The "possessive instinct," although it may often be found accompanying like an evil shadow some of the purest movements of love, must be recognized as eternally arising out of the depths of the power opposed to love. If we have any psychological clairvoyance we can disentangle this base element from some of the most passionate forms of the sexual instinct and from some of the most passionate forms of the maternal instinct. It is undeniable that the possessive instinct does accompany both these emotions and we are compelled to recognize that, whenever or wherever it appears, it is the expression of the direct opposite of love.

So inevitably does the complex vision manifest itself in the idea of communism that it would be legitimate to say that the main object of human life as we know it at present is the realization of the ideas of truth and beauty and nobility in a world-wide communistic state.

As far as the human soul in our present knowledge of it is concerned there is no other synthesis possible except this synthesis. And there is no other synthesis possible except this, because this and this alone realizes the ideal which the abysmal power of love implies. And the power of love implies this ideal because the power of love is the only unity which fuses together the ideas of reality and beauty and nobility; and because it is impossible to conceive the power of love as embodying itself in these ideas except in a world-wide communistic state.

We are able to prove that this is no speculative hypothesis but a fact based upon experience, by a consideration of the opposite ideal. For evil, as we have hinted in many places, has its ideal. The ideal of evil, or of what I call "malice," is the annihilation of the will to creation. This ideal of malice is in fact an obstinate and continuous resistance to the power of creation; a resistance carried so far as to reduce everything that exists to eternal non-existence. The profoundest experience of the human soul is to be found in the unfathomable struggle that goes on in the depths between "the ideal of evil" which is universal death and "the ideal of love" which is universal life.

Reason and sensation are used in turn by this abysmal malice of the soul, to establish and make objective "the idea of nothingness." Thus reason, driven on by the power of malice, derives exquisite satisfaction from the theory of the automatism of the will.

The theory of the automatism of the will, the theory that the will is only an illusive name for a pre-determined congeries of irresistible motives, is a theory that lends itself to the ideal of universal death. It is a theory that diminishes, and reduces to a minimum, the identity of the personal soul. And therefore it is a theory which the isolated reason, divorced from imagination and instinct, fastens upon and exults in.

The isolated reason, in league with pure sensation and divorced from instinct, becomes very quickly a slave of the abysmal power of malice; and the pleasure which it derives from the contemplation of a mechanical universe predestined and pre-determined, a universe out of which the personal soul has been completely expurgated, is a pleasure derived directly from the power of malice, exulting in the idea of eternal death.

Philosophers are very crafty in these things; and it is necessary to discriminate between that genuine passion for reality which derived from the power of love and that exultant pleasure in a "frightful" reality which is derived from intellectual sadism and from the unfathomable malice of the soul.

Between a philosophic pessimism which springs from a genuine passion for reality and from a pure "pity" for tortured sentient things, and a philosophic pessimism which springs from a cruel pleasure in atrocious situations and an ambiguous "pity" for tortured sentient things there is an eternity of difference.

It needs however something almost like a clairvoyance to recognize this difference; and such a clairvoyance can only be obtained when, as in the case of Christ, the soul becomes aware of its own unfathomable possibilities of good and evil.

A careful and implacable analysis of the two camps of opinion into which the idea of communism divides the world reveals to us the fact that the philosophical advocates of private property draw a certain malignant pleasure from insisting that the possessive instinct is the strongest instinct in humanity.

This is tantamount to saying that the power of malice is the strongest instinct in humanity; whereas, if the power of malice had not already been relatively overcome by the power of love there would be no "humanity" at all. But the philosophical advocates of private property do not confine themselves to this malign insistence upon the basic greediness of human nature. They are in the habit of twisting their arguments completely around and speaking of the "rights" of property and of the "wholesome" value of the "natural instinct" to possess property.

This "natural instinct to possess property" becomes, when they so defend it, something which we assume to be "good" and "noble," and not something which we are compelled to recognize as "evil" and "base."

It is necessary to keep these two arguments quite separate in our minds and not to allow the philosophical advocates of private property to confuse them. If the assumption is that the instinct to possess property is a "good" instinct, an instinct springing from the power of love in the human soul, then what we have to do is to subject this "good instinct" to an inflexible analysis; under the process of which such "goodness" will be found to transform itself into the extreme opposite of goodness.

If the assumption is that the instinct to possess property is an evil instinct, but an instinct which is the strongest of all human instincts and therefore one which it is insane to attempt to resist, then what we have to do is to prove that the instinct or the emotion of love is stronger than the instinct or the emotion of malice and so essential to the life of the soul that if it had not already relatively overcome the emotion of malice, the personal soul would never have become what it has become; in fact would never have existed at all, since its mere existence depends upon the relative victory of love over malice.

In dealing with the former of these two arguments, namely that the instinct to possess property is a "good" instinct, it is advisable to search for some test of "goodness" which shall carry a stronger conviction to the mind of such biassed philosophers than any appeal to the conscience or even to the aesthetic sense. The conscience and the aesthetic sense speak with uncompromising finality upon this subject and condemn the possessive instinct or the instinct to possess property with an unwavering voice. As eternal aspects of the complex vision, both conscience and the aesthetic sense, when their power is exercised in harmony with all the other aspects of the soul, indicate with an oracular clearness that the possessive instinct is not good but evil.

The person obsessed by the idea of "nobility" and the person obsessed by the idea of "beauty" are both of them found to be extraordinarily suspicious of the possessive instinct and fiercely anxious to destroy its power. But the test more likely to appeal to the type of philosopher whose business it is to defend the institution of private property is the simple test of reality. Reality or "truth," much more than nobility or beauty, is the idea in the soul which is outraged by the illusion of the value of private property.

For the illusion of the value of private property is like the "illusion of dead matter." It is a half-truth projected by the power of malice. The inherent unreality of the illusion of the value of private property can be proved by the simplest examination of the facts. The illusion draws its strength from a false appeal to the genuine and basic necessities of the human mind and the human body.

These necessities demand adequate food, adequate clothing, adequate shelter and adequate leisure. They also demand freedom, beauty, happiness, a considerable degree of solitude, and final relief from the intolerable fear of poverty. But the economic and intellectual resources of the human race are perfectly capable of providing all these things for all human beings within the limits of a communistic society. These things and the legitimate demand for these things must not be confused with the illusion of the value of private property. Nor must the illusion of the value of private property be permitted to fortify its insecure position by a false appeal to these real values.

The astounding achievements of modern science have brought to light two things. They have brought to light the fact that no human or social unit short of the international unit of the whole race can adequately deal with the resources of the planet. And they have brought to light the fact that this inevitable internationalizing of economic production must be accompanied by a co-operative internationalizing of economic distribution, if murderous chaotic conflict is to be avoided.

The real values of sufficient food, clothing, shelter, leisure, and solitude can be secured for every human being inhabiting this planet, under a far from perfect organization of world-production and world-distribution. The astounding achievements of modern science have made this possible. It only requires a reasonable and not by any means an ideal co-operation to make it actual.

The achievements of modern science, especially in the sphere of industrial machinery, have made it possible for every human being to have sufficient food, clothing, shelter, leisure and solitude. Man, in this sense, has already conquered Nature; and has secured for his progeny however indefinitely increased, and for the frail and incompetent ones of his race, however indefinitely increased, a more than sufficient supply of these primal necessities.

The extraordinary power of international co-operation has been recently displayed during the years of the war in the production of engines of destruction. Far less cooperation applied to the problems of production could secure for an indefinitely multiplied population, including all derelicts and all incompetents, such primal necessities of life as normal persons demand. The resources of this planet, as long as scientific distribution follows close upon scientific production, are sufficient to maintain in food, in shelter, in clothing, in leisure, in reasonable comfort, any human progeny.

What then is the principal cause why, as things are now, such lamentable poverty and such huge fear of lamentable poverty dominate the human situation? The cause is not far to seek. It lies in the very root and ground of our existing commercial and industrial system. It lies in the fact that economic production by reason of the illusive value of private enterprise, is directed not towards the satisfaction of such universal and primary necessities as food, shelter, clothing, leisure and reasonable comfort, but towards the creation of unnecessary luxury and artificial frippery, towards the piling up, by means of advertisement, monopoly, exploitation and every kind of chicanery of unproductive accumulation of private property.

Our present commercial and industrial system is based upon what is called "free competition." In other words it is based upon the right of private individuals to make use of the resources of nature and the energy of labour to produce unnecessary wealth, wealth which does little or nothing to increase the food, shelter, clothing, leisure and comfort of the masses of mankind, wealth which is artificially maintained by artificial values and by the fantastic process of advertisement.

In order to make clear and irrefutable the statement that the illusive value of private property is, like "the illusion of dead matter," a thing conceived, projected and maintained by the aboriginal power of evil, it is necessary to prove two things. It is necessary to prove in the first place that the idea of private property is neither beautiful nor noble nor real. And it is necessary to prove in the second place that the defence of the idea of private property arouses the most evil and most malignant passions which it is possible for the human soul to feel.

That private property is neither beautiful nor noble can be deduced from the fact that in proportion as human souls become attuned to finer, more distinguished, and more intellectual levels they become more and more indifferent to the "sensation of ownership." That private property is an unreal thing can be deduced from the fact that no human being can actually "possess," in a definite, positive, and exhaustive manner, more than he can eat or drink or wear or otherwise personally enjoy.

His "sensation of ownership," over lands, houses, gardens, pictures, statues, books, animals and human beings, is really and actually restricted to the immediate and direct enjoyment which he is able in person to derive from such things. Beyond this immediate and personal enjoyment the extension of his "sensation of ownership" can do no more than increase his general sense of conventional power and importance. His real "possession" of his land is actually restricted to his capacity for appreciating its beauty. His real "possession" of his books is actually restricted to his personal capacity for entering into the living secrets of these things. Without such capacity, though he may call himself the "possessor" or "owner," he is really no better than an official "care-taker," whose province it is to preserve certain objects for other people to enjoy, or, shall we say, for the permanent prevention of any people ever enjoying them. And just as the "sensation of ownership" or "the idea of private property" is unreal and illusive with regard to land, houses, pictures, books, and the like so it is unreal and illusive with regard to human beings. No one, however maliciously he may hug to himself his possessive instinct, can ever actually and truly "possess" another living person.

One's wife, one's paramour, one's child, one's slave, are only apparently and by a conventional illusion of language one's real and actual "possession." That this is the case can be proved by the fact that any of these "human possessions" has only to commit suicide, to escape for ever from such bondage.

The illusion of private property derives its vigour and its obstinate vividness from two things; from the apparent increase of power and importance which accompanies it, and from its association with that necessary minimum of food, shelter, clothing, leisure, comfort, freedom, solitude, and happiness, which is certainly real, essential and indispensable.

The universal wisdom of the ages bears witness to the fact that a "moderate poverty" or a "moderate competence" is the ideal outward state for a man to find himself in. And this "moderate enjoyment" of food, shelter, clothing, comfort, leisure and emotional happiness, is a thing which, in a scientifically organized communistic society, would be within the reach of even the least efficient.

The gloomy and melancholy argument brought forward by the enemies of "communism" that under such a condition "the incentive of private initiative would disappear" and that no other motive could take its place, is an argument based upon the assumption that human nature derives more inspiration from the idea of dishonourable greed than it derives from the idea of honourable and useful labour; which is an assumption so wholly opposed to true psychology that it has only to be nakedly stated to be seen in its complete absurdity.

What the psychologist, interested in this abysmal struggle between the idea of communism and the idea of private property, has to note is the nature and character of the particular individual who brings forward this argument of the "incentive of greed" or the "initiative" produced by greed. Such an individual will never be found to be a great man of science, or a great artist or scholar or craftsman, or a first-rate engineer, or a highly trained artisan or farmer or builder.

The individual bringing forward this argument of the "initiative of greed" will invariably be found to be a member of what might be called the "parasitic class." He will either be an intellectually second-rate minister or politician or lawyer or professor, or he will be a commercial and financial "middleman," whose activities are entirely absorbed in the art of exploitation and who has never experienced the sensation of creative work.

If he does not himself belong to the unproductive and parasitic class it will be easy to detect in him the unmistakable presence of the emotion of malice. Nowhere is the emotion of malice more entirely in harmony with itself than when it is engaged in attributing base and sordid motives to the energy of human nature.

This monstrous doctrine that human beings require "the incentive of greed" and that without that incentive or "initiative" no one would engage in any kind of creative work, is a doctrine springing directly from the aboriginal malice of the soul; and a doctrine which is refuted every day by every honest, healthy and honourable man and woman.

But all these are, after all, only negative proofs of the inevitable rise, out of the very necessity of love's nature, of the idea of communism. Of all mortal instincts, the possessive instinct is the most insidious and most evil. Love is for ever being perverted and polluted by this thing, and turned from its true essence into something other than itself. This is equally true of love whether such love is directed towards persons or towards ideas or things.

The possessive instinct springing directly from the aboriginal malice is perpetually deceiving itself. Apparently and superficially what it aims at is the eternally "static." In other words what it aims at is the retention in everlasting immobility of the person or the idea or the thing into which it has dug its claws.

Thus the maternal instinct, in its evil mood, aims at petrifying and rendering immobile that helpless youthfulness in its offspring which the possessive passion finds so provocative and exciting. Thus the lover in his evil mood, desires that the object of his love should remain in everlasting immobility, an odalisque of eternal reciprocity. That this evil desire takes the form of a longing that the object of his love should eternally escape and eternally be recaptured makes no difference in the basic feeling.

Thus the collector of "works of art"—a being divided from the real lover of art by an impassable gulf—derives no pleasure from the beauty of anything until it has become his, until he has hidden it away from all the rest of the world. Thus the lover of "nature," in his evil mood, derives no pleasure from the fitful magic of grass and bowers and trees, until he feels happy in the mad illusion that the very body of the earth, even to the centre of the planet, where these things grow, is his "private" property and is something fixed, permanent, static, unchanging. But all this desire for the eternally "static" is superficial and self-deceiving.

Analysed down to its very depth, what this evil possessive instinct desires is what all malice desires, namely the annihilation of life. Pretending to itself that it desires to hug to itself, in eternal immobility, the thing it loves, what in its secret essence it really desires is that thing's absolute annihilation. It wants to hug that thing so tightly to itself that the independence of the thing completely vanishes. It wants to destroy all separation between itself and the thing, and all liberty and freedom for the thing. It wants "to eat the thing up" and draw the thing into its own being.

Its evil desire can never find complete satisfaction until it has "killed the thing it loves" and buried it within its own identity. It is this evil possessive element in sexual love, whether of a man for a woman or a woman for a man, which is the real evil in the sexual passion. It is this possessive instinct in maternal love which is the evil element in the love of a mother for a child. Both these evil emotions tend to make war upon life.

The mother, in her secret sub-conscious passion, desires to draw back her infant into her womb, and restore it to its pre-natal physiological unity with herself. The lover in his secret evil sub-consciousness, desires to draw his beloved into ever-increasing unity with himself, until the separation between them is at an end and her identity is lost in his identity.

The final issue, therefore, of this evil instinct of possession, this evil instinct of private property, can never be anything else than death. Death is what the ultimate emotion of malice desires; and death is an actual result of the instinct of possession carried to an extreme limit.

The static immobility and complete "unchangeableness" which the possessive instinct pretends to itself is all it desires is really therefore nothing but a mask for its desire to destroy. The possessive instinct is, in its profoundest abyss, an amorist of death. What it secretly loves is the dead; for the dead alone can never defraud it of its satisfaction. Wherever love exercises its creative energy the possessive instinct relaxes its hold. Love expands and diffuses itself. Love projects itself and merges itself The creative impulse is always centrifugal. The indrawing movement, the centripetal movement, is a sign of the presence of that inert malice which would reduce all life to nothingness.

The creative energy of love issues inevitably in the idea of communism. The idea of communism implies the complete abolition of private property; because private property, whether it be property in persons or in things, is essentially evil, is indeed the natural expression of the primordial inert malice, in its hostility to life. Under any realization, in actual existence, of the idea of communism the creative energy finds itself free to expand and dilate. All that heavy clogging burden of "the personally possessed" being shaken off, the natural fresh shoots of living beauty rise to the surface like the new green growths of spring when the winter's rubble has been washed away by the rain.

The accursed system of private property, rooted in the abysmal malice of the human heart, lies like a dead weight upon every creative impulse. Everything is weighed and judged, everything is valued and measured, in relation to this.

Modern Law is the system of restriction by which we protect private property.

Modern religion is the system of compensation by which we soften the difference between inequalities in private property. Modern politics is the system of compromise by which public opinion registers its devotion to private property. Modern morality is the system of artificial inhibitions by which the human conscience is perverted into regarding private property as the supreme good.

Modern science is the system by which private property is increased and the uses of it made more complicated. Modern "truth" is the system of traditional opinion by which the illusion of private property is established as "responsible" thinking, and "serious" thinking, and "ethical" thinking.

Modern art is the system by which what is most gross and vulgar in the popular taste is pandered to in the interests of private property.

The creative energy in modern life is therefore restricted and opposed at almost every point by the evil instinct to possess. Of every new idea the question is asked, "does it conflict with private property?"

Of every new aesthetic judgment the question is asked, "does it conflict with private property?"

Of every new moral valuation the question is asked, "does it conflict with private property?" And the instinct which puts these questions to every new movement of the creative energy is the instinct of inert malice. The object of life can be regarded as nothing less than the realization of the vision of the Immortals; and it is only under a communistic state that the vision of the Immortals can be realized; because only in such a state is that petrified illusion of inert malice which we name "private property" thoroughly got rid of and destroyed.

CONCLUSION

No attempted articulation of the mystery, life, can be worthy of being named a "philosophy" unless it has a definite bearing upon what, in the midst of that confused "manifold" through which we move, we call the problem of conduct.

The mass of complicated impression, which from our first dawn of consciousness presses upon us, falls into two main divisions—the portion of it which comes under the power of our will and the portion of it which is supplied by destiny or circumstance, and over which our will is impotent.

Superficially speaking what we call conduct only applies to action; but in a deeper sense it applies to that whole division of our sensations, emotions, ideas, and energies, whether it take the form of action or not, which comes in any measure under the power of the will. Such acts of the mind therefore, as are purely intellectual or emotional—as for instance what we call "acts of faith"—are as much to be considered forms of conduct as those outer visible material gestures which manifest themselves in action.

This is no fantastic or extravagant fancy. It is the old classical and catholic doctrine, to which not only such thinkers as Plato and Spinoza have affixed their seal, but which is at the root of the deepest instincts of Buddhists, Christians, Epicureans, Stoics, and the mystics of all ages. It may be summed up by the statement that life is an art towards which the will must be directed; and that the larger portion of life manifests itself in interior contemplation and only the smaller part of it in overt action.

In both these spheres, in the sphere of contemplation as much as in the sphere of action, there exists that "given element" of destiny or circumstance, in the presence of which the will is powerless. But in regard to this given element it must be remembered that no individual soul can ever, to the end of time, be absolutely certain that in any particular case, whether his own or another's, he has finally arrived at this irreducible fatality.

The extraordinary phenomenon of what religious people call "conversion," a phenomenon which implies a change of heart so unexpected and startling as to seem miraculous, is a proof of how unwise it is to be in any particular case rigidly dogmatic as to where the sunken rock of destiny really begins. So many appearances have taken the shape of this finality, so many mirages of "false fate" have paralysed our will, that it is wisest to believe to the very end of our days that our attitude to destiny can change and modify destiny.

Assuming then that the articulation of the mystery of life which has been outlined in this book, under the name of "the philosophy of the complex vision," must remain the barest of intellectual hypotheses until it has manifested itself in "conduct"; and assuming further that this "conduct" includes the whole of that portion of life, whether contemplative or active, which can be reduced to a fine art by the effort of the will; the question emerges—what kind of effort must the will make, both interiorally and exteriorally, if it desire to respond, by a rhythmic reciprocity, to the vision which the intellect has accepted?

It must be remembered that the vision upon which this philosophy depends and from which it derives its primordial assumptions is not the normal vision of the human soul. The philosophy of the complex vision rejects the normal vision of the human soul on behalf of the abnormal vision of the human soul. Its point of view, in this matter, is that the human soul only arrives at the secret of the universe in those exalted, heightened, exceptional and rare moments, when all the multiform activities of the soul's life achieve a musical consummation. Its point of view is that since philosophy, at its deepest and highest, necessarily becomes art; and since art is a rare and difficult thing requiring infinite adjustments and reconciliations; what philosophy has really to use, in formulating any sort of adequate system, is the memory of such rare moments after they have passed away. The point of view from which we have made all our basic assumptions is the point of view that the secret of the universe is only revealed to man in rare moments of ecstasy; and that what man's reason has to do is to gather together in memory the broken and scattered fragments of these moments and out of this residuum build up and round off, as best it may, some coherent interpretation of life.

From all this it follows that the first rhythmic reply of the human will to the vision to serve is a passionate act of what might be called "contemplative tension," in the direction of the reviving of such memories, and in the direction of preparing the ground for the return of another "moment of vision" similar in nature to those that have gone before.

The secret of this act of inward contemplative tension we have already analysed. We have found it to consist in a "complex" of all the primordial energies of the soul, focussed and concentrated into what we have compared to a pyramidal apex-point by the power of a certain synthetic movement of the soul itself which we have named the apex-thought.

The reply of the will, therefore, to the vision it desires to serve consists of a gathering together of all the energies of the soul into a rhythmic harmony. It may well be that this premeditated and deliberately constructed harmony will have to wait for many days and years without experiencing the magic touch of the soul's apex-thought. For though we may passionately desire the touch of this—aye, and pray for it with a most desperate prayer!—it is of the very nature of this mysterious thing to require for the moment of its activity something else than the contemplative tension which has prepared the ground for its appearance. For this synthetic apex-thought, which is the soul's highest power, is only in a very limited sense within the power of the will.

The whole matter is obscure and perhaps inexplicable; but it seems as if a place were required here for some philosophic equivalent of that free gift of the Gods which, in theological language, goes by the name of "grace." Long and long may the soul wait—with the hardly won rhythm of its multiform "complex" poised in vibrant expectation—before the moment arrives in which the apex-thought can strike its note of ecstasy.

In the time and place of such a moment, in the accumulation of conditions which render such a moment eternal, chance and circumstance may play a prominent part. There is, however, an inveterate instinct in humanity—not perhaps to be altogether disregarded—according to the voice of which this unaccountable element of chance and circumstance, or, shall we say, of destiny, is itself the result of the interposed influence of the invisible companions. But whether this be so or not, the fact remains that some alien element of indeterminable chance or circumstance or destiny does frequently enter into that accumulation of obscure conditions which seem to be necessary before the magic of the apex-thought is roused.

This preparing of the ground, this deliberate concentration of the soul's energies, is the first movement of the will in answer to the attraction of the eternal vision discerned so far only as a remote ideal. The second movement of the will has been already implied in the first, and is only a lifting into clear consciousness of what led the soul to make its initial effort. I speak of the part played by the will in the abysmal struggle between love and malice. This struggle was really implicit, in the beginning, in the effort the will made to focus the multiform energies of the complex vision. But directly some measure of insight into the secret of life has followed upon this effort, or directly, if the soul's good fortune has been exceptional, its great illuminative moment has been reached, the will finds itself irresistibly plunged into this struggle, finds itself inevitably ranged, on one side or the other, of the ultimate duality.

That the first effort of the will was largely what might be called an intellectual one, though its purpose was to make use of all the soul's attributes together, is proved by the fact that it is possible for human souls to be possessed of formidable insight into the secret of life and yet to use that insight for evil rather than for good.

But the second movement of the will, of which I am now speaking, reveals without a shadow of ambiguity on which side of the eternal contest the personality in question has resolved to throw its weight. If, in this second movement, the will answers, with a reciprocal gathering of itself together, the now far clearer attraction of the vision attained by its original effort, it will be found to range itself on the side of love against the power of malice.

If, on the contrary, having made use of its original vision to understand the secret of this struggle, it allies itself with the power of malice against love, it will be found to produce the spectacle of a soul of illuminated intellectual insight deliberately concentrated on evil rather than good.

But once irrevocably committed to the power of that creative energy which we call love, the will, though it may have innumerable lapses and moments of troubled darkness, never ceases from its abysmal struggle. For this is the conclusion of the whole matter. When we speak of the eternal duality as consisting in a struggle between love and malice, what we really mean is that the human soul, concentrated into the magnet-point of a passionately conscious will, is found varying and quivering between the pole of love and the pole of malice.

The whole drama is contained within the circle of personality; and it would be of a similar nature if the personality in question were confronted by no other thing in the universe except the objective mystery. I mean that the soul would be committed to a struggle between its creative energy and its inert malice even if there were no other living persons in the world towards whom this love and this malice could be directed.

I have compared the substance of the soul to an arrowhead of concentrated flames, the shaft of which is wrapped in impenetrable darkness while the point of it pierces the objective mystery. From within the impenetrable darkness of this invisible arrow-shaft the very substance of the soul is projected; and in its projection it assumes the form of these flames; and the name I have given to this mysterious outpouring of the soul is emotion, whereof the opposing poles of contending force are respectively love and malice. The psycho-material substance of the invisible soul-monad is itself divided into this eternally alternating duality, of which the projected "flames," or manifested "energies" are the constant expression. Each of these energies has as its concrete "material," so to speak, the one projected substance of the soul; and is thus composed of the very stuff of emotion.

The eternal duality of this emotion takes various forms in these various manifestations of its one substance. Thus the energy or flame of the aesthetic sense resolves itself into the opposed vibrations of the beautiful and the hideous. Thus the energy, or flame, of the pure reason resolves itself into the opposed vibrations of the true and the false. Thus the energy, or flame, of conscience resolves itself into the opposed vibrations of the good and the evil.

Although the remaining energies of the soul, beyond those I have just named—such as instinct, intuition, imagination, and the like— are less definitely divided up among those three "primordial ideas" which we discern as "truth," "beauty," and "goodness," they are subject, nevertheless, since their substance is the stuff of emotion, to the same duality of love and malice.

It is not difficult to see how this duality turns upon itself in human instinct, in human imagination, and in human intuition for the creative impulse in all these energies finds itself opposed by the impulse to resist creation. It is when the will is in question that we are compelled to notice a difference. For the will, although itself a primal energy or projection of the soul, is in its inherent nature set apart from the other activities of the soul.

The will is that particular aspect of the soul-monad by means of which it consciously intensifies or relaxes the outward pressure of emotion. From the point of view of the complex vision, the will, although easily differentiated from both consciousness and emotion, cannot be imagined as existing apart from these.

Every living organism possesses consciousness in some degree, emotion in some degree, and will in some degree; and the part played by the will in the complicated "nexus" of the soul's life may be compared to that of a mechanical spring in some kind of a machine. In this case, however, the spring of the machine is fed by the oil of consciousness and releases its force upon the cogs and wheels of contradictory emotion.

No theory of psychology which attempts to eliminate the will by the substitution of pure "motive" playing upon pure "action" is acceptable to us. And such an elimination is unacceptable, because, in the ultimate insight of the complex vision turned round upon itself, the soul is aware of a definite recognizable phenomenon which although present to consciousness is different from consciousness, and although intensifying and lessoning emotion is different from emotion.

In regard to this "problem of conduct," which I refuse to interpret as anything short of the whole art of life, contemplative as well as active, the will, being, so to say, the main-spring of the soul, naturally plays the most important part. The prominence given, in moral tradition, to the struggle of the will with sexual desire is one of the melancholy evidences as to how seldom the complex vision of the soul has been allowed full play.

What is called "asceticism" or "puritanism" is the result of an over-balanced concentration of the will upon the phenomena of sensation alone. Whereas in the rhythmic balance of the soul's complete faculties, what the ideal vision calls upon the will to do, is not to concentrate upon repressing sensation but to concentrate upon repressing malice and intensifying love.

Sensation is only, after all, one of the energies, or projected flames, of the soul, in its reaction to the objective mystery. But emotion is, as we have seen, the very soul itself, poured forth in its profoundest essence, and eternally divided against itself in the ultimate duality. Emotion is the psychic element which is the real substratum of sensation, just as it is the real substratum of reason and taste. So that when the will concentrates itself, as it has so often done and so often been commended for doing, upon sensation alone, it is neglecting and betraying its main function, which is the repressing of malice and the liberation of love.

The deliberate repression of sensation does, it is true, sometimes destroy our response to sensation; but it more often intensifies the soul's sensational life. It is only when the will is concentrated upon the intensifying of love and the suppression of malice that sensation falls into its right place in the resultant rhythm. There is then no question of either suppressing it or of indulging it. It comes and goes as naturally, as easily, as inevitably, as the rain or the snow.

When the will is concentrated upon the suppression of malice and the intensifying of love all those cults of sensation which we call vice naturally relinquish their hold upon us. The fact that women so rarely indulge in the worst excesses of these cults is due to the fact that in their closeness to nature they follow more easily the rhythmic flow of life and are less easily tempted to isolate and detach from the rest any particular feeling. But women pay the penalty for this advantage when it comes to the question of the illuminative moments of the apex-thought. For in these high, rare and abnormal moments, the ordinary ebb and flow of life is interrupted; and something emerges which resembles the final effluence of a work of art that has touched eternity. The rhythmic movement of the apex-thought, when under such exceptional conditions it evokes this effluence, rises for a moment out of the flux of nature and gathers itself into a monumental vision, calm and quiet and immortal. It is more difficult for women to attain this vision than for men; because, while under normal conditions the play of their energies is better balanced and more harmonious than man's, it is harder for them to detach themselves from the ebb and flow of nature's chemistry, harder for them to attain the personal isolation which lends itself to the supreme creative act. But while such exceptional moments seem to come more frequently to men than to women, and while a greater number of the supreme artists and prophets of the world are of the male sex, it cannot be denied that the average woman, in every generation, leads a more human and a more dignified life than the average man. And she does this because the special labours which occupy her, such as the matter of food, of cleanliness, of the making and mending of clothes, of the care of children and animals and flowers, of the handling of animate and inanimate things with a view to the increase of life and beauty upon the earth, are labours which have gathered about them, during their long descent of the centuries, a certain symbolic and poetic distinction which nothing but immemorial association with mankind's primal necessities is able to give.

The same dignity of immemorial association hangs, it is true, about such masculine labours as are connected with the tilling of the earth and the sailing of the sea. Certain ancient and eternally necessary handicrafts, such as cannot be superseded by machinery, take their place with these. But since man's particular power of separating himself from Nature and dominating Nature by means of logical reason, physical science and mechanical devices, puts him in the position of continuity breaking up those usages of the ages upon which the ritualistic element in life depends, he has come, by inevitable evolution, to be much more the child of the new and the arbitrary than woman is; and in his divorce from immemorial necessity has lost much of that symbolic distinction which the life of woman retains.

It may thus be said that while the determining will in the soul of the average woman ought to be directed towards that exceptional creative energy which lifts the soul out of the flux of Nature and gives it a glimpse of the vision of the immortals, the determining will in the soul of the average man ought to be directed towards the heightening of his ordinary consciousness so as to bring this up to the level of the flux of nature and to penetrate it with the memory of the creative moments which he has had.

In both cases the material with which the will has to work is the emotions of love and of malice; but in the case of man this malice tends to destroy the poetry of common life, while in the case of woman it tends to obstruct and embarrass her soul when the magic of the apex-thought stirs within her and an opportunity arises for that creative act which puts the complex vision in touch with the vision of the Gods.

The philosophy of the complex vision does not discover in its examination of the psycho-material organism of the soul any differentiated "faculties" which can be paralleled by the differentiated "members" of the human body. The organic unity of the soul is retained, in undissipated concentration, throughout whatever movement or action or stress of energy it is led to make. The totality of the soul becomes will, or the totality of the soul becomes reason, or the totality of the soul becomes intuition, in the same way as a falling body of water, or the projected stream of a fountain becomes whatever dominant colour of sky or air or atmosphere penetrates it and transforms it. What we have called emotion, made up of the duality of love and malice, is something much more integral than this. For the totality of the soul, which becomes reason, consciousness, intuition, conscience, and the like, is always composed of the very stuff and matter of emotion. When we say "the totality of the soul becomes imagination or intuition" it is the same thing as though we said "the emotion of the soul becomes imagination or intuition."

Emotion is our name, in fact, for the psycho-material "stuff" out of which the organic substratum of the soul is made. And since this "stuff" is eternally divided against itself into a positive and a negative "pole" we are compelled to assert that our ultimate analysis of the system of things is dualistic, in spite of the fact that the whole drama takes place under the one comprehensive unity of space.

When we say that the totality of the soul becomes will, reason, imagination, conscience, intuition and so forth, we do not mean that by becoming any one of these single things it is prevented from becoming others. We are confronted here by a phenomenon of organic life which, however inexplicable, is of frequent occurrence in human experience. The ecclesiastical dogma of the Trinity is no fantastic invention of this or the other theologian. It is an inevitable definition of a certain body of human experience to which it affords a plausible explanation.

What the philosophy of the complex vision attempts to do is to analyse into its component parts that confused mass of contradictory impressions to which the soul awakens as soon as it becomes conscious of itself at all. The older philosophers begin their adventurous journey by the discovery and proclamation of some particular clue, or catchword, or general principle, out of the rational necessity of whose content they seek to evoke that living and breathing universe which impinges upon us all. Modern philosophy tends to reject these Absolute "clues," these simplifying "secrets" of the system of things; but in rejecting these it either substitutes its own hypothetical generalizations, such as "spirit," "life-force," or "cosmic energy," or it contents itself with noting, as William James does, the more objective grouping of states of consciousness, as they weave their pattern on the face of the swirling waters, without regard to any "substantial soul" whose background of organic life gives these "states" their concrete unity.

The philosophy of the complex vision differs from the older philosophies in that it frankly and confessedly starts with that general situation which is also its goal. Its movement is therefore a perpetual setting-forth and a perpetual return; a setting forth towards a newly created vision of the world, and a return to that ideal of such a vision which has been implicit from the beginning. And this general situation from which it starts and to which it returns is nothing less than the huge spectacle of the visible universe confronting the individual soul and implying the kindred existence of innumerable other souls. The fact that what the complex vision reveals is the primary importance of personality does not detract in the least degree from the unfathomable mysteriousness of the objective universe And it does not detract from this because the unfathomableness of the universe is not a rational deduction drawn from the logical idea of what an objective universe would be like if it existed, but is a direct human experience verified at every movement of the soul. The universe revealed to us by the complex vision is a universe compounded of the concentrated visions of all the souls that compose it, a universe which in its eternal beauty and hideousness has received the "imprimatur of the immortal Gods."

The fact that such a universe is in part a creation of the mind, and in part a discovery made by the mind when it flings itself upon the unknown, does not lessen or diminish the strangeness or unfathomableness of life. The fact that the ultimate reality of such a universe is to be found in the psycho-material substratum—where mind and matter become one—of the individual soul, does not lessen or diminish the magical beauty or cruel terribleness of life.

What we name by the name of "matter" is not less a permanent human experience, because apart from the creative energy of some personal soul we are not able to conceive of its existence.

The philosophy of the complex vision reduces everything that exists to an eternal action and re-action between the individual soul and the objective mystery. This action and reaction is itself reproduced in the eternal duality, or ebb and flow, which constitutes the living soul itself. And because the psycho-material substance of the soul must be considered as identical, on its psychic side, with the "spiritual substance" of the universe "medium" through which all souls come into contact with one another, and identical on its material side with the objective mystery which is expressed in all bodies, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the individual personality is surrounded by an elemental and universal "something" similar to itself, dominated as itself is dominated by the omnipresent circle of Space.

This universal "something" must be regarded, in spite of its double nature, as one and the same, since it is dominated by one and the same space. The fact that the material aspect of this psycho-material element is constantly plastic to the creative energy of the soul does not reduce it to the level of an "illusion." The mind recreates everything it touches; but the mind cannot work in a vacuum. There must be something for the mind to "touch." What the soul touches, therefore, as soon as it becomes conscious of itself is, in the first place, the "material element" of its own inmost nature; in the second place the "material element" which makes it possible for all bodies to come in contact with one another; and in the third place the "material element" which is the original potentiality of all universes and which has been named "the objective mystery."

To call this universal material element, thus manifested in a three-fold form, an illusion of the human mind is to destroy the integrity of language. Nothing can justly be called an illusion which is a permanent and universal human experience. The name we select for this experience is of no importance. We can name it matter, or we can name it energy, or movement, or force. The experience remains the same, by whatever name we indicate it to one another.

The philosophy of the complex vision opposes itself to all materialistic systems by its recognition of personality as the ultimate basis of life; and it opposes itself to all idealistic systems by its recognition of an irreducible "material element" which is the object of all thought but which is also, in the substratum of the soul-monad, fused and blended with thought itself.

We now arrive at the conclusion of our philosophical journey; and we find it to be the identical point or situation from which we originally started. Once and for all we are compelled to ask ourselves the question, whether since personality is the ultimate secret of life and since all individual personalities, whether human, sub-human, or super-human, are confronted by one "material element" dominated by one universal material space, it is not probable that this "material element" should itself be, as it were, the "outward body" of one "elemental soul"? Such an elemental soul would have no connexion with the "Absolute Being" of the great metaphysical systems. For in those systems the Absolute Being is essentially impersonal, and can in no sense be regarded as having anything corresponding to a body.

But this hypothetical soul of the ethereal element would be just as definitely expressed in a bodily form as are the personalities of men, beasts, plants and stars. It is impossible to avoid, now we are at the end of our philosophic journey, one swift glance backward over the travelled road; and it is impossible to avoid asking ourselves the question whether this universal material element which confronts every individual soul and surrounds every individual body may not itself be the body of an universal living personality? Is such a question, so presented to us for the last time, as we look back over our long journey, a kind of faint and despairing gesture made by the phantom of "the idea of God," or is it the obscure stirring of such an idea, from beneath the weight of all our argument, as it refuses to remain buried? It seems to me much more than this.

The complex vision seems to indicate in this matter that we have a right to make the hypothetical outlines of this thing as clear and emphatic as we can; as clear and emphatic, and also, by a rigid method of limitation, as little overstressed and as little overpowering as we can.

The question that presses upon us, therefore, as we glance backward over our travelled road, is whether or not, by the logic of our doctrine of personality, we are bound to predicate some sort of "elemental soul" as the indwelling personal monad belonging to the universal material element even as any other soul belongs to its body.

Does it not, we might ask, seem unthinkable that any portion of this universal element should remain suspended in a vacuum without the indwelling presence of a definite personality of which it is the expression? Are we not led to the conclusion that the whole mass and volume of this material element, namely the material element in every living soul, the material element which binds all bodies together, and the material element which composes the objective mystery, must make up in its total weight and pressure the body, so to speak, of some sort of universal elemental soul?

And because no personality, whether universal or individual, can be regarded as absolute, since perpetual creation is the essence of life, must it not follow that this elemental personality must itself eternally confront and be confronted by an unfathomable depth of objective mystery which it perpetually invades with its creative energy but which it can never exhaust, or touch the limit of? The body of this being would be in fact its own "objective mystery," while our "objective mystery" would be recognized as disappearing in the same reality. Does this hypothesis reduce the tragedy of life to a negligible quantity, or afford a basis upon which any easy optimism could be reared? It does not appear so. Wherever personality existed, there the ultimate duality would inevitably reign. And just as with "the invisible companions" what is evil and malicious in us attracts towards us what is evil and malicious in them so with the elemental personality, whatever were evil and malicious in us would attract towards us whatever were evil and malicious in it. The elemental personality would not necessarily be better, or nobler, or wiser than we are. There would be no particular reason why we should worship it, or give it praise. For if it really existed it could no more help being what it is than we can help being what we are, or the immortal gods can help being what they are.

That such an elemental personality would have to be regarded as a kind of demi-god can hardly be denied; but there would be no reason for asserting that our highest moments of inspiration were due to its love for us. As with the rest of the "immortals" it would be sometimes possessed by love and sometimes possessed by malice, and we should have not the least authority for saying that our supreme moments of insight were due to its inspiration. Sometimes they would be so. On the other hand sometimes our most baffled, clouded, inert, moribund, and wretched moments would be due to its influence. Such an elemental personality would have no advantage over any other personality, except in the fact of being elemental; and this would give it no absolute advantage, since its universality would be eternally challenged by the unfathomable element in its own being. The "body" of such an elemental personality would have to be regarded as the actual objective mystery which confronts both men and gods. It would have to be regarded as possessing a complex vision even as every other personality possesses it; and its soul-monad would have to be as concrete, actual, and real, as every other soul monad. An ethereal Being of this kind, whose body were composed of the whole mass of the material element which binds all bodies together, would have no closer connexion with the soul of man than any other invisible companion. The soul of man could be drawn to it in love or could be repelled from it by malice, just as it can be drawn to any other living thing or repelled by any other living thing.

That the human race should have sometimes made the attempt to associate such an universal personality with the ideal figure of Christ is natural enough. But such an association wins no sanction or authority from the revelation of the complex vision. In one sense the figure of Christ, as the life of Jesus reveals it, is a pure symbol. In another sense, as we become aware of his love in the depths of our own soul, he is the most real and actual of all living beings. But neither as a symbol of the immortal vision, nor as himself an immortal God, have we any right to regard Christ as identical with this elemental personality. Christ is far more important to us and precious to us than such a being could possibly be.

And just as this hypothetical personality, whose body is the material element which binds all bodies together, must not be confused with the figure of Christ, so also it is not to be confused with either of those primordial projections of pure reason, working in isolation, which we have noted as the "synthetic unity of apperception" and the "universal self," The elemental personality, if it existed, would be something quite different from the universal self of the logical reason. For the universal self of the logical reason includes and transcends all the other selves, whereas the elemental personality which has the whole weight of the world's material element as its body could not transcend, or in any way "subsume" the least of individual things except in so far as the material element which is its body would surround all living things and bring them into contact with one another.

The elemental personality could in no sense be called an over-soul, because, so far from being an universal self made up of particular individual selves, it would be a completely detached soul, only related to other souls in the sense that all other souls come into contact with one another through the medium of its spiritual substance.

According to the revelation of the complex vision the question of the existence or non-existence of an elemental soul of this kind has no relation to the problem of human conduct. For the material element in the individual soul is fused in individual consciousness; and therefore the spiritual medium which surrounds the individual soul cannot impinge upon or penetrate the soul which it surrounds. And this conclusion is borne witness to in all manner of common human experience. For although we all feel dimly aware of vast gulfs of spiritual evil and vast gulfs of spiritual beauty in the world about us, this knowledge only becomes definite and concrete when we think of such gifts as being entirely made up of personal moods, the moods of mortal men, of immortal gods, and the moods, it may be, of this elemental personality.

But the problem of conduct is not the problem of getting into harmony with any particular individual soul. It is the problem of getting into harmony with the creative vision in our own soul, which when attained turns out to be identical with the creative vision of every other soul in the universe. The conception of the elemental personality does not depend, as does the existence of the immortals, upon our consciousness of something objective and eternal in our primordial ideas. It depends upon our suspicion that no extended mass of what we call matter, however attenuated and ethereal, can exist suspended in soulless space.

Some attenuated form of matter our universe demands, as the universal medium by means of which all separate bodies come into touch with each other; but it is hard to imagine an universal medium hung, as it were, in an enormous vacuum. Such a medium would seem to demand, as a reason for its existence, some living centre of energy such as that which a personal soul can alone supply. It is in this way we arrive at the hypothetical conception of the elemental soul.

And our hypothesis is borne out by one very curious human experience. I mean the experience which certain natures have of a demonic or magnetic force in life which can be drawn upon either for good or for evil, and which seems in some strange sense to be diffused round us in the universal air. Goethe frequently refers to this demonic element; and others, besides Goethe, have had experience of it. If our hypothetical, elemental personality is to be regarded as a sort of demi-god, lower than the immortals and perhaps lower than man, we may associate it with those vague intimations of a sub-human life around us which seems in some weird sense distinct from the life of any particular thing we know.

The elemental personality, in this case, would be the cause of those various "psychic manifestations" which have sometimes been fantastically accounted for as the work of so-called "elementals."

But the supreme moments of human consciousness, when the apex-thought of the complex vision is shooting its arrows of flame into the darkness, are but slightly concerned with the demonic sub-human life of hypothetical elemental personalities. They are concerned with the large, deep, magical spectacle of the great cosmic drama as it unrolls itself in infinite perspective. They are concerned with the unfathomable struggle, more terrible, more beautiful, more real, than anything else in life, between the resistant power of malice and the creative power of love. Nor do they see, these moments, the end of this long drama. The soul creates and is baffled in its creations. The soul loves and is baffled in its loving. Good and evil grow strangely mingled as they wrestle in the bottomless abyss. And ever, above us and beneath us, the same immense space spreads out its encircling arms. And ever, out of the invisible, the beckoning of immortal beauty leads us forward. Pain turns into pleasure; and pleasure turns into pain. Misery, deep as the world, troubles the roots of our being. Happiness, deep as the world, floods us with a flood like the waves of the ocean. All our philosophy is like the holding up of a little candle against a great wind. Soon, soon the candle is blown out: and the immense Perhaps rolls its waters above our heads.

The aboriginal malice against which the Gods struggle is never overcome. But who can resist asking the question—supposing that drama once ended, that eternal duality once reconciled, would annihilation be the last word or would something else, something undreamed of, something unguessed at, something "impossible," irrational, contrary to every philosophy that has ever sprung from the human brain, take the place of what we call life and substitute some new organ of research for the vision which we have called complex?

Who can say? The world is still young and the immortal Gods are still young; and our business at present is with life rather than beyond-life. Confused and difficult are the ways of our mortality; and after much philosophizing we seem to be only more conscious than ever that the secret of the world is in something else than wisdom.

The secret of the world is not in something that one can hold in one's hand, or about which one can say "Lo, here!" or "Lo, there!" The secret of the world is in the whole spectacle of the world, seen under the emotion of one single moment. But the memory of such a moment may be diffused over all the chances and accidents of our life and may be restored to us in a thousand faint and shadowy intimations. It may be restored to us in broken glimpses, in little stirrings and ripples on the face of the water, in rumours and whispers among the margin-reeds, in sighings of the wind across the sea-bank. It may be restored to us in sudden flickerings of unearthly light thrown upon common and familiar things. It may be restored to us when the shadow of death falls upon the path we have to follow. It may be restored to us when the common ritual and the ordinary usages of life gather to themselves a sudden dignity from the presence of great joy or of tragic grief. For the stream of life flows deeper than any among us realize or know; deeper, and with more tragic import; deeper, and with more secret hope. We are all born, even the most lucky among us, under a disastrous eclipse. We all contain something of that perilous ingredient which belongs to the unplumbed depths. Deep calls unto deep within us; and in the circle of our mortal personality an immortal drama unrolls itself. Waves of unredeemed chaos roll upward from the abysses of our souls, and like a brackish tide contend with the water-springs of life.

Over the landscape of our vision lies a shadow, a rarely lifted shadow, the shadow of our own malice. But the human race has not been destined to carry on the unending struggle alone. Its subjective human vision has touched in the darkness a subjective super-human vision; and the symbol of the encounter of these two is the lonely figure of Christ.

Looking backward, as we thus reach our conclusion, we see how such a conclusion was implicit all the while in the first movement with which we started. For since the truth we seek is not a thing we just put out our hand and take, but is a mood, an attitude, a gesture of our whole being, it follows that whenever, and by whatever means, we reach it, this "truth" will always be the same, and will not be affected, when once it is reached, by the slowness or the speed of the method with which we approach it. Nor will it be changed or transformed by the vision that finally grasps it as it would necessarily be if it were an objective fact which we could each of us take into our hands. Such an objective fact or series of facts would, of necessity, "look differently" to every individual vision that seized upon it. But by making our truth, down to the very depths, a gesture, an attitude, a mood, we have already anticipated and discounted that fatal relativity which inserts itself like a wedge of distorting vapour, between any objective fact and any subjective mind.

"Truth" cannot get blurred and distorted by the subjective mind when truth is regarded as that subjective mind's own creation. According to the conclusion we have reached, every subjective mind in the universe, when it is rhythmically energizing, attains the same truth. For when subjectivity is carried to the furthest possible limit of rhythm and harmony, it transforms itself, of necessity, into objectivity. The subjective vision of all mortal minds, thus rendered objective by the intensity of the creative energy, is nothing less than the eternal vision. For as soon as the rhythmic harmony of the creative act has thus projected such a truth, such a truth receives the "imprimatur of the Gods" and turns out to be the truth which was implicit in us from the beginning.

Thus, the reality which we apprehend is found to be identical with the pursuit of the ideal which we seek; for what we name beauty and truth and goodness are of the essence of the mystery of life, and it is of their essence that they should ever advance and grow.

The eternal vision includes in its own inmost rhythm the idea and spectacle of inexhaustible growth; for, although it beholds all things "under the form of eternity," its own nature is the nature of a creative gesture, of a supreme "work of art," whereby it approximates to the ideal even in the midst of the real. The "form of eternity" under which it visualizes the world is not a dead or static eternity but an eternity of living growth. The peace and quiet which it attains is not the peace and quiet of the equilibrium which means "nothingness" but the peace and quiet of the equilibrium which means the rhythmic movement of life. The truth which it creates is a truth which lends itself to infinite development upon lines already laid down from the beginning. The beauty which it creates is a beauty which lends itself to infinite development upon lines laid down from the beginning.

And this truth, this beauty, this goodness, are all of them nothing less than the projection of the soul itself—of all the souls which constitute the system of things—in the mysterious outflowing of the ultimate duality. And when we make use of the expression "from the beginning" we are using a mere metaphorical sign-post. There is no beginning of the system of things and there is no end. "From the beginning" means nothing except "from eternity"; and in the immortal figure of Christ the beginning and the end are one.

In my analysis of the ultimate duality which is the secret of the soul I have said little about sex. The modern tendency is to over-emphasize the importance of this thing and to seek its influence in regions it can never enter. Many attributes of the soul are sexless; and since only one attribute of the soul, namely sensation, is entirely devoted to the body and unable to function except through the body, it is ridiculous and unphilosophical to make sex the profoundest aspect of truth which we know. The tendency to lay stress upon sex, at the expense of all sexless aspects of the soul, is a tendency which springs directly from the inert malice of the abyss What the instinct of sex secretly desires is that the very fountains of life should be invaded by sex and penetrated by sex. But the fountains of life can never be invaded by sex; because the fountains of life sink into that eternal vision which transcends all sex and reduces sex to its proper place as one single element in the rhythm of the universe.

It is only by associating itself with love and malice—it is only by getting itself transformed into love and malice that the sexual instinct is able to lift itself up, or to sink itself down, into the subtler levels of the soul's vision. The secret of life lies far deeper than the obvious bodily phenomena of sex. The fountains from which life springs may flow through that channel but they flow from a depth far below these physical or magnetic agitations. And it is only the abysmal cunning of the inert malice, which opposes itself to creation that tempts philosophers and artists to lay such a disproportionate stress upon this thing. The great artists are always known by their power to transcend sex and to reduce sex to its relative insignificance. In the greatest of all sculpture, in the greatest of all music, in the greatest of all poetry, the difference between the sexes disappears.

The inert malice delights to emphasize this thing, because its normal functioning implies the most desperate exertion of the possessive instinct known to humanity. The sexual instinct unless transfigured by love, tends towards death; because the sexual instinct desires to petrify into everlasting immobility what the creative instinct would change and transform. What the sexual instinct secretly desires is the eternal death of the object of its passion. It would strike its victim if it could into everlasting immobility so that it could satiate its lust of possession upon it without limit and without end. Any object of sexual desire, untransformed by love, is, for the purposes of such desire, already turned into a living corpse.

But although, according to the method we have been following, the difference between men and women is but of small account in the real life of the soul, it remains that humanity has absurdly and outrageously neglected the especial vision of the woman, as, in her bodily senses and her magnetic instincts, she differs from man we may well hope that with the economic independence of women, which is so great and desirable a revolution in our age, individual women of genius will arise, able to present, in philosophy and art, the peculiar and especial reaction to the universe which women possess as women we may well desire such a consummation in view of the fact that all except the very greatest of men have permitted their vision of the world to be perverted and distorted by their sex-instinct.

Could women of genius arise in sufficient numbers to counteract this tendency, such sex-obsessed masculine artists would be shamed into recognizing the narrowness of their perverted outlook. As it is, what normal women of talent do is simply to copy and imitate, in a diluted form, the sex-distortions of man's narrower vision. Sex-obsessed male artists have seduced the natural intelligence of the most talented women to their own narrow and limited view of life.

But it still remains that what the true artists of the world for ever seek—whether they be male or female—is not the partial and distorted vision of man as a man, or of woman as a woman, but the rhythmic and harmonious vision of, the human soul as it allies itself with the vision of the immortals. Women in private life, and in private conversation, disentangle themselves from the prejudices of men, but, as soon as they touch philosophy and art, they tend to deny their natural instincts and imitate the sex-obsessed instincts of man. But this tendency is already beginning to collapse under the freer atmosphere of economic independence; and in the future we may expect such a fierce conflict between the sex-vision of woman and the sex-vision of man, that the human soul will revolt against both such partialities and seek the "ampler ether and diviner air" of a vision that has altogether transcended the difference of sex.

As we look back over the travelled road of our attempt to articulate the ultimate secret, there arises one last stupendous question, not to meet which would be to shirk the heaviest weight of the problem. We have reached the conclusion that the secret of Nature is to be found in personality. We have reached the further conclusion that personality demands, for the integrity of its inmost self, an actual "soul-monad." We are faced with a "universe," then, made up entirely of living souls, manifested in so-called animate, or so-called inanimate bodies. Everything that our individual mind apprehends is therefore the body of a soul, or a portion of the body of a soul, or the presence of a soul that needs no incarnation. The soul itself is composed of a mysterious substance wherein what we call mind and what we call matter are fused and merged. What I have named throughout this book by the name of the objective mystery is therefore, when we come to realize the uttermost implications of our method, nothing more than the appearance of all the bodies of all the souls in the world before the creative act of our own particular soul has visualized such a spectacle. We can never see the objective mystery as it is, because directly we have seen it, that is to say, the appearance of all the adjacent bodies of all the souls within our reach, it ceases to be the objective mystery and becomes the universe we know.

The objective mystery is therefore no real thing at all, but only the potentiality of all real things, before the "real thing" which is our individual soul comes upon the scene to create the universe. It is only the potentiality of the "universe" which we have thus named, only the idea of the general spectacle of such an universe, before any universe has actually appeared.

And since the final conclusion of our attempt at articulation should rigorously eliminate from our picture everything that is relatively unreal, in favour of what is relatively real, it becomes necessary, now at the end, to eliminate from our vision of reality any substantial basis for this, "potentiality of all universes," and to see how our actual universe appears when this thing has been withdrawn as nothing but an unreal thing. The substantial basis for what we actually see becomes therefore no mere potential universe, or objective mystery, but something much more definite than either of these. The spectacle of Nature, as we behold it, becomes nothing else than the spectacle of all the living bodies that compose the universe, each one of them with its corresponding invisible soul-monad.

The movement of thought to which I have throughout this book given the name of "the struggle with the objective mystery" remains the same. In these cases, names are of small account. But since it is a movement of thought which itself culminates in the elimination of the "objective mystery," it becomes necessary to "think through" the stage of thought which this term covered, and articulate the actual cause of this movement of the mind.

The cause of the spectacle of the universe, as it presents itself to us in its manifold variety, is the presence of innumerable visible bodies which are themselves the manifestation of innumerable invisible souls. Everything that we see and touch and taste and smell and hear is a portion of some material body, which is the expression of some spiritual soul.

The universe is an immense congeries of bodies, moved and sustained by an immense congeries of souls. But it remains that these souls, inhabiting these bodies, are linked together by some mysterious medium which makes it possible for them to communicate with one another. What is this mysterious medium? What we have already indicated, here and there in this book, leads us at this point to our natural conclusion. Such a medium may well be nothing less than that elemental soul, with the universal ether as its bodily expression, the existence of which we have already suggested as a more than probable hypothesis. If the omnipresent body of this elemental soul is the material atmosphere or medium which unites all material bodies, surely we are justified in assuming that the invisible primordial medium which binds all souls together, which hypothetically binds them together even before they have, by the interaction of their different visions, created the universe, is this universal "soul of the elements." Only a spiritual substance is able to unite spiritual substances. And only a material substance is able to unite material substances. Thus we are justified in assuming that while the medium which unites all bodies is the universal body of the elemental soul, the medium which unites all souls is the omnipresent soul-monad of this elemental being. It must however be remembered that this uniting does not imply any sort of spiritual including or subsuming of the souls thus united. They communicate with one another by means of this medium; but the integrity of the medium which unites them does not impinge at any point upon their integrity.

Thus, at the end of our journey, we are able, by this final process of drastic elimination, to reduce the world in which we live to a congeries of living souls. Some of these souls possess what we name animate bodies, others possess what we name inanimate bodies. For us, these words, animate and inanimate, convey but slight difference in meaning. Between a stone, which is part of the body of the earth, and a leaf which is part of the body of a plant, and a lock of hair which is part of the body of a man, there may be certain unimportant chemical differences, justifying us in using the terms animate and inanimate. But the essential fact remains that all we see and taste and touch and smell and hear, all, in fact, that makes up the objective universe which surrounds us, is a portion of some sort of living body, corresponding to some sort of living soul.

Our individual soul-monad, then, able to communicate with other soul-monads, whether mortal or immortal, through the medium of omnipresent soul-monads of the universal ether finds itself dominated, as all the rest are dominated, by one inescapable circle of unfathomable space. Under the curve of this space we all of us live, and under the curve of this space those that are mortal among us, die. When we die, if it be our destiny not to survive death, our souls vanish into nothingness; and our bodies become a portion of the body of the earth. But if we have entered into the eternal vision we have lost all fear of death; for we have come to see that the thing which is most precious to us, the fact that love remains undying in the heart of the universe, does not vanish with our vanishing. Once having attained, by means of the creative vision of humanity and by means of the grace of the immortals, even a faint glimpse into this mystery, we are no longer inclined to lay the credit of our philosophizing upon the creative spirit in our individual soul. The apex-thought of the complex vision has given us our illuminated moments. But the eternal vision to which those moments led us has filled us with an immense humility.

And in the last resort, when we turn round upon the amazing spectacle of life it is of the free gift of the gods, or of the magical love hidden in the mystery of nature, that we are led to think, rather than of any creative activity in ourselves. The word "creative" like the word "objective mystery," has served our purpose well in the preceding pages. But now, as we seek to simplify our conclusion to the uttermost, it becomes necessary to reject much of the manifold connotation which hangs about this word; although in this case also, the stage of thought which it covers is a real movement of the mind.

But the creative activity in the apex-thought of our complex vision is, after all, only a means, a method, a gesture which puts us into possession of the eternal vision. When once the eternal vision has been ours, the memory of it does not associate itself with any energy of our own. The memory of these eternal moments associates itself with a mood in which the creative energy rests upon its own equipoise, upon its own rhythm; a mood in which the spectacle of the universe, the magic of Nature, the love in all living souls, the contact of mortality with immortality, become things which blend themselves together; a mood in which what is most self-assertive in our personality seems to lose itself in what is least self-assertive, and yet in thus losing itself is not rendered utterly void.

For all action, even the ultimate act of faith, must issue in contemplation; and this is the law of life, that what we contemplate, that we become. He who contemplates malice becomes malicious. He who contemplates hideousness becomes hideous. He who contemplates unreality becomes unreal.

If the universe is nothing but a congeries of souls and bodies, united by the soul and the body which fill universal space, then it follows that "the art of philosophy" consists in the attempt to attain the sort of "contemplation" which can by the power of its love enter into the joy and the suffering of all these living things.

Thus in reaching a conclusion which tallies with our rarest moments of super-normal insight we discover that we have reached a conclusion which tallies with our moments of profoundest self-abasement. In these recurrent moods of humiliation it seems ridiculous to speak of the creative or the destructive energy of the mind. What presents itself to us in such moods is a world of forms and shapes that we can neither modify nor obliterate. All we can do is to reflect their impact upon us and to note the pleasure of it or the pain. But when even in the depths of our weakness we come to recognize that these forms and shapes are, all of them, the bodily expressions of souls resembling our own, the nostalgia of the great darkness is perceptibly lifted and a strange hope is born, full of a significance which cannot be put into words. The world-stuff, or the objective mystery, out of which the eternal vision has been created is now seen to be the very flesh and blood of a vast company of living organisms; and it has become impossible to contemplate anything in the world without the emotion of malice or the emotion of love. If ever the universe, as we know it now, is dissolved into nothingness, such an end of things will be brought about either by the complete victory of malice or by the complete victory of love.

THE END