Introductory material (continued 3)

This philosophical tendency to create an artificial world which when confronted with the real world appears strange and remote is due to the fact that philosophers, instead of using as their instrument of research the entire complex vision, use first one and then another of its isolated attributes. But there must come moments when, in the analysis of so intricate and elaborate a thing as "reality" by means of so intricate and elaborate an instrument, as the complex vision, the most genuine and the least artificial of philosophies must appear to be following a devious and serpentine path.

These moments of difficulty and obscurity are not, however—as long as such a philosophy attaches itself closely to "reality" and flows round "reality" like a tide flowing round submerged rocks or liquid metal flowing round the cavities of a mould—a sign that philosophy has deserted reality, but only a sign that the curves and contours and jagged edges of reality are so intricate and involved that only a very fluid element can follow their complicated shape. But these moments of difficulty and obscurity, these vague and impalpable links in the chain, are only to be found in the process by which we arrive at our conclusion. When our conclusion has been once reached it becomes suddenly manifest to us that it has been there, with us, all the while, implicit in our whole argument, the secret and hidden cause why the argument took the form it did rather than any other. The test of any philosophy is not that it should appeal immediately and directly to what is called "common-sense," for common-sense is no better than a crude and premature synthesis of superficial experiences; a synthesis from which the supreme and culminating experiences of a person's life have been excluded. For in our supreme and culminating experiences there is always an element of what might be called the "impossible" or of what must be recognized as a matter of faith or imagination. It is therefore quite to be expected that the conclusions of a philosophy like the philosophy of the complex vision, which derives its authority from the exceptional and supreme experiences of all souls, should strike us in our moments of "practical common-sense" as foolish, impossible, ridiculous and even insane. All desperate and formidable efforts towards creation have struck and will strike the mood of "practical common-sense" as ridiculous and insane. This is true of every creative idea that has ever emanated from the soul of man.

For the mood of "practical common-sense" is a projection of the baser instinct of self-preservation and is penetrated through and through with that power of inert malice which itself might be called the instinct of self-preservation of the enemy of life. "Practical common-sense" is the name we give to that superficial synthesis of our baser self-preservative instincts, which, when it is reinforced and inspired by "the will of malice" out of the evil depths of the soul, is the most deadly of all antagonists of new life.

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

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

Who is not able to recall the distress of bitter disillusionment which has followed the collapse of some plausible system of "sweet reasonableness" under the granite-like impact of a rock of reality which has knocked the bottom out of it and left it a derelict upon the waves? This collapse of an ordered and reasonable system under the impact of some atrocious projection of "crass casuality" 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 and unfathomable, something that can destroy as well as create, it is not of much avail against the winds and storms of destiny.

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

The truth of a philosophy is not to be tested by what we feel about it in moods of practical common-sense; for in these moods we have, for some superficial reason, suppressed more than half of the attributes of our soul. The truth of a philosophy can only be tested in those moments when the soul, driven to the wall, gathers itself together for one supreme effort. But there is, even in less stark and drastic hours, an available test of a sound and organic philosophy which must not be forgotten. I refer to its capacity for being vividly and emphatically summed up and embodied in some concrete image or symbol.

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

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

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

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

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

The revelation of life, offered to us by the complex vision, is, as we have seen, no very simple or logical affair. We axe left with the spectacle of innumerable "souls," human, sub-human and super-human, held together by some indefinable "medium" which enables 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 its own.

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

We are left, then, with the spectacle of innumerable souls confronting a "universe" which in their interaction with one another they have half-created and half-discovered. There is no escape from the implication of this phrase "half-discovered." The creative activity of the complex vision perpetually modifies, clarifies and moulds the mystery which surrounds it; but that there is an objective mystery surrounding it, of which time and space are permanent 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 abstraction which leads us out of the sphere of reality; because, in its resultant conception, it omits the activity of the other attributes of the complex vision.

The complex vision reveals to us, therefore, three aspects of objective mystery. It reveals to us in the first place the presence of an objective "something" outside the soul, which the soul by its various 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 presence of an indefinable objective "something" which is the medium that makes possible the communion of one soul with another and with "the invisible companions."

This is the medium which holds all these separate personalities together while each of them half-creates and half-discovers his own "universe."

In the third place it reveals to us the presence, in each individual soul, of a sort of "substratum of the soul" or something beyond analysis which is the "vanishing point of sensation" and the vortex-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 by the united activities of the complex vision, we are compelled, as has been shown, to use the vague and obscure word "something." We are compelled to apply this unilluminating and tantalizing word to all these three aspects of "objective mystery," because no other word really covers the complex vision's actual experience.

The soul recognizes that there is "something" outside itself which is 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, it inevitably moulds it and recreates it. There is not one minutest division of time between this "discovery" and this "creation"; so all that one can say is that the resultant objective "universe" is half-created and half-discovered; and that whatever this mysterious "something" may be, apart from the complex vision, it at any rate has the peculiarity of being forced to submit to the complex vision's creative energy.

But not only are we compelled to apply the provoking and unilluminating word "something" to each of these three aspects of objective mystery which the complex vision reveals; we are also compelled to assume that each one of these is dominated by time and space.

This implication of "time and space" is necessitated in a different way in each of these three aspects of what was formerly called "matter." In the first aspect of the thing we have time and space as essential characteristics of all the various "universes," reduced by an 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 essential characteristics of that indefinable "medium" which holds all these souls together, and which by holding them together makes it easier to regard their separate "universes" as "one universe," since they find their ground or base in one universal "medium."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No isolated speculation of the logical reason, functioning apart from the other attributes of the complex vision, can undermine this supreme unity of time and space. The "a priori unity of apperception" is an unreality compared with this reality. The all-embracing cosmic "monad," contemplating itself as its eternal object, is an unreality compared with this reality.

We are left with a pluralistic world of individual souls, finding their 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 which like themselves is for ever divided against itself in an eternal and unfathomable duality.

The ultimate truth of the system of things according to the revelation of the complex vision is thus found to consist in the mystery of personality confronting "something" which seems impersonal. Over both these things, over the personal soul and over the primordial "clay" or "energy" or "movement" or "matter" out of which the personal soul creates its "universe," time and space are dominant. But since we can predicate nothing of this original "plasticity" except that it is "plastic" and that time and space rule over it, it is in a strict sense illegitimate to say that this primordial "clay" or "world stuff" is in itself divided into a duality. We know nothing, and can never know anything about it, beyond the bare fact of its existence. Its duality comes from the duality in us. It is we who create the contradiction upon which its life depends. 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 the ultimate duality in all living souls and in the souls of "the sons of the universe." But although it is we ourselves who in the primal act of envisaging the world endow it with this duality, it would be an untrue statement to say that this duality in the material universe is an "illusion." It is no more an illusion than the objective material world itself is an illusion. Both are created by the inter-action between the mystery of personality and the mystery of what seems the impersonal. Thus it remains perfectly true that what we sometimes call "brute matter" possesses an element of malignant inertness and malicious resistance to the power of creation. This malice of the impersonal, this malignant inertness of "matter," is an ultimate fact; and is not less a fact because it depends upon the existence of the same malice and the same inert resistance in our own souls.

Nor are we able to escape from the conclusion that this malignant element in the indefinable "world-stuff" exists independently of any human soul. It must be thought of as dependent upon the same duality in the souls of "the sons of the universe" as that which exists in the souls of men. For although the primordial ideas of truth and nobility and beauty, brought together by the emotion of love, are realized in the "gods" with an incredible and immortal intensity, yet the souls of the "gods" could not be souls at all if they were not subject to the same duality as that which struggles within ourselves.

It follows from this that we are forced to recognize the presence of a potentiality of evil or malice in the souls of "the sons of the universe." But although we cannot escape from the conclusion that evil or malice exists in the souls of the immortals as in all human souls, yet in their souls this evil or malice must be regarded as perpetually overcome by the energy of the power of love. This overcoming 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 as a thing once for all accomplished, but as a thing eternally re-attained as the result of an unceasing struggle, a struggle so desperate, so passionate and so unfathomable, that it surpasses all effort of the mind to realize or comprehend it.

It must not, moreover, be forgotten that what the complex vision reveals about this eternal struggle between love and malice in the souls of "the sons of the universe" and in the souls of all living things, is not that love and malice are vague independent elemental "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 struggle between them is nothing less than the intrinsic nature of the soul. The soul is unthinkable without this unfathomable struggle in its inherent being between love and malice or between life and what resists life. We are therefore justified in saying that "the universe" is created by the perpetual struggle between love and malice or between life and what resists life. But when we say this we must remember that this is only true because "the universe" is half-discovered and half-created by the souls of "the sons of the universe" and by the souls of all living things which fill the universe. This unfathomable duality which perpetually re-creates Nature, does not exist in Nature apart from living things, although it 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 and planetary bodies and the chemical medium, whatever it may be, which unites them, must be regarded as sharing, in some inscrutable way, in this unfathomable struggle. We are unable to escape from this conception of them, as thus sharing in this struggle, because they are themselves the creation and discovery of 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 regarded as sharing in a still more intimate sense in this unfathomable struggle. This conception has a double element of truth. For not only do these things depend for their form and shape and reality upon the complex vision of the soul which contemplates them; but they 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 unfathomable struggle, between life and what resists life, we cannot escape from the conclusion that the souls of plants and birds and animals and all other living things are inextricably made up of the stuff of the same unfathomable struggle. For where there is life there must be a soul possessed of life. Life, apart from some soul possessed with life, is an abstraction of the logical reason and a phantom of no more 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, is nothing less than an innumerable company of personalities confronting an objective mystery; and while we are driven to regard the "inanimate," such as earth and air and water and fire, as the bodily expressions of certain living souls, so are we much more forcibly driven to regard the "animate," wherever it is found, as implying the existence of some measure of personality and some degree of consciousness.

Life, apart from a soul possessing life, is not life at all. It is an abstraction of the logical reason which we cannot appropriate to our instinct or imagination. A vague phrase, like the phrase "life-force," conveys to us whose medium of research is the complex vision, 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 a legitimate symbolic image.

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

Any individual personal soul is concrete and intelligible. The personal souls of "the sons of the universe" are concrete and intelligible. But the "over-soul" and the "life-force" are neither concrete nor intelligible and therefore cannot be regarded as legitimate symbols. One of the most important aspects of the method of philosophical enquiry which the philosophy of the complex vision adopts is this use of legitimate symbolic images in place of illegitimate metaphorical images.

This use of concrete, tangible, intelligible images is a thing which has to pay its price. And the price which it has to pay is the price of appearing childish, absurd and ridiculous to the type of mind which advocates the exclusive use of the logical reason as the sole instrument of philosophical research. This price of appearing naive, childish and ridiculous has to be paid shamelessly and in full.

The type of mind which exacts this price, which demands in fact that the concrete intelligible symbols of the philosophy of the complex vision should be regarded as childish and ridiculous, is precisely the type of mind for whom "truth" is a smoothly evolutionary affair, an affair of steady "progress," and for whom, therefore, the mere fact of an idea being "a modern idea" implies that it is "true" and the mere fact of an idea being a classical idea or a mediaeval idea implies that it is crude and inadequate if not completely "false."

To the philosophy of the complex vision "truth" does not present itself as an affair of smooth and steady historical evolution but as something quite different from this—as a work of art, in fact, dependent upon the struggle of the individual soul with itself, and upon the struggle of "the souls of the sons of the universe" with themselves. And although the struggle of the souls of "the sons of the universe" towards a fuller clarifying of the mystery of life must be regarded as having its concrete tangible history in time and space, yet this history is not at all synonymous with what is usually called "progress."

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

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

All real symbols are "true," wherever and whenever they are invoked, because all real symbols are the expression of that rare unity of the complex vision which is man's deepest approximation to the mystery of life. The symbol of the cross, for instance, has far more truth in it than any vague metaphorical expression such as the "over-soul." The symbolic ritual of the Mass, for instance, has far more truth in it than any metaphorical expression such as the "life-force." And although both the Cross and the Mass are inadequate and imperfect symbols with regard to the vision of "the sons of the universe," because they are associated with the idea of an historic incarnation, yet in comparison with any modern rationalistic or chemical metaphor they are supremely true.

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

In completing this general picture of the starting point of the philosophy of the complex vision there is one further implication which ought to be brought fully into the light. I refer to a doctrine which certain ancient and mediaeval thinkers adopted, and which must always be constantly re-appearing in human thought because it is an inevitable projection of the human conscience when the human conscience functions in isolation and in disregard of the other 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 eternal heresy of puritanism—this objective mystery, this world-stuff, this eternal "energy" or "movement," this "flesh and blood" through which the soul expresses itself and of which the physical body is made, 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 "the spirit" which is entirely good and "the flesh" which is entirely evil. To the philosophy of the complex vision this doctrine appears false and misleading. It detects in this doctrine, as I have hinted, an attempt of the conscience to arrogate to itself the whole field of experience and to negate all the other attributes, especially emotion and the aesthetic sense.

Such a doctrine negates the whole activity of the complex vision because it assumes the independent existence of "flesh and blood" as opposed to "mind." But "flesh and blood" is a thing which has no 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 requires the existence of "the body" or of "flesh and blood" or of what we call "matter," and cannot exert its activity without the reality of this thing.

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

This doctrine of the evil nature of "matter" is obviously a perversion of what the complex vision reveals to us about the eternal duality. According to this doctrine, which I call the puritan heresy, the duality resolves itself into a struggle between the spirit and the flesh. But according to the revelation of the complex vision the true duality is quite different from this. In the true duality 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. For since the true duality lies in the depths of the soul itself, what we call "spirit" must very often be evil. According to the revelation of the complex vision, evil or malice is a positive force, of malignant inertness, resisting the power of creation or of love. It is, as we have seen, the primordial or chaotic weight which opposes itself to life.

But "flesh and blood" or any other definite form of "matter" has already in large measure submitted to the energy of creation and is therefore both "good" and "evil." That original shapeless "clay" or "objective mystery" out of which the complex vision creates the universe certainly cannot be regarded as "evil," for we can never know anything at all about it except that it exists and that it lends itself to the creative energy of the complex vision. And in so far as it lends itself to the creative energy of the complex vision it certainly cannot be regarded as entirely evil, but must obviously be both good and evil; even as the complex vision itself, being the vision of the soul, is both good and evil.

According to the philosophy of the complex vision then, what we call "mind" is both good and evil and what we call "matter" being intimately dependent upon "mind" is both good and evil. We are forced, therefore, to recognize the existence of both spiritual "evil" and spiritual "good" in the unfathomable depths of the soul. But just because personality is itself a relative triumph of good over evil it is possible to conceive of the existence of a personality in whom evil is perpetually overcome by good, while it is impossible to conceive of a personality in whom good is perpetually overcome by evil.

In other words, all personalities are relatively good; and some personalities namely those of "the immortals" are, as far as we are concerned, absolutely good. All personalities including even the personalities of "the immortals" have evil in them, but no personality 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 the nature of the ultimate duality and the necessity of finding a clear and definite symbol for it.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ULTIMATE IDEAS

It now becomes necessary to consider in greater detail those primary human conceptions of truth, beauty, and goodness, which I have already referred to as the soul's "ultimate ideas." Let no one think that any magical waving of the wand of modern psychology can explain away these universal human experience. They may be named by different appellations; but considering the enormous weight of historical tradition behind these names it would seem absurd and pedantic to attempt to re-baptize them at this late hour.

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

It seems advisable also to advance with scrupulous leisureliness in this formidable matter and at certain intervals to turn round as it were, and survey the path by which we have come. The existence of super-human beings, immeasurably superior to man, is in itself a harmless and natural speculation. It is only when it presents itself as a necessary link in philosophical discussion that it appears startling. And the mere fact that it does appear startling when introduced into philosophy shows how, lamentably philosophy has got itself imprisoned in dull, mechanical, mathematical formulae; in formulae so arid and so divorced from life, that the conception of personality, applied to man or to the gods, seems to us as exciting as an incredible fairy story when brought into relation with them.

As the souls of men, then, each with its own complex vision, move side by side along the way, or across one another's path, they are driven by the necessity of things to exchange impressions with regard to the nature of life. In their communications with one another they become aware of the presence, at the back of their consciousness, of an invisible standard of truth, of beauty, of goodness. It is from this standard of beauty and truth and goodness, from this dream, this vision, this hope, that all these souls seem to themselves to draw their motive of movement. But though they seem to themselves to be "moving" into an indetermined future still to be created by their wills, they also seem to themselves to be "returning" towards the discovery of that invisible standard of beauty, truth and goodness, which has as their motive-impulse been with them from the beginning. This implicit standard, this invisible pattern and test and arbitrament of all philosophizing, is what I call "the vision of the immortals." Some minds, both philosophical and religious, seem driven to think of this invisible pattern, this standard of truth and beauty, as the parent of the universe rather than as its offspring. I cannot bring myself to take this view because of the fact that the ultimate revelation of the world as presented, to man's complex vision is essential and unfathomably dualistic.

A "parent" of the universe can only be thought of as a stopping-place of all thought. He can only be imagined—for strictly speaking he cannot be thought of at all—as some unutterable mystery out of which the universe originally sprang. From this unutterable mystery, to which we have no right to attribute either a monistic or a pluralistic character, we may, I suppose, imagine to emerge 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 complex vision 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 nor revolt against it. It is only imaginable in the illegitimate sense of metaphor and analogy. It is simply the stopping-place of the complex vision; that stopping-place beyond which anything is possible and nothing is thinkable.

This thing, which is at once everything and nothing, this thing which is no thing but only the unutterable limit where all things pass beyond thought, cannot be accepted by the complex vision as the parent of the universe. The universe has therefore no parent, no origin, no cause, no creator. Eternally it re-creates itself and eternally it divides itself into that ultimate duality which makes creation possible.

That monistic tendency of human thought, which is itself a necessary projection of the monistic reality of the individual soul, cannot, except by an arbitrary act of faith, resolve this ultimate duality into unity. Such a primordial "act of faith" it can and must make with regard to the objective reality of other souls. But such an "act of faith" is not demanded with regard to the unutterable mystery behind the universe. We have not, strictly speaking, even the right to use the expression "an unutterable mystery." All we have a right to do is just to titter the final judgment—"beyond this limit neither thought nor imagination can pass."

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

Humanity has a right to indulge in that peculiar emotional attitude which is called "worship" towards either side of the ultimate duality. It has a right to worship, if it pleases—though to do so several attitudes of the complex vision must be outraged and suppressed—the resistant power of malice. It has even a right to worship the universe, that turbulent arena of these primal antagonists. What it has no right to worship is the "unutterable mystery" behind the universe; for the simple reason that the universe is unfathomable.

Human thought has its stopping-place. The universe is unfathomable. Human thought has a definite limit. The universe has no limit. The universe is "unutterably mysterious"; and so also is the human soul; but as far as the soul's complex vision is concerned there can be no reality "behind the appearances of things" 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 to certain basic attributes, would be refuted and negated.

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

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

The most dangerous mistake we can make, and the most deadly in its implications, is to reduce these "companions of men" to a monistic 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 our individual conceptions of these ideas the vision of the immortals may be thought of as embodying them absolutely. But in itself it certainly does not embody them absolutely; otherwise the whole movement of life would end. It is unthinkable that it should ever embody them absolutely. For it is in the inherent nature of such a vision that it should be growing, living, inexhaustible. The most withering and deadly of all conceivable dogmas is the dogma that there is such a thing as absolute truth, absolute beauty, absolute good and absolute love.

The attraction of such a dogma for the mind of man is undoubtedly due to the spirit of evil or of malice. For nothing offers a more frozen resistance to the creative power than such a faith. Compared with our human visions of these ideas the vision of these "companions of men" must be thought of as relatively complete. And complete it is, with regard to its general synthesis and orientation. But it is not really complete; and can never be so. For when we consider the nature of love alone, it becomes ridiculous to speak of an absolute or complete love. If the love of these "companions of men" became at any moment incapable of a deeper and wider manifestation, at that very moment the whole stream of life would cease, the malice of the adversary would prevail, and nothingness would swallow up the universe. It is because we are compelled to regard the complex vision, including all its basic attributes, as the vision of a personal soul, that it is a false and misleading conception to view these "companions of men" as a mere ideal.

An ideal is nothing if not expressed in personality. Subjectively every ideal is the ideal of "some one," an ideal of a conscious, personal, and living entity. Objectively every ideal must be embodied in "some one": and must be a standard, a measure, a rhythm, of various energies synthesized in a living soul. This is really the crux of the whole matter. Vaguely and obscurely do we all feel the pressure of these deep and secret impulses. Profoundly do we feel that these mysterious "ideas," which give life its dramatic intensity, are part of the depths of our own soul and part of the depths of the souls of the immortals. And yet though they are so essentially part of us and part of the universe, they remain vague, obscure, contradictory, confused, inchoate; only gradually assuming coherent substance and form as the "rapport" between man and his invisible companions grows clearer and clearer.

We are confronted at this point by one of the most difficult of all dilemmas. If by reason of the fact that we are driven to regard personality as the most real thing in the universe we are compelled toward the act of faith which recognizes one side of the eternal duality of things as embodied in actual living souls, how is it that we are not equally compelled to a similar act of faith in relation to the other side of this duality? In simpler words, how is it that while we are compelled to an act of faith with regard to the existence of powers which embody the spirit of love, we are not compelled to an act of faith with regard to the existence of powers which embody 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 personalities we have no right to regard the ideas of falseness, hideousness, evil and malice, as objectively embodied in living personalities? To answer this question it is necessary to define more clearly the essential duality which we discover as the secret of the universe.

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

The other side of the eternal duality is not a destructive force, but a resistant force. That is why it is necessary to define the opposite of love, not as hate—but as malice, which is a resistant thing. Thus it becomes clear why it is that we are not driven by the necessity of the situation to any act of faith with regard to the existence of living souls which embody evil and malice. We are not compelled towards this act of faith because the nature of the "other side" of the eternal duality is such that it cannot be embodied, in any complete or objective way, in a living personality. It can and it does appear in every personality that has ever existed. We are compelled to assume that it exists, though in a state of suppression, 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 of truth, beauty, and goodness would be absolute in them, and the life of the universe would cease.

For the nature of this eternal duality is such that the life of the universe depends upon this unending struggle between what creates and what resists creation. The power that creates must be regarded as embodied in personality, for creation always implies personality. But the power that resists creation—though present in every living soul—cannot be embodied in personality because personality 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 attributes implies this fundamental duality; being resolvable into a choice between hideousness, falsehood, evil, malice, and the opposites of these. But the soul itself, being a living and personal thing, can never, however deeply it plunges into evil, become the embodiment of evil, because by the mere fact of existing at all it has already defeated evil.

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

But we have to consider another and yet deeper dilemma. Since the existence of the universe depends upon the continuance of this unfathomable struggle and since the absolute victory of life over death, of love over malice, of truth over falsehood, of beauty over hideousness and of nobility over ignobility, would mean that the universe would end, are we therefore forced to the conclusion that evil is necessary to the fuller manifestation of good?

Undoubtedly we are forced to this conclusion. Not one of these primordial ideas, which find their synthesis in "the invisible companions of men," can be conceived without its opposite. And it is in the process of their unending struggle that the fuller realization of all of them is attained. And this struggle must inevitably assume a double character. It must assume the character of a struggle within the individual soul and of a struggle of the individual soul with other souls and with the universe. Such a struggle must be thought of as continually maintained in the soul of the "invisible companions of men" and maintained there with a depth of dramatic intensity at which we can only guess.

Only less false and dangerous than the dogma that the absolute victory of good over evil has already been achieved, is the dogma that these two eternal antagonists are in reality one and the same thing. They are only one and the same thing in the sense that neither is thinkable without the other; and in the sense that they create the universe by their conflict.

It is important in a matter as crucial as this matter, concerning "the invisible companions of men," not to advance a step beyond our starting-point till we have apprehended it from several different aspects and have gone over our ground again and again—even as builders of a bridge might test the solidity of their fabric stone by stone and arch by arch. By that "conscience in reason" which never allows us pleasantly to deceive ourselves, we are bound to touch, as it were with our very hands, every piece of stone work and every patch of cement which holds this desperate bridge together over the dark waters.

We have not, then, a right to say that every energy of the complex vision depends for its functioning upon the existence of these invisible companions. We have not a right to say—"if there were no such beings these energies could not function; but they do function; therefore there are such beings." What we have a right to say is simply this, that it is an actual experience that when two or more personalities come together and seek to express their various subjective impressions of these ultimate ideas there is always a tacit reference to some objective standard.

This objective standard cannot be thought of apart from personalities capable of embodying it. For these ultimate ideas are only real and living when embodied in personality. Apart from personality we are unable to grasp them; although we must recognize that the universe itself is composed of the very stuff of their contention. We have in the first place, then, completely eliminated from our discussion that "inscrutable mystery" behind the universe. In every direction we find the universe unfathomable; and though our power of thought stops abruptly at a certain limit, we have no reason to think that the universe stops there; and we have every reason to think that it continues—together with the unfathomable element in our souls—into impenetrably receding depths.

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

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

They are clearly not completely exhausted or totally revealed by the vision of any individual human soul or of any number of human souls. The sense which we all have when we attempt to exchange our individual feelings with regard to these things is that we are appealing to some invisible standard or pattern which already exists and of which we each apprehend a particular facet or aspect.

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

The existence of language goes a long way in itself to destroy that isolation of individual souls which in its extreme form would mean the impossibility of any objective truth or beauty or nobility. Language itself is founded upon that original act of faith by which we assume the independent existence of other souls. And the same act of faith which assumes the existence of other souls assumes also that the vision of other souls does not essentially differ from our own vision.

Once having got as far as this, the further fact that these other visions do vary considerably, though not essentially, differ from our own leads us by an inevitable, if not a logical, step to the assumption that all our different visions are the imperfect renderings of one vision, wherein the ideas of truth, beauty and nobility exist in a harmonious synthesis.

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

Have I, in giving to this natural human ideal, such a formidable name—a name with so many bold and startling implications—been merely tempted into an alluring metaphorical image, or have I been driven to make use of this expression by reason of the intrinsic 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, using the very apex-thought of its pyramidal activity in apprehending a mystery which is at once the secret of its own being and the secret of the unfathomable universe into the depths of which it forces its way.

The expression, then, "the vision of the immortals" is not a mere pictorial image but is the definite articulation of a profound reality from which there is no escape if certain attributes of the human soul are to be trusted at all. We cannot get rid of this dilemma, one of those dilemmas which offer alternative possibilities so appallingly opposite, that the choice between them seems like a choice between two eternities.

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

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

This is the crux of the whole human comedy. This is the throw of the dice between a world without hope and a world with hope. Philosophers are capable of treating this subject with quiet intellectual curiosity; but all living men and women—philosophers included—come, at moments, to a pitiless and adamantine "impasse" where the eternal "two ways" branch off in unfathomable perspective.

In our normal and superficial moods we are able to find a plausible excuse for our struggles with ourselves, in a simple acceptance of the ultimate duality.

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

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

At these moments the soul's complex vision is roused to a supreme pitch of rhythmic energy. The apex-thought of its focussed attributes gathers itself together to pierce the mystery. Like a strain of indescribable music the apex-thought rests upon itself and brings each element of its being into harmony with every other.

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

It becomes aware that this truth, this beauty, this nobility find their unity and harmony in nothing less than in the emotion of love. It becomes aware that these three primordial "ideas" are only varying facets and aspects of one unfathomable secret which is the activity of love. It becomes aware that this activity of love is the creative principle of life itself; that it alone is life, and the force which resists it is the enemy of life.

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

It requires the revelation, namely, that the emotion of love of which we are conscious in the depths of our being, as an emotion flowing through us and obsessing us, should be conceived of as existing 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 as conscious and living "souls"; for the ultimate reach of the complex vision implies the idea of personality and cannot interpret life except 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 seek to extricate ourselves from ourselves and to get ourselves out of the way of ourselves, as if we were seeking to make room for some deeper personality within us which is ourself and yet not ourself. This is that impersonal element which the aesthetic sense demands in all supreme works of art so that the soul may find at once its realization of itself and its liberation from itself.

The "watchers" and "companions" of men must therefore be immortal and living "souls" existing side by side with our human "souls" and side by side with all other "souls," super-human or sub-human, which the universal medium of the world holds together. In arriving at this conclusion which seems to me to be the consummation vouched for and attested by the rhythmic energy of the complex vision, I have refused to allow any particular attribute of this vision, such as the will or the intuition or the conscience, to claim for its isolated discoveries any universal assent.

The soul's emotion of love passionately craves for the real existence of these "invisible companions." The soul's emotion of malice displays an abysmal resistance to such a reality. This is naturally a fact that we cannot afford to disregard. But in our final decision in so high and difficult a matter nothing can be allowed to claim an universal assent except the rhythmic activity of the soul's apex-thought in its supreme moments.

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

The feeling which we have about the emotion of love, as if it were a thing pouring through us from some unfathomable depth, does not imply that "the invisible companions" are themselves that depth. The "invisible companions" are not in any sense connected with the conception of an "over-soul." That "depth," from which the 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," the introduction of some "parent" or "first cause" of the universe, from which we have to suppose this secret of love as emerging, is as unnecessary as it is unbeautiful. It does nothing but fling the mystery one step further back without in the least elucidating it; and in thus throwing it back it thins it out and cheapens it. There is nothing which appeals to the aesthetic sense about this hypothesis of an "over-soul" from whose universal being the ideas of beauty and truth and goodness may be supposed to proceed. It is a clumsy and 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 an over-soul, existing just behind the material universe and pouring forth indiscriminately its "truth," "beauty," "nobility" and "love," is an entirely materialistic one. It is a clumsy and crude metaphor or analogy drawn from the objective world and projected into that region of sheer unfathomableness which lies beyond human thought.

When the conception of the over-soul is submitted to analysis it is found to consist of nothing else than vague images drawn from material sensation. We think of the world for instance as a vast porous sponge continually penetrated by a flood of water or air or vapour drawn from some hidden cistern or reservoir or cosmic lake. The modern theological expression "immanent" has done harm in this direction. There is nothing profound about this conception of "immanence." It is an entirely materialistic conception drawn from sense analogy.

The same criticism applies to much of the vague speculation which is usually called "mysticism." Mysticism is not a spiritual attitude. It is often no more than the expression of thwarted sex-desire directed towards the universe instead of towards the person who has repulsed it. The basic motive of mysticism, although in the highest cases it springs from intuition, is very often only an extension into the unknown of physiological misery or of physiological well-being.

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

It is, so to speak, a purer word, and has succeeded, in its progress down the ages, in keeping itself more clear of physiological associations than any other human word except the word "soul." It must, however, be recognized, when we submit the two words to analysis, that the word "spirit" is less free from metaphorical materialism than the word "soul."

The word "spirit" is a metaphorical word derived from the material phenomenon of breath. For the purest and least tangible of all natural phenomena, except perhaps "ether" or electricity, is obviously nothing less than the wind. "The wind bloweth where it listeth," and this elementary "freedom of the wind," combined with our natural association of "breath" and "breathing" with all organic life, accounts for the traditional nobility of the word spirit.

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

According to this use of the term "spirit" we have an arbitrary association of the ultimate fact of self-consciousness—a fact drawn from the necessity of thought—with that attenuated and etherial materialism implied in the words "breath" or "breathing" and in the elemental "freedom of the wind." The word "spiritual" is a purer and nobler word than the word "mystical" for the same reason that the word "soul" is a purer and nobler word than the word "spirit."

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

The history of this usurpation is itself a curious psychological document. But I cannot help feeling that the moment has arrived for reinstating the word "soul" in its rightful place and altering this false valuation.

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

Here also we are confronted by the metaphorical danger, which is a danger springing from the necessity of thought itself; the necessity under which thought labours of being compelled to use sense-impressions if it is to function at all. But though thought cannot exist as thought without the use of sense-impressions it can at least concentrate its attention upon this primal necessity and be aware of it and cautious of it and hypercritical in its use. It can do more than this. It can throw back, so to speak, the whole weight of the mystery and drive it so rigorously to the ultimate wall, that the materialistic and metaphorical element is reduced to a mere gap or space or lacuna in the mind that only a material element can fill and yet that we cannot imagine being filled by any material element 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, most precious 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 more true, more real, more spiritual than personality.

All conceptions, qualities, principles, forces, elements, thoughts, ideas, are things which we abstract from personality, and project into the space which surrounds us, as if they could be independent of the personal unity from which they have been taken. We are compelled by the inevitable necessity of thought itself, which cannot escape from the world of sense-impressions, to think of personality as possessing for its "substratum" "something" which gives it concrete reality. This "something" which is utterly indefinable, is the last gesture, so to speak, made by the sense-world before it vanishes away.

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

We cannot get rid of it because directly we attempt to do so we are left with that vague idealistic abstraction upon our hands which we call "thought-in-the-abstract"—or "pure thought" or "pure self-consciousness." But it may be asked—"Why cannot the physical body serve this necessary purpose of giving personality a local and concrete identity?"

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

Secondly—and this is the metaphysical reason—it cannot do so because our physical body is itself only a part of that objective universe of sense-impressions which the soul is conscious of as essentially distinct from its own inmost identity.

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

What the complex vision seems to me to disclose, is a revelation which includes at one and the same moment "the universal monad" and the "personal monad"; but it indicates clearly enough that the former is an abstraction from the latter. My thought can certainly think of the whole universe, including time and space, as one enormous mass of impressions or ideals presenting itself inside the circle of my mind.

Of this mass of impressions, including time and space, my thought, thus abstracted from my personal soul, becomes the circumference. Outside my thought there is nothing at all. Inside my thought there is all that is. The metaphysical reason insists that this all-comprehensive thought or all-embracing consciousness cannot contemplate itself as an object but is compelled to remain an universal subject whose object can only be the mass of impressions which it contains.

If it is possible to speak of this "a priori" background of all possible perception as a "monad" at all, it is a monad which certainly lacks the essential power of the individual monad which we know as our real self, for this latter can and does contemplate itself as an object.

But as I have hinted before, the complex vision's attribute of self-consciousness projects a second abstraction, which takes its place between this ultimate monad which is pure "subject" and our real personal self which is so much more than subject and object together.

This second abstraction, "thrown off" by our pure self-consciousness just as the first one is "thrown off" by our pure reason, becomes therefore an intervening monad which exists midway between the monad which is pure "subject"—if that can be called a monad at all—and the actual individual soul which is the living reality of both these thought-projections.

The whole question resolves itself into a critical statement of the peculiar play of thought when thought is considered in its own inherent nature apart from concrete objects of thought. This original play of thought, apart from what it may think, can result in nothing better than isolated abstractions; because thought, apart from concrete objects of thought, is itself nothing more than one attribute of the complex vision, groping about in a vacuum and finding nothing. We are, however, bound by the "conscience of reason," and by what might be called reason's sense of honour to articulate as clearly as we can all these movements of pure thought working in the void; but we certainly are forbidden by the original revelation of the complex vision to accept them as the starting point of our philosophical enquiry. And we cannot accept them as a starting point, because the complex vision includes much more than self-consciousness and reason. It includes indeed so much more than these, that these, when indulging in their isolated conjuring-tricks, seem like irrelevant and tiresome clowns who insist upon interrupting with their fantastic pedantry the great tragic-comedy wherein the soul of man wrestles with its fate.

As I have already indicated, it is necessary in dealing with a matter as dramatic and fatal as this whole question of ultimate reality, to risk the annoyance of repetition. It is important to go over our tracks again so that no crevice should be left in this perilous bridge hung across the gulf. Reason, then, working in isolation, provides us with the recognition of an ultimate universal "subject" or, in metaphysical language, with an "a priori unity of apperception." Simultaneously with this recognition, self-consciousness, also working in isolation, provides us with the recognition of an universal self-conscious "monad" or "cosmic self" which is not only able but is compelled to think of itself as its own object.

Both these recognitions imply a consciousness which is outside time and space; but while the first, the outer edge of thought, can only be regarded as "pure subject," the second can be regarded as nothing else than the whole universe contemplating itself as its own object.

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

Directly we regarded the "I am I" within us as independent of such a "vanishing point of sensation" and as being entirely free from any, even from the most attenuated form, of what is usually called "matter," then, at that very moment, the complex vision's revelation would be falsified. Then, at that very moment, the integrity of the soul would dissolve away, and we should be reduced to a stream of sensations with nothing to give them coherence 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 conceived if we are to be true to the original revelation of the complex vision, as having an indefinable "something" as its substratum or implication of identity. And this something, although impossible to be analysed, must be regarded as existing within that mysterious medium which is the uniting force of the universe. The soul must, in fact, be thought of as possessing some sort of "spiritual body" which is the centre of its complex vision and which, therefore, expresses itself in reason, self-consciousness, will, sensation, instinct, intuition, memory, emotion, conscience, taste, and imagination. All this must necessarily imply that the soul is within, and not outside, time and space. It must further imply that although the physical body, which the soul uses at its will, is only one portion of the objective universe which confronts it, this physical body is more immediately connected with the soul's complex vision and more directly under the influence of it than any other portion of the external universe.

The question then arises, can it be said that this "vanishing point of sensation," this "substratum" composed of "something" which we are only able to define as the limit where the ultimate attenuation of 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 physical body is, a definite portion of that objective universe which we apprehend through our senses?

The physical body is entirely and in all its aspects a portion of this objective universe. Is the substratum of the soul a portion of it also? I think the answer to this question is that it is and also is not a portion of this universe. This "spiritual body," this "vanishing point of sensation," which is the principle of permanence and continuity and identity in the soul, is obviously the very centre and core of reality. Being this, it must necessarily be a portion of that objective world whose reality, after the reality of the soul itself, is the most vivid reality which we know.

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

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

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

Since the "substratum" or "spiritual body" of the soul is the most real thing in the universe it must, in its own nature, partake of every kind of reality which exists in the universe. It must therefore be, quite definitely, a portion of the objective world existing within 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 the power of reason and self-consciousness to isolate themselves from the other attributes of the soul and to project themselves outside of space and time, it must be the perpetual fatality of the "substratum" of the soul to recall these wanderers back to the true reality of things, which does not lie outside of space and time but within space and time, and which must justify time and space as something very different from illusion.

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

Since it does this, since it sinks away beyond the limit of our thought, it must be regarded as "something" whose reality is partly known and partly unknown. Thus it is true to say that the "substratum" of the soul is and is not a portion of the objective universe. The substratum of the soul is, in fact, the essential and ultimate reality, where all that we know loses itself in all that we do not know. Because we are compelled to admit that only one aspect of the "substratum" of the soul is a portion of the objective universe as we know it, this does not justify us in asserting that the "substratum" of the soul is at once within space and 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 activity of the logical reason. The fact that only one aspect of the "substratum" of the soul—and even that one with the barest limit of definition—can be regarded as a portion of the objective universe does not give the soul any advantage over the universe. For the universe, like the soul, has also its unfathomable depths. That indefinable medium, for instance, which we are compelled to think of as making it possible that various souls should touch one another and communicate with one another, is in precisely the same position as regards any ultimate analysis as is the soul itself. It also sinks away into unfathomableness. It also becomes a portion of that part of reality which we do not know.

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

Is it not, such an one might ask, a fantastic and ridiculous assumption to endow so obscure a thing as this "soul" with such very definite powers as reason, instinct, will, intuition, imagination, and the rest? Surely, such an one might protest, it is in the physical body that these find their unity? Surely, if we must have a meeting-place where thought and the objects of thought lose themselves in one another, such a meeting-place can be nothing else than the cells of the brain?

The answer to this objection seems to me quite a final one. The physical body cannot supply us with the true meeting-place between "the life of thought" and "the life of sensation" because the physical body does not in itself sink away into unfathomablenesss as does the substratum of the soul. The physical body can only be regarded as unfathomable when definitely included in the whole physical universe. But the substratum of the soul is doubly unfathomable. It is unfathomable as being the quintessence or vanishing-point of "matter" or "energy," and it is unfathomable as being the quintessence of that personal self which confronts not only the objective universe but the physical body also as part of that universe. It is undoubtedly true that this real self which is the centre of its own universe is bound to contemplate itself as occupying a definite point in space and time.

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

The soul functions through the physical body and through the cells of the brain. The soul is so closely and so intimately associated with the physical body that it is more than possible that the death of the physical body implies the annihilation of the soul. But when it comes to the question as to where we are to look for the essential self in us which is able to say "I am I" it is found to be much more fantastic and ridiculous to look for it in the "little cells of the brain" than in some obscure "something," or "vanishing point of sensation," 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 to imagine. But that the "little cells of the brain" should possess these is not only hard to imagine—it is unimaginable. The mysterious relation which exists between our soul and our body lends itself to endless speculation; and much of this speculation tends to become far more fantastic and ridiculous than any analysis of the attributes of the soul. Experiment and experience alone can teach us how far the body is actually malleable by the soul and amenable to the soul's purpose.

The arbitrary symbol which I have made use of to indicate the nature of the soul's essential reality, the image of a pyramidal wedge of flames, is certainly felt to be but a thin and rigid fancy when we consider how in the actual play of life the soul expresses itself through the body.

As I have already indicated, the original revelation of the complex vision accepts without scruple the whole spectacle of natural life. The philosophy of the complex vision insists that no rationalistic necessity of pure logic gives it the right to reject this natural objective spectacle. The philosophy of the complex vision insists that this obvious, solid, external, so-called "materialistic" spectacle of common life, be accepted, included and continually returned to. It insists that the word "illusion" be no more used about this spectacle. It insists that this vast unfathomable universe of time and space be recognized as an ultimate reality, and that all these projected 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 of the abstracting energy of human logic and as entirely without reality when compared with this objective spectacle. My own symbolic or pictorial image of the activity of the complex vision, this pyramidal wedge or arrow-head of concentrated and focussed flames, must be recognized as no more adequate or satisfactory than 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 a cube or a square or an "a priori synthetic unity of apperception" or "an universal self-conscious monad." It is the vision of a living personality, surrounded by an unfathomable universe.

To keep our thoughts firmly and harmoniously fixed on the real objective spectacle of life and on the real subjective "soul," or personality, contemplating this spectacle, it is advisable to revert to the magical and mysterious associations called up by the classical word Nature. The mere utterance of the word "Nature" serves to bring us back to the things which are essential and organic, and to put into their proper place of comparative unreality all these "unities" and circles, all these pyramids and "monads." When we think of the astounding beauty and intricacy of the actual human body; when we think of the astounding beauty and intricacy of the actual living soul which animates this body, and when we think of the magical universe which surrounds them both, we are compelled to recognize that in the last resort Nature herself is the great mystery. The word "Nature" conveys a more living and less metaphysical connotation than the word "universe," and may be regarded as implying more of that in-determined future of all living souls, which is still in the process of creation.

The "universe" is a static conception. Nature is a dynamic conception. When we speak of Nature we think of the whole struggle towards a fuller life of all the living entities which the indefinable medium of the universe contains. Nature from this point of view becomes the whole unfathomable spectacle, seen as something living and growing and changing.

The "invisible companions" of men who supply the pattern and standard of all human ideas, become in this way the immortal children of Nature. The creative energy of the complex vision is itself an integral portion of the creative energy of Nature; for "Nature" is no more than the beautiful and classical word which recalls us to the objective spectacle which is the ultimate revelation of the complex vision. Nature is the supreme artist; but the apex-point of her artistry is nothing less than the apex-point of the artistry of the immortal gods.

The artistry of the human soul, when its rhythm is most harmonious and complete, implies the magical artistry of Nature, for "Nature" is nothing more than the whole objective spectacle finding its myriad creative centres of new life in all living souls. The value of the word Nature, the value of the conception of Nature, is that it reminds us that, held together by the indefinable medium which fills the universe, there are innumerable entities both subhuman and super-human, all of whom, in their various degrees, possess living souls.

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

These "invisible companions" just because they are the most "natural" of all living personalities, are the supreme manifestation of 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 spectacle continually shifting and changing under the pressure of innumerable conscious and sub-conscious souls, that we find ourselves 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 mysteriousness are so much more real than any rationalistic symbols, such as circles, cubes, squares, wedges, pyramids, and the like, that when we seek to visualize the actual appearance of these "invisible companions," it seems much more appropriate to image 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, passes away in dissolution and is reborn again in other forms; and since no physical body is exempted from death, it is apparent that if the "immortals" possessed physical bodies such as our own, they also would be subject to this law along with the rest of the universe. But the generations of mankind come and go and the "invisible companions" of men remain; therefore the "invisible companions" cannot be supposed, except pictorially and in a symbolic sense, to be subject to the laws which govern our mortal bodies.

It is this freedom from the laws which govern the physical body and from all the intimate and intricate relations which exist between our human soul and our human body, which makes it possible for these companions of men to remain in perpetual contact with every living soul born into the world. The difficulty we experience in realizing the nearness to our individual souls of these invisible companions, is due to a false and exaggerated emphasis laid upon the material spectacle of nature.

This spectacle of the objective universe is undoubtedly one of the ultimate realities revealed to us by the complex vision; but it is only one of these ultimate realities. The complex vision is itself another one of these; and the real existence of the soul is implied in the activity of the complex vision. The reality of the external universe, the reality of Nature, is so closely associated with the activity of the soul that it is impossible to think of the one apart from the other.

The soul's attribute of sensation is alone responsible for the greater portion of this objective spectacle; for apprehended through any other senses than the ones we possess the whole universe would be transformed. It is only when the soul's essential part in the creation of Nature is fully realized that we see how false and exaggerated an emphasis we are placing upon this "externality" when we permit it to hinder our recognition of the nearness of the immortal gods.

The laws which govern the physical body and "the thousand ills that flesh is heir to" obstruct, confuse, conceal, and distort the soul and hold the gods at a distance. But although the brain and the senses may be tortured, atrophied, perverted; and although the soul may be driven back into its unfathomable depths and held there as if in prison; and although madness intervene between the soul's vision and the world, and sleep may fling it into oblivion, and death may destroy it utterly; tortured or perverted or atrophied or semi-conscious or unconscious, while the soul lives, the "invisible companions of men" remain nearer to it than any outward accident, chance, circumstance, fatality or destiny, and are still the arbiters of its hope.