps rolls its waters above our heads. 

The aboriginal malice against which the Gods struggle is neverovercome. But who can resist asking the question--supposing thatdrama once ended, that eternal duality once reconciled, wouldannihilation be the last word or would something else, somethingundreamed of, something unguessed at, something "impossible, "irrational, contrary to every philosophy that has ever sprung fromthe human brain, take the place of what we call life and substitutesome new organ of research for the vision which we have calledcomplex?

Who can say? The world is still young and the immortal Gods arestill young; and our business at present is with life rather thanbeyond-life. Confused and difficult are the ways of our mortality;and after much philosophizing we seem to be only more consciousthan ever that the secret of the world is in something else thanwisdom. 

The secret of the world is not in something that one can hold inone's hand, or about which one can say "Lo, here!" or "Lo, there!"The secret of the world is in the whole spectacle of the world, seenunder the emotion of one single moment. But the memory of sucha moment may be diffused over all the chances and accidents ofour life and may be restored to us in a thousand faint and shadowyintimations. It may be restored to us in broken glimpses, in littlestirrings and ripples on the face of the water, in rumours andwhispers among the margin-reeds, in sighings of the wind acrossthe sea-bank. It may be restored to us in sudden flickerings ofunearthly light thrown upon common and familiar things. It maybe restored to us when the shadow of death falls upon the path wehave to follow. It may be restored to us when the common ritualand the ordinary usages of life gather to themselves a suddendignity from the presence of great joy or of tragic grief. For thestream of life flows deeper than any among us realize or know;deeper, and with more tragic import; deeper, and with more secrethope. We are all born, even the most lucky among us, under adisastrous eclipse. We all contain something of that perilousingredient which belongs to the unplumbed depths. Deep callsunto deep within us; and in the circle of our mortal personality animmortal drama unrolls itself. Waves of unredeemed chaos rollupward from the abysses of our souls, and like a brackish tidecontend with the water-springs of life. 

Over the landscape of our vision lies a shadow, a rarely liftedshadow, the shadow of our own malice. But the human race hasnot been destined to carry on the unending struggle alone. Itssubjective human vision has touched in the darkness a subjectivesuper-human vision; and the symbol of the encounter of these twois the lonely figure of Christ. 

Looking backward, as we thus reach our conclusion, we see howsuch a conclusion was implicit all the while in the first movementwith which we started. For since the truth we seek is not a thingwe just put out our hand and take, but is a mood, an attitude, agesture of our whole being, it follows that whenever, and bywhatever means, we reach it, this "truth" will always be the same, and will not be affected, when once it is reached, by the slownessor the speed of the method with which we approach it. Nor will itbe changed or transformed by the vision that finally grasps it as itwould necessarily be if it were an objective fact which we couldeach of us take into our hands. Such an objective fact or series offacts would, of necessity, "look differently" to every individualvision that seized upon it. But by making our truth, down to thevery depths, a gesture, an attitude, a mood, we have alreadyanticipated and discounted that fatal relativity which inserts itselflike a wedge of distorting vapour, between any objective fact andany subjective mind. 

"Truth" cannot get blurred and distorted by the subjective mindwhen truth is regarded as that subjective mind's own creation. According to the conclusion we have reached, every subjectivemind in the universe, when it is rhythmically energizing, attainsthe same truth. For when subjectivity is carried to the furthestpossible limit of rhythm and harmony, it transforms itself, ofnecessity, into objectivity. The subjective vision of all mortalminds, thus rendered objective by the intensity of the creativeenergy, is nothing less than the eternal vision. For as soon as therhythmic harmony of the creative act has thus projected such atruth, such a truth receives the "imprimatur of the Gods" and turnsout to be the truth which was implicit in us from the beginning. 

Thus, the reality which we apprehend is found to be identical withthe pursuit of the ideal which we seek; for what we name beautyand truth and goodness are of the essence of the mystery of life, and it is of _their_ essence that they should ever advance andgrow. 

The eternal vision includes in its own inmost rhythm the idea andspectacle of inexhaustible growth; for, although it beholds allthings "under the form of eternity, " its own nature is the nature ofa creative gesture, of a supreme "work of art, " whereby itapproximates to the ideal even in the midst of the real. The "formof eternity" under which it visualizes the world is not a dead orstatic eternity but an eternity of living growth. The peace and quietwhich it attains is not the peace and quiet of the equilibrium whichmeans "nothingness" but the peace and quiet of the equilibriumwhich means the rhythmic movement of life. The truth which itcreates is a truth which lends itself to infinite development uponlines already laid down from the beginning. The beauty which itcreates is a beauty which lends itself to infinite development uponlines laid down from the beginning. 

And this truth, this beauty, this goodness, are all of them nothingless than the projection of the soul itself--of all the souls whichconstitute the system of things--in the mysterious outflowing ofthe ultimate duality. And when we make use of the expression"from the beginning" we are using a mere metaphorical sign-post. There is no beginning of the system of things and there is no end. "From the beginning" means nothing except "from eternity"; andin the immortal figure of Christ the beginning and the end are one. 

In my analysis of the ultimate duality which is the secret of the soulI have said little about sex. The modern tendency is to over-emphasizethe importance of this thing and to seek its influence inregions it can never enter. Many attributes of the soul are sexless;and since only one attribute of the soul, namely sensation, isentirely devoted to the body and unable to function except throughthe body, it is ridiculous and unphilosophical to make sex theprofoundest aspect of truth which we know. The tendency to laystress upon sex, at the expense of all sexless aspects of the soul, isa tendency which springs directly from the inert malice of theabyss What the instinct of sex secretly desires is that the veryfountains of life should be invaded by sex and penetrated by sex. But the fountains of life can never be invaded by sex; because thefountains of life sink into that eternal vision which transcends allsex and reduces sex to its proper place as one single element in therhythm of the universe. 

It is only by associating itself with love and malice--it is only bygetting itself transformed into love and malice that the sexualinstinct is able to lift itself up, or to sink itself down, into thesubtler levels of the soul's vision. The secret of life lies far deeperthan the obvious bodily phenomena of sex. The fountains fromwhich life springs _may flow through that channel_ but they flowfrom a depth far below these physical or magnetic agitations. Andit is only the abysmal cunning of the inert malice, which opposesitself to creation that tempts philosophers and artists to lay such adisproportionate stress upon this thing. The great artists are alwaysknown by their power to transcend sex and to reduce sex to itsrelative insignificance. In the greatest of all sculpture, in thegreatest of all music, in the greatest of all poetry, the differencebetween the sexes disappears. 

The inert malice delights to emphasize this thing, because itsnormal functioning implies the most desperate exertion of thepossessive instinct known to humanity. The sexual instinct unlesstransfigured by love, tends towards death; because the sexualinstinct desires to petrify into everlasting immobility what thecreative instinct would change and transform. What the sexualinstinct secretly desires is the eternal death of the object of itspassion. It would strike its victim if it could into everlastingimmobility so that it could satiate its lust of possession upon itwithout limit and without end. Any object of sexual desire, untransformed by love, is, for the purposes of such desire, alreadyturned into a living corpse. 

But although, according to the method we have been following, the difference between men and women is but of small account inthe real life of the soul, it remains that humanity has absurdly andoutrageously neglected the especial vision of the woman, as, in herbodily senses and her magnetic instincts, she differs from man wemay well hope that with the economic independence of women, which is so great and desirable a revolution in our age, individualwomen of genius will arise, able to present, in philosophy and art, the peculiar and especial reaction to the universe which womenpossess as women we may well desire such a consummation inview of the fact that all except the very greatest of men havepermitted their vision of the world to be perverted and distorted bytheir sex-instinct. 

Could women of genius arise in sufficient numbers to counteractthis tendency, such sex-obsessed masculine artists would beshamed into recognizing the narrowness of their pervertedoutlook. As it is, what normal women of talent do is simply tocopy and imitate, in a diluted form, the sex-distortions of man'snarrower vision. Sex-obsessed male artists have seduced thenatural intelligence of the most talented women to their ownnarrow and limited view of life. 

But it still remains that what the true artists of the world for everseek--whether they be male or female--is not the partial anddistorted vision of man as _a man_, or of woman _as a woman_, but the rhythmic and harmonious vision of, the human soul as itallies itself with the vision of the immortals. Women in privatelife, and in private conversation, disentangle themselves from theprejudices of men, but, as soon as they touch philosophy and art, they tend to deny their natural instincts and imitate thesex-obsessed instincts of man. But this tendency is already beginningto collapse under the freer atmosphere of economic independence;and in the future we may expect such a fierce conflict between thesex-vision of woman and the sex-vision of man, that the humansoul will revolt against both such partialities and seek the "amplerether and diviner air" of a vision that has altogether transcendedthe difference of sex. 

As we look back over the travelled road of our attempt toarticulate the ultimate secret, there arises one last stupendousquestion, not to meet which would be to shirk the heaviest weightof the problem. We have reached the conclusion that the secret ofNature is to be found in personality. We have reached the furtherconclusion that personality demands, for the integrity of its inmostself, an actual "soul-monad. " We are faced with a "universe, " then, made up entirely of living souls, manifested in so-called animate, or so-called inanimate bodies. Everything that our individual mindapprehends is therefore the body of a soul, or a portion of the bodyof a soul, or the presence of a soul that needs no incarnation. Thesoul itself is composed of a mysterious substance wherein what wecall mind and what we call matter are fused and merged. What Ihave named throughout this book by the name of the _objectivemystery_ is therefore, when we come to realize the uttermostimplications of our method, nothing more than the appearance ofall the bodies of all the souls in the world _before_ the creative actof our own particular soul has visualized such a spectacle. We cannever see the objective mystery as _it is_, because directly wehave seen it, that is to say, the appearance of all the adjacentbodies of all the souls within our reach, it ceases to be theobjective mystery and becomes the universe we know. 

The objective mystery is therefore no real thing at all, but only thepotentiality of all real things, before the "real thing" which is ourindividual soul comes upon the scene to create the universe. It isonly the potentiality of the "universe" which we have thus named, only the idea of the general spectacle of such an universe, _before_ any universe has actually appeared. 

And since the final conclusion of our attempt at articulation shouldrigorously eliminate from our picture everything that is relativelyunreal, in favour of what is relatively real, it becomes necessary, now at the end, to eliminate from our vision of reality anysubstantial basis for this, "potentiality of all universes, " and tosee how our actual universe appears when this thing has beenwithdrawn as nothing but an unreal thing. The substantial basis forwhat we actually see becomes therefore no mere potentialuniverse, or objective mystery, but something much more definitethan either of these. The spectacle of Nature, as we behold it, becomes nothing else than the spectacle of all the living bodiesthat compose the universe, each one of them with its correspondinginvisible soul-monad. 

The movement of thought to which I have throughout this bookgiven the name of "the struggle with the objective mystery"remains the same. In these cases, _names_ are of small account. But since it is a movement of thought which itself culminates inthe elimination of the "objective mystery, " it becomes necessary to"think through" the stage of thought which this term covered, andarticulate the actual cause of this movement of the mind. 

The cause of the spectacle of the universe, as it presents itself to usin its manifold variety, is the presence of innumerable visiblebodies which are themselves the manifestation of innumerableinvisible souls. Everything that we see and touch and taste andsmell and hear is a portion of some material body, which is theexpression of some spiritual soul. 

The universe is an immense congeries of bodies, moved andsustained by an immense congeries of souls. But it remains thatthese souls, inhabiting these bodies, are linked together bysome mysterious medium which makes it possible for them tocommunicate with one another. What is this mysterious medium?What we have already indicated, here and there in this book, leadsus at this point to our natural conclusion. Such a medium may wellbe nothing less than that elemental soul, with the universal ether asits bodily expression, the existence of which we have alreadysuggested as a more than probable hypothesis. If the omnipresentbody of this elemental soul is the material atmosphere or mediumwhich unites all material bodies, surely we are justified inassuming that the invisible primordial medium which binds allsouls together, which hypothetically binds them together even_before_ they have, by the interaction of their different visions, created the universe, is this universal "soul of the elements. " Onlya spiritual substance is able to unite spiritual substances. And onlya material substance is able to unite material substances. Thus weare justified in assuming that while the medium which unites allbodies is the universal body of the elemental soul, the mediumwhich unites all souls is the omnipresent soul-monad of thiselemental being. It must however be remembered that this unitingdoes not imply any sort of spiritual _including_ or subsuming ofthe souls thus united. They communicate with one another bymeans of this medium; but the integrity of the medium whichunites them does not impinge at any point upon their integrity. 

Thus, at the end of our journey, we are able, by this final processof drastic elimination, to reduce the world in which we live to acongeries of living souls. Some of these souls possess what wename animate bodies, others possess what we name inanimatebodies. For us, these words, animate and inanimate, convey butslight difference in meaning. Between a stone, which is part of thebody of the earth, and a leaf which is part of the body of a plant, and a lock of hair which is part of the body of a man, there may becertain unimportant chemical differences, justifying us in using theterms animate and inanimate. But the essential fact remains that allwe see and taste and touch and smell and hear, all, in fact, thatmakes up the objective universe which surrounds us, is a portionof some sort of living body, corresponding to some sort of livingsoul. 

Our individual soul-monad, then, able to communicate with othersoul-monads, whether mortal or immortal, through the medium ofomnipresent soul-monads of the universal ether finds itselfdominated, as all the rest are dominated, by one inescapable circleof unfathomable space. Under the curve of this space we all of uslive, and under the curve of this space those that are mortal amongus, die. When we die, if it be our destiny not to survive death, oursouls vanish into nothingness; and our bodies become a portion ofthe body of the earth. But if we have entered into the eternal visionwe have lost all fear of death; for we have come to see that thething which is most precious to us, the fact that love remainsundying in the heart of the universe, does not vanish with ourvanishing. Once having attained, by means of the creative visionof humanity and by means of the grace of the immortals, even afaint glimpse into this mystery, we are no longer inclined to laythe credit of our philosophizing upon the creative spirit in ourindividual soul. The apex-thought of the complex vision has givenus our illuminated moments. But the eternal vision to which thosemoments led us has filled us with an immense humility. 

And in the last resort, when we turn round upon the amazingspectacle of life it is of the free gift of the gods, or of the magicallove hidden in the mystery of nature, that we are led to think, rather than of any creative activity in ourselves. The word"creative" like the word "objective mystery, " has served ourpurpose well in the preceding pages. But now, as we seek tosimplify our conclusion to the uttermost, it becomes necessary toreject much of the manifold connotation which hangs about thisword; although in this case also, the stage of thought which itcovers is a real movement of the mind. 

But the creative activity in the apex-thought of our complex visionis, after all, only a means, a method, a gesture which puts us intopossession of the eternal vision. When once the eternal vision hasbeen ours, the memory of it does not associate itself withany energy of our own. The memory of these eternal momentsassociates itself with a mood in which the creative energy restsupon its own equipoise, upon its own rhythm; a mood in which thespectacle of the universe, the magic of Nature, the love in allliving souls, the contact of mortality with immortality, becomethings which blend themselves together; a mood in which what ismost self-assertive in our personality seems to lose itself in what isleast self-assertive, and yet in thus losing itself is not renderedutterly void. 

For all action, even the ultimate act of faith, must issue incontemplation; and this is the law of life, that what wecontemplate, _that_ we become. He who contemplates malicebecomes malicious. He who contemplates hideousness becomeshideous. He who contemplates unreality becomes unreal. 

If the universe is nothing but a congeries of souls and bodies, united by the soul and the body which fill universal space, then itfollows that "the art of philosophy" consists in the attempt to attainthe sort of "contemplation" which can by the power of its loveenter into the joy and the suffering of all these living things. 

Thus in reaching a conclusion which tallies with our rarestmoments of super-normal insight we discover that we havereached a conclusion which tallies with our moments of profoundestself-abasement. In these recurrent moods of humiliationit seems ridiculous to speak of the creative or the destructiveenergy of the mind. What presents itself to us in such moodsis a world of forms and shapes that we can neither modifynor obliterate. All we can do is to reflect their impact upon us andto note the pleasure of it or the pain. But when even in the depthsof our weakness we come to recognize that these forms and shapesare, all of them, the bodily expressions of souls resembling ourown, the nostalgia of the great darkness is perceptibly lifted and astrange hope is born, full of a significance which cannot be putinto words. The world-stuff, or the objective mystery, out of whichthe eternal vision has been created is now seen to be the very fleshand blood of a vast company of living organisms; and it hasbecome impossible to contemplate anything in the world withoutthe emotion of malice or the emotion of love. If ever the universe, as we know it now, is dissolved into nothingness, such an end ofthings will be brought about either by the complete victory ofmalice or by the complete victory of love. 

THE END