The complex vision

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THE COMPLEX VISION

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THE BOOKS OF
JOHN COWPER POWYS

"Visions akd BxnaiovB,** Essays on
Literature

"Suspended Jxtdqmsnts/' EseajB on
Literature

"One HimDBED Best Books"

"Contessions of Two Bbothebs''
(with L. Powys)

"Wood and Stone,** A Bomance

"BoDMOOB," A Bomanee

"Mandbagoba," Poems

"The Wab and Cdltube**

"Wolf's-bane," Bhyxnee

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THE
COMPLEX VISION

BY

JOHN COWPER POWYS

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

19S0

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COPYSiaHT. 1920,

bt dodd, mead and OOMPANY. Iko.

• ■ALLOU OOMfANT

MMIfON AHO NOV VMM

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"3^^ 598780

c^

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,1

DEDICATED

TO

LITTLETON ALFRED

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PROLOGUE

What I am anzions to attempt in this anticipatory sum-
mary of the contents of this book is a simple estimate of its
final conclusions, in such a form as shall eliminate all tech-
nical terms and reduce the matter to a plain statement,
intelligible as far as such a thing can be made intelligible,
to the apprehension of such persons as have not had the
luck, or the iU-luck, of a plunge into the ocean of meta-
physic

A lai^ portion of the book deals with what mii^t be
called our instrument of research; in other words, with the
problem of what particular powers of insight the human
mind must use, if its vision of reality is to be of any deeper
or more permanent value than the ''passing on the wing,^'
80 to speak, of individual fancies and speculations.

This instrument of research I find to be the use, by the
human person, of all the various energies of personality
concentrated into one point; and the resultant spectacle
of things or reality of things, which this concentrated vi-
sion makes dear, I call the original revelation of the com-
plex vision of man.

Having analyzed in the earlier portions of the book the
peculiar nature of our orgaii of research and the peculiar
difficulties — amounting to a very elaborate work of art —
which have to be overcome before this concentration takes
place, I proceed in the later portions of the book to make
as dear as I can what kind of reality it is that we actually
da succeed in grasping, when this concentrating process has
been achieved. I indicate inddentally that this desirable
concentration of the energies of personality is so difficult

Tii

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viii PROLOGUE

a thing that we are compelled to resort to our memory of
what we experienced in rare and fortunate moments in
order to establish its results. I suggest that it is not to
our average moments of insight that we have to appeal,
but to our exceptional moments of insight ; sipce it is only
at rare moments in our lives that we are able to enter into
what I call the eternal vision.

To what, then, does this conclusion amount, and what is
this resultant reality, in as far as we are able to gather it
up and articulate its nature irom the vague records of
our memory t

I have endeavoured to show that it amounts to the fol-
lowing series of results. What we are, in the first place,
assured of is the existence within our own individual body
of a real 'actual living thing composed of a mysterious
substance wherein what we call mind and what we call
matter are fused and intermingled. This is our real and
self-conscious soul, the thing in us which says, ''I am I,"
of which the physical body is only one expression, and of
which all the bodily senses are only one gateway of re-
ceptivity.

The soul within us becomes aware of its own body simul-
taneously with its becoming aware of all the other bodies
which fill the visible universe. It is then by an act of faith
or imagination that the soul within us takes for granted
and assumes that there must be a soul resembling our own
soul within each one of those alien bodies, of which, simul-
taneously with its own, it becomes aware.

And since the living basis of our personality ia this real
soul within us, it follows that all those energies of person-
ality, whose concentration is the supreme work of art, are
the energies of this real soul. If, therefore, we assume
that all the diverse physical bodies which fill the universe
possess, each of them, an inner soul resembling our own
soul, we are led to the conclusion that just as our own soul

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PROLOGUE ix

half-creates and half-discoverd the general speetade of
things which it names ''the universe," so all the alien souls
in the world half -create and half -discover what they fed as
their universe.

If our revelation stopped at this point we should have to
admit that there was not one universe, but as many uni-
verses are there are living souls. It is at this point, how-
ever, that we become aware that all these souls are able,
in some degree or other, to enter into communication.
They are able to do this both by the bodily sounds and
signs which constitute language and by certain immaterial
vibrations which seem to make no use of the body at all.
In this communication between different souls, as far as
humanity is concerned, a very curious experience has to be
recorded.

When two human beings dispute together upon any im-
I>ortant problem of life, there is always an implidt appeal
made by both of them to an invisible arbiter, or invisible
standard of arbitration, in the heart of which both seem
aware that the reality, upon which their opinions differ, is
to be found in its eternal truth. What then is this invisi-
Ue standard of arbitration t Whatever it is, we are eom-
I>elled to assume that it satisfies and transcends the deepest
and furthest reach of personal vision in all the souls that
approach it. And what is the deepest and furthest reach
of our individual soul} This seems to be a projection upon
the material plane of the very stuff and substance of the
soul's inmost nature.

This very ''stuff" of the soul, this outflowing of the
substance of the soul, I name "emotion"; and I find it to
consist of two eternally conflicting dements; what I call
the dement of "love," and what I call the dement of
"malice." This emotion of love, which is the furthest
reach of the soul, I find to be differentiated when it comes
into contact with the material universe into three ultimate

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X PROLOGXJE

ways of taking life; namely^ the way which we name the
pnrsoit of beanty, the way which we name the pursuit of
goodnestfy and the way which we name the pursuit of truth.
But these threel ways of taking life find always their unity
and identity in that emotion of loye which is the psychic
substance of them all.

The invisible standard of arbitration, then, to which an
appeal is always made, consciously or unconsciously, when
two human beings dispute upon the mystery of life, is a
standard of arbitration which concerns the real nature
of love, and the real nature of what we call ''the good''
and ''the true'* and "the beautiful.'*

And since we have found in personality the one thing in
existence of which we are absolutely assured, because we
are aware of it, on the imide, so to speak, in the depths of
our own souls, it becomes necessary that in place of think-
ing of this invisible standard as any spiritual or chemical
"law" in any stream of "life-force" we should think of it
as being as personal as we ourselves are personal. For
since what we call the universe has been already described
as something which is half -created and half -discovered by
the vision of some one soul in it or of all the souls in it, it
is clear that we have no longer any right to think of these
ultimate ideas as "suspended" in the universe, or as gen-
eral "laws" of the universe. They are suspended in the
individual soul, which half -creates and half -discovers the
universe according to their influence.

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

The human soul is aware of an invisible standard of
beauty. To this invisible standard it is compelled to make
an unconscious appeal in all matters of argument and dis-

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PBOLOQUB xi

eoifiioiL This standard must therefore be rooted in a per-
sonal super-human visicm and we are driven to the eon-
dusion that some being or beings exist, superior to man,
and yet in eommunieation with man. And sinee what we
see around us is a world of many human and sub-human
personalities, it is, by analogy, a more natural supposition
to suppose that these supernatural beings are many than
that they are one.

What the human soul, therefore, together with all ot^er
souls, attains in its coneentrated moments is '^an eternal
vision'' wherein what is mortal in us merges itself in what
is immortal.

But if what we call the universe is a thing made up of
all the various universes of all the various souls in space
and time, we are forbidden to find in this visible material
universe, whose ''reality" does not become **really real"
until it has received the '' hall-mark, " so to speak, of the
eternal vision, any sort of medium or link which makes it
posedble for these various souls to communicate with one
another.

This material universe, thus produced by the concen-
trated visions of all the souls entering into the eternal vi-
sion, is made up of all the physical bodies of all such souls,
linked together by the medium of universal ether. But
although the bodies which thus occupy different points of
space are linked together by the universal ether, we are not
permitted to find in this elemental ether, the medium which
links the innumerable souls together. And we are not per-
mitted this because in our original assumption such souls
are themselves the half-creatons, as well as the half-discov-
erers, of that universe whose empty spaces are thus filled.
The material ether which links all bodies together cannot,
since it is a portion of such an universe, be itself the me-
dium from the midst of which these souls create that uni-
verse.

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xii PROLOGUE

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

We are thus faced by a universe which is the half-cr^
ation and half-discovery of all living souls, a universe the
truth and beauty of which depend upon the eternal vision,
a universe whose material substance is entirely composed of
the actual physical bodies of those very souls whose vision
half -creates and half -discovers it.

We thus reach our conclusion that there is nothing in the
world except personality. The material universe is en-
tirely made up of i>ersonal bodies united by the i>erBonal
body of the elemental ether. What we name the universe,
therefore, is an enormous group of bodies joined together
hy the body of the ether; such bodies being the physical
expression of a corresponding group of innumerabte souls
joined together by the soul of the ether.

In the portions of this book which deal with the creative
energy of the soul I have constantly used the expression
'^objective mystery"; but in my concluding chapter I have
rejected and eliminated this word as a mere step or stage
in human thought which does not corresx>ond to any final
reality. When I use the term "objective mystery'* I am
referring to the original movement of the individual mind
when it first stretches out to what is outside itself. What
is outside itself consists in reality of nothing but an un-
fathomable group of bodies and souls joined together by
the body and soul of the ether which fills space.

But since, in its first stretching out towards these things,
all it is aware of is the presence of a plastic something
which lends itself, under the universal curve of space, to

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PEOLOGUE ?iu

the moulding and tbaping and colouring of its creatiye
yision, it is natural enough to look about for a name by
which we can indicate this original ''day" or ''matter" or
"world-stuff" out of which the individual soul creates its
vision of an universe. And the name "objective mystery"
is the name by which, in the bulk of this book, I have indi-
cated this mysterious world-stuff, by which the soul finds
itself surrounded, both in regard to the matter of its own
body and in regard to the still more alien matter of which
all other bodies are ccmiposed.

But when by the use of the term objective msrdtery I
have indicated that general and universal something, not
itself, by which the soul is confronted, that something
which, like a white screen, or a thick mass of darkness,
waits the moving lamp of the soul to give it light and col-
our, it becomes clear that the name itself does not cover
any actual reality other than the actual reality of all the
bodies in the world joined together by the universal ether.

Is the term "objective mystery," therefore, no more than
the name given to that first solid mass of external impres-
sion which the insight of the soul subsequently reduces to
the shapes, colours, scents, sounds, and all the more subtle
intimations springing from the innumerable bodies and
souls which fill universal space t No. It is not quite this.
It is a little deeper than this. It is, in fact, the mind's
Tec(^:nition that behind this first solid mass of external im-
-preadan which the soul's own creative activity creates into
its "universe" there must exist "something," some real
substance, or matter, or world-stuff, in contact with which
the soul half -creates and half -discovers the universe which
it makes its own.

When, however, the soul has arrived at the knowledge
that its own physical body is the outward expression of its
inner self, and when by an act of faith or imagination it
has extended this knowledge to every other bodily torm in

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adv PROLOGUE

its universe, it ceases to be necessary to use tbe term *' ob-
jective mystery"; since that something which the soul felt
conscious of as existing behind the original solid mass of
impressions is now known by the soul to be nothing else
than an incredible number of living personalities, each with
its own body.

And just as I make use in this book of the term '^ob-
jective mystery," and then discard it in my final conclu-
sion, so I make an emphatic and elaborate use of the term
** creative" and then discard it, or considerably modify it,
in my final conclusion.

My sequence of thought, in this matter of the soul's "cre-
ative" power, may thus be indicated. In the process of
preparing the ground for those rare moments of illumina-
tion wherein we attain the eternal vision the soul is occu-
pied, and the person attempting to think is occupied, with
what I call *'the difficult work of art" of concentrating its
various energies and fusing them into one balanced point
of rhythmic harmony. This effort of contemplative ten-
sion is a ''creative effort" similar to that which all artists
are compelled to make. In addition to this aspect of what
I call ''creation," there also remains the fact that the in-
dividual soul modifies and changes that first half -real some-
thing which I name the objective mystery, until it becomes
all the colours, shapes, sounds and so forth, produced by the
impression upon the soul of all the other i>ersonalities
brought into contract with it by the omnipresent personal-
ity of the universal ether.

The words "creation" and "creative" are thus made
descriptive in this book of the simple and undeniable fact
that everything which the mind touches is modified and
changed by the mind; and that ultimately the universe
which any mind beholds is an universe half -created by the
mopd of the mind which beholds it. And since the mood
of any mind which contemplates the universe is dependent

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PEOLOGUB XV

/
upon the rdative '^overcoming" in that parti<mlar sonl of
the emotion of malice by love, or of the emotion of love by-
malice, it becomes true to say that any universe which
comes into existence is necessarily ** created *' by the orig-
inal struggle, in the depths of some soul or other, of the
conflicting emotions of love and malice.

And since the ideal of the emotion of love is life, and the
ideal of the emotion of hate is death, it becomes true to say
that the emotion of love is identical with the creative en-
ergy in all souls, while the emotion of malice is idendcal
with the force which resists creation in all souls.

Why then do I drop completely, or at least considerably
modify, this stress upon the soul's '* creative^' power in my
final chapter t I am led to do so by the fact that such
creative power in the soul is, after all, only a preparation
for the eternal vision. Creative energy implies effort, ten-
sion, revolution, agitation, and the pain of birth. All these
things have to do with preparing the ground for the eternal
vision, and with the final gesture of the soul, by which it
enters into that ultimate rhythm. But once having en-
tered into that vision — and in these things time is nothing
— the rhythm which results is a rhythm upon which the
soul rests, even as music tests upon music, or life rests
upon life.

And the eternal vision, thus momentarily attained, and
hereafter gathered together from the deep cisterns of
memory, liberates us, when we are under its influence, from
that contemplative or creative tension whereby we reached
it. It is then that the stoical pride of the soul, in the
strength of which it has endured so much, undergoes the
process of an immense relaxation and relief. An inde-
scribable humility floods our being; and the mood with
which we contemplate the spectacle of life and death ceases
to be an individual mood and becomes an universal mood.
The isolation, which was a necessary element in our ad-

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xvi PROLOGUE

vance to this point, melts away when we have reached it.
It is not that we lose our personality, it is that we merge
ourselves by the outflowing of love, in all the personalities
to which the procession of time gives birth.

And the way we arrive at this identification of ourselves
with all souls, living or dead or unborn, is by our love for
that ideal symbolized in the figure of Christ in whom this
identification has already been achieved. This, and noth-
ing less than this, is the eternal vision. For the only
''god" among all the arbiters of our destiny, with whom
we are concerned, is Christ. To enter into his secret is
to enter into their secret. To be aware of him is to be
aware of everything in the world, mortality and immortal-
ity, the transitory and the eternal.

Life then, as I have struggled to interpret it in this book,
seems to present itself as an unfathomable universe en-
tirely made up of personalities. What we call inanimate
substances are all of them the bodies, or portions of the
bodies, of living personalities. The iromense gulf, popu-
larly made between the animate and the inanimate, thus
turns out to be an unfounded illusion ; and the whole uni-
verse reveals itself as an unfathomable series, or congieries,
of living personalities, united by the presence of the omni-
present ether which fills universal space.

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

To persons who have not been plunged, luckily or un-
luckily, in the troublesome sea of metaphysical phrases, the

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PBOLOGUB xvii

portions of this book which will be most tiresome are the
I>ortions which deal with those ''half -realities" or logical
abstractions of the human reason, when such reason
*' works" in isolation from the other attributes of the soul.
Such reason, working in isolation, inevitably produces cer-
tain views of life; and these views of life, although unreal /
when compared with the reality produced by the full play
of all our energies, cannot be completely disregarded if our
research is to cover the whole field of humanity's reactions.
Since there is always an irresistible return to these meta-
physical views of life directly the soul loses the rhythm of
its total being, it seems as if it were unwise to advance
upon our road until we have discounted such views and
placed them in their true perspective, as unreal but in-
evitable abstractions.

The particular views of life which this recurrent move-
ment of the logical reason results in, are, first, the reduction
of everything to an infinite stream of pure thought, outside
both time and space, unconscious of itself as in any way
personal ; and, in the second place, the reduction of every-
thing to one universal self-conscious spirit, in whose abso-
lute and infinite being independent of space and time aU
separate existences lose themselves and are found to be
illusions.

What I try to make clear in the metaphysical portion of
this book is that these two views of life, while always liable
to return upon us with every renewed movement of the
isolated reason, are in truth unreal projections of man's im-
perious mind. When we subject them to an analysis based
upon our complete organ of research they show themselves
to be nothing but tyrannous phantoms, abstracted from the
genuine reality of the soul as it exists within space and
time.

What I seek to show throughout this book is that the
world resolves itself into an immeasurable number of per-

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xviii PEOLOGUE

sonalities held together hy the personality of the tmiyersal
ether and by the unity of one space and one time.^ Even
of space and time themselves, since the only thing that
really ''fills them/' so to speak, to the brim, is the universal
ether, it might be said that they are the expression of this
universal ether in its relation to all the objects which it
contains.

Thus the conclusion to which I am driven is that the
dome of space, out of which the sun shin^ by day and the
stars by night, contains no vast gulfs of absolute nothing-
ness into which the soul that hates life may flee away and
be at rest. At the same time the soul that hates life need
not despair. The chances, as we come to estimate them, for
and against the soul's survival after death, seem so curi-
ously even, that it may easily happen that the extreme long-
ing of the soul for annihilation may prove in such a balanc-
ing of forces the final deciding stroke. And quite apart
from death, I have tried to show in this book, how in the
mere fact of the unfathomable depths into which all phys-
ical bodies as well as all immaterial souls recede there is an
infinite opportunity for any soul to find a way of escai>e
from life, either by sinking into the depths of its own phys-
ical being, or by sinking into the depths of its own spiritual
substance.

The main purpose of the book reveals, however, the only
escape from all the pain and misery of life which is worthy
of the soul of man. And this is not so much an escape
from life as a transfiguring of the nature of life by means
of a newly bom attitude toward it. This attitude toward
life, of which I have tried to catch at least the general out-
lines, is the attitude which the soul struggles to maintain
by gathering tog^her all its diffused memories of those
rare moments when it entered into the eternal vision.

And I have indicated as clearly as I could how it comes
about that in the sphere of practical life the only natural

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PBOLOaUB xiz

and conaktent realization of this attitude wonld be the
earrying into actual effect of vAxat I call ^Hhe idea of eom-
mnniBm.'*

This '^idea of oommtinism/' in which the human im-
plications of the eternal vision beccHne realized, is simply
the conception of a system of human society founded upon
the creative instinct^ instead of upon the possessive instinct
inhumanity.

I endeavour to make clear that such a reorganization of
society upon such a basis does not imply any radical change
in human nature. It only implies a liberation of a force
that already exists^ of the force in the human soul that is
centrifugal, or outflowing, as opposed to the force that is
centripetal, or indrawing. Such a force has always been
active in the lives of individuals. It only remains to lib-
erate that force until it reaches the general consciousness
of the race, to make such a reconstruction of human society
not only ideal, but actual and effective.

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CONTENTS

CHAPm ' PAOI

I The Complex Vision 1

II The Aspects op the C!omplex Vision ... 20

III The Soul's Apex-Thought 56

IV The Revelation op the C!omplex Vision . . 71
V The Ultimate Duality 100

VI The Ultimate Ideas 120

VII The Nature op Abt 160

VIII The Nature op Love 194

IX The Nature op the Gods 214

X The Figure op Christ 225

XI The Illusion op Dead Matter .... 248

XII Pain and Pleasure 270

Xin The Reality op the Soul in Relation to Mod-
ern Thought 293

XIV The Idea op Communism 323

Conclusion 339

zxi

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PEEPACB^

The speculatiye qnstem which I have entitled '^The Phi-
losophy of the Complex Vision" is an attempt to bring into
prominence, in the sphere of definite and articulate thought,
those scattered and chaotic intimations which hitherto have
found expression rather in Art than in Philosophy.

It has come to be fatally clear to me that between the
great metaphysical i^ystems of rationalized purpose and the
actual shocks, experiences, superstitions, illusions, disillu-
sions, reactions, hope and despairs, of ordinary men and
women there is a great gulf fixed. It has become clear to
me that the real i>oignant i>ersonal drama in all our lives,
together with those vague ^'marginal'' feelings which over-
shadow all of us with a sense of something half -revealed
and half withheld, has hardly any point of contact with
these formidable edifices of pure logic.

On the other hand the tentative, hedtating, ambiguous
hypotheses of Physical Science, transforming themselves
afresh with every new discovery, seem, when the porten-
tous mystery of Life's real secret confronts us, to be equally
remote and elusive.

When in such a dilemma one turns to the vitalistic and
pragmatic speculations of a Bergson or a William James
there is an almost more hopeless revulsion. For in these
I)seudo-Bcientific, pseudo-psychological methods of thought
something most profoundly human seems to us to be
completely neglected. I refer to the high and passionate
imperatives of the heroic, desperate, treasonable heart of
man.

What we have come to demand is some intelligible sys-

xxiii

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33dv PBEPACE

tern of imaginative reason which shall answer the exigencies
not only of our more normal moods but of those moods into
which we are thrown by the pressure upon us — apparently
from outside the mechanical sequence of cause and effect —
of certain mysterious Powers in the background of our ex-
perience, such as hitherto have only found symbolic and
representative expression in the ritual of Art and Religion.

What we have come to demand is some flexible, mal-
leable, rhythmic system which shall give an imaginative
and yet a rational form to the sum total of those manifold
and intricate impressions which make up the life of a real
person upon a real earth.

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

And it is precisely these demands that the philosophy of
the complex vision attempts to satisfy. It seeks to satisfy
them by using as its organ of research the balanced '' en-
semble" of man's whole nature. It seeks to satisfy them
by using as its ''material" the whole variegated and con-
tradictory mass of feelings and reactions to f eeliiigs, which
the natural human being with his superstitions, his sym-
pathies, his antipathies, his loves and his hates, his surmises,
his irrational intuitions, his hopes and fears, is of necessity
bound to experience as he moves through the world.

It seeks, in fact, to envisage from within and without the
confused hurly-burly of life's drama; and to give to this
contradictory and complicated spectacle the aesthetic ra-
tionality or imaginative inevitableness of a rhythmic work
of art.

In this attempt the philosophy of the complex vision is
bound to recognize, and include in its rational form, much
that remains mysterious, arbitrary, indetermined, oi^anic,
obstinately illogical. For the illogical is not necessarily

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PREFACE XXV

tke unintelligible, so long as the reason which we use is that
same imaginative and clairvoyant reason, which, in its
higher measure, sustains the vision of the poets and the
artists.

By the use of this fuller, richer, more living, more con-
crete instrument of research, the conclusions we arrive at
will have in them more of the magic of Nature, and will be
closer to the actual palpable organic mystery of Life, than
either the abstract conclusions of metaphysic or the cau-
tious, impersonal hyi>otheses of exi>erimental physical
science.

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THE COMPLEX VISION

CHAPTER I

TEE OOKPIiEX VISION

A philosophy is known by its genuine starting-point
This is also its final condusion, often very cnnningly eon-
oealed. Sneh a eondnsion may be presented to ns as the
logical result of a Ipng train of reasoning, when really it
was there all the while as one single viYid revelation of the
complex vision.

like travellers who have already found, by happy acci-
dent, the city of their desire, many crafty thinkers hasten
hurriedly back to the i>articular point from which th^
intend to be regarded as having started; nor in making tiiis
secret joumQr are they forgetful to erase their footsteps
from the sand, so that when they publicly set forth it shall
appear to those who follow them that they are guided not
by previous knowledge of the way but by the inevitable
necessity of pure reason.

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

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

This revelation is of a peculiar nature, which must be

1

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2 THE COMPLEX VISION

grasped, at least in its general outlines, before we can ad-
vance a step farther upon tliat journey whicli is also a
return.

It might be maintained that before attempting to phil-
osophize upon life, the question should be asked . . . '^why
philosophize at allt" And again • • . ''what are the mo-
tive-forces which driyve us into this process which we call
philosophizing!"

To philosophize is to articulate and express our personal
reaction to the mystery which we call life, both with regard
to the nature of that mystery and with regard to its mean-
ing and purpose.

My answer to the question ""Why do we philosophize!"
is as follows. We philosophize for the same reason that we
move and speak and laugh and eat and love. In other
words, we philosophize because man is a philosophical ani-
mal. We breathe because we cannot help breathing and
we philosophize because we cannot help philosophizing.
We may be as sceptical as we please. Our very scepticism
is the confession of an implicit philosophy. To suppress
the activity of philosophizing is as impossible as to sup-
press the activity of breathing.

Assuming then that we have to philosophize, the ques-
tion naturally arises . • • how have we to philosophize if
our philosophy is to be an adequate expression of our com-
plete reaction to life! I

By the phrase ''man's complex vision" I am trying to
indicate the elaborate and intricate character of the organ
of research which we have to use. All subsequ^it discov-
eries are rendered misleading if the total activity, at least
in itBr general movement, of our instrument of research is
not brought into focus. This instrument of research which
I have named "man's complex vision" implies his posses-
sion, at the moment when he begins to philosophize, of
certain basic attributes ot energies.

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THE COMPLBX VISION 9

The advance from infancy to maturity nafcurally means,
when the difference between person and person is consid-
ered, an unequal and diverse development of these basic
energies. Nor even when the person is full grown will it be
found that these energies exist in him in the same propor-
tion as they exist in other persons. But if they existed
in every person in precisely equal proportions we should
not all, even then, have the same philosophy.

We should not have this, because though the basic activ-
ities were there in equal proportion, each living con-
crete person whose activities these were would necessarily
colour the resultant vision with the stain or dye of
his original difference from all the rest. For no two liv-
ing entities in this extraordinary world are exactly the
same.

What is left for us, then, it might be asked, but to
''whisper our conclusions" and accept the fact that all
''philosophies" must be different, as th^y are all the pro-
jection of different personalities t Nothing, as far as pure
logic is concerned, is left for us but this. Yet it remains
as an essential aspect of the process of philosophizing that
we should endeavour to bring over to our vision as many
other visions as we can succeed in influencing. For since
we have the power of communicating our thought to one
another and since it is of the very nature of the complex
vision to be exquisitely sensitive to influences from outside,
it is a matter of primordial necessity to us all that we
should exercise this will to influence and this will to be in-
fluenced.

And just as in the case of persons qrmpathetic to our-
selves the activity of philosophizing is attended by the emo-
tion of love and the instinct of creation, so in tiie case of
persons antagonistic to ourselves the activity of philoso-
phizing is attended by the emotion of hate and the instinct
of destruction. For philosophy being the flnal articulation

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4 THE COMPLEX VISION

of a i>ersonal reaction to life, is penetrated through and
through with the basic raergies of life.

On the one hand there is a ''Come unto mCi all ye • • /'
and on the other there is a ''Woe unto you, Scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites I ' ' Just because the process of philos-
ophizing is necessarily personal, it is evident that the pri-
mordial aspect of it which implies "the will to influence''
must tally with some equally primordial reciprocity, imply-
ing "the will to be influenced/'

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

This medium of expression between living things does
not seem to be confined to the human race. Some reci-
procal harmony of energy, corresponding to our complex
vision, seems to have created many mysterious modes of
communication by which mjrriads of sub-human beings, and
probably also myriads of super-human beings, act and re-
act on one another.

But the existence of language, though it excludes the
possibility of absolute difference, does not, except by an
act of faith, necessitate that any sensation we name by the
same name is reaUy identical with the sensation which an-
other person feds. And this difiSculty is much further
complicated by the fact that words themselves tend in the
process to harden and petrify, and in their hardening to
form, as it were, solid blocks of accretion which resist and
materially distort the subtle and evasive play of the human
psychology behind them.

So that not only are we aware that the word which we
use does not necessarily represent to another what it rep-
resents to ourself , but we are also aware that it does not,
except in a hard and inflexible manner, represent what we
ourselves fed. Words tend all too quickly to become sym-
bolic; and it is often the chief importance of what we call
"genius" that it takes these inflexible (symbols into its

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THE COMPLEX VISION 6

hands and bveaks them up into pieces and dips them in the
wavering waters of experience and sensation.

Every philosopher should be at pains to avoid as far as
possible the use of technical terms, whether ancient or
modem, and should endeavour to evade and slip behind
these terms. He should endeavour to indicate his vision
of the world by means of words which have acquired no
thick accretion of traditional crust but are fresh and sup*
pie and organic. He should use such words, in fact, as
might be said to have the flexibility of life, and like living
plants to possess leaves and sap. He should avoid as far
as he can such metaphors and images as already carry with
them the accumulated associations of traditional usage, and
he should select his expressions so that they shall give the
reader the definite impact and vivid shock of thoughts that
leap up from immediate contact with sensation, like fish
from the surface of a river.

Just because words, in their passage from generation to
generation, tend to become so hard and opaque, it is ad-
visable for any one attempting to philosophize to use in-
direct as well as direct means of expressing his thoughts.
The object of philosophizing being to ** carry over'* into
another person's consciousness one's personid reaction to
things, it may well happen that a hint, a gesture, a signal,
a sign, made indirectly and rather by the grouping of
words and the tone of words than by their formal content,
will reach the desired result more edSCeetually than any di-
rect argument.

It must be admitted, however, that this purely subjective
view of philosophy, with its implied demand for a precise
subjective colouring of the words, leaves some part of our
philosophical motive-force unsatisfied and troubled by an
obscure distress. No two minds can interchange ideas
without some kind of appeal, often so faint and unconscious
as to be quite imrecognized, to an invisible audience of hid-

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6 THE COMPLEX VISION

den attendants upon the argument, who are tacitly aa-
somed in some mysterious way to be the arbiters. These
invisible companions seem to gather to themselves, as we
are vaguely aware of them, the attributes of a company
of overshadowing listeners. They present themsdves to
the half -conscious background of our mind as some pre-
existent vision of ** truth'' towards which my subjective
vision is one contribution and my interlocutor's subjective
vision another contribution.

This vague consciousness which we both have, as we ex-
change our ideas, of some comprehensive vision of pre-
existent reality, to which we are both api>ealing, does not
destroy my passionate conviction that I am ''nearer the
truth" than my friend ; nor does it destroy my latent feel-
ing that in my friend's vision there is ''something of the
truth" which I am unable to grasp. I think the more con-
stantly we encounter other minds in these philosophical
disputes the more does there grow and take shape in our
own mind the idea of some mysterious and invisible watch-
ers whose purer vision, exquisitely harmonious and clair-
voyant, remains a sort of test both of our own and of
others' subjectivity; becomes, in fact, an objective standard
or measure or pattern of those ideas which we discover
within us all, and name truth, beauty, nobility.

This objective standard of the things which are most
important and precious to us, this ideal pattern of all
human valuies, attests and manifests its existence \>y the
primordial necessity of the interchange of thoughts among
us. I call this pattern or standard of ideas "the vision of
the immortal companions." By the term "the immortal
companions" I do not mean to indicate any "immanent"
power or transcendental "over-soul." Nor do I mean to
indicate that they are created by our desire that they
should exist. Although I call them "companions" I wish
to suggest that they exist quite independently of man and

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THE COMPLEX VISION 7

are not the origin of these ideas in man's soul but only the
model, the pattern, the supreme realization of these ideas.

It is, however, to these tacit listeners, whose vision of
the world is there in the background as the arbiter of our
subjective encounters, that in our immense loneliness we
find ourselves constantly turning. AU our philosophy, all
our struggle with life, falls into two aspects as we grow
more and more aware of what we are doing. The whole
strange drama takes the form, as we feel our way, of a
creation which at present is non-existent and of a realiza-
tion of something which at present is hidden.

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

These hidden listeners, these tacit arbiters, these assumed
and implied witnesses of our life, give value to every at-
tempt we make at arriving at some unity amid our differ-
ences; and their vision seems, as the eternal duality presses
ttpon us, to be at once the thing from which we start and
the thing towards which, moulding the future as we go, we
find ourselves moving. In the unfathomable depths of the
past we are aware of a form, a shape, a principle, a pre-
monition; and into the unfathomable depths of the future
we project the fulfilled reality of this. We are as gods
creating something out of nothing. But when we have
created it . . . behold! it was there from the beginning;
and the nothing out of which we have created it has receded
into a second future from which it mocks and menaces us
again«

The full significance of this ultimate duality would be
rendered abortive if the future were determined in any
more definite way than by the premonition, the hope, the

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8 THE qOMPLBX VISION

dream, the passion, the prophe<7y the vision, of those in-
visible eompanions whose existence is implied whenever
two separate souls communicate their thoughts to one an-
other.

It is by our will that the future is created; but around
the will hover intermittently many unfathomable motives.
And the pre-existent motive, which finally gives the shape
to the future, holds the future already in its hand. And
this surviving motive, ultimately selected by our will, is
of necessity purged and tested by a continual comparison
with that form, that idea, that dream, that vision, which
is implied from the beginning and which I name ''the vi-
sion of the invisible companions."

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

The supreme activity of this apex-thought is centred
about those primordial ideas of truth, beauty and nobility
which are the very stuff and texture of its being. In the
ecstasy of its creative and receptive "rapport" with these
it becomes aware of the presence of certain immortal com-
panions whose vision is at once the objective standard of
such ideas and the premonition of their fuller realization.

In thus attempting to articulate and clarify the main
outlines of our starting point, a curious situation emerges.
The actual spectacle, or mass of impressions to be dealt
with, presents itself, we are forced to suppose, as more or
less identical, in its general appearance, in every human
consciousness. And this ''general situation" is strange
enough.

We find ourselves, motionless or moving, surrounded by
earth and air and space. Impressions flow past us and

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THE COMPLEX VISION 9

flow through ns. We onrselyes seem at the same time
able to move from point to point in this apparently real
universe and able to remain, as invisible observers, outside
all the phenomena of time and space. As the ultimate in-
visible spectator of the whole panorama, or, in the logical
phrase, as the '^a priori unity of apperception'' our con-
sciousness cannot be visualized in any concrete image.

But as the empirical personal self, able to move about
within the circle of the objective universe, the soul is able
to visualize itself pictorially and imaginatively, although
not rationally or logically. These two revelations of the
situation are simultaneously disclosed; and although the
first-named of them — ^the ^'a priori unity of appercep-
tion'' — ^might seem to daim, on the strength of this
*'a priori" a precedence over the second, it has no real
right to make such a claim. The truth of the situation is
indeed the reverse of this; and upon this truth, more than
upon anything else, our whole method of enquiry depends.
For the fact that we are unable to think of our integral
personal self as actually being this ^'a priori" conscious-
ness, and are not only able but are bound to think of our
integral personal self as actually being this individual
^^soul" within time and space, we are driven to the con-
clusion that this '^a priori" observer outside time and
space is nothing more than an inevitable trick or law or
aspect or play of our isolated logical reason.

Our logical reason is itself only one attribute of our real
concrete self, the self which exists within time and space;
and therefore we reach the conclusion that this **a priori
unity," which seems outside time and space, is nothing
but a necessary inevitable abstraction from the concrete real-
ity of our personal self which is within time and space.
There is no need to be startled at the apparent i>aradox of
this, as tiiough the lesser were including the larger or the
part the whole, because when space and time are elimi-

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10 THE COMPLEX VISION

nated there can be no longer any large or small or whole
or part. All are equal there because all are equally noth-
ing there.

This *'a priori" unity of consciousness^ outside time and
space, is only real in so far as it represents the inevitable
manner in which reason has to work when it works in iso-
lation, and therefore compared with the reality of the per-
sonal self y within time and space, it is unreal.

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

The method therefore of philosophic raquiry, which I
name ''the philosophy of the complex vision/' depends
upon the realization of the difference between what is only
the inevitable play of reason, working in isolation, and what
is the inevitable play of all the attributes of the human
soul when they are held together by the synthetic activity
of what I name tiie ''apex-thought." But this logical
revelation of the "a priori" unity of consciousness outside
of time and space is not the only result of the isolated play
of some particular attribute of personality. Just as the
isolated play of reason evokes this result, so the isolated
play of self-consciousness evokes yet another result, which
we have to recognize as intervening between this ultimate
logical unity and the real personal self.

The abstraction evoked by the isolated play of self-
consciousness i^ obviously nearer reality and less of an
abstraction than the merely logical one above-named, be-
cause self -consciousness has more of the personal self in it
than reason or logic can have. But though nearer reality
and less of an abstraction than the other, this revelation
of tiie inevitable play of self-consciousness, working by
itself, is also unreal in relation to the revelation of the con«
Crete personal individual soul.

This revelation of self -consciousness, woi^ing in isola*

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THE COMPLEX VISION 11

tion, has as its result the conception of one nniyersal ''I
am I" or cosmic self, which is nothing more or less than
the whole universe, contemplating itself as its own object
To this conception are we driven, when in isolation from the
soul's other attributes our self -consciousness gives itself
up to its own activity. The ''I am I" which we ihea seek
to articulate is an ''I am I" reached bj the negation or
suppression of that primordial act of faith which is the
work of the imagination. This act of faith, thus negated
and suppressed in order that this unreal cosmic self may
embrace the universe, is the act of faith by which we be-
come aware of the existence of innumerable other '^selves,''
besides our own self, filling the vast spaces of nature.

The difference between the sensation we have of our own
body and the sensation we have of the rest of the universe
ceases to exist when self -consciousness thus expands; and
the conceptions we arrive at can only be described as the
idea that the whole universe with all the bodies which it
contains — ^including our own body — ^is nothing but one
vast manifestation of one vast mind which is our own
*'I am I/'

It must not be supposed that tiiis abstraction evoked by
the solitary activity of self-consciousness is any more a
**whole,'' of which the real self is a "part,'' than the
logical *'a priori unity" is a whole, of which the real self
is a part. Both are abstractions. Both are unreal. Both
are shadowy projections from the true reality, which is
the personal self existing side by side with "the immortal
companions." Nor must it be supposed that these primor-
dial aspects of life are of equal importance and that we
have an equal right to make of any one of them the start-
ing point of our enquiry. The starting point of our en-
quiry, and the end of our enquiry also, can be nothing else
than the innumerable company of individual "souls," mor-
tal and immortal, confronting the mystery of the universe.

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12 THE COMPLEX VISION

The philosophy of the complex vision is not a mechan-
ical philosophy; it is a creative philosophy. And as such
it includes in it from the beginning a certain element of
faith and a certain element which I can only describe as
''the impossible.'' It may seem ridiculous to some minds
that the conception of the "impossible" should be intro-
duced into any philosophy at the very start. The complex
vision is, however, essentially creative. The creation of
something really new in the world is regarded by pure
reason as impossible. Therefore the element of "the im-
I>06sible" must exist in this philosophy from the very
start. The act of faith must also exist in it; for the imag-
ination is one of the primary aspects of the complex vision
and the act of faith is one of the basic activities of the
imagination.

The complex vision does not regard history ah a pro-
gressive predetermined process. It regards history as the
projection, by advance and retreat, of the creative and
resistant power of individual souls. That the "invisible
companions" should be in eternal contact with every living
"soul" is a rational impossibility; and yet this impossi-
bility is what the complex vision, using the faith of its
creative imagination, reveals as the truth.

The imagination working in isolation is able, like rea^
son and self -consciousness, to fall into curious distortions
and aberrations.

One has only to survey the field of dogmatic religion -to
see how curiously astray it may be led. It is only by hold-
ing fast to the high rare moments when the apex-thought
attains its consummation that we are able to keep such
isolated acts of faith in their place and prevent the element
of the "impossible" becoming the element of the absurd.
The philosophy of the complex vision, though far more
sympathetic to much that is called "materialism" than
to much that is called "idealism," certainly cannot itself

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THE COMPLEX VISION 13

be regarded as materialistic. And it cannot be so re-
garded because its central assumption and implication is
the concrete basis of personality which we call the **soul.*'
And the ''soul/' when we think of it as something real,
must inevitablj be associated With what might be called
''the vanishing point of sensation. '^ In other words the
soul must be thought of as having some kind of '' matter '^
or ''energy'* or "form" as its ultimate life, and yet as
having no kind of "matter" or "energy" or "form."
The soul must be regarded as "something" which is living
and real and concrete, and which has a definite existence
in time and space, and which is subject to annihilation;
but the stuff out of whibh the soul is made is not capable
of analysis, and can only be accepted by such an act of
faith as that which believes in "the impossible."

The fact that the philosophy of the complex vision as-
sumes as its only axiom the concrete reality of the "soul"
within us which is so difficult to touch or handle or de-
scribe and yet which we fed to be so much more real
than our physical body, justifies us in making an experi-
ment which to many minds will seem uncalled for and
ridiculous. I mean the experiment of trying to visualize,
by an arbitrary exercise of fancy, the sort of form or
shape which this formless and diapeless thing may be
imagined as possessing.

Metaphysical discussion tends so quickly to become thin
and abstract and unreal ; words themselves tend so quickly
to become "dead wood" rather than living branches and
leaves; that it seems advisable, from the point of view of
getting nearer reality, to make use sometimes of a pictorial
image, even though such an image be crudely and dumsUy
drawn.

Pictorial images are always treacherous and dangerous;
but, as I have hinted, it is sometimes necessary, considering
the intricate and delicately balanced character of man's

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14 THE COMPLEX VISION

complex vision, to make a guarded and cautious use of
them, so as to arrive at truth ''sideways/' so to speak, and
indirectly.

One of the curious psychological facts, in connection with
the various ways in which various minds function, is the
iSact that when in these days we seek to visualize, in some
pictorial manner, our ultimate view of life, the images
which are called up are geometrical or chemical rather
than anthropomorphic. It is probable that even the most
rational and logical among us as soon as he begins to
philosophize at all is compelled by the necessity of things
to form in the mind some vague pictorial representation
answering to his conception of the universe. y

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

Most minds see the universe of their mental conception
as something ()uite different from the actual stellar uni-
verse upon which we all gaze. Even the most purely ra-
tional minds who find the universe in ''pure thought" are
driven against their rational will to visualize this "pure
thought" and to glv^ it body and form and shape and
movement.

These hidden and subconscious representations, in terms
of sensible imagery, of the conclusions of philosophic
thought, are themselves of profound philosophical inter-
est. We cannot afford to neglect them. They are at least
proof of the inalienable part played, in the functioning
of our complex vision, by sensation as an organ of research.
But they have a further interest. They are an iUiuninat-
ing revelation of the inherent character and personal bias
of the individual soul who is philosophizing. I suppose
to a grelEtt many minds what we call "the universe" pre-

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THE COMPLEX VISION 15

Bents itself as a^ colossal circle, without any circomf eceneei
filled with an innumerable number of material objects
floating in some thin attenuated ether. I suppose the
centre of this circle with no circumference is generally
assumed to be the ''self'' or ''soul" of tiie person project-
ing this particular image. /

Doubtless, in some cases, it is assumed to be such a per-
son 's physical body as it feels itself conscious of sensation
and is aware of space and time.

As I myself use the expression "complex vision" I sup-
pose I call up in the minds of my various readers an ex-
traordinary variety of pictorial images. Without laying
any undue stress upon this pictorial tendency, I should
like to indicate the kind of projected image which I my-
self am conscious of, when I use the expression, "the com-
plex vision."

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

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

I have not mentioned this particular pictorial image

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16 THIS COMPLEX YISION

with any wish to lay nndue streas upon it. In all rarified
and subtle experiments of thought^ pictorial images are
quite as |ikely to hinder us in our groping towards reality
as they are to help us. If my image of a moving, hori-
zontal pyramid with an apex-point of many flames fused
into one and a base of impenetrable invisibility seems to
any reader of this passage a ridiculous and arbitrary fancy
I would merely aide such an one to let it go, and to con-
sider my description of the complex vision quite inde-
pendently of it.

Sometimes to myself it appears ridiculous; and I only,
as we put it, ^^ throw it out" in order that, if it has the
least illuminative value, such a value should not be quite
lost. Any reader who regards my particular picture as
absurd is i^rfectly at liberty to form his own pictorial
image of what I am endeavouring to make clear. He may,
if he pleases, visualize ^Hhe soul" as a sort of darkened
planet from which the attributes of the complex vision
radiate to the right or to the left, as the thing moves
through immensity. All I ask is that these attributes
i should be thought of as converging to a point and as find-
ing their ^^base" in some thing which is felt to exist but
cannot be described.

Probably to a thorough-going empiricist, and certainly
to a thorough-going materialist, it will appear quite un-
nepessary to translate the obvious spectacle of the world,
with oneself as a physical body in the centre of it, into
mental symbols and pictorial representations of the above
character. Of such an one I would only ask, in what sort
of manner he visualizes, when he thinks of it at all, the
**sour' which he feels conscious of in his own body; and in
the second place how he visualizes the connection between
the will, the instinct, the reason and so forth, which ani-
mate his body and endow it with living purpose! It will
be found much easier for critics to reject the particular

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THE COMPLEX VISION 17

image which has commended itself to me as saggestive
of the mystery with which we have to deal, than for them
to drive out and expel from their own thought the in-
sidious human tendency towards pictorial representation.

I would commend to any sardonic pi^chologist whose
''malice" leads him to derive pleasure from the little
weaknesses of philosophers, to turn his attention to the
ideal ifystems of supposedly ''pure thought/' He will
find infinite satisfaction for his spleen in the crafty man-
ner in which "impure'' thought — ^that is to say thought
by means of pictorial images— passes itself off as "pure"
and conceals its lapses.

Truth, as the complex ^oh dearly aiough reveals to
us, refuses to be dealt with l^ "pure" thought To deal
with truth one has to use "impure" thought, in other
words thought that is dyed in the grain by taste, instinct,
intuition, imagination. And every philosopher who at-
tempts to round off his system by pure reason alone, and
who refuses to recognize that the only adequate organ of
research is the complex vision, is a philosopher who sooner
or later will be caught red-handed in the unphilosophic act
of covering hid tracks.

No philosopher is on safe ground, no philosopher can
offer us a massive organic concrete representation of real*
ity who is shy of aU pictorial images. They are danger-
ous and treacherous things; but it is better to be led astray
by them than to avoid them altogether.

The mythological symbolism of antique thought was full
of this pictorial tendency and even now the shrewdest of
modem thinkers are compelled to use images drawn from
antique mythology. Poetic thought may go astray. But
it can never negate itself into quite the thin simulacrum of
reality into which pure reason divorced from i>oetic imagery
18 capable of fading.

After all, the most obstinate and irreducible of all pie-

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18 THB COMPLEX VISION

torial repreaentatioiui is the obyions one of the material
imiyerse with our physical body as the centre of it. But
even this is not complete. In fact it is extremely far
from complete, directly we think closely about it For not
only does such a picture omit the real centre, that inde-
scribable ^'something'' we call the ''soul,'' it also loses it-
sdf in unthinkable darkness when it considers any one of
its own unfathomable horizons.

It cannot be regarded as a vay adequate picture when
both the centre of it and the circumference of it baffle
thought The materialist or ''objectivist" may be satis-
fied with such a result, but it is a result which does not
answer the question of philosophy, but rather denies that
any answer is possible. But though this obvious objective
spectacle of the universe, with our bodily self as a part
of it, cannot satisfy the demands of the complex vision, it
is at least certain that no philosophy which does not in-
clude this and accept this and continually return to this^
can satisfy these demands.

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

And the most comprehensive of these assumptions is
nothing less than the complex vision itself, with that
''something," which is the soul, as its inscrutable base.
Thus I am permitted to retain, in spite of its arbitrary
fanta^, my pictorial image of a pyramidal arrow of fire,
moving from darkness to darkness. My picture were false
to my conception if it did not depict the whole pyramid,
with the soul itself as its base, moving, in its complete
totality, from mystery to mystery.

It may move upwards, downwards, or, as I myself seem
to see it, horizontally. But as long as it keeps its apex-
point directed to the mystery in front of it, it matters

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THB COMPLEX VISION 19

little how we conceive of it as moving. That it ihonld
move, in some way or another, is the gist of my demand
upon it; for, if it does not move, nothing moves; and life
itself is swallowed up in nothingness.

This swallowing up of life in nothingness, this oblitera-
tion of life by nothingness is what the emotion of malice
ultimately desires. The eternal conflict between love and
malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And
this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves
from darkness to darimess.

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CHAPTER n

THE ASPBOTS OP THB OOMPLEX VISION

The asi>ects of the complex vision may be separated
from one another according to many systema of classifica-
tions. As long as, in the brief summary which follows,
I include the more obvious and more important of tliese
aspects, I shall be doing all that the philosophy of the
complex vision demands.

The reader is quite at liberty to make a different classi-
fication from mine, if mine appears unconvincing to hinu
The general trend of my argument will not be in any se-
rious way affected, as long as he admits that I have fol-
lowed the tradition of ordinary human language, in the
classification which I have preferred.

It seems to me, then, that the aspects of the complex
vision are eleven in number; and that they may be sum-
marized as consisting of reason, self-consciousness, will,
the aesthetic sense, or ^^ taste," imagination, memory, con-
science, sensation, instinct, intuition and emotion.

These eleven aspects or attributes are not to be regarded
as absolutely separate ^'functions,'' but rather as rela-
tively separate ''energies" of the one concrete stful-monad.
The complex vision is the vision of an irreducible living
entity which pours itself as a whole into every one of its
various energizings. And though it pours itsdf as a whole
into each one of these, and though each one of these con-
tains the latent potentiality of aU the rest, the nature of the
complex vision is such that it necessarily takes colour and
form from the particular aspect or attribute through which
at the moment it is especially energizing.

It is precisely here that the danger of ''disproportion"

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 21

is found. Folr the complex vision with the whole weight
of all its aspects behind it receives the colour and the form
of only one of them. We can see the result of this from
the tenacity — ^implying the presence of emotion and will —
with which some philosopher of pure reason passionately
and imaginatively defends his logical conclusion.

But we are ourselves proof of it in every moment of
our lives. Confronted with some definite external situa-
tion, of a happy or unhappy character, we fling ourselves
upon this new intrusion with the momentum of our whole
being; and it becomes* largely a matter of accident whether
our reaction of the moment is coloured by reason or by will
or by imagination or by taste. Immersed in the tide of
experience, receiving shock after shock from alien and
hostile forces, we struggle with the weight of our whole
soul against each particular obstacle, not stopping to regu-
late the complicated machinery of our vision but just
seizing spon the thing, or trying to avoid it, with what-
ever energy serves our purpose best at the moment.

This is especially true of small and occasional pleasures
or small and occasional annoyances. A supreme pleasure
or a supreme pain forces us to gather our complex vision
together, forces us to make use of its apex-thought, so that
we can embrace the ecstai^ or fling ourselves upon the
misery with a co-ordinated power. It is the little casual
annoyances and reliefs of our normal days which are so
hard to deal with in the spirit of philosophic art, because
these little pleasures and pains while making a superficial
appeal to the reason or the emotion or the will or the con-
science, are not drastic or formidable enough to drive us
into any concentration of the apex-thought which shall
harmonize our confused energies.

The fatal ease with which the whole complex vision gets
itself coloured by and obsessed by one of its own attributes
may be proved by the history of philosophy itself. Indi-

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22 THB COMPLEX VISION

▼idoal phflosophers have, over and over again^ plunged
with furious tenacity into the mystery of life with a com-
plex vision distorted, deformed and over-balanced.

I seem to see the complex vision of such thinkers taking
some grotesque shape whereby the apex-point of effective
thought is blunted and broken. The loss and misery, or
the yet more ignoble comfort, of such suppressions of the
apex-thought, is however a personal matter. Those '^in-
visible companions,'' or immortal children of the universe,
who are implicitly present as the background of all hu-
man discussion, grow constantly more definite and articu-
late the apprehension of the general human mind by rea-
son of these personal aberrations.

It is perhaps rather to the great artists of our race than
to any philosopher at all that these invisible ones reveal
themselves, but in their gradual disclosure to the conscious-
ness of the human race, they are certainly assisted by the
most insane and unbalanced plunges into mystery, of this
and the other abnormal individual The paradox may
indeed be hazarded that the madder and more abnormal
are the individual's attempts to dig himsdf into the very
nerves and fibres of reality, the clearer and more definite
as far as consciousness of the race is concerned, does the
revelation of these invisible ones grow.

The abnormal individual whose complex vision is dis-
torted almost out of human recognition by the predom-
inance of some one attribute, is yet, in his madness and
morbidity, a wonderful engine of research for the clair-
voyance of humanity.

The vision of the immortals, as a background to all fur-
ther discussion, is rendered richer and more rhythmical
every day, or rather the hidden rhythm of their being is
revealed more clearly every day, by the eccentricities and
maladies, nay I by the insanities and desperations, of in-
dividual victims of life.

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 28

Thus it comes about that, while the supreme artists,
whose approximation to the vision of the invisible ones is
closest, remain our unique masters, the lower crowd of
moderately sane and moderately well-balanced persons are
of less vidue to humanity than those abnormal and way-
ward (mes whose psychic distortions are the worid's per-
verted instruments of research.

A philosopher of this unbalanced kind is indeed a sort
of living sacrifice or victim of self -vivisection, out of whose
demonic discoveries — ^bizarre and fantastic diough they
may seem to the lower sanity of the mob — Uie true
rhjrthmic vision of the immortals is made clearer and more
articulate.

The kind of balance or sanity which such average per-
sons, as are commonly called ''men of the world," possess
is in reality further removed fr(Hn true vision than all
the madness of these debauches of specialized research.
For the consummation of the complex vision is a meeting
place of desperate and violent extremes; extremes, not
watered down nor modified nor even ''reconciled," cer-
tainly mot cancelled by one another, but held forcibly and
^liberately together by an arbitrary act of the apex-
thought of the human soul.

As I glance at these basic activities of the complex vi-
sion one by one, I would beg the reader to sink as far as he
can into the recesses of his own idratity; so that he may
discover whether what he finds there agrees in substance
—call it by what name he pleases and explain it how he
pleases — ^with each particular energy I name, as I indicate
such energies in my own way.>

Consider the attitude of self-consciousness. That man
is self-conscious is a basic and perhaps a tragic fact that
sorely requires no proof. The power of thinking "I am
I" is an ultimate endowment of personality, outside of
whidi, except by an act of primordial faith, we cannot

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24 THE COMPLEX VISION

pass. The phenomenon of human growth from infancy
to maturity proves that it is possible for this self -con-
sciousness— this power of saying '*I am I"— to become
clearer and more articulate from day to day. It seems as
impossible to fix upon a definite moment in a child's life
where we can draw a line and say ^Uhere he was uncon-
scious of himself and here he is conscious of himself'' as
it is impossible to .observe as an actual visible movement
the child's growth in stature.

Between consciousness and self-consciousness the divid-
ing line seems to be as difficult to define as it is difficult to
define the line between sub-consciousness and consciousness.
My existence as a self-conscious entity capable of think-
ing ''I am I" is the basic assumption of all thought.
And though it is possible for my thought to turn round
upon itself and deny my own existence, such thought in
the process of such a denial cuts the very ground away
which is the leaping point of any further advance.

Philosophy by such drastic scepticism is reduced to com-
plete silence. You cannot build up anything except illu-
sion from a basis that is itself illusion. If I were not
self-conscious there would be no centre or substratum or
coherence or unity in any thought I had. If I were not
self-conscious I should be unable to think.

Consider, then, the attribute of reason. That we possess
reason is also a fact that carries with it its own evidence.
It is reason which at this very moment — reason of some
sort, at any rate — I am beund to use, in estimating
the important place or the unimportant place which rea-
son itself should occupy. You cannot derogate from the
value of reason withobt using reason. You cannot put
reason into an inferior category, when compared with will
or instinct or emotion, without using reason itself to prove
such an inferiority.

We may come to the conclusion that the universe is

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 25

rather irrational than rational. We may come to the con-
dnsion that the secret of life transcends and over-brims
all rationality. But this very conclusion as to the irra-
tional nature of the mystery with which reason is attempt-
ing to deal is itself a conclusion of the reason.

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

Consider^ then, the attribute of wiU. That we possess
a definite and distinct energy whose activity may be con-
trasted with the rest and may be legitimately named ^^the
will" is certainly less self-evident than either of the two
preceding propositions but is none the less implied in both
of them. For in the^ act of articulating to ourself the
definite thought *'I am I'' we ^re using our will. The
motive-force may be anything. We may for instance will
an answer to the implied question ^'what am I/' and our
self -consciousness may return the answer ^^I am I/' leav-
ing it to the reason to deal with this answer as best it
can. The motive may be anything or nothing. Both, con-
sciousness and will are independent of motive.

For in all these primordial energizings of the complex
vision everything that happens, happens simultaneously.
With the consciousness ''I am I'' there comes simulta-
neoudy into existence the consciousness of an external uni-
verse which is, at one and the same, time, included in the
circle of the '^I am I" and outside the circle. That is to
say when we think the thought **I am I," we feel our-
selves to be the whole universe thinking ^'I am I," and yet
by a primordial contradiction, we feel ourselves to be an
^'I am I^' opposed to the universe and contrasted with the
universe.

But all this happens simultaneously; and the conscious-
ness that we are ourselves implies, at one and the same
time, the' consciousness that we are the universe and the
consciousness that we are iimde the universe.

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26 THE COMPLEX VISION

And precisely as the f aet of self-consciousness implies the
primordial duality and contradiction of being at once the *
whole universe and something inside the universe, so the
original fact of our thinking at all, implies the activity of
the wilL

We think because we are ^^thinking animals" and we
will because we are '* willing animals." The presence of
what we call motive is something that comes and goes in-
termittently and which may or may not be present from
the first awakening of consciousness. We may think *^I
am I" at the very dawn of consciousness under the pres-
sure of a vague motive of clearing up a confused situa-
tion. We may use our reason at the very dawn of c<m-
sciousness under the pressure of a vague motive of alleviat-
ing the distress of disorder with the comfort of order.
But, on the other hand, self-consciousness may play its
party reason may play its part and the will may play its
part in the complete absence of any definite motive. There
is such a thing — ^and this is the point I am anxious
to make— as motiveless wilL Certain thinkers have
sought to eliminate the will altogether by substituting
for it the direct impact or pressure of some motive or
motive-force. But if the will can be proved to be a
primordial energy of the complex vision and if the con-
ception of a motiveless exertion of the will is a legitimate
conception, then, although we must admit the intermittent
appearance and disappearance of all manner of motives,
we have no right to substitute motive for wilL If we do
make such a substitution, all we really achieve is simply
a change of name; and our new motive is the old will
**writ small."

Motives undoubtedly may come and go from the begin-
ning of consciousness and the beginning of will. They
may flutter like butterflies round both the consciousness

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THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 27

and the will For instance it is clear that I am not cHiwofgi
articulating to myself the notable or troublesome thoni^
'^I am I." I may be sometimes so lost and absorbed in
sensation that I quite forget this interesting fact. But it
may easily happen at such times that I definitely experienee
the Benioiion of choice; of choice between an intensification
of self-consciousness and a continued blind enjoyment of
this external preoccupation. And it is from this wnsaium
of choice that we gather weight for our contention that
the will is a basic attribute of the human soul.

It is certainly true that we are often able to detach our-
selves from ourselves and to watch the struggle going on
between two opposite motive-f orces, quite unaware, it might
seem, and almost indifferent, as to how the contest will
end.

But this struggle between opposite motives does not
obliterate our sensation of d^oice. It sometimes intensifies
it to an extreme point of quite painful suspension. The
opposite motives may be engaged in a struggle. But the
field of the struggle is what we call the wiU. And it may
even sometimes happen that the will intervenes between
a weaker and stronger motive and, out of arbitrary pride
and the pleasure of exertion for the sake of exertion, throws
its weight on the weaker side.

It is a well-known p^chological fact that the complex
vision can energize^ with vigorous spontaneity, through the
wiU alone, just as it can energize through sensation alone.
The will can, so to speak, stretch its muscles and gather
itself together for attack or defence at a momait when
there is no particular necessity for its use.

Some degree of self -consciousness is bound to accompany
this ^'motiveless stretching" of the will, for the simple
reason that it is not ^'wiU in the abstract" which makes
such a movement but the totality of the complex vision.

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28 THE COMPLEX VISION

though in this case all other attributes of the complex
yisioiiy including self -consciousness and reason, are held
in subordination to the will.

Man is a philosophical animal ; and he philosophizes as
inevitably as he breathes. He is also an animal possessed
of will ; and he uses his will as inevitably as, in the process
of breathing, he uses his lungs or his throat. Around him,
from the beginning, all manner of motives may flutter like
birds on the wing. They may be completely different mo-
tives in the case o^ different personalities. But in all per-
sonalities there is consciousness, to grasp these motives;
and in all personalities there is will, to accept or to reject
these motives.

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

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

The will is, therefore, by the terms of its original defini-
tion and by the original feeling which the soul experiences
in regard to it, limited in its freedom. The problem re-
solves itself, therefore, if once we grant the exist^ce of the
will, into the question of how much freedom the will has
or how far it is limited. Is it, for instance, when we know
all the conditions of its activity, entirely limited t Is the
freedom of the will an illusion t

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

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 29

On the other hand emotion, instinct, imagination, intui-
tion, and conscience, all assume that the limitation of the
will is not absolute but that within certain boundaries,
which themselves are by no means fixed or permanent, the
will is free.

Consciousness itself must be added to this list. For
whatever arguments may be used in the realm of thought,
when the moment of choice arrives in the realm of action,
we are always conscious of the will as free. If the reason
is justified in regarding the freedom of the will as an illu-
sion, we are justified in denying the existence of the will
altogether. For a will with only an illusion of freedom is
not a will at alL In that case it were better to eliminate
the will and regard the soul as a thing which acts and re-
acts under the stimuli of motives like a helpless automaton
endowed with consciousness.

But the wiser course is to experim^it with the will and
let it prove its freedom to the sceptical reason by helping
that same reason to retire into its proper place and asso-
ciate itself with the apex-thought of the complex vision.

Leaving the will then, as a thing limited and yet free,
let us pass to a consideration of what I call ''taste." This
is the aesthetic sense, an original activity of the human
soul, associated with that universal tendency in life and
nature which we name the beautiful. I use the word
"taste*' at this moment in preference to ** aesthetic sense,'*
because I feel that this particular original activity of the
complex vision has a wider field than is commonly sup-
posed. I regard it, in fact, as including much more than
the mere sense of beauty. I regard it as a direct organ
of research, comparable to instinct or intuition, but cover-
ing a different ground. I regard it as a mysterious clair-
voyance of the soul, capable of discriminating between cer-
tain everlasting opposites, which together make up an
eternal duality in the very depths of existence.

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30 THE COMPLEX VISION

These opposites imply larger and more complicated is-
sues than are implied in the words beautiful and ugly,
llie real and the unreal, the interesting and the uninterest-
ing, the significant and the insignificant, the suggestive
and the meaningless, the arresting and the commonplace,
the exciting and the dull, the organic and the affected, the
dramatic and the undramatic, are only some of the differ-
ences implied.

The fact that art is constantly using what we call the
ugly as well as what we call the commonplace, and turn-
ing both these into new forms of beauty, is a fact that con-
siderably complicates the situation. And what art, the
culminating creative energy of the aesthetic sense, can do,
the aesthetic sense itself can do with its critical and re-
ceptive power.

So that in the aesthetic sense, or in what I caU ''taste,"
we have an energy which is at once receptive and creative ;
at once capable of responding to this eternal duality, and
of creating new forms of beauty and interest out of the
ugly and uninteresting. A new name is really required
for this thing. A name is required for it that conveys a
more creative implication than the word ''taste," a word
which has an irresponsible, arbitrary, and even* flippant
sound, and a more passionate, religious, and ecstatic im-
plication than the word "aesthetic," a word which sug-
gests something calculated, cold, learned, and a little
tame. I use the word "taste" at this particular moment
because this word implies a certain challenge to both rea-
son and conscience, and some such challenge it is necessary
to insist upon, if this particular energy of the soul is to
defend its basic integrity.

This ultimate attribute of personality, then, which I call
"taste" reveals to us an aspect of the system of things
quite different from those revealed by the other activities
of the human soul. This aspect of the universe, or this

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION ^ 81

''open secret" of the uniyersey loses itself ^ as all the others
do, in unfathomable abysses. It descends to the very
roots of life. It springs from the original reservoirs of
life. It has depths which no mental logic can sound; and
it has horizons in the presence of which the mind stops
baffled. When we use the term ''the beautiful'* to indi-
cate the nature of what it reveals^ we are easily misled;
because in current superficial speech — and unless the
word is used by a great artist — ^the term "beautiful"
has a narrow and limited meaning. Dropping the term
"taste" then, as having served its purpose, and reverting
to the more academic phrase "aesthetic sense" we must
note that the unfathomable duality revealed by this
aesthetic sense covers, as I have hinted, much more ground
than is covered by the narrow terms "beauty" and "ugli-
ness."

It must be understood, moreover, that what is revealed
by the aesthetic sense is a struggle, a conflict, a war, a
contradiction, going on in the heart of things. The
aesthetic sense does not only reveal loveliness and distinc-
tion; it also reveals the grotesque, the bizarre, the out-
rageous, the indecent and the diabolic. If we prefer to
use the term "beauty" in a sense so comprehensive and
vast as to include both sides of this eternal duality, then
we shall be driven to regard as "beautiful" the entire
panorama of life, with its ghastly contrasts, with its
appalling evil, with its bitter pain, and with its intoler-
able dreariness.

The "beautiful" will then become nothing less than the
whole dramatic vortex regarded from the aesthetic point
of view. Life with all its contradictions, considered as an
aesthetic spectacle, will become "beautiful" to us. This
is undoubtedly one form which the aesthetic sense assumes ;
the form of justifying existence, in all its horror and loathe-
somenesB as well as in aU its magical attraction.

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32 THE COMPLEX YISION

iLnother form the aesthetic sense may assume is the
fonn of *^ taking sides" in this eternal straggle; of using
its inspiration to destroy, or to make us forget, the brutal-
ity of things, by concentrating our attention upon what in
the narrow sense we call the beautiful or the distinguished
or the lovely. But there is yet a third form the aesthetic
sense may assume. Not only can it visualize the whole
chaotic struggle between beauty and hideousness as itself
a beautiful drama; not only can it so concentrate upon
beauty that we forget the hideousness; it is also able to
see the world as a humorous spectacle.

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

But we may regard the universe as tragic without re-
garding it as "beautiful" and yet remain under the power
of the aesthetic energy. For there exists a primordial
afi^>ect of the aesthetic vision which is not concerned with
the beautiful at all, or only with the beautiful in so wide
a latitude as to transcend all ordinary usage, and this is
our sense of humour.

The universe as the human soul perceives it, is horribly
and most tragically humorous. Man is the laughing ani-
mal; and the "paribus stuff" which tickles his aesthetic
sense with a revelation of outrageous comedy has its roots
in the profoundest abyss. This humorous aspect of the
system of things is just as primordial and intrinsic as what
we call the "beautiful." The human soul is able to pour
the whole stream of its complex vision through this fan-
tastic casem^it. It knows how to respond to the "dia-

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 33

blerie'^ of the abysses with a reciprocal gesture. It is
able to answer irony with irony; and to the appalling
grotesqueness and indecency of the universe it has the
power of retorting with an equally shameless leer.

But this sardonic aspect of human humour, though
tallying truly enough with one eternal facet of the uni-
verse, does not exhaust the humorous potentiality of the
aesthetic sense. There is a ^'good" irony as well as a
'' wicked" irony. Humour can be found in alliance with
the emotion of love as well as with the emotion of hate.
Humour can be kind as well as cruel ; and there is no doubt
that the aesthetic spectacle of the world is as profoundly
humorous in a quite normal sense as it is beautiful or
noble or horrible.

Turning now to that primeval attribute of the complex
vision which we call emotion, we certainly enter the pres-
ence of something whose existence cannot be denied or
explained away. Directly we grow conscious of ourselves,
directly we use reason or instinct or the aesthetic sense,
we are aware of an emotional reaction. This emotional
reaction may be resolved into a basic duality, the activity
of love and the activity of the opposite of love.

I say ''the opposite of love'* deliberately; because I am
anxious to indicate, in regard to emotion, how difficult it
is to find adequate words to cover the actual field of what
we f eeL

I should like to write even the word *'love** with some
such mark of hesitation. For, just because of the appall-
ing importance of this ultimate duality, it is essential to
be on our guard against the use of words which convey
a narrow, crude, rough-and-ready, and superficial mean-
ing. By the emotion of ''love" I do not mean the amorous
phenomenon which we call "being in love." Nor do I
mean the calmer emotion which we call "affection." The
passion of friendship, when friendship really becomes a

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34 THE COMPIiEX VISION

IMunion, is nearer my meaning than any of these. And
yet the emotion of love, conceived as one side of this
eternal duality , is much more than the *' passion of friend-
ship"; because it is an emotion that can be felt in the pres-
ence of things and ideas as well as persons. Perhaps the
emotion of love as i^ymbolized in the figure of Christ, com-
bined with the aesthetic and intellectual passion inherited
from the Oreek philosophers, comes nearest to what I have
in mind; though even this, without some tangible and e(m-
crete embodiment, tends to escape us and evade analysis.

And if it is hard to define this 'Uove'' which is the
protagonist, so to speak, in the world's emotional drama,
it is still harder to define its opposite, its antagonist I
could name this by the name of ''hate,'' the ordinary an-
tithesis of love, but if I did so it would have to be with
a very wide connotation.

The true opposite to the sort of ''love" I have in my
mind is not so much "hate" as a kind of dull and insen-
sitive hostility, a kind of brutal malignity and callous
aversion. Perhaps what we are looking for as the true
opposite of love may be best defined as malice.

Malice seems to convey a more impersonal depth and a
wider reach of activity than the word hate and has also a
clearer suggestion of deliberate insensitiveness about it.
The most concentrated and energetic opposite of love is
not either hate or malice. It is cruelty; which is a thing
that seems to draw its evil inspiration from the prof ound-
est depths of conscious existence.

But cruelty must necessarily have for its "object" some-
thing living and sentient. A spiritual feeling, a work of
art, an idea, a principle, a landscape, a theory, an inani-
mate group of things, could not be contemplated with an
emotion of cruelty, though it could certainly be contem-
plated with an emoticm of malice.

There is often, if not always, a strange admixture of

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 85

sensnality in craeHy. Cmeltyi profoundly evil as it is,
has a living intensity which makes it less dull, less thick,
less deliberately insensitive, less coldly hostile, than the
pure emotion of malice, and therefore less adapted than
malice to be regarded as the true opposite of love.

But t^e best indication of the distinction I want to make
will be found in the contrast between the conceptions of
creation and destruction. The dull, thick, insensitive cal-
lousness which we are conscious of in the opposite of love
IS an indication that while love is essentially creative the
opposite of love is essentially that which ruists ereatian.

The opposite of love is not destructive in the sense of
being an active destructive force. Such an active destruc-
tive force must necessarily, by reason of the passionate
energy in it, be a perversion of creative power, not the
opposite of creative ];>ower.

Creative power, even in its unperverted activity, must
always be capable of destroying. It must be capable of
destroying idiat is in the way of further creation. Thus
the true opposite of creation is not destruction, but the
inert, heavy, thick, callous, brutal, insensitive ^'obscurant-
ism" or ^'material opacity" which resists the pressure of
the creative spirit.

By this analysis of the ultimate duality of emotion we
are put in possession of a bade aspect of the complex vi-
sion, which must largely shape and determine its total
activity. The soul within us, that mysterious ' 'something' *
which is the living and concrete ''person" whose vision
the complex vision is, is a thing subject at the start to
this unfathomable duality, the emotion of love and the
emoticm of malice.

The emotion of love is the lif ^-begetting, life-conceiving
force, the creator of beauly, the discoverer of truth, and the
reconciler of eternal contradictions.

The emotion of malice^ with its froaen sneer of sardonic

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86 THE COMPLEX YISION

denial, raifles its ^'infernal fist" against the centrifogal
outflowing of the emotion of lore. It is impossible to con-
ceive of self -consciousness without love and hatred; or,
as I prefer to say, without love and malice. Self -conscious-
ness implies from the start what we call the universe; and
the universe cannot appear upon the scene without excit-
ing in us the emotion of love and hate. Every man bom
into the world loves and hates directly he is conscious of
the world. This is the ultimate duality. Attraction and^
repulsion is the material formula for this contradiction.

If everything in the world were illusion except one Uni-
versal Being, such a being must necessarily be thought of
as experiencing the emotion of self-love and of self-hatred.
A condition of absolute indifference is unthinkable. Such
indifference could not last a moment without becoming
either that faint hatred, which we call ' 'boredom," or that
faint love, which we call ' 'interest" The contemplation
of the universe with no emotioxial reaction of any kind is
an inconceivable thing. An infant at its mother's breast
displays love and malice. At one and the same moment
it satisfies its thirst and beats upon the breast that feeds it.

The primordial process of philosophizing and the primal
will to philosophize are both of them penetrated through
and through with this ultimate duality of love and malice.
Love and malice in alternate impulse are found latent and
potent in every philosophic effort. Bdiind every phi-
losophy, if we have the love or the malice to seek for it,
may be found the love or malice, or both of them, side
by side, of the individual philosopher. That pure and
unemotional desire for truth for its own sake which is the
privilege of physical science cannot retain its simplicity
when confronted with the deeper problems of philosophy.
It cannot do so because the complex vision with which we
philosophize contains emotion as one of its basic attributes.

To consider next, the attribute of imagination. Imagi-

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 87

nation seems, when we analyse it, to resolve itself into the
half-creative, half-interpretative act by which the complex
personality seizes upon, plunges into, and moulds to its
puri)ose, that deeper unity in any group of things which
gives such a group its larger and more penetrating signifi-
cance.

Imagination differs from intuition in the fact that by its
creative and interpretative i)ower it dominates, possesses
and moulds the material it works upon. Intuition is
entirely receptive and it receives the illumination offered
to it at one single indrawing, at one breath. Imagination
may be regarded as a male attribute; intuition as a fem-
inine one; although in a thousand individual cases the
situation is actually reversed.

To realize the primary importance of imagination one
has only to visualize reason, will, taste, sensation, and so
forth, energizing in its absence. One becomes aware at
once that such a limited activity does not cover the field
of man 's complex vision. Something — a power that creates,
interprets, illumines, gathers up into large and flowing
outlines — ^is absent from such an experience.

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

The philosophy of the complex vision retains, with re-
gard to what is called ''evolution,'^ a -completely sus-
pended judgment. The process of hicrtx)ric evolution may
or may not have resulted in the particular differentiation
of species which we now behold. What we are now assum-
ing is that, in whatever way the differentiation of actual
living organisms has come about, every particular living
organism, including the planetary and stellar bodies, must

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86 THE COMPLEX VISION

possess in some degree or other the organ of apprehendon
which we call the complex vision. ,

Our assumption, in fact, is that every living thing has
personality; that personality implies the existence of a
definite sonl-monad; that where such a soul-monad exists
there is a comp|ex vision; and finally that, where there is
a complex vision, there must be, in some rudimentary or
embryotic state, the eleven attributes of such a vision, in-
cluding the attribute which the human race has come to
call ^^consdence" and which is, in reality, ''the power of
response" to the vision which we have named ''immortal."
When evolutionists retort to us that what we call person-
ality is only a late and accidental phenomenon in the long
process of evolution, our answer is that when they seek,
according to such an assumption, to visualise the universe
as. it was hefore personality appeared, they really, only in
a surreptitious and illegitimate manner, project their own
conscious personality into "the vast backward and abysm
of time," to be the invisible witness of this pre-personal
universe.

Thus when evolutionists assure us that there was once
a period in the history of the stellar system when noth-
ing existed but masses of gaseous nebulae, our reply is
that they have forgotten that invisible and shadowy pro-
jection of their own personality which is the pre-supposed^
watcher or witness of this "nothing-but-nebulae" state of
things.

The doctrine or hypothesis of evolution does not in any
degree explain the m3rstery of the universe. All it does
is to ofFer us an hypothetical picture — true or false
--K>f the manner in which the changes of organic and
inorganic life succeeded one another in their historic crea-
tion. Evolutionists have to make their start somewhere,
just as "personalists" have; and it is much more di£Scult
for them to show how masses of utterly unconscious "neb-

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 89

ulae" evoked the mystery of personality than it is for ns
to show how the primordial existence of personality de-
mands at the very start some sort of material or bodily
expression, whether of a nebular or of any other kind.

Evolutionists, forgetting the presence of that invisible
** watcher'' of their evolutionary process which they have
themselves projected into the remote planetary past, as- ,
sume as their axiomatic ''data" that soulless unconscious
chemical elements i>os8e88 ''within them" the miraculous
power of producing living personalities. All one has to
do is to pile up thousands upon thousands of years in
which the miracle takes place.

But the philosophy of the complex vision would indi-
cate that no amount of piling up of centuries upon cen-
turies could possibly produce out of "unconscious matter"
the perilous and curious "stuflf" which we call "conscious-
ness of life." And we would further reply to the evolu-
tionists that their initial assumption as to the objective
existence, suspended in a vacuum, of masses of material
chemistry is an assumption which has been abstracted and
isolated from the total volume of those sense-impressions,
which are the only actual reality we know, and which are
the impressions made, in human experience, upon some
living personality.

This criticism of the evolutionists' inevitable attack upcm
us enters naturally at this point ; because, while the aver-
age mind is willing enough to grant some sort of vague
omnipresent "will to evolve" to the primordial "nebula"
and even prepared to allow it such obscure consciousness
as is implied in the phrase "life-force" or "61an vital,"
it is startled and shocked to a supreme degree when we
assert that such "nebula," if it existed, was the outward
body or form of a living "soul-monad" possessed, even as
human beings are, of every attribute of the complex vi-
sion.

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40 THE COMPLEX VISION

The average mind, in its vague and careless mood, is
ready to accept our contention that some sort of will or
reason or consciousness existed at the beginning of things.
It is only when such a mind comes to realize that what we
are predicating is actual personality, with all the implica-
tions of that, that it cries out in protest. The average
mind can swallow our contention that reason and will
existed from the beginning because the average mind has
been penetrated for centuries by vague traditions of an
**over-soul'* or an universal ''reason" or ''will." It is
only when in our analysis of the attributes of personality
we come bolt up against the especially anthropomorphic
attribute of "conscience" that it staggers and gasps.

For the original "stellar gas" to be vaguely animated
by some obscure "61an vital" seemed natural enough; but
for it to be the "body" of some definite living soul seems
almost humorous; and for such a living soul to possess
the attribute of "conscience," or the i)ower of response
to the vision of immortals, seems not only humorous but
I>ositively absurd.

The philosophy of the complex vision, however, in its
analysis of the eternal elements of personality is not in
the least afraid of reaching conclusions which appear
"absurd" to the average intelligence. The philosophy of
the complex vision accepts the element of the "absurd" or
of the "outrageous" or of the "fantastic" in its primor-
dial assumptions; for according to its contention this ele-
ment of the "apparently impossible" is an essential in-
gredient in the whole system of things.

Life, according to this philosophy, is only one aspect of
personality. Another aspect of personality is the appar-
ently miraculous creation of "something" out of "noth-
ing"; for the unfathomable creative power of personality
extends beyond and below all the organic phenomena which
we group vaguely together under the name of "life."

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 41

Thus when in our analysis of the attributes of the com-
plex vision we are confronted by the evolutionary question
as to how such a thing, as the thing we call '^conscience,"
got itself lodged in the little cells of the human cranium,
our answer is that the question stated in this manner does
not touch the essential problem at all. The essential prob-
lem from the point of view of the philosophy of the com-
plex vision is not how ** conscience," or why other attribute
of the soul, got itself lodged in the human skull, or ex-
pressed, shall we say, through the human skull, but how it
is that the whole stream of sense-impressions, of which the
hardness and thickness of the human skull is only one
impression among many, and the original ''star-dust" or
*' star-nebulae" only another impression among many, ever
got itself unified and synthesized into the form of ''impres-
sion" at all.

In other words the problem is not how the attributes of
the soul arose from the chemistry of the brain and the
nerves; but how the brain and the nerves together with
the whole stream of material phenomena from the star-
dust upwards, ever got themselves unified and focussed
into any sort of intelligibility or system. The average
human mind which feels a shock of distrust and suspicion
directly we suggest that the thing we name "conscience,"
defined as the power of response to the ideal vision, is an
inalienable aspect of what we call "the soul" wherever
the soul exists, feels no sort of shock or surprise when we
appeal to its own "conscience," or when it appeals to the
"conscience" of its child or its dog or even of its cat, or
when it displays anger with its trees or its flowers for
their apparent wilfulness and errancy.

Eant found in the moral sense of humanity his door of
escape from the fatal relativity of pure reason with its
confounding antinomies. Huxley found in the moral sense
of humanity a mysterious^ unrelated phenomenon that re-

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42 THE COMPLEX VISION

fused to fall into line with the rest of the evolntionaiy
stream. But when, in one bold act of faith or of imagina-
tion, we project the content of our own individual soul
into the circle of every other possible ''soul/' including
the ^ 'souls" of such phenomenal vortices of matter as
those from which historic evolution takes its start, this
impossible gulf or ''lacuna" dividing the human scene
from all previous "scenes" is immediately bridged; and
the whole stream of material sense-impression flows for-
ward, in parallel and consonant congruity, with the under-
lying creative energy of all the complex visions of which
it is the expression.

Therefore, there is no need for us, in our consideration
of the basic attribute of the soul which we call conscience,
to tease ourselves with the fabulous image of some pre-
historic "cave-man" supposedly devoid of such a sense.
To do this is to employ a trick of the isolated reason quite
alien from our real human imagination.

Our own personality is so constructed that it is im-
IKNSsible for us to realize with any sort of intelligent sym-
pathy what the feelings of this conscience-less cave-man
would be. To contemplate his existence at all we have to
resort to pure rationalistic speculation. We have to leave
our actual human experience completely behind. But the
philosophy of {he complex vision is an attempt to interpret
the mystery of the universe in terms of nothing else than
actual human experience. So we are not only permitted
but compelled to put out of court this conscience-less cave-
man of pure speculation. It is true that we encounter
certain eccentric human beings who deny that they possess
this "moral sense"; but one has only to observe them for
a little while under the pressure of actual life to find out
how they deceive themselves.

Exi>erience certainly indicates that every human being,
however normal and "good," has somewhere in him a touch

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 43

of iimanity and a vein of anti-social aberration. But no
hnman being, however abnormal or however '' criminal/'
18 bom into the world without this invisible monitor we
call ** conscience.'*

The curious pathological exi>erience which might be
called ' 'conscience-killing" is certainly not uncommon.
But it is an experiment that has never been more than
approximately successful. In precisely the same way we
might practise ** reason-killing" or ''intuition-killing" or
"taste-killing." One may set out to hunt and try to kill
any basic attribute of our complex vision; but the proof
of the truth of our whole argument lies in the fact that
these murderous campaigns are never completely success-
fuL The "murdered" attribute refuses to remain quiet
in its grave. It stretches out an arm from beneath the
earth. It shakes the dust ofF and comes to life again.

When we leave the question as to the existence of oon-
science, and enquire what the precise and particular
"command" of conscience may be in any individual case,
we approach the edge of an altogether different problem.

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

But short of this there is room for an infinite variety of
"categorical imperatives." The conscience of one per-
sonality is able to accept as its "good" the very same
thing that another personality is compelled to regard as
its "evil." Indeed it is conceivable that a moment might
arise in the history of the race when one single solitary
individual called that thing "good" or that thing "evil"
which all the rest of the world regarded in the opposite

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44 THE COMPLEX VISION

sense. Not only so; but it might even happen that the
genius and persuasiveness of such a person might change
into its direct opposite the moral valuation of the whole
of humanity. In many quite ordinary cases there may
arise a clash between the conventional morality of the
community and the verdict of an individual conscience.
In such cases it would be towards what the community
termed ** immoral*' that the conscience of the individual
would point, and from the thing that the community termed
"moral*' that it would turn instinctively away.

A conscience of this kind would suffer the pain of re-
morse when in its weakness it let itself be swayed by the
** community-morality" and it would experience the pleas-
ure of relief when in absolute loneliness it defied the ver-
dict ot society.

Let us consider now an attribute of man's complex vi-
sion which must instantaneously be accepted as basic and
fundamental by every living person. I refer to what we
call ''sensation." The impressions of the outward senses
may be criticized. They may be corrected, modified, re-
duced to order, and supplemented by other considerations.
Conclusions based upon them may be questioned. But
whatever be done with them, or made by them, they must
alwsLys remain an integral and inveterate aspect of man's
personality.

The sensations of pain and pleasure — ^who can deny
the primordial and inescapable character of these t Not
that the pursuit of pleasure or the avoidance of pain can
be the unbroken motive-force even of the most hedonistic
among us. Our complex vision frequently flings us pas-
sionately upon pain. We often embrace pain in an ecstasy
of welcome. Nor is this fierce embracing of pain ** moti-
vated" by a deliberate desire to get pleasure out of pain.
It seems in some strange way due to an attraction towards
pain for its own sake — ^towards pain, as though pain were

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 45

really beautiful and desirable in itself. One element in all
this is undoubtedly due to the desire of the will to assert
its freedom and the integrity of its being ; in other words
to the desire of the will towards the irrational^ the ca-
pricious, the destructive, the chaotic.

It has been only the least imaginative of philosophers
who have taken for granted that man invariably desires his
own welfare. Man does not even invariably desire his own
pleasure. He desires the reactive vibration of power; and
very often this "power" is the power to rush blindly upon
destruction. But, whether dominant or not as a motive
affecting the will, it remains that our experience of pleasure
and pain is a basic experience of the complex vision. And
this experience of sensation is not only a passive experience.
The attribute of sensation has its active, its energetic, its
creative side. No one who has suffered extreme pain or
enjoyed exquisite and thrilling pleasures, can deny the
curious fact that these things take to themselves a kind of
independent life within us and become something very like
** entities" or living separate objects.

This phenomenon is due to the fact that our whole per-
sonality incarnates itself in the pain or in the pleasure of
the moment. Such pain, such pleasure, is the quintessen-
tial attenuated *' matter '^ with which our soul clothes itself.
At such moments we arc the pain; we are the pleasure.
Our human identity seems merged, lost, annihilated. Our
soul seems no longer our soul. It becomes the soul of the
overpowering sensation. We ourselves at such moments
become fiery molecules of pain, burning atoms of pleasure.
Just as the logical reason can abstract itself from the other
primal energies and perform strange and fantastic tricks,
so the activity of sensation can so absorb, obsess and over-
power the whole personality that the rhythm of existence
is entirely broken.

Pain at the point of ecstacy, pleasure at the point of

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46 THE COMPLEX VISION

ecstasy, are both of them destractive of those rare momenta
when our complex vision resolves itself into music. Such
music is indeed itself a kind of ecstasy; but it is an ecstasy
intellectualized and consciously creative. Pain is present
there and pleasure is present there ; but they are there only
as orchestral notes in a larger unity that has absorbed them
and transmuted them.

When a work of art by reason of its sensational appeal
reduces us to an ecstasy of pleasure or pain it renders im-
posssible that supreme act of the complex vision by means
of which the immortal calm of the ideal vision descends
upon the unfathomable universe.

Sensation carried to its extreme limit becomes imper-
sonal ; for in its unconscious mechanism personality is de-
voured. But it does not become impersonal in that magical
liberating sense in which the impersonal is an escape, bring-
ing with it a feeling of large, cool, quiet, and unruffled
space. It becomes impersonal in a thick, gross, opaque,
mechanical manner.

There is brutality and outrage; there is bestiality and
obscenity about both pain and pleasure when in th§ir vora-
cious maw they devour the magic of the unfathomable
world. Thus it may be noted that most great and heroic
souls hold their supreme pain at a distance from them,
with a proud gesture of contempt, and go down at the last
with their complex vision unruffled and unimpaired.
There is indeed a still deeper ^' final moment" than this;
but it is so rare as to be out of the reach of average hu-
manity. I refer to an attitude like that of Jesus upon the
cross ; in whose mood towards his own suffering there was
no element of ** pride of will/' but only an immense pity
for the terrible sensitiveness of all life, and a supreme
heightening of the emotion of love towards all life.

It will be noted that in my analysis of ''sensation" I
have said nothing of what are usually called ''the five

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THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 47

Boises. ' ' These senses are obviously the material * * feelers' '
or the gates of material sentiency by which the soul's at-
tribute of sensation feeds itself from the objective world;
but they are so penetrated and percolated, through and
throu^, by the other basic activities of the soul, that it is
extremely difficult to disentangle from our impressions of
sight, of sound, of touch, of taste, and of smell, those inter-
woven threads of reason, imagination and so forth which
so profoundly modify and transmute, even in the art of
seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling, the various
manifestations of **the objective mystery" which we ap-
prehend in our sensuous grasp.

By emphasizing the feelings of pleasure and pain as the
primary characteristics of the attribute of sensation we are
indicating the fact that every sensation we experience car-
ries with it in some perceptible degree (ht other, the feeling
of ** well-being" or the feeling of distress.

We now come to consider that dim, obscure, but never-
theless powerful energy, which the universal tradition of
language dignifies by the name of ''instinct" This ''in-
stinct" is the portion of the activity of the soul which
works more blindly and less consciously than any other.

The French philosopher Bergson isolates and emphasizes
this subterranean activity until it seems to him to hold in
its grasp a deeper secret of life than any other energy
which man possessses To secure for instinct this primary
place in the panorama of life it is necessary to eliminate
from the situation that silent witness which we call "the
mind" or self -consciousness; that witness which from its
invisible watch-tower looks forth upon the whole spectacle.
It is necessary to take for granted the long historic stream
of evolutionary development. It is necessary to regard
this development in its organic totality as the sole reality
with which we have to deal.

The invisible mental witness being eliminated, it becomes

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48 THE COMPLEX yiSION

necessary, if instinct is to be thus made supreme, to regard
the appearance of the soul as a mere stage in an evolution-
ary process, the driving-force of which is the power of
instinct itself. Planets and plants, men and animals, are
seen in this way to be all dominated by instinct; and in-
stinct is found to be so much the most important element
in evolution, that upon it, rather than upon anything else,
the whole future of the universe may be said to depend.

Having made this initial plunge into shameless objec-
tivity, having put completely out of court the invisible wit-
ness of it all, we find ourselves reduced to regarding this
*' blind'' instinct as the galvanic battery which moves the
world. Thus isolated from the other powers of the soul,
this mysterious energy, this subterranean driving-force, has
to bear the whole weight of everything that happens in
space and time. A strange sort of ^'blindness" must its
blindness be, when its devices can supply the place of the
most passionate intellectual struggles of the mind I

If it is blind, it gropes its way, in its blindness, through
the uttermost gulfs of space and into the nethermost
abysses of life. If it is dumb, its silence is the irresistible
silence of Fate, the silence of the eternal '* Mothers.'*

But the "instinct" which is one of the basic attributes of
the complex vision is not quite such an awe-inspiring thing
as this. To raise it into such a position as this there has to
be a vigorous suppression, as I have hinted, of many other
attributes of the soul. Instinct may be defined as the pres-
sure of obscure creative desire, drawn from the inscrutable
recesses of the soul, malleable up to a certain point by rea-
son and will, but beyond that point remaining unconscious,
irrational, incalculable, elusive. That it plays an enormous
part in the process of life cannot be denied ; but the purt it
plays is not so isolated from consciousness as sometimes has
been imagined.

There is in truth a strange reciprocity between instinct

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 49

and self -consciousness, according to which they both play
into each other's hands. This is above all true of great
artists' work, which in a superficial sense might be called
unconscious, but which in a deeper sense is profoundly con-
scious. It seems as though, in great works of art, a certain
superficial reasoning is sacrificed to instinct, but in that
very sacrifice a deeper level of reason is reached between
which and instinct there is no longer anything but complete
understanding.

To intellectualize instinct is one of the profoundest se-
crets of the art of life; and it is only when instinct is thus
intellectualized, or brought into focus with the other as-
pects of the soul, that it is able to play its proper rhythmic
part in the musical i^mthesis of the complex vision. But
although we cannot allow to instinct the all-absorbing part
in the world-play which Bergson claims for it, it remains
that we have to regard it as one of the most mysterious and
incalculable of the energies of the soul. It is instinct
which brings all living entities into relation with something
sub-conscious in their own nature.

Under the pressure of instinct man recognizes the animal
in himself, the plant in himself, and even a strange affinity
with the inorganic and the inanimate. It is instinct in us
whicU attracts us so strangely to the earth under our feet.
It is instinct which attracts certain individual souls to cer-
tain particular natural elements, such as air, fire, sand,
mould, rain, wind, water, and the like; a kind of remote
atavistic reciprocity in us stretching out towards that par-
ticular element. It is by means of instinct that we are able
to sink into that mysterious sub-conscious world which un-
derlies the conscious levels of every soul-monad. Under
the groping and fumbling guidance of this strange power
we seem to come into touch with the profoundest reservoirs
of our personal identity.

Considering what fantastic and cruel tricks the lonely

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50 THE COMPLEX VISION

thinkiiig power, the abstract reason, has been allowed to
play ns it is no wonder that this French philosopher has
been t^npted to turn awaj from reason and find in instinct
the ultimate solution. Instinct, as we give ourselves up to
it, seems to carry us into the very nerves and tissues and
veins and pulses of life. ItS/ verdicts ^seem to reach us
with an absolute and unqestionable authority. They seem
to bear upon them an ''imprimatur" more powerful than
any moral sanction. Potent and terrible, direct and final,
instinct seems to rise up out of the depths and break every
law.

It leaps forth from our inmost being like a second self
more powerful than we are. It invades religion. It in-
camatei^ itself in lust. It obsesses taste. It masquerades
as intuition. It triumphs over reason. With an irration-
ality, that seems at the same time terrible and beautiful,
instinct moves straight to its goal. It follows its purpose
with demonic tenacity, heedless of logic, ^contemptuous of
consequences. It cares nothing for contradictions. It
forces contradictions to lose themselves in one another ac-
cording to some secret law of its own, unknown to the law
of reason.

Such, then, is instinct, the sub-conscious fatality of Na-
ture so difficult to control; whose unrestrained activity is
capable of completely destroying the rhythm of the com-
plex vision. Nothing b^t the power of the apex-thought of
man's whole concentrated being is able to dominate this
thing. It may be detected lurking in the droop of the
Sphinx's eyelids and in the cruel smile upon her mouth.
But the answer given to the challenge of this subterranean
force is not, after all, any logical judgment of the pure rea-
son. It is the answer of the vision of the artist, holding its
treacherous material under his creative hand.

Let us turn now to the attribute of ''intuition." In-

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THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 61

tmtion is a thing more clearly definable and more, easily
analysed than almost any other of the aspects of the souL
Intuition is the feminine counterpart of imagination ; and,
as compared with instinct, it is a power which acts in
dearly defined, isolated, intermittent movements, each one
of which has a definite beginning and a definite end* As
compared with imagination, intuition is passive and re-
ceptive; as compared with instinct it does not fumble and
grope forward, steadily and tenaciously, among the roots of
things; but it suspends itself, mirror-like, upon the surface
of the unfathomable waters, and suspended there reflects
in swift sudden glimpses the mysterious movements of the
great deep. In this process of reflecting, or apprehending
in sudden, intermittent glimpses, the mysterious depths of
the life of the soul, intuition is less affected by the reason
or by the will than any other aspect of the complex vision.

Instinct, in secret sub-conscious alliance with the will, is
a permanent automatic energy, working in the hidden dark^-
ness of the roots of things like an ever-flowing subter-
ranean stream. The revelations of intuition, on the other
hand, are not flowing and constant, but separate, isolated,
distinct and detached. In the subject-matter of their rev-
elations, too, intuition and instinct are very different If
the recesses of the soul be compared to a fortified castle, in-
stinct is the active messenger of the place, continually
issuing forth on secret errands concerning the real nature
of which he is himself often quite ignorant. Intuition, on
the contrary, is the little postern gate at the back of the
building, set open at rare moments to the wide fields and
magical forests which extend to the far-off horizon.

Instinct is always found in close contact with sensation,
groping its ways through the midst of the mass of mate-
rial impressions, acting and reacting as it fumbles among
such impressions. Intuition seems to deal directly and ab-

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62 THE COMPLEX VISION

solntelj with a clear and definite landscape behind the
superficial landscape, with a truth behind truth, with a
reality within reality.

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

The instinct of animals or birds for instance warns them
very quickly with regard to the presence of some natural
enemy whose approach they apprehend through some mys-
terious sense — impression beyond the analysis of human
reason. But when their enemy is the mental intention of
a human being they are only too easily tricked.

To take quite a different instance. It may easily hap-
pen that while conscience has habitually driven us to a
certain course of action against which instinct has never
revolted because of its preoccupation with the senses, some
sudden flash of intuition reaching us from the hidden sub-
stratum of our being changes our whole perspective and
gives to conscience itself a completely opposite bias.
What these intermittent revelations of intuition certainly
do achieve is the preservation in the soul's memory of the
clear and deep and free and unfathomable margins of the
ultimate mystery, those wavering sea-edges and twilight-
shores of our being, which the austere categories of rational
logic tend to shut out as if by impenetrable walls.

It remains to consider the attribute of memory. Mem-
ory is the name which we give to that intrinsic suscepti-

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THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 53

bility, implying an intrinsic permanence or endurance in
the material which displays susceptibility, such as makes it
possible for what the soul feels or what the soul creates to
write down its own record, so that it can be read at will,
or if not *'at will," at least can be read, if the proper
stimulus or shock be applied.

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

In looking back over these eleven attributes of the '' soul-
monad," what we have to remark is, that two of the num-
ber differ radically in their nature from the rest. The at-
tribute of emotion differs from the rest in the sense that
it is the living substantial unity or ultimate S3rnthesis in
which they all move. It is indeed more than this. For it
is the actual **stuff" or "material" out of which they are
all, so to speak, ''made" or upon which they all, so to
speak, inscribe their diverse creations.

The permanent ** surface," or identical susceptibility, of
this ebbing and flowing stream of emotion is memory; but
the emotion itself, divided into the positive and negative
''pole," as we say of love and malice, is an actual pro-
jection upon the objective universe of the intrinsic "stuff"
or psycho-material "substance" of which the substratxun of
the soul is actually composed. The other aspects of the
soul are, so to speak, the various "tongues" of diversely
coloured flame with which the soul pierces the "objective
mystery"; but the substance of all these flames is one and
the same. It is the soul itself, projected upon the plane of
material impression ; and thus projected, becoming the con-
flicting duality to which I give the name of "emotion."

The attribute of "will," also, differs radically from the

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64 THE COMPLEX VISION

rest; in the sense that '^will'' is the power which the soul
possesses of encouraging or suppressing, re-vivifying or
letting fade, all the other attributes of the soul, including
that attribute which is the substance and synthesis of them
all and which I name '^ emotion."

In regard to '^emotion" the will can do three separate
things. It can encourage the ^notion of love and suppress
that of malice. It can encourage the emotion of malice
and suppress that of love. And finally it can use its en-
ergy in the effort, an effort which can never be totally suc-
cessful, to suppress all emotion, of any Mnd at all.

Man's complex vision then consists, in simple terms, of
self-consciousness, reason, taste, imagination, conscience,
instinct, sensation, intuition, will, memory, and emotion.
These various activities, differentiated clearly enough in
their separate energizing, must never be regarded as ab-
solutely separate *' faculties,'* but rather as relatively sep-
arated ''aspects." Behind all of them and under all of
them is the complex vision itself,, felt by all of us in rare
moments in its creative totality, but constantly being dis-
torted and obscured as one or otber of its primal energies
invades the appropriate territory of some other.

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

The complex vision is the vision of a living self, of an
organic personality, of an actual soul-monad. It may be
the vision of a man. It may be the vision of a plant or a
planet or a god. It may be the vision of entities un-
dreamed of and of existences inconceivable. It may be the
vision, for example, of some strange ''soul of space" or
"soul of the ether" whose consciousness is extended

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THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 55

throughout the visible universe and even throughout the
^'etherial medium" which binds all souls together.

But whether the vision of a plant, a man, or a god, the
complex vision seems to bring with it its own immediate
revelation that where there is any form of *' matter/' how-
ever attenuated, such **matter" is the outward expression
of some inward living soul whose energies have some mjrs-
terious correspondence to the eleven aspects of the soul
of man.

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^ CHAPTBB III

THE soul's apex-thought

It now becomes necessary to discuss the connection be-
tween what I have named the soul's ** apex-thought" and
certain permanent aspects of life with which this '^ apex-
thought" has to deal.

The ** apex-thought" is the name I give to that synthetic
and concentrating effort of the soul by means of which the
various energies of the complex vision are brought into
focus and fused with one another. In accordance with my
favourite metaphorical image, the ''apex-thought" is the
extreme point of the arrow-head of the soul ; the point with
which it pierces its ways into eternity.

It is necessary that I should indicate the connection be-
tween the activity of this apex-point of the complex vision
and the various perplexing human problems round which
our controversies smoulder and bum. It is advisable that
I should indicate the connection between the activity of
this ''apex-thought" and that thing which the world has
agreed to call Religion.

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

It is advisable that I should indicate the relation of the
apex-thought to any possible "new organ of vision" with
which some unforeseen experiment of the soul may suddenly
endow us. And it is above all advisable that I should
show the relation between this focussed synthesis ot the

66

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THE SOUL'S APEX-THOUGHT 57

soul's complexily and the actual physical body whose mate-
rial senses are part of this complexity.

The whole problem of the art of life may be said to lie
in the question of co-ordination. The actual process of co-
ordination is the supreme and eternal difficulty. Only at
rare moments do we individuaUy approximate to its
achievement. Only once or twice, it may be, in a whole
life-time, do we actually achieve it. But it is by the power
and insight of such fortunate moments that we attain
whatever measure of permanent illumination adds dignity
and courage to our days.

We live by the memory of such moments. We live by
the hope of their return. In the meanwhile our luck or
our HI luck, as living human beings, depends onr no out-
ward events or circumstances but on our success in the
conscious effort of approximation to what, when it does
arrive, seems to take the grace and ease and inevitable
beauty of a free gift of the gods.

This fortunate rhythm of the primordial energies of the
complex vision may be felt and realized without being ex-
pressed in words. The curse of what we call **cleveme8s"
is that it hastens to find facile and fluent expression for
what cannot be easily and fluently expressed. Education
is too frequently a mere affair of words, a superficial en-
couragement of superficial expression. It is for this reason
that many totally uneducated persons achieve, unknown to
all except their most intimate friends, a far closer ap-
proach to this difficult co-ordination than others who are
not only well-educated but are regarded by the world as
famous leaders of modem thought.

It will be remarked that in my list of the primordial
energies of the complex vision I do not mention religion.
This is not because I do not recognize the passionate and
formidable rdle played by religion in the history of the
human race, nor because I regard the ''religious instinct"

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58 THE COMPLEX VISION

as a thing outgrown and done with. I have not included
it because I cannot regard it as a distinct and separate at-
tribute, in the sense in which reason, conscience, intuition
and so forth, are distinct and separate attributes, of the
complex vision.

I regard it as a name given in common usage to certain
premature and disproportioned efforts at co-ordination
among these attributes, and I am well content to apply the
word "religion" to that sacred ecstasy, at once passionate
and calm, at once personal and imx>ersonal, which suffuses
our being with an unutterable happiness when the energies
of the complex vision are brought into focus. I regard the
word religion as a word that has drawn and attracted to
itself, in its descent down the stream of time, so rich and
so intricate a cargo of human feelings that it has come
to mean too many things to be any longer of specijBc value
in a philosophical analysis.

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

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

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

The desire to find something real and eternal behind the
transient fiow of appearance, is religion. The desire to
force upon others by violence, by trickery, by fire, by
sword, by x>ersecution, by magic, by persuasion, by elo-
quence, by martyrdom, an idea which is more important to
us than life itself, is religion.

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THE SOUL'S APEX-THOUGHT 59

It will be seen from this brief survey of the imm^ise
field which the word ''religion" has come to cover, that I
am justified in regarding it rather as a name given to the
emotional thrill and ecstatic abandonment which accom-
panies any sort of co-ordination of the attributes of the
complex vision, proportioned or disproportioned, than as
a distinct and separate attribute in itself.

Only when the co-ordination of our huinan activities
rises to the height of a supreme music, can we regard ''re-
ligion" as the most beautiful and most important of all
human experiences. And at the moment when it takes
this form it resolves itself into nothing more than an un-
utterable feeling of ecstasy produced by the sense that we
Kre in harmony with the rest of the universe. Religion, as
I am compelled to think of it, resolves itself into that re-
action of unspeakable happiness produced in us, when by
any kind of synthetic movement, however crude, we are
either saved from unreality or reconciled to reality.

Religion is, in fact, the name we give to the ecstasy in
the heart of the complex vision, when, in any sort of co-
ordination between our contradictory energies, we at once
escape from ourselves and realize ourselves. We are for-
bidden to speak of the "religious sense" or the "religious
instinct" because, truly interpreted, religion is not a single
activity among other activities, but the emotional reaction
upon our whole nature when that nature is functioning in
its creative fulness.

Religion must therefore be regarded as the culminating
ecsta^ of the art of life, or as a premature snatching at
such an ecstasy while the art of life is still discordant and
inchoate. In the first instance it is the supreme reward
of the creative act. In the second instance it is a tragic
temptation to rest by the way in a unity which is an illusive
unity and in a heaven from which "the sun of the morn-
ing" is excluded. It thus comes about that what we call

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60 THE COMPLEX VISION

religion is frequently a hindrance to the rhythm of the
apex-thought. It may be a sentimental consolation. It
may be an excuse for cruelty and obscurantism. There is
always a danger when it is thus prematurely manifested,
that it should darken, distort, deprave and obstruct the
movement of creation.

At this point, an objection arises to our whole method
of research which it is necessary to meet at once. This
objection, a peculiarly modem one, is based upon the the-
ory, handed about in modern literature as a kind of di-
ploma of cleverness and repeated superficially by many
who are not really sceptical at all, that it is impossible in
this world to arrive, under any circumstances, at any kind
of truth.

Persons who repeat this sceptical dogma are simply re-
fusing to acknowledge the evidence of their own experience.
However rare our high rhythmic moments may be, some
sort of approximation to them, quite sufficient to destroy
the validity of this absolute scepticism, must, if a person
honestly confesses the truth, and does not dissimulate out
of intellectual pride, have entered into the experience of
every human being.

Let us, however, consider the kind of dogmatic language
which these sceptics use. They speak of "life" as a thing
which so perpetually changes, expands, diminishes, un-
dulates, advances, recedes, evolves, revolves, explodes, pre-
cipitates,, lightens, darkens, thins, thickens, hardens, soft-
ens, over-brims, concentrates, grows shallow, grows deep,
that it were ridiculous even to attempt to create an equi-
librium, or rhythmic **parting-of-the-ways," out of such
evasive and treacherous material.

My answer to this sceptical protest is a simple one. It is
an appeal to human experience. I maintain that this mod-
em tendency to talk dogmatically and vaguely about **the
evasive fluidity of life*' is nothing more than a crafty

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THE SOUL'S APEX-THOUGHT 61

pathological retreat from the formidable challenge of life.
It is indeed a kind of mental drag or spiritual opiate by the
use of which many unheroic souls hide themselves from the
sardonic stare of the eternal Sphinx. It is a weakness
comparable to the weakness of many prenature religious
syntheses ; and it has the same soothing and disintegrating
effect upon the creative energy of the mind.

What, as a matter of f act^ hurts us all, much more than
any tendency of life to be over-fluid and over-evasive, is
the atrocious tendency of life to be inflexible, rigorous, im-
placable, harshly immobile. This vague dogmatic senti-
ment about **the fluidity of life," is one of the instinctive
ways by which we try to pretend that our prison-walls are
not walls at all, but only friendly and flowing vapour.
None of the great works of art and poetry, the austere
beauty of which reflects the real nature of the universe,
could continue to exercise their magical power upon us,
could continue to sustain us and comfort us, if those tragic
ultimate realities were not ultimate realities.

The sublime ritual of art, which at its noblest has the
character of religion, could not exist for a moment in a
world as softly fluctuating and as dimly wavering as this
modem scepticism would make it. Life is at once more
beautiful and far more tragic. Though surrounded by
mystery the grand outlines of the world remain, austerely
and sternly the same. The sun rises and sets. The moon
draws the tides. Man goes forth to his work and his
labour until the evening. Man is bom; man loves and
hates; man dies. And over him the same unfathomable
spaces yawn. And under him the same unfathomable
spaces yawn. Time, with its seasons, passes him in un-
alterable procession. From birth to death his soul wrestles
with the universe ; and the drama of which he is the pro-
tagonist lifts the sublime monotony of its scenery from the
zenith to the nadir.

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62 THE COMPLEX VISION

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

This sceptical dogma of ''evasiveness" is generally
found in alliance with some vague modem "religion"
whose chief object is to strip the world of the dignity of
its real tragedy and endow it with the indignity of some
pretended assurance. This is the r61e of that superficial
optimism so inherently repugnant to the aesthetic sense.

Such apologists for a shallow and ignoble idealism are
in the habit of declaring that "the tendency of modem
thought" is to render "materialism" unthinkable; but
when these people speak of materialism they are thinking
of the austere limits of that vast objective spectacle into
which we are all bom. This spectacle is indeed mysteri-
ous. It is indeed staggering and awful. But it is irre-
vocably there. And no vague talk about the "evasiveness"
and "over-brimmingness" of life can alter one jot or tittle
of its eternal outlines.

Prom the sublime terror of this extraordinary drama
such persons are anxious to escape, because the iron of it
has entered into their souls. They do not see that the
only "escape" offered by the reality of things is a change
of attitude towards this spectacle, not an assertion that the
form of this spectacle is unfixed and wavering. No psy-
chological or mathematical speculation has the power to
alter thp essential outlines of this spectacle.

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THE SOUL'S APBX-THOUGHT 63

If sach speculations could alter it, then the aesthetic
sense of humanity would be driven to transform itself;
and a new aesthetic sense, adapted to this new ''evasive-
ness of Life," would have to take its place. ' Attempts are
indeed being made at this very hour to ** start fresh" with
a new aesthetic sense and only the winnowing process of
time and the pressure of personal experience can refute
such attempts. Meanwhile all we can do is to note the
rejection of such attempts by the verdict of the complex
vision ; a rejection which indicates that if such attempts are
to be successful they must imply the substitution of a new
complex vision for the one which humanity has used since
the beginning.

In other words they must imply a radical change in the
basic attributes of human nature. Humanity, to justify
them, must become some sort of super-humanity; and a
new world inhabited by a new race must take the place of
the world we know. Such an attempt to substitute a new
humanity for the old is already conscious of itself in those
curious experiments of p^chical research which are based
upon the hypothesis that some completely new organs of
sense are on the point of being discovered. Philosophers
Vho believe in the inherent unchangeableness of our pres-
ent instrument of research — ^the complex vision as it now
exists — can only look on at these experiments with an atti-
tude of critical detachment; and wait until time and ex-
perience have justified or refuted them.

Philosophers who believe in the unchangeableness of the
complex vision are bound to recognize that the human will,
which is a basic attribute of this vision, must in any case
play a considerable part in the creation of the future. But
from their point of view the will is, after all, only one of
these basic attributes. There is also the aesthetic sense.
And the aesthetic sense is totally averse to this new kind
of humanity and this new kind of world. The eternal

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64 THE COMPLEX VISION

vision of those invisible ''sons of the universe/' the proof
of whose existence is a deduction from the encounters of
all actual souls with one another, would seem to be entirely
irreconcilable with any new complex vision whose nature
had been completely changed.

The visible spectacle of the world with its implied
''eternal arbiters" would be transmuted and transfigured
by such an upheaval. For as long as the human will, as
we know it now, remains in association with the aesthetic
sense as we know it now, the creation of the future —
however yielding and indetermmed — must depend upon
the form, the shape, the principle, the prophecy, the
premonition, existing from the beginning in the nature of
things. And it is precisely this shape, this form, this prin-
ciple, this hope, this dream, this essential motive of those
sons of the universe whose existence is implied "when two
and three are gathered together," which would be de-
stroyed and annihilated, if the complex vision were trans-
formed into something else and a new world took the place
of the old.

It is the existence of these real "immortals'* confront-
ing this real universe which makes possible the feeling we
have that in spite of all our differences, some accumulated
stream of beauty, truth and goodness, does actually carry
the past forward into the future, does actually create the
future according to a premonition and a hope which have
been there from the beginning.

This is the supreme act of faith of the complex vision.
This is the supreme act of faith which saves us at once
from our subjective isolation and from the will towards
the acceptance of a premature "religion." This is what
saves us from any psychological or mathematical or logical
speculation, which would contradict this hope or destroy
the reality of the universe from which this hope emerges.
. When we come to a general consideration of the various

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THE SOtJL'S APEX-THOUGHT 65

attributes of the complex vision we are struck at once by
the appalling power they each have, when not held in
check, of cancelling one another's contribution. It is for
this reason that my newly-coined word was unavoidable if
we are to emphasize the synthetic energy of the complex
vision when it exercises its control over these diverse at-
tributes and resists their constant tendency to cancel one
another. It was precisely to emphasize this synthetic en-
ergy of the soul that I have made use of the arbitrary
expression * * apex-thought. ' ' For if we think of these vari-
ous attributes as shooting forth like flames from the arrow-
head of the individual soul, we must think of this co-
ordinating energy as the power which continually draws
these flames together when they deviate from their focussed
intensity, and continually restores, from its inharmonious
dispersion, the concentration of their arrows' point. If we
are permitted to use this image of a horizontal pyramid of
flames it will be seen how important a part is played by this
apex-thought in concentrating the energies of the complex
vision so that it can **drive" or **bum" or **pierce" its
way into the surrounding mystery.

For this image of an arrow-head of focussed flame which
is in constant danger of being dispersed as the flames re-
cede from one another and are blown backwards is only a
symbolic way of indicating how difiScult it is to pierce
with our complicated instrument of research the vast mys-
tery which surrounds us.

All this is mere pictorial metaphof; but in visualizing
the human soul as a moving arrow-head, composed of flick-
ering flames that only now and then combine into a sharp
I>oint, while at other times the wind drives them apart and
bends them back, I am suggesting that the ultimate reality
of things is a state of confused movement continually be-
coming a state of concentrated movement. I am suggest-
ing that the secrets of life only yield themselves up to a

V

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66 THE COMPLEX VISION

movement of desperation. I am suggesting that the spirit
of creation is also the spirit of destruction, and that the
real object of the energy of creation is to pierce with its
burning light the darkness of the objective mystery.

As proof of the necessity of keeping this apex-thought
in constant poise, let me reiterate one or two of the philo-
sophical disasters which result from a cessation of its
rhythmic function. When the reason, for instance, usurps
the whole field and acts in isolation from the imagination
and the intuition, it tends to persuade us to deny the very
existence of that deepest and most vivid reality of all, the
handle of our spear-head, the base of our pjrramid, the
mysterious entity within us, which we have come, follow-
ing the traditions of the centuries, to name the **soul."
And not only does the soul disappear when the reason thus
isolates itself, but another primary revelation of the com-
plex vision, I mean that half -created, half-discovered object
of the senses popularly called ''matter," disappears with it.

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

But not only can reason thus set itself up in isolated
usurpation against such other activities as imagination, in-
tuition, will or taste; it can also divide itself against itself
and emerge in completely contradictory functions. In the
form of mathematical logic, for instance, it can dispose most
drastically of that living organic world which in the form
of experimental science it assumes to be the only truth.
Again it may happen that reason will arbitrarily ally itself
with one or the other of the other attributes and on the
strength of such an alliance seek to obliterate all the rest.
Thus while it is impossible to avoid the admission that of
all these basic attributes reason is the most important, be-
cause without it all the rest would be inarticulate and

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dumb, it remains tnie that to hold reason in balanced rela-
tion to all the rest and to hold its own contradictory ten-
dencies in balanced relation to one another is an undertak-
ing of such extraordinary diflSculty that if it were not for
the complex vision's possession of that co-ordinating power
which I have named its apex-thought, one might well par-
don the mood of those persons who use reason to drug rea-
son and who steer their boat into some i^ruffled back-
water of dogma or mysticism.

The necessity of such an in£nitely delicate poise or bal-
ance or rhythm in these high matters, the necessity of
keeping all these conflicting attributes at this exquisite
point of suspense between abysses of contradiction, is a
necessity which compels us to recognize that philosophy is
nothing more or less than the supreme art, and the most
difficult of all arts.

Certainly, it seems as though thought has to become in a
profound sense rhythmical, has to take to itself the nature
of music, before it can become the truth. For the truth
does not seem to be a mere picture of the isystem of things,
reflected in the mirror of the mind. The truth seems to be
the very system of things itself, become conscious and
volitional, changing, growing, living, destroying, creating.
Thus it comes about that the thought which plunges into
the universe must of necessity, even in that very act, re-
mould and re-fashion the universe. Thus Nature per-
petually recreates herself by the passion of her children
and is forever re-bom as the child of her own ofEspring.

But if the supreme difficulty of the art of life lies in the
maintenance of this rhythm between these primary at-
tributes, it must never be forgotten that these '' attributes"
are, after all, only aspects of the souL The soul is each of
them, not in each of them. "They are not '*f acuities"
through which the soul acts. They are never absolutely
distinct from one another. There is something of each of

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68 THE COMPLEX YISION

them in every one of them, and every attempt which thqr
make to establish themselves in an independent existence
is only an attempt of the soul itself to live a perverted and
a discordant, instead of a natural and a harmonious life.

The rarity and difficulty of that high art which brings all
these orchestral players into harmony is sufficient cause to
account for the scarcity of genuine philosophical thought in
this confused world. The human soul, looking desperately
round for some calm yet passionate light to save its hours
from ruinous waste, turns away in bitter disillusion from
the thin dust and the swollen vapour that are oflfered it.

Out of the logical laboratories of the abstract reason this
thin dust is offered; and out of the ideal factories of the
wish for superficial comfort this iridescent vapour is
poured forth. That burning secret of life, that lovely and
terrible reality for which the soul pines is not to be found
in any mere outward fact or in any mere subjective in-
tuition.

Such a fact may crumble to pieces and give place to an-
other. Such an intuition may melt into air under the
shock of experience. The craving of the soul is not satis-
fied by the discovery that ''matter" resolves itself into
''energy," nor is the misery of the heart assuaged by the
theory that time is an attribute of fourth-dimensional
space. The lamentable beating of blood-stained hands
upon the ultimate walls does not cease when we learn that
two straight lines can or cannot meet in infinity ; nor does
the knowledge that history is an "ideal evolution" heal
the aching of the world-feorrow.

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

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THE SOUL'S APEX-THOUGHT 69

But tmth is not knowledge. Truth is not the recogni-
tion of an external fact. Truth is a creative gesture. It is
a ritual) a rhythmic poise, a balance deliberately sustained
between eternal contradictions. It is the magical touch
which reduces to harmony the quivering vibrations of
many opposites. It is the dramatic movement of a su-
preme actor at the climax of an unfathomable drama. It
is music resting upon itself; music so exquisite as to seem
like silence, music so passionate as to have become calm.

The apex-thought of that pyramid of conflicting flames
which we call the complex vision holds itself together at
one concentrated point. And this point is the arrow point
of our human soul; that soul which is shot across im-
mensity in the eternal war between life and the opposite
of life. ^

Although for the purpose of emphasizing and elucidating
the essential nature of this apex-thought it has been found
advisable to use such metaphorical and pictorial images as
the one just indicated, it must be remembered that what
we are actually and in direct experience confronted with is
the mystery of a real human personality inhabiting a real
human body.

This real personal soul inhabiting a real objective body
and surrounded on all sides by a real unfathomable uni-
verse, is the original revelation of the complex vision from
which there is no escape except by death.

The philosophy of the complex vision finds its starting
point in an acceptiance of this situation which is nothing
more than an acceptance of the complex vision's own har-
monious activity. An acceptance of the reality of the hu-
man body is an essential part of this Jiarmonious activity
because among the aspects of the complex vision are to be
found certain attributes, such as sensation, instinct and im-
agination, which would be negated and rendered abortive
if the human body were an illusion.

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70 THE COMPLEX VISION

If the ''starting point" of our philosophy demands rec-
ognition of the reality of the body, the ''ideal" of oar
philosophy must have a place for the body also. Flesh and
blood must therefore play their part in the resultant har-
mony at which we are all the while aiming; and no con-
tempt for the body, no hatred of the body, no refusal to
recognize the supreme beauty and sacredness of the body,
can be alllowed to distort or pervert our vision.

The activity of the apex-thought, though we have a right
to use any metaphorical image we please about it in order
to elucidate its nature, must always be considered as using
the bodily senses in its resultant rhythm. It must always be
considered as using that portion of the objective universe
which we name the body as an inevitable "note" in its
musical flight from darkness to darkness. It must always
be conceived as following the attraction of an eternal vi-
sion, in which "the idea of the body" is an imperishable
element.

This "eternal vision," which it is the rhythmic motive
of the apex-thought to seek, carries with it the witness and
"imprimatur" of the gods; and although no man has ever
"beheld" the gods, and although the gods by reason of
their omnipresent activity, cannot be thought of as being
"incarnated," yet since they are living souls, even as we
are, and since every living soul has, as the substratum of
its identity, what might be called a "spiritual body," there
is nothing in the revelation made to us through the activity
of our complex vision to forbid our free and even fanciful
speculation as to its use, by the very highest of super-
human i>ersonalities, even, let us say, by the Christ him-
self, of this mysterious energy of tiie soul which I have
named the "apex-thought."

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CHAPTER IV

THB REVELATION OF THE COliFLEX VISION

Usmg then, as our instrument of research, that totality
of attributes by which the soul in its rare moments of
rhythmic consummation visualizes the world, the question
' arises — ^what, in plain untechnical terms, is the revelation
made to us by this complex medium t Here, as before, I
am anxious, before I venture upon such a hazardous under-
taking as an answer to this question, to indicate clearly
that what I am attempting to state is a revelation which
is common to the experience of all souls, wherever such a
thing as the soul exists. The question as to whether or not
such an universal revelation is an illusion does not concern
us. To call any universal experience '*an illusion" is no
more and no less illuminating than to call it ''an ultimate
truth." It is the only reality we are at present in posses-
sion of; and we must accept it, or remain in complete
scepticism ; which is only another name for complete chaos.
The first important discovery which the complex vision
makes is the fact that the revelation, thus half-offered to it
and half -created by it, is presented simultaneously in all its
various aspects. It does not appear to us bit by bit or in
succession but ''en masse" and in its complete "ensem-
ble." It is of course unavoidable that its aspects should be
enumerated one by one and that in such an enumeration
one aspect should be placed first and another last. Never-
theless, this "first" and "last" must not be regarded as of
any reasonable importance; but as nothing more than an
'accident of arbitrary choice. All the aspects of this orig-
inal revelation are linked together. All are dependent

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72 THE COMPLEX VISION

upon one another. Among them there is no ''first" and
''last." All are equally real. All are equally necessary.
All are equally inescapable.

The activity of the complex vision, then, makes lis aware
that we have within us an integral irreducible self, the liv-
ing personal substratum of our self -consciousness, the "I"
of our primordial "I am I." This living personal self is
the background of our complex vision. It is the personal
"visionary" whose vision we are using. I say we have
"within us" such a self. This "within us" is one of the
inescapable original revelations. For though our con-
sciousness will be found in its full circle to invade obscure
shores and wavering margins, there must always be a re-
turn, however far it may wander, to this definite "some-
thing" within us which utters the happy or unhappy "I
am I."

It is precisely here, in regard to the nature of this "I
am I," that it is essential to let the totality of our complex
vision speak, and not one or other of its attributes. No-
where has the fantastic and desolating power of pure ab-
stract reason left to itself done more to distort the general
situation than in this matter. It has distorted it in two
opposing ways.

It has distorted it metaphysically by completely eliminat-
ing this revelation of a personal self, "within us," and it
has distorted it scientifically by reducing this personal self
to an automatic mechanical phenomenon produced by the
action and interaction of unconscious chemical "forces."

To the logic of metaphysical reason there is no concrete
living self which can say "I am I" from that definite point
in space and time which we indicate by the use of the
phrase "within us." According to such logic our "I am
I" becomes "an infinity of consciousness" with no local
habitation. It becomes a consciousness which includes both
the "within" and the "without," a consciousness in which

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THE REVELATION 73

our actual personal self is nothing but an illusory phe-
nomenon, a consciousness which is outside both time and
space, a consciousness whose centre is everywhere and its
circumference nowhere, a consciousness which is pure dis-
embodied ''thought," thought without any "thinker,'^
thought contemplating itself as thought, thought in an ab-
solutely empty void.

"When to this ultimate "unity of apperception," sus-
pended in a vacuum, consciousness of self is added; when
this ''consciousness-in-the-abstract" is regarded as an uni-
versal self -consciousness, the resultant "I am I" of such
an omnipresent being becomes an infinite ''I am I" which
is nothing less than the unfathomable universe conscious of
itself in its totality. Whether consciousness of self be
added to this ''consciousness-in-the-abstract" or not, it is
hard to see how out of this unruffled ocean of identity the
actual multifarious world which we feel around us, this
world of plants and planets and birds and fishes and mortal
men and immortal gods, ever succeeded in getting itself
produced at aU.

The vague metaphysical phrases about the One issuing
forth into the Many, in order to make Itself more com-
pletely Itself than it was before, seem to us, when under
the influence of our complex vision, no other than the mean-
ingless playing with cosmic tennis balls of some insane uni-
versal Juggler.

The second way in which reason, left to itself, has dis-
torted what the complex vision reveals to us about the ''I
am I," is the scientific or evolutionary way. According to
this view which assumes that the objective process of evolu-
tion is our only knowable reality, the individual personal
''I am I" finds itself resolved into a fatal automatic phe-^
nomenon of cause and effect; a phenomenon which has as
its ''cause" nothing but the prehistoric chemical move-
ments of "matter" or "energy." The personal self thus

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74 THE COMPLEX VISION

considered becomes a momentary vortex in a perpetually
changing stream of '* states of consciousness" or ''ripples
.of sensation" to eaeh of which vast anterior tides of atavis-.
tic forces have contributed their mechanical quota.

The chemical fatality of our nerve-tissues, the psycho-
logical fatality of our motive-impulses, leave no space,
when they have all been summed up, for any free arbitrary
a<^on of an independent self.

And so, just as according to the metaphysical view, the
soul disappears in a blur of ideal fatality, according to the
scientific view the soul disappears in a nexus of mechanical
determinism. As against both these errors, to the complex
vision this ''soul" within us appears to be something alto-
gether different from the physical body. The experience
we have of it, the feeling we have of it, is that it is a def-
inite "something" dwelling "within" the physical body.

This revelation with regard to it is as unmistakable as
it is difficult to analyze. That it is here, within us, we feel
and know; but as soon as we attempt to subject it to any
exact scrutiny it seems to melt away under our hands.
The situation is indeed a kind of philosophical tragic-
comedy; and is only too indicative of the baffling whimsi-
cality of the whole system of things. Contradiction and
paradox at the very basis of life mock our attempt to utter
one intelligible word about the thing which is the most real
of all things to us.

We are vividly aware of this mysterious personality
within us, "the guest and companion of the body," but
directly we attempt to lay hold upon the actual substance
of it it seems to vanish into thin air. But at least our com-
plex vision, which is its complex vision, reveals to us the
fact of its existence ; and with its existence once acknowl-
edged, however impossible analysis of it may be, we are
able to give a plain and unequivocal denial to all the im-
personal conclusions reached by metaphysic and science.

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THE REVELATION 75

This eategorical pronouncement of the complex vision
with regard to the ''I am I," namely that it is the Toice of
a living concrete soul within us, is supported historically
by an immense weight of human tradition. Belief in the
reality of the soul is older and more tenacious than any
other human doctrine which our race has ever held. The
use of the term ''soul" is no more than a bare recognition
that behind the consciousness which says **I am I" there
is a living entity whose consciousness this is.

With this bare recognition the revelation of the complex
vision abruptly stops. It stops with that peculiar and dis-
concerting suddenness with which it seems to be its nature
to stop, whenever it reaches the limit of its scope in any
direction. It stops here, with regard to the soul, just as it
stops when confronted with the conception of limitlessness,
both with regard to space and with regard to time. But
the soul at least is ours; a fact that cannot be explained
away.

And although we have no right to go a step beyond the
bare recognition of its existence and although all words
regarding it are misleading if used in any other than a
symbolic sense, we must remember that since the complex
vision is conscious of itself as a unity, whatever this *' some-
thing'^ may be which is the centre and core of our liv-
ing i>ersonality, it must at least be a definite irreducible
"monad," ** something" that cannot be resolved into any-
thing else, or accounted for by anything else, or explained
in terms of anything elsCj^or ** caused" by anything else;
''something" that may, perhaps, at last be annihilated;
but that while it lives must remain the vividest reality we
know.

Insanity and disease may obstruct and cloud the soul.
Outward circumstances may drive the soul back upon itself <
But while it lives it lives in its totality and when it per*
ishes, if it be its destiny to perish, it perishes in its totidity.

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76 THE COMPLEX YISION

While the soul lives we may sink into it and have no fear;
and yet all the while we have no right to say anything
about it except that it exists. Truly it is a tragic com-
mentary upon the drama that we call our life, that we
should find our ultimate "rest" and ** peace" in so bare, so
stark, so austere, so irrational a revelation as this !

But surrounded as we are by the menace of eternal noth-
ingness it is at least something to have at the background
of our life a living power of this kind, a power which can
endure unafraid the very breaking point of disaster, a
power which can contemplate the possibility of annihilation
itself with equanimity and unperturbed calm.

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

Speculatively we have the right, although the complex
vision is silent on that tremendous question, to dally with
the idea of the survival of the soul after the death of the
body. But this must for ever be an open question, not to
be answered either negatively or affirmatively, not to be
answered by the intelligence of any living man. All we
can say is that it seems as if the death of the body de-
stroyed the complex vision; and if the complex vision is
destroyed it seems as though non-existence were bound to
take the place of existence, and as though nothingness were
bound to take the place of everything. The oriental con-
ception of "Nirvana" is no more than a soothing opiate
administered to a soul that has grown weary of its complex
vision and weary of its irreducible personality. To im-
agine oneself freed from the burden of personal conscious-
ness, and yet in some mysterious way conscious of being

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THE REVELATION 77

freed from consciousness, is a delicious and ddicate dream
of life-exhausted souls.

As a speculation it has a curious attraction ; as a reality
it has nothing that is intelligible. But though the tragedy
of life to all sensitive spirits is outrageous and obscene, at
least we may say that the worst conceivable possibility is
not likely to occur. The worst conceivable possibility
would be to be doomed to an immortal personal life with-
out losing the restrictions and limitations of our present
personal life. If the soul survives the body it must do so
on the strength of its possession of some transforming en-
ergy which shall enable it to supply the place in its or-
ganic being which is at present occupied by the attribute
of sensation. It is quite obvious that if the life of the soul
depends upon the active functioning of all its attributes ;
and if one of its attributes, namely sensation, is entirely de-
pendent for its active functioning upon the life of the
body; the life of the soul itself must also depend upon the
life of the body, unless, as I have hinted, it can transmute
its attribute of sensation into some other attribute suitable
to some unknown plane of spiritual existence.

There are indeed certain ecstatic moments when the soul
f eek as if such a power of liberation from the bodily senses
were actually within its grasp; but it will inevitably be
found, when the great rhythmic concentration of the apex-
thought is brought to bear ui)on such a feeling as this, that
it either melts completely away, or is relegated to unim-
portance and insignificance. Such a feeling, ecstatic and
intense though it may have been, has been nothing more
than a disproportioned activity of the attribute of intu-
ition; intuition misled in favour of the immortality of the
soul, even as the pure reason is often misled in the direc-
tion of the denial of the soul's existence.

The revelation of the complex vision has no word to say,
on either side, with r^ard to whether the soul does or does

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78 THE COMPLEX VISION

not sarvive the death of the body; bat it has a very dis-
tinct word to say as to the imx)ortance of this whole ques-
tion ; and what it says in regard to this is — that it is not
imx)ortant at all ! The revelation of the complex vision im-
plies clearly enough that what man were wise to ^'assume''
— cleaving always the ultimate question as an opeai ques-
tion — is that the individual soul and the individual body
perish together.

This assiunption is in direct harmony with what we
actually see; even though it is in frequent collision with
wha^ we sometimes feel. But thf essence of the matter is
to be found in this, that our assumption as to the soul's
perishing, when the body perishes, is an assumption, un-
true though it may turn out to be, which the soul itself,
when under the power of its apex-thought, is compelled to
make. And it is compelled to make this assumption by
reason of the inherent nature of love. For it is of the
nature of love when confronted by two alternatives one
of which lays the stress upon personal advantage and
the other upon love itself apart from any personal ad-
vantage, whether one's own or another's, to choose, as
the assumption upon which it shall live, the latter
of these two alternatives. For it is the nature of love
to seek love and nothing else than love. And as long as the
assumption which the soul makes is the assumption that it
survives the death of the body, that emotion of love which
is the soul's creative essence is debarred from the full and
complete integrity of its desire.

For the desire of love is not for immortality but for the
eternal ; and the eternal is not something that depends upon
the survival of any individual soul, whether our own or
another's. The eternal is something which can be realized
in one single moment ; something which completely destroys
in us any desire for survival after death ; sontetUng id4ch
reconciles us to existence considered in the light of love

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THE REVELATION 79

alane; something that does not assume anything at all
about the universe, except that love exists.

Thus we return to that assumption about the soul, whieh
it is better — leaving the open question still an open ques-
tion — ^for the mind to accept as its working assumption;
namely that the soul uses the body in its own ends, is con-
scious of its existence through the senses of the body, lives
in the body, and perishes when the body perishes. Nor is it
only the emotion of love which rejects the dogma of the
immortality of the soul. Were the soul proved beyond all
possibility of doubt to be immortal, there would at once fall
upon us a despair more appalling than any which we have
known. For just as the idea of the eternal satisfies the
very depths of our soul with an infinite peace, so the idea
of immortality troubles the very depths of our soul with
an infinite doubt. Something unutterable in our aesthetic
sense demands that life should be surrounded by death and
ended by death. Thus and not otherwise should we our-
selves have created the world at the beginning. Thus and
not otherwise by the rhythmic play of the complex vision,
do we create the world.

But meanwhile, whatever happens, as long as we live we
I>06sess the reality of the soul. This is, and always has
been, the rallying-ground of heroic and sensitive person-
alities, struggling with the demons of circumstance and
chance. This is that unconquerable ''mind-within-them-
selves" into which the great Stoics of Antiquity withdrew
at their will, and were ** happy,*' beyond the reach of hope
and fear. This is the citadel from the security of which
all the martyrs for human liberty have mocked their tor-
mentors. This is the fortress from which the supreme
artists of the world have looked forth and moulded the
outrage of life's dilemma into monumental forms of im-
aginative beauty. This is the sanctuary from which all
human personalities, however weak and helpless, have been

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80 THE COMPLEX VISION

permitted to endure the cruelty and pitilessness of fate.

After aU, it does not so greatly matter that we are un-
able to do more than know that this thing, this indescrib-
able '^'something/' really exists. Perhaps it is because its
existence is more real than anything else that we are unable
to define it. Perhaps we can only define those attributes
which are the outward aspects of our real being. Perhaps
it is simply because the soul is nothing less than our very
self, that our analytical power stops, helpless, in its pres-
ence. We are what it is; and for this very cause it per-
petually evades and escapes us.

The reality of the soul, therefore, is the first revelation
of the complex vision. The second revelation is the ob-
jective reality of the outward visible universe. Left to it-
self, in its isolated activity, our lojgical reason is capable
of throwing doubt upon this revelation also, ^or it is
logically certain that what we are actually conscious of is
no more than a unified stream of various mental impres-
sions, reaching us through our senses, and never inter-
rupted except in moments of unconscious sleep.

It is therefore quite easy for the logical reason, function-
ing in its isolation from the other attributes, to maintain
that this stream of mental impressions is aU that there is,
and that we have no right to call the universe real and
objective, except in the ambiguous sense of a sort of perma-
nent illusion. But as soon as the complex vision, in its
totality, contemplates the situation, the thing takes on a
very different aspect. The pure reason may be as sceptical
as it pleases about the static solidity of what is popularly
called ** matter.*' It may use the term energy, or move-
ment, or ether, or force, or electricity, or any other name
to describe that permanent sensation of outward reality
which our complex vision reveals.

But one thing it has no right to do. It has no right to
utter the word ''illusion" with regard to this objective

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THE BBVELATION 81

tiniyerse. The apimrent solidity of matter may be ration-
ally resolved into energy or moyement, just as the apparent
objectivity of matter may be rationally resolved into a
stream of mental impression. But the complex vision still
persists in asserting that this permanent sensation of out-
ward reality, which, except in dreamless sleep, is never
normally interrupted, represents and bears witness to the
real existence, outside ourselves, of '^ something" which cor-
responds to such a sensation. It is just at this point that
the soul — ^helped by instinct, imagination, and intuition —
makes its great inevitable plunge into the act of primordial
faith.

This act of primordial faith is the active belief of the
soul not only im an objective universe outside jtself, but
also in the objective existence of other individual souls.
Without this primordial act of faith the individual soul
can never escape from itself. For the pure reason not only
reduces the whole universe to an idea in the mind ; but it
also reduces all other minds to ideas in our mind. In other
words the logical reason imprisons us fatally and hope-
lessly in a sort of cosmic nut-shell of our own mentality.

And there would, actually, be no escape from this appal-
ling imprisonment, according to which the individual soul
becomes a solitary circle, the centre and circumference of
all possible existence, if it were not that the soul possesses
other organs of research, in addition to reason and self-
consciousness. Directly we temper reason with these other
activities the whole situation has a different look. It is
a thing of small consequence what word we use to describe
that external cause of the flowing stream of mental impres-
sions. The important point is that we are compelled to
assume, as representing a real outward fact, this perma-
nent sense of objectivity from which there is no escape.

And as the existence of the objective universe is estab-
lished by a primordial act of faith, so it is also established

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82 THE COMPLEX VISION

that these alien bodily personalities, whose outward appear-
ance stands and falls with the objective nniverse, possess!
** souls,'* or what we ha^e come to name ** complex visions,"
comparable with our own. And this is the case not only
with regard to other human beings, but with regard to all
living entities whether human or non-human. As to how
the ''souls" of plants, birds, and animals, or of planets or
stars, differ in their nature from human souls we can only
vaguely conjecture. But to refuse some degree of con-
sciousness, some measure of the complex vision, to any liv-
ing thing, is to be false to that primordial act of faith into
which the original revelation of the complex vision com-
pels us to plunge.

The inevitableness of this act of faith may be perhaps
more vividly realized when we remember that it includes
in its revelation the objective reality of our own physical
body. Our evidence for the real outward existence of our
own body is no surer and no more secure than our evidence
for the outward existence of other ** bodies."

They stand or fall together. If the universe is an illu-
sion then our own physical body is ai^ illusion also.

And precisely as the ** stuff" out of which the universe
is made may be named **energy" or **ether" or **force"
or ** electricity," rather than **matter," so also the **stuff"
out of which the body is made may be named by any sci-
entific term we please. The term used is of no importance
as long as the thing represented by it is accepted as a
permanent reality.^

We are now able to advance a step further in regard to
the revelation of the complex vision. Granting, as we are
compelled to grant, that the other ** souls'* in the universe
possess, each of them, its own ''vision" of this same uni-^
verse; and assuming that each "vision" is so coloured by
the individuality of the "visionary" as to be, in a measure,
different from all the rest, it becomes obvious that in a very

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THE REVELATION 83

important sense there is not only one universe, bat many
universes. These many universes, however, are ** caused,"
or evoked, or created, or discovered, by the encounter of
various individual souls with that one ''objective mystery"
which confronts them all.

What a naive confession it is of the limitation of the
human mind that we should be driven, after all our strug-
gles to articulate the secret of life, to accept, as our final
estimate of such a secret just the mysterious '^something"
which is the substratum of our own soul, confronted by
that other mysterious ''something" which is the substratum
of all possible universes I With the complex vision's rev-
elation that the objective universe reaUy exists comes the
parallel revelation that time and space really exist. Here,
for the third time, are we faced with critical protests from
the isolated activity of the logical reason.

Metaphysic reduces both time and space to categories of
the mind. Mathematical speculation hints at the existence
of some mysterious fourth-dimensional space. Bergsonian
dialectic regards ordinary "simtial" time as an inferior
category; and finds the real movement of life in a species
of time called "duration," which can only be detected by
the interior feeling of intuition.

But while we listen with interest to all these curious
speculations, the fact remains that for the general vision
of the combined energies of the soul the world in which
we find ourselves is a world entirely dependent upon what
must be recognized as a permanent sensation of "ordi-
nary" space and "ordinary" time. And as we have
shown in the case of the objective existence of what we call
Nature, when any mental impression reaches the level of
becoming a permanent sensation of all living souls it ceases
to be i>ossibl6 to speak of it as an illusion.

It is well that we should become clearly conscious of this
"reality-destroying" tendency of the logical reason, so

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84 THE COMPLEX YISION

that whenever it obsesses ns wb can undermine its limited
vision by an appeal to the complex vision. Shrewdly most
we be on our guard against tUs double-edged trick of logic,
which on the one hand seeks to destroy th^ basis of its own
activity, by disintegrating the unity of the soul, and on the
other hand seeks to destroy the material of its own activity
by disintegrating the unity of the ** objective mystery."

The original revelation of the complex vision not only
puts us on our guard against this disintegrating tendency
of the pure reason, but it also explains the motive-force
behind this tendency. This motive-force is the emotion of
malice, which naturally and inevitably seeks to hand us over
to the menace of nothingness ; in the first place of nothing-
ness '^within" us, and in the second place of nothingness
** without" us. That the logic of the pure reason quickly
becomes the slave of the emotion of malice may be proved
by both introspection and observation. For we note, both
in ourselves and others, a peculiar glow of malicious satis-
faction when such logic strikes its deadliest blows at what it
would persuade us to regard as the illusion of life.

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

We have now therefore reached the conception of reality
as consisting of the individual soul confronted by the ob-
jective mystery. That this objective mystery would be
practically the same as nothing, if there were no soul to ap-
prehend it, must be admitted. But it would not be reaUy
the same as nothing; since as soon as any kind of soul
reappeared upon the scene the inevitable material of the
objective mystery would at once re-appear with it. The
existence of the objective mystery as a permanent possibil-
ity of material for universe-building is a fact which sur-

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THE BEVELATION 85

rounds every individual soul with a margin of unfathom-
able depth.

At its great illuminated moments the complex vision re-
duces the limitlessness of space to a realizable sensation
of liberty, and the **flowingness" of time to an eternal
now; but even at these moments it is conscious of an un-
fathomable back-ground, one aspect of which is the im-
mensity of space and the other the flowingness of time.

The revelation of the complex vision which I have thus
attempted to indicate will be found identical with the nat-
ural conclusions of man in all the ages of his history. The
primeval savage, the ancient Greek, the mediaeval saint, the
eighteenth century philosopher, the modem psychologist,
are all brought together here and are all compelled to con-
fess the same situation.

That we are now living personalities, possessed of soul
and body, and surrounded by an unfathomable universe,
is a revelation about which all ages and all generations
agree, whenever the complex vision is allowed its orchestral
harmony. The primeval savage looking up at the sky
above him might regard the sun and moon as living gods
exercising their influence upon a fixed unmoving earth.
In this view of the sun and the moon and the stars such a
savage was perfectly within his right, because always along
with it even to the most anthropomorphic, there came the
vague sense of unf athomableness.

The natural Necessity of the ancient Greeks, the trini-
tarian God of the mediaeval school-man, the great First
Cause of the eighteenth-century deist, the primordial Life-
Force of the modem man of science, are all on common
ground here in r^ard to the unf athomableness of the ulti-
mate mystery.

But the revelation of the complex vision saves us from
the logical boredom of the word '^ infinite." The idea of
the infinite is merely a tedious mathematical formula,

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86 THE COMPLEX VISION

markiTig the psychological point where the mind finds its
stopping-place. All that the complex vision can say
about '^ infinite space" is that it is a real experience,
and that we can neither imagine space with an end nor
without an end.

The ** Infinite'' is the name which logic gives to this psy-
chological phenomenon. The fact that the mind stops
abruptly and breaks into irreconcilable contradictions when
it is confronted with unfathomable space is simply a proof
that space without an end is as unimaginable as space with
an end. It is no proof that space is merely a subjective
category of the human mind. One thing, however, it is
a proof of. It is a proof that the universe can never be
satisfactorily explained on any materialistic hypothesis.

The fact that we all of us, at every hour of our common
day, are surrounded by this unthinkable thing, space with-
out end, is an eternal reminder that the forms, shapes and
events of habitual occurrence, which we are inclined to
take so easily for granted, are i>art of a staggering and
inscrutable enigma.

The reality of this thing, actually there, above our heads
and under our feet, lodges itself,- like an ice cold wedge
of annihilating scepticism, right in the heart of any facile
explanation. We cannot interpret the world in terms of
what we call ''matter" when what we call ''matter" has
these unthinkable horizons. We may take into our hands
a pebble or a shell or a grain of sand; and we may feel
as though the universe were within our grasp. But when
we remember that this little piece of the earth is part of a
continuous unity which recedes in every direction, world
without end, we are driven to admit that the universe is
so little witiiin our grasp that we have to regard it as
something which breaks and baffles the mind as soon as
the mind tries to take hold of it at all.

The reason does not advance one inch in explaining the

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THE BEVBLATION 87

imiyeise whai it utters the word ** evolution" and it does
not advance one thousandth part of an inch — ^indeed it
gives up the tasdc altogether — ^when it informs us that
infinite space is a category of the human mind. We must
regard it, then, as part of the original revelation of the
complex vision, that we are separate personal souls sur-
rounded by an unfathomable mystery whose margins re-
cede into unthinkable remoteness.

The ancient dilemma of the One and the Many obtrudes
itself at this i>oint; and we are compelled to ask how the
plurality of these separate souls can be reconciled with the
unity of which they form a part. That they cannot be
regarded as absolutely separate is clear from the fact that
they can communicate with one another, not only in hu-
man language but in a thousand more direct ways. But
granting this communication between them, does the mere
existence of myriads of independent personalities, living
side by side in a world common to all, justify us in speak-
ing of the original system of things as being {Pluralistic
rather than monistic f

Human language, at any rate, founded on the fact that
these separate souls can communicate with one another,
seems very reluctant to use any but monistic terms. We
say ^'the syBtem of things,'* not 'Hhe sjrstems of things.''
And yet it is only by an act of faith that human language
makes the grand assumption that the complex vision of
all these myriad entities tells the same story.

We say **the universe"; yet may it not be that ther^
are as many ^'universes" as there are conscious personali-
ties in this unfathomable world t If there were no closer
unity bet¥reen the separate souls which fill the universe
than the fact that they are able, after one primordial act
of faith, to communicate with one another, these monistic
assumptions of language might perhaps be disregarded and
we might have a right to reject such expressions as ''sys-

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88 THE COMPLEX VISION

tem of things" and '^cosmos" and ''mdy^rse" and '^na-
turt."

But it still remains that they are ccmnected, in space and
in time, by the medimn, whatever it may be, which fills
the galfs between the planets and the stars. As long as
these separatfc souls are invariably associated as they are,
with physical bodies, and as long as these ph3^ical bodies
are composed of the same mysterious force which we may
call earth, fire, water, air, ether, electricity, energy, vibra-
tion, or any other ted^iical or popular name, so long will
it be legitimate to use these monistic expressions with
which human language is, so to speak, so deeply stained.
As a matter of fact we are not lett with only this limited
measure of unity. There are also certain psychological
experiences— experiences which I believe I have a right to
regard as universal — which bring these separate souls into
much closer connection.

Such experiences can be, and have been, ridiculously
exaggerated. But the undeniable fact that they exist is
sufficient to prove that in spite of the pluralistic appear-
ance of things, there is still enough unity available to pre-
vent the Many from completely devouring the One. The
experiences to which I am referring are experiences which
the complex vision owes to the intuition. And though
this experience has been made unfair use of, by both mys-
tics and metaphysicians, it cannot be calmly disregarded.

The intuition, which is, as I have already pointed out, the
feminine counterpart to the imagination, is found, with re-
gard to this particular problem, uttering so frequent and
impressive an oracle that to neglect its voice, would be to
nullify and negate the whole activity of the intuition and
deny it its place among the ultimate energies of vision.

There is always more difficulty in putting into words
a revelation which the complex vision owes to intuition
than in regard to any other of its attributes. Season in

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THE REVELATION 89

this matter, and sensation and imagination also, have an
nnfair advantage when it comes to wards. For human
language is compelled to draw its images from sensation
and its logic from reason. But intuition — ^the peculiarly
feminine attribute of the soul — ^finds itself dealing with
what is barely intelligible and with what is profoundly
irrational. Thus it naturally experiences a profound dif-
ficulty in getting itself expressed in words at all.

And, incidentally, we cannot avoid asking ourselves the
curious question whether it may not be that language,
which is so dependent ux)on the peculiarly masculine at-
tributes of reason and sensation, has not become an in-
adequate medium for the expression of what might be
called the feminine vision of the world t May we not in-
deed go so far as to hazard the suggestion that when this
fact, of the masculine domination of language, has been
adequately recognized, there will emerge upon the earth
women-philosophers and women-artists who will throw
completely new light upon many problems f The diffi-
culty which women experience in getting expressed in defi-
nite terms, whether in philosophy or art, the co-ordinated
rhythm of their complex vision, may it not be largely due
to the fact that the attribute of intuition which is their
most vital oi^an of research has remained so inarticulate f
And may not the present wave of psfychological ^'mysti-
cism," which just now is so prominent a psychic phe-
nomenon, be due to the vague and, in many cases, the
clumsy attempt, which women are now making to get their
intuitive contribution into line with the complex vision
of the restt

When the universe is referred to as ** Nature," may it
not be that it is this very element, this strange wisdom of
the abysmal '^ Mothers," which humanity thinks of as
struggling to utter its unutterable secret f

How, then, for the sake of its contribution to the ulti-

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90 THE COMPLEX VISION

mate rhythm, does the complex vision articulate this mys-
terious oracle from the feminine principle in life, as it
brokenly and intermittently lifts nip its voice?

One aspect of this oracle's voice is precisely what we are
concerned with now. I mean the problem of the relation
of the One to the Many. The merely logical conception of
unity is misleading because the wavering mass of impres-
sion which makes up our life hi^ a margin which recedes
on every side into unfathomableness. This conception has
two aspects. In the first place it implies contimUiy, by
which I mean that everything in the world is in touch with
everything else.

In the second place it implies totality, by which I mean
that everything in the world can be considered as one
rounded-off and complete *' whole." According to this sec-
ond aspect of the case, we think of the world as an integral
One surrounded by nothingness, in the same way that the
individual soul is surrounded by the universe.

The revelation of the complex vision finds the second of
these two aspects entirely misleading. It accepts the con-
ception of continuity, and rejects the conception of totdl-
ity. It rejects the conception of "totality," because ** to-
tality," in this cosmic sense, is a thing of which it has
no experience; and the revelation of the complex vision
is entirely based on experience. The margins of the world,
receding without limit in every direction, prevent us from
ever arriving at the conception of ''totality."

What right have we to regard the universe as a totality,
when all we are conscious of is a mass of wavering impres-
sion continued unfathomable in every direction? In only
one sense, therefore, have we a right to speak of the unity
of the system of things ; and that is in the sense of con- .
tinuity. Since this mass of impression, which we name the
universe, is on all sides lost in a margin of unfathomable-
ness^ it iS| after all, only a limited portion of it which

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THE REVELATION 91

eomes into the scope of our consciousness. It is one of the
curious exaggerations of our logical reason that we should
be tempted to ** round oflf" this mystery. The combined
voices of imagination and intuition protest against such an
enclosed circle.

The same revelation of the complex vision which gives
objective reality to what is outside our individual soul in-
sists that this objective reality extends beyond the limited
circle of our consciousness. The device by which the log-
ical reason ''rounds oflf" the conception of continuity by
the conception of totality is the device of thei mathematical
formula of ** infinity.'*

The imaginative movement by which the complex vision
of the soul plunges into the abysses of stellar space, seek-
ing to fathom, at least in a mental act, immensity beyond
immensity, and gulf beyond giilf, is a definite human ex-
perience. It is the actual experience of the soul itself,
dropping its plummet into immensity, and finding immen-
sity unfathomable. But as soon as the logical reason dom-
inates the situation, in place of this palpable plunge into
a real concrete experience, with its accompanying sensa-
tion of appalling wonder and terrible freedom, we are
offered nothing but a thin, dry, barren mathematical form-
ula called ''infinity," the mere mention of which freezes
the imagination at its source.

What, in fact, the complex vision reveals to us is that
all these arid formulae, such as infinity, the Absolute Be-
ing, and the Universal Cause, are conceptions projected
into the real and palpable bosom of unfathomable life by
the very enemy and antagonist of life, the aboriginal emo-
tion of inert malice. This is why so often in the history
of the human race the conception of "God" has been the
worst enemy of the soul. The conception of "God" by
its alliance with the depressing mathematical formula of
"infinity" has indeed done more than any other human

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92 THE COMPLEX YISION

perversion to obliterate the beauty and tnith of the ano-
tional feeling which we name ''religion."

The revelation of the complex vision makes it clear to
US that the idea of ''God," in alliance with the idea of
"Infinity," is a projection, into religious experience, of
the emotion of inert malice. As soon as the, palpable un-
fathomableness of space is reduced to the barren notion of
a mathematical "infinity" all the free and terrible beauty
of life is lost. We have pressed our hands against our
prison-gates and found them composed of a material more
rigid than adamant, the material of "thought-in-the-ab-
stract."

Now although our chief difficulty in regard to this in-
sistent problem of the One and the Many has been got
rid of by eliminating from the notion of the One all idea
of totality, it is still true that something in us remains
unsatisfied while our individual soul is thought of as abso-
lutely isolated from all other souls. It is here, as I have
already said, that the peculiarly feminine attribute of in-
tuition comes to our rescue. The faqt that we can com-
municate together by human and sub-human language,
does not, though it implies a basic similarity in our com-
plex vision, really satisfy us.

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

This underlying misery of the soul is, in fact, a con-
stant recognition that by the isolated loneliness of our
deepest self we are keeping at a distance something —

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THE EBVELATION 93

some xmntterable flow of happiness — which would de-
stroy for us all fears and all weariness, and would end for
ever the obscene and sickening burden of the commonplace.
It is precisely at this point that the intuition comes to the
rescue; supplying our complex vision with that peculiar
**note," or ''strain of music," without which the orches-
tral harmony must remain incomplete.

In seeking to recall those great moments when the ''apex-
thought" of the complex vision revealed to us the secret
of things, we find ourselves remembering how, when in the
presence of some supreme work of art, or of some action
of heroic sacrifice, or of some magical effect of nature, or
of some heart-breaking gesture of tragic emotion in some
simple character, we have suddenly been transported out
of the closed circle of our personal life into something that
was at once personal and impersonal. At such a moment
it seems as if we literally "died" to ourself, and became
something "other" than ourself; and yet at the same time
"found" ourself, as we had never "found" ourself before.

What the complex vision seems to reveal to us about this
great human experience is that it is an initiation into an
"eternal vision," into a "vision of the immortals," into a
mood, a temper, a "music of the spheres," wherein the
creative mystery of the emotion of love finds its consum-
mation. The peculiar opportunity of an experience of
this kind, its temporal "occasion," shall we say, seems to
be more often supplied by the intuition, than by any other
attribute of the complex vision.

Intuition having this power, it is not surprising that
many souls should misuse and abuse this great gift. The
temptation to allow the intuition to absorb the whole field
of consciousness is to certain natures almost irresistible.
And yet, when intuition is divorced from the other aspects
of the rhythm of life, its tendency towards what might be
called "the passion of identity" very easily lapses into a

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94 THE COMPLEX VISION

sort of spiritual sensuality, destructive to the ereative
freedom of the souL Woe to the artist who falls into the
quagmire of unbalanced intuition! It is as if he were
drugged with a spiritual lust.

To escape from self-loathing, to escape from the odious
monotony and the indecent realism of life — what a
relief! How desirable to be confronted no longer by that
impassable gulf between one's own soul and all other liv-
ing souls! How desirable to cross the abyss which sep-
arates the ''something" which is the substance of our be-
ing from the ''something'' which is the substance of the
' ' objective mystery " !

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

If the "ecstasy of identity," as the unbalanced attribute
of intuition forces it upon us, were in very truth the pur-
pose of life, how grotesque a thing life would be! It
would then be the purpose of life to create personality,
only in order to drown it in the impersonal. In other
words it would be the purpose of life to create the
"higher" in order that it should lose itself in the lower.
At its very best this "ecstasy of identity" is the expres-
sion of what might be called the "lyrical" element in
things. But the secret of life is not lyrical, as many of
the prophets have supposed, but dramatic, as all the great
artists have shown. For the essence of life is contradic-
tion. And contradiction demands a "for" and an
"against," a protagonist and an antagonist. What the

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THE REVELATION 95

rerdation of the complex yision discloses is the inherent
duality of all things. Pleasure and pain, night and day,
man and woman, good and evil, summer and winter, life
and death, personality and fate, love and malice, the soul
and the objective mystery, these are the threads out of
which the texture of existence is woven; and there id no
escape from these, except in that eternal *' nothingness'*
which itself is the ** contradiction*' or "opposite** of that
'*dU/' which it reduces to chaos and annihilation. Thus
runs the revelation of the complex vision.

This integral soUl of ours, made of a stuff which for ever
defies analysis; this y objective mystery, made of a stuff
which for ever defies analysis; these two things perpet-
ually confront one another in a struggle that only annihi-
lation can end. Th6 vision of the eternal implies the passr
ing of the transitory. For what cannot cease from being
beautiful has no real beauty; and what cannot cease from
being true has no real truth. The art of life according
to the revelation of the complex vision, consists in giving
to the transitory the form of the eternal. It is the art
of creating a rhythm, a music, a harmony, so passionate
and yet so calm, that the mere fact of having once or
twice attained it is sufficient "to redeem all sorrows.**

The assumption that death ends it all, is an assumption
which the very nature of love calls upon us to make ; for,
if we did not make it make it, something different from love
would be the object and purpose of our life. But the
revelation of the complex vision, in our supreme moments,
discloses to us that love itself is the only justification for
life; and therefore, by making the assumption that the
soul perishes, we put once and for all out of our thought
that formidable revival of love, the idea of personal im-
mortality.

For the idea of personal immortality, like the idea of an
Absolute God, is a projection of the aboriginal "inert*'

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96 THE COMPLEX VISION

malice. It must be remembered that the revelation of the
complex yision, by laying stress upon the creative energy
of the soul in its grappling with the objective mystery,
implies an element of indeterminism, or free choice, in re-
gard to the ultimate nature of the world. Man, in a very
profound sense, perpetually creates the world according
to his will and desire. Nor can he ever know at what
point, in the struggle between personality and destiny,
the latter is bound to win. Such a x>oint may seem to be
reached; until some astounding ''act of faith" on the part
of the soul flings that ''x>oint" into a yet further remote-
ness. And this creative power in the soul of man may ap-
ply in ways which at present our own race has hardly
dared to contemplate. It may apply, for instance, to the
idea of personal immortality^

Personal immortality may be a thing which the soul,
by a concentrated act of creative will, can secure for itself,
or can reject for itself. It may be, if we take the whole
conscious and subconscious purpose of a man's life, a mat-
ier of choice.

But when a man makes a choice of such a kind, when a
man concentrates his energy upon surviving the death of
his body, he is deliberately selecting a *' lower" purpose
for his life in place of a ** higher." In other words, in-
stead of concentrating his will upon the evocation of the
emotion of love, he is concentrating his will upon self-
realization or self-continuance. What he is really doing
is even worse than this. For since what we call ''emo-
tion" is an actual projection into the matrix of the ob-
jective mystery, of the very substance and stuflf of the
soul, when the will thus concentrates ujwn personal im-
mortality, it takes the very substance of the soul and per-
verts it to the satisfaction of inert malice. In other words
it actually transforms the stuff of the soul from its posi-

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THE REVELATION 97

tive to its negative chemistry, and produces a relative
victory of malice over love.

The sbul's desires for personal immortality is one of
the aspects of the soul's '' possessive" instinct. The soul
desires to '' possess" itself — itself as it exactly is, itelf
in its precise and complete ''status quo" — ^without inter-
ruption for ever. But love has a very different desire
from this. Love is not concerned with time at all — ^f or
time has a ''future"; and any contemplation of a "fu-
ture" implies the activity of something in the soul which
is different from love, implies something which is concerned
with outward events and occurrences and chances. But love
is not concerned with outward events, whether past or fu-
ture. Love desires eternity and eternity alone. Or rather
it does not "desire" eternity. It is eternity. It is an
eternal Now, in which what will happen and what has
happened are irrelevant and unimportant.

All this offers us an intelligible explanation of a very
bewildering phenomenon in human life. I mean the in-
stinctive disgust exi>erienced by the aesthetic sense when
men, who otherwise seem gentle and good, display an un-
due and unmeasured agitation about the fate of their
souls.

Love never so much as even considers the question of the
fate of the soul. Love finds, in the mere act of loving, a
happiness so profound that all such problems seem tire-
some and insignificant The purpose of life is to attain
the rhythmic ecstasy of all love's intrinsic potentialities.
This desire for personal immortality is not one of love's
intrinsic potentialities. When a human soul has lost by
death the one person it has loved, the strength of its love
is measured by the greater or less emphasis it places upon
the problem of the lost one's "survival."

The disgust which the aesthetic sense experiences when

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98 THE COMPLEX VISION

it encomiters a certain sort of mystical and psychic agitar
tion over the question as to whether the lost one '4iye6
still somewhere'' is a disgust based nx>on our instinctive
knowledge that this particular kind of inquiry would never
occur to a supreme and self-forgetful love. For this en-
quiry, this agitation, this dabbling in *' psychic evidences,"
is a projection of the baser nature of the soul ; is, in fact, a
projection of the "possessive instinct," which is only an-
other name for the original inert malice.

In the *'ave atque vale" of the Roman poet, there is
much more of the absolute quality of great love than in all
these psychic dabblings. For in the austere reserve of
that passionate cry there is the ultimate acceptance, by
Love itself, of the tragedy of having lived and loved at
all. There is an acceptance of that aspect of the ** vi-
sion of the immortals" which implies that the possessive
instinct has no part or lot in the eternal.

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

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

This, then, is the original revelation of the complex vi-
sion* The soul is confronted by an ultimate duality which

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THE REVELATION 99

extends through the whole mass of its impressions. And
because this duality extends through every aspect of the
soul's universe and can be changed and transformed by
the soul's willy it is inevitable that what the world has
hitherto named ^^ philosophy" and has regarded as the
eflfort of ** getting hold" of a reality which exists already,
should be named by the complex vision the ''art of life"
and should be regarded as the effort of reducing to har-
mony the unruly impulses and energies which perpetually
transform and change the world.

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CHAPTEE V

THB UI/FIMATB DUALITY

What we are really, all of us, in search of, whether we
know it or not, is some concrete and definite fi^onbol of
life and the ''object" of life which shall gather up into
one living image all the broken, thwarted, devious, and
discordant impressions which make up our experience.
What we crave is something that shaU, in some permanent
form and yet in a form that can grow and enrich itself,
represent and embody the whole circle of the joy and pain
of existence. What we crave is something into which we
can throw our personal joys and sorrows, our individual
sensations and ideas, and know of a certainty that thrown
into that reservoir, they will blend with all the joys and
sorrows of all. the dead and all the living.

Such a symbol in order to give us what we need must
represent the ultimate reach of insight to which human-
ity has attained. It must be something that, once having
come into existence, remains independent of our momen-
tary subjective fancies and our passing moods. It must
be something of clearer outlines and more definite linea-
ments than those vague indistinct ecstasies, half-physiolog-
ical and half-pqrchic, which the isolated intuition brings
us.

Such a symbol must represent the concentrated struggle
of the human soul with the bitterness of fate and the
cruelty of fate, its long struggle with the deadly malice
in itself and the deadly malice in nature.

There is only one symbol which serves this purpose; a

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THE ULTIMATB DUALITY 101

symbol which has already by the slow process of anony-
mous creation and discovery established itself in the world.
I mean the symbol of the figure of Christ.

This symbol would not have sufSced to satisfy the crav-
ing of which I speak if it were only a ** discovery" of
humanity. The *' God-man" may be ** discovered" in na-
ture; but the *' Man-god" must be "created" by man.

We find ourselves approaching this symbol from many
X>oints of view, but the point of view which especially con-
cerns us is to note how it covers the whole field of human
experience. In this symbol the ultimate duality receives
its "eternal form" and becomes an everlasting standard
or pattern of what is most natural and most rhythmic.
As I advance in my analysis of the relation of the ulti-
mate duality to this symbolic figure of Christ, it becomes
necessary to review once more, in clear and concise order,
the various stages of thought by means of which I prove
the necessity of some sort of universal symbol, and the
necessity of moulding this fi^onbol to fit the drama of One
ultimate duality.

A summary of the stages of thought through which we
have already passed will thus be inevitable ; but it will be
a summary of the situation from the view-point of a differ-
ent angle.

Philosophy then is an attempt to articulate more vividly
the nature of reality than such "reality" can get itself ar-
ticulated in the confused pell-mell of ordinary experience.
The unfortunate thing is that in this process of articu-
lating reality philosophy tends to create an artificial world
of its own, which in the end gets so far away from reality
that its conclusions when they are confronted with the
pell-mell of ordinary experience appear remote, strange,
fantastic, arbitrary, and even laughable.

This philosophical tendency to create an artificial worid
which when confronted with the real world appears

y

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102 ^ THE COMPLEX VISION

strange" and remote is doe to the fact that philosophers^ '
instead of using as their instmment of research the entire
complex vision, use first one and then another of its iso-
lated attributes. But there must come moments when, in
the analysis of so intricate and elaborate a thing as '' real-
ity" by means of so intricate and elaborate an instrument
as the complex vision, the most genuine and the least arti-
ficial of philosophies must appear to be following a devious
and serpentine path.

These moments of difficulty and obscurity are not, how-
ever — as long as such a philosophy attaches itself closely
to "reality" and flows round ''reality" like a tide flow-
ing round submerged rocks or liquid metal flowing round
the cavities of a mould — ^a sign that philosophy has de-
serted reality, but only a sign that the curves and con-
tours and jagged edges of reality are so intricate and in-
volved that only a very fluid element can follow their com-
plicated shape. But these moments of difficulty and ob-
^scurity, 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 ai^^ment
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 com-
mon-sense is no better than a crude and premature qm-
thesis 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 condusicms

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THE DLTIMATB DUAMTT 108

of a philosophy like the philosophy of the complex vision,
which derives its authority from the exceptional and su-
preme experiences of all souls, should strike vus in our mo-
ments 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 in-
sane. 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 projec-
tion of the baser instinct of self-preservation and is pene-
trated through and through with that power of inert mal-
ice which itself might be called the instinct of self-preser-
vation of the OTemy 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, £3 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 in-
sane and foolish to such a mood we might well be pro-
foundly 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 pre-
cisely the thing in us which has a malicious hostility to
the creative spirit, yet no philosophy can afford to disre-
gard an appeal to actual experience as long *as actual ex-

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104 THE COMPLEX VISION

perience 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 con-
clusions, 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 disiUu-
sionment 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 t 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 formi-
dable 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 articu-
late, 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 spme superficial reason, sup-
pressed 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 car
pacity for being vividly and emphatically summed up and
embodied in some concrete image or qrmboL

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THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 105

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

And we are suspicious of it not because its lack of sim-
plicity 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 sim-
plicity but complexity, for the soul itself is the most com-
plex 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 intri-
cate, but because they are not intricate enough.

A genuine symbol, or ritualistic image, is a concrete liv-
ing 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
I>o«Bibly 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 formi-
dable mysteriousness of life, and with all this it has the
clear-cut directness of life's terrible and exquisite tangi-
bility.

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 i^nthetic image or symbol or ritualistic word
are we to use in order to sum up its concrete reality!

The revelation of life, oflfered to us by the complex vi-
sion, is, as we have seen, no very simple or logical affair.
We are left with the spectacle of innumerable ''souls,"

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106 THE COMPLEX VISION

hnmaii) sab-hnman and super-hnman, held together by some
indefinable '' medium '^ which enables them to communi-
cate 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 ''uni-
verses," it becomes a natural and legitimate conclusion
that all these "universes" are in reality the same "uni-
verse."

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-discov-
ered. 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 ob-
jective 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 real-
ity; because, in its resultant conception, it omits the activ-
ity 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.

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THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 107

which the soul by its various energies moulds and clarifies
and 8hai>es. 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 pres-
ence 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 per-
sonalities 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 tiie vague and ob-
scure 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 tiie "day" upon which its energy works
in creating its "universe," but it cannot know anything
about this "something" except that it is "there"; be-
cause, 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 com-
plex vision, it at any rate has the peculiarity of being
forced to submit to the complex vision's creative energy.

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108 THE COMPLEX VISION

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 vi-
sion reveals; we are also compelled to assume that each
one of these is dominated by time and space.

This implication of 'Hime 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

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THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 109

already assumed by an act of faith, namely that aU the
various ** universes,*' half-disoovered 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 fur-
ther from all possibility of ''illusion," by the fact that
we are forced to regard it as being not only **our" uni-
verse 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 ridic- .
ulcus 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 as-
pects of reality in the monistic truth of "the one time and
space," in the pluralistic truth of the innumerable com-
pany of living souls and the dualistic truth of the contra-
dictory nature of .all existence; so we have three further
ultimate aspects of reality, in the incomprehensible "some-
thing" which holds all souls together; in the incompre-
hensible "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

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no THE COMPLEX yiSION

'^compaiiioiis 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
*Hhe sons of the universe'* must be regarded as contin-
ually 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, function-
ing 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 com-
pared 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 re-
creating 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 unfath-
omable duality.

The ultimate truth of the system of things according to
the revelation of the complex vision is thus found to con-
sist 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 orig-

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THE ULTIMATE DUALITY Ul

inal '^plasticity'' except that it is 'Aplastic" and that time
and space rule oyer it, it is in a strict sense illegitimate to
say that this primordial "day'* or **world stuflf" 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 de-
I>ends. 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 state-
ment 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 re-
mains perfectly true that what we sometimes call "brute
matter" i>osse8ses 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 dei>endent 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

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112 THE COMPLEX VISION

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 Z2 malice exists in the
souls of the ipunortals 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 over-
coming of malice by the power of love, or of evil by **good,''
in the souls of "the sons of the universe," must not be re-
garded as a thing once for all accomplished, but as a thing
eternally re-attained as the result of an unceasing strug-
gle, a struggle so desperate, so passionate and so unfath-
omable, that it surpasses all effort of the mind to realize
or comprehend it.

It must not, moreover, be forgotten that what the com-
plex 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 un-
fathomable. 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 uni-
verse" 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 be-

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THE ULTIMATE DUALITY US

by the soula of "the sons of the universe" and by the souls
of all living things which fill the universe. This unfathom-
able 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 chem-
ical medium, whatever it may be, which unit^ 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
Been, 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 stuflE
of this unfathomable struggle, between life and what re-
sists 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

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114 THE COMPLEX YISION

be a soul possessed of life. Life, apart from some soul
possessed with life, is an abstraetion of the logical reason
and a phantom of no more genuine reality than the ''a
priori unity of apperception'* or *'the universal self-con-
scious monad. '*

What we call reality, or the truth of the system of things,
is nothing less than an innumerable company of personali-
ties 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 ex-
istence 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 in-
telligible 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, material-
istic, metaphorical expressions which do not attain to the
dignity of a legitimate symbolic image.

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

Any individual personal soul is concrete and intelligible.
The personal souls of "the sons'of the universe" are con-
crete 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

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THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 115

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 philo-
sophical 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 phi-
losophy of the complex vision should be regarded as child-
ish and ridiculous, is precisely the type of mind for whom
*Hruth" is a smoothly evolutionary affair, an affair of
steady *' progress,'* and for whom, therefore, the mere fact
of an idea being "a modem 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 histor-
ical 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 his-
tory in time and space, yet this history is not at all synony-
mous with what is usually called ** progress."

An individual human soul, the apex-thought of whose
complex vision has attained an extraordinary and unusual
rhytiim, 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

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U6 THE COMPLEX VISION

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 modem thought"

The souls of 'Hhe immortals*' must certainly be re-
garded as developing and changing and as constantly ad-
vancing towards the realization of their hope and premoni-
tion. 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 ** re-
turn/' 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 expres-
sion 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 incarna-
tion, yet in comparison with any modem 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 a|id child-
ish and ridiculous. But the philosophy of the complex vi-
sion 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 ab-
stracted from the concrete activity of real personality.

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THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 117

In completing this general picture of the starting point
of the philosophy of the complex vision there is one far-
ther 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 essen-
tially evil character of that phenomenon which was for^
merly called **matter'* but which I prefer to caU the ob-
jective mystery.

According to this doctrine — ^which might be called the
eternal herei^ 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 be-
tween "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 de-
tects in this doctrine, as I have hinted, an attempt of the
conscience to arrogate to itself the whole field of expe-
rience and to negate all the other attributes, especially
emotion and the aesthetic sense.

Such a doctrine negates the whole activity of the com-
plex 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

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118 THB COMPLEX VISION

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 de-
mands, 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" imd 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 i)ositive 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 "day'* 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

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THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 119

be regarded as entirely evil, but must obvioudy be both
good and evil ; even as the complex vision itself, bang 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 recog-
nize 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 per-
sonalities including even the personalities of "the immor-
tals" 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 sum-
mary of the nature of the ultimate duality and the neces-
sity of finding a clear and definite symbol for it

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CHAPTER VI

THE VUnUATR IDEAS

It now becomes necessary to consider in greater detail
those primary human conceptions of tmth, 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 modem psychology can explain
away these universal human experiences. They may be
named by different appellations; but considering the enor-
mous weight of historical tradition behind these names it
would seem absurd and pedantic to attempt to re-baptize
thefn at this late hour.

Human nature, in its essentials, has undergone no ma-
terial 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 good-
ness, would seem a mere superstition of originality. The
interpretation offered, in what follows, of the existence of
these experiences is sufSciently 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 con-
summated, 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 lei-

120

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 121

sareliness in this formidable matter and at certain inter-
vals to tnm round as it were, and survey the path by
which we have come. The existence of super-human be-
ings, immeasurably superior to man, is in itself a harm-
less 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 ap-
pear 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 person-
ality, applied to 'man or to the gods, seems to us as excit-
ing as an incredible fairy story when brought into rela-
tion 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 becoine
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 wiUs,
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 arbitrement of all philosophiz-
ing, 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

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122 THE COMPLEX VISION

offspring. I cannot bring myself to take this yiew because
of the fact that the ultimate revelation of the world as
presented to man's complex vision is essential and unfath-
omably 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 Lt all. It can
neither love it nor hate it. It can neither rcje t 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-plac£ of the com-
plex vision; that stopping-place beyond which anything
is possible and nothing is thinkable.

This thing, which is at once everything and nothing,
this tiling 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 crea-
tion possible.

That monistic tendency of human thought, which is it-
self a necessary projection of the monistic reality of the
individual soul, cannot, ex<5ept by an arbitrary act of faith,
resolve this ultimate duality into unity. Such a primordial
"act of faith" it can and must make with r^^rd to the
objective reality of other souls. But such an "jict of

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THB ULTIMATE IDEAS 123

faith" ig not demanded with regard to the unutterable
mystery behind the universe. We have not, strictly
speaking, even the right to use the expression **an unut-
terable mystery." All we have a right to do is just to
utter the final judgment — ^"beyond this limit neither
thought nor imagination can pass."

What the complex vision definitely denies to us, there-
fore, 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 jus-
tify 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 emo-
tional 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 antag-
onists. What it has no right to worship is the ''unutter-
able 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 mys-
terious"; 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
tne 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

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124 THE COMPLEX VISION

if there were no invisible watchers, no arbiters, no stand-
ards, 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 scep-
tical subjectivity if it could not have faith in some objec-
tive 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

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 125

should be growing, living, inexhaostible. The most wither-
ing 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 vi-
sions 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 c^ynthesb 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. U the love of these ''copipanions of men" became
at any moment incapable of a deeper and wider manifesta*
tion, at that very moment the whole stream of life would
cease, the malice of the adversary would prevail, and noth-
ingness 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 ''com-
panions 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. Objec-
tively every ideal must be embodied in "some one": and
must be a standard, a measure, a rhythm, of various ener-
gies 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. Pro-
foundly 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

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126 THE COMPLEX VISION

of OS and part of the universe, they remain vagae, ob-
scure, 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 th&gs
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 t 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 re-
gard to the existence of powers which embody the spirit
of malice t

How is it that while we have a right to regard the ideas
of truth, beauty, goodness as objectively embodied in liv-
ing personalities we have no right to regard the ideas of
falseness, hideousness, evil and malice, as objectively em-
bodied in living personalities t 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 neces-
sary 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

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 127

is that we are not driven hy 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 com-
pelled 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 personal-
ity 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 per-
sonality, 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 bom into life must possess the attributes of
taste, reason, conscience and emotion. And each of these
attributes implies this fundamental duality; being resolv-
able into a choice between hideousness, falsehood, evil, mal-
ice, 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 creutive
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

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128 THE COMPLEX VISION

sectet of the universe. The nniverse exists by reason of
a straggle between what creates and what resists creation.
Therefore personality exists by reason of a struggle be-
tween what creates and what resists creation. And the
existence of personality, however desperate the straggle
within itself may be, is a proof that the power of life is
stronger than the power which resists life.

Bat we have to consider another and yet deeper dilemma.
Since the existence of the universe depends upon the con-
tinuance of this unfathomable struggle and since the abso-
lute 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 goodt

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 un-
ending 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 strug-
gle 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 main-
tained 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 with-
out the other; and in the sense that they create the uni-
verse by their conflict.

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 129

It is important in a matter as crucial as this matter,
concerning ''the invisible companions of q^en," not to ad-
vance a step beyond our starting-point till we have appre-
hended it from several different aspects and have gone
over our ground again and again— «ven 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 wa-
ters.

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 person-
ality. 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 dis-
cussion 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 contin-

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130 THE COMPLEX YISION

ues — ^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 me-
dium. These living souls are each possessed of that multi-
form 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 pri-
mordial ideas.

These ideas are at once the eternally receding horizon
and the eternally receding starting-point — ^the unfathom-
able 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 soult '

They are clearly not completely exhausted or totally re-
vealed 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 as-
sumption ; 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 ex-
treme 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.

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THE ULTIMATB IDEAS 131

Once having got as far as this, the farther fact that
these other visions do very considerably, though not essen-
tially, differ from our own leads ns 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
I)erfect. 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" be-
cause we are unable to disassociate it from personality;
and because, while the generations of man i>aa8 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 star-
tling implications — been merely tempted into an alluring
metaphorical image, or have I been driven to make use of
this expression by reason of tihe intrinsic nature of life
itselft

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

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132 THE COMPLEX VISION

unfathomable universe into the depths of whichat 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 cer-
tain 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 oppo-
site, that the choice between them seems like a choice be-
tween 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 per-
sonalities t

In other words, to put the case once more in its rigid
outlines, is that objective vision of truth, beauty, and good-
ness 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
whrsh holds all human souls together, of such beauty and
such truth and such goodness as these souls find that they_
possess in comment

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 liv-
ing men and women — philosophers included — come, at mo-
ments, to a pitiless and adamantine ''impasse" where the
eternal '*two ways" branch off in unfathomable perspec-
tive.

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

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 133

one hand a consciousness of ^^love" and on the other a con-r
scionsness 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 con-
sciousness of unreality, of hideousness, and of evil. But
there come other, deeper, more desperate moods, when,
out of intolerable and unspeakable loneliness our soul sink-
ing 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 anal3rsis. 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 int^ its
place.

At these moments the soul's complex vision is roused to
a supreme pitch of rhythmic energy. The apex-thought of
its f ocussed 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 com-
plex vision becomes aware that the ideas of beauty, truth
and goodness are not mental abstractions or material quali-
ties or evolutionary by-products^ but are the very purpose
and meaning of life. It becomes aware that the emotion

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184 THE COMPIiBX VISION

of love is not a mental abstraction or a pQrchoIogical acci-
dent or a biological necessity but the secret of the whole
struggle and the explanation of the whole drama.

It becomes aware that this truths this beauty, this no-
bility 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 prin-
ciple 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 real-
ity, thus created and thus discovered by the apex-thought
of the complex vision, demands and requires that very rev-
elation, 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 im-
plies the idea of personality and cannot interpret life ex-
cept 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
sedking to make room for some deeper personality within
US which is ourself and yet not ourself. This is that im-

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 135

personal 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 there-
fore be immortal and living *' souls" existing side hy 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 at-
tribute of this vision, such as the will or the intuition or
the conscience, to claim for its isolated discoveries any uni-
versal 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 reiistance 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 as-
sent 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 per-
sonality, 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 unfathom-
able 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
"oversouL" That "depth," from which the power of
creative love pours forth, is not the "depth" of any "over-

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136 THE COMPLEX VISION

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 with-
out 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
**oversoul" 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 oversoul is submitted to anal-
ysis it is found to consist of nothing else than vague images
drawn from material sensation. We think of the world
for instance an a vast porous sponge continually penetrated
by a flood of water or air or vapour drawn from some hid-
den cistern or reservoir or cosmic lake. The modem the-
ological expression ''immanent" has done harm in this
direction. There is nothing profound about this concep-
tion of ''immanence." It is an entirely materialistic con-
ception drawn from sense analogy.

The same criticism applies to much of the vague specula-
tion which is usually called "mysticism." Mysticism is
not a spiritual attitude. It is often no more than the ex-
pression of thwarted sex-desire directed towards the uni-

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 137

verse 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 ex-
tension into the nnknown of physiological misery or of
physiological well-being.

The word ** spiritual'* retains, by some instinctive wis-
dom 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 keepmg itself more clear of
physiological associations than any other human word ex-
cept 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 ele-
mentary "freedom of the wind," combined with our nat-
ural association of "breath" and "breathing" with all
organic life, accounts for the traditional nobility of the
word spirit.

"Spirit" and "life" have become almost interchange-
able terms. The modem 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 -conscious-
ness — a fact drawn from the necessity of thought — mibi

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138 THE COMPLEX VISION

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 meas-
ure 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 psycho-
logical document. But I cannot help feeling that the mo-
ment 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 con-
sent 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 inde-
scribable "subtratum" of self-consciousness and the un-
utterable "something" which gives a real concrete perma-
nence 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 at-
tention 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 re-
duced to a mere gap or space or lacuna in the mind that

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 139

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 high-
est, deepest) most precious thing we know or can imagine is
personality. Personality is and must be our ultimate syn-
thesis, our final ideal, and the origin of all our ideals.
Nothing can be conceived more true, more real, more spir-
itual than personality.

All conceptions, qualities, principles, forces, elements,
thoughts, ideas, are things which we abstract from person-
ality, 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 in-
evitable 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 ut-
terly 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 id^itity of the soul
which can only be thought of in material terms t

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 nec-

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140 THE COMPLEX YISION

essaiy 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 contra-
dicted.

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 im-
pressions and is unable, by reason of its inherent nature,
to contemplate itself as an "object" at all.

TVliat the complex vision seems to me to disclose, is a rev-
elation which includes at one and the same moment "the
universal monad" and the "personal monad"; but it in-
dicates 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 meta-
physical reason insists that this all-comprehensive thought
or all-embracing consciousness cannot contemplate itself
as an object but is compelled to remain an universal sub-

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 141

ject 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 at-
tribute 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 state-
ment of the peculiar play of thought when thought is con-
sidered 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 find-
ing 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 move-
ments of pure thought working in the void; but we cer-
tainly are forbidden by the original revelation of the com-
plex vision to accept them as the starting point of our
philosophical enquiry. And we cannot accept them as a

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142 THE COMPLEX VISION

starting point, because the complex vision includes much
more than self -consciousness and reason. It includes in-
deed 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-c^omedy 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 xiltimate reality, to risk the annoyance of repetition. It
is important to go over our tracks again so that qo 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 meta^
physical language, with an ''a priori unity of appercep-
tion." Simultaneously with this recognition, self-con-
sciousness, 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 "subtratum" 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

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 143

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 in-
dependent of such a "vanishing point of sensation" and
as being entirely free from any, even from the most at-
tenuated 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 "van-
ishing point of sensation," this "substratum" composed
of "something" which we are only aCIe to define as the

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144 THE COMPLEX YISION

limit where the ultimate attenuation of what we call ''mat-
ter'* 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 f

The physical body is entirely and in all its aspects a por-
tion of this objective universe. Is the substratum of the
soul a portion of it alsot I think the answer to this ques-
tion 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 per-
petually recreate one another.

Any metaphysical system which daiies the existence of
the objective world, or uses the expression "illusion" with
regard to it, is a system based, not upon the complex vi-
sion 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 es-
sential meeting-point between what we. call thought on the

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 145

one handy and what we call '^matter" or ''energy" on the
other, the ''substratum'* of the soul must be a point of per-
petual movement where the life of thought pass^ 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 por-
tion 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
IK)wer of reason and self -consciousness to isolate themselves
from the other attributes of the soul and to project them-
selves 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 un-
fathomable, and because, also within time and space, per-
sonality 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 be-
yond the limit of our thought and beyond the limit of our
sensation.

Since it does this, since it sinks away bqrond the limit
of our thought, it must be regarded as "something" whose

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146 THE COMPLEX VISION

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. Be-
cause we are compelled to admit that only one asx>ect 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 re-
garded as a portion of the objective universe does not give
the soul any advantage over the universe. For the uni-
verse, 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 anal-
ysis as is the soul itself. It also sinks away into unfathom-
ableness. 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 defined entity as the soul posses-
sing such very definite attributes as those which make up
the complex vision.

Is it not, such an one might ask, a fantastic and ridicu-
lous assumption to endow so obscure a thing as this ''soul"
with such very definite powers as reason, instinct, will, in-
tuition, imagination, and the restt Surely, such an one
might protest, it is in the physical body that these find

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 147

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 t

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 phjrs-
ical universe. But the substratum of the soul is doubly
unfathomable. It is unfathomable as being the quintes-
sence 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 un-
doubtedly 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 un-
fathomable 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
80 intimately associated with the physical body that it is
more than i>ossible that the death of the physical body im-
plies 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 "some-

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148 THE COMPLEX VISION

thing/' 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 mys-
terious relation which exists between our soul and our body
lends itself to endless speculation ; and much of this specu-
lation tends to become far more fantastic and ridiculous
than any analysis of the attributes of the soul. Experi-
ment 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 in-
dicate 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 spec-
tacle 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 com-
mon 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 unfathom-
able universe of time and space be recognized as an ulti-
mate 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 "mon-
ads" and the like, be recognized as by-products of the ab-
stracting energy of human logic and as entirely without
reality when compared with this objective spectacle. My

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 149

own symbolic or pictorial image of the activity of the com-
plex vision, this pyramidal wedge or arrow-head of con-
centrated and focussed flames, must be recognized as no
more adequate or satisfactory tJian 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 syn-
thetic unity of apperception" or **an universal self-con-
scious monad/' It is tiie 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 sub-
jective **soul," or personality, contemplating this spectacle,
it is advisable to revert to the magical and mysterious as-
sociations 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 cotoparative 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 mag-
ical 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 "uni-
verse," 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 con-
tains. Nature from this point of view becomes the whole

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150 THE COMPLEX VISION

Tuifathomable spectacle, seen as something living and grow-
ing 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 cre-
ative energy of Nature; for ** Nature" is no more than the
beautiful and classical word which recalls us to the ob-
jective 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 sub-
human and super-human, all of whom, in their various de-
grees, 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 **thi\ 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

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 151

invisible comi>anions 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 ap-
pearance of these ''invisible companion" 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
la^ along with the rest of the universe. But the genera-
tions of mankind come and go and the "invisible com-
panions" of men remain; therefore the "invisible com-
panions" cannot be supposed, except pictorially and in a
cQrmbolic sense, to be subject to the laws which govern our
mortal bodies.

It is this freedom from the laws which govern the phys^
ical 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 re-
main in perpetual contact with every living soul bom into
the world. The difSculty we experience in realizing the
nearness to our individual souls of these invisible com-
panions, 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

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152 THE COMPLEX VISION

existence of the soul is implied in the activity of the com-
plex vision. The reality of the external universe, the real-
ity 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 appre-
hended through any other senses than the ones we^possess
tljie 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, con-
ceal, 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, fatal-
ity or destiny, and are still the arbiters of its hope.

Retracing once more our steps over this perilous bridge
of ultimate thought, we may thus indicate the situation.
Our starting-point cannot be the "a priori synthetic unity
of apperception," because this is an abstraction of the pure
reason, and if accepted as a real fact would contradict and
negate all the other attributes of the souL

Our starting-point cannot be the universal "monad" of
self -consciousness, because this is an abstraction of the "I

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 153

am I" and if accepted as a real fact would negate and
suppress every attribute of the soul except the attributes
of self -consciousness and emotion.

Our starting-point cannot be the objective world, con-
sidered in its evolutionary externality, because this ex-
ternal world depends for its very existence upon the at-
tributes of the soul, especially upon the attribute of sen-
sation.

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

By an original act of faith, towards which we are helped
by the soul's attribute of imagination, we are compelled to
conceive of every other soul in the world as being the
centre of a universe more or less identical in character
with the universe of which our own soul is the centre.
These separate universes we have to conceive as being sub-
jective impressions of the same objective reality, the
beauty, truth, and goodness of which are guaranteed for
us by those '^ invisible companions of men" in whose
eternal vision they find their synthesis.

The tragedy of our life consists in the fact that it is
only in rare exalted moments, when the rhythmic harmony
of the complex vision is most intense and yet most calm,
that the individual soul feels the presence of those supreme
companions whose real and personal existence I have at-
tempted to indicate. These ideal and yet most real com-
panions of humanity make their presence felt by the soul
in just the same immediate, direct and equivocal way in
which we feel the influence of a friend or lover whose

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154 THE COMPLEX VISION

spirit, in his bodily absence, is concentrated upon our
spirit, even as ours is upon his.

To the larger vision of these ''invisible companions" we
fyid ourselves consciously and sub-consciously turning
whenever the burden of our flesh oppresses us more tjban
we can bear. We are compelled to turn to them by reason
of the profound instinct in us which recognizes that our
ideas of truth, of beauty, and goodness are not mere sub-
jective fancies but are actual objective realities. These
ideas do not spring from these ''companions" or find their
origin and cause in them, any more than they spring from
some imaginary "parent" of the universe and ^nd their
origin and cause in something "behind life." They do not
"spring" from anything at all; but are the very stuff and
texture of our own unfathomable souls, just as they are
the very stuff and texture of the unfathomable souls of the
immortal gods. What we are conscious of, when our com-
plex vision gathers itself together, is the fact that the in-
evitable element of subjectivity in our individual feeling
about these things is transcended and supplemented by an
invisible pattern or standard or ideal in which these things
are reconciled and fused together at a higher pitch of har-
mony than we individually, or even in contact with one
another, are capable of attaining.

The vision of these "invisible companions" — absolute
enough in relation to our own tragic relativity — is itself
relative to its own hope, its own dream, its own prophecy,
its own permonition. The real evolution of the world, the
real movement of life, takes therefore a double form. It
takes the form of an individual return to the fulness of
ideas which have always been implicit and latent in our in-
dividual souls. And it takes the form of a co-operative
advance towards the fulness of ideas which are fore-
shadowed and prophesied in the vision of these immortals'
companions. Thus for us, as well as for them, the eternal

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 155

movement is at once an advance and a return. Thus for
us, as well as for them, the eternal inspiration is at once
a hope and a reminiscence.

It will be seen from what I have said that this philosophy
of the complex vision finds a place for all the nobler and
more desperate struggles of the human race towards a
solution of the mystery of life. It accepts fully the fact
that the human reason playing isolated games with itself,
is driven by its own nature to reduce "all objects of all
thought" to the circle of one "synthetic unity" which is
the implied "a priori" background of all actual vision.
It accepts fully the fact that human self-consciousness,
playing isolated games with itself, is driven by the neces-
sity of its own nature to reduce all separate "selves" to
one all embracing "world self" which is the universe con-
scious of itself as the universe.

It accepts fully the fact that we have to regard the ap-
parent objectivity of the external universe, with its historic
process, as an essential and unalterable aspect of reality,
so grounded in truth that to call it an "illusion" is a
misuse of language. But although it accepts both the ex-
treme "materialistic" view and the extreme "idealistic"
view as inevitable revelations of reality, it does not regard
either of them as the true starting-point of enquiry, because
it regards both these extremes as the result of the isolated
play of one or the other of the complex vision's attributes.

The philosophy of the complex vision refuses to accept
as its starting-point any "synthetic unity" other than the
synthetic unity of personality; because any other than
this it is compelled to regard as abstracted from this by
the isolated play of some particular attribute of the mind.
The philosophy of the complex vision refuses to accept as
its starting-point any attenuated materialistic hypothesis,
such as may be indicated by the arbitrary words "life-
force" or "energy" or "movement" or "ether" or

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156 THE COMPLEX VISION

'* evolutionary progress," because it recognizes that all
these hypothetical origins of life are only projected and ab-
stracted aspects of the central reality of life, which is, and
always must be, personality.

But what is the relation of the philosophy of the com-
plex vision to that modern tendency of thought which calls
itself "pragmatism" and which also finds in personality
its starting-point and centre? The philosophy of the
complex vision seems to detect in the pragmatic attitude
something which is profoundly unpleasing to its taste. Its
own view of the art of life is that it is before everything
else a matter of rhythm and harmony and it cannot help
discerning in "pragmatism" something piece-meal, pell-
mell and *' hand-to-mouth." It seems conscious of a cer-
tain outrage to its aesthetic sense in the method and the
attitude of this philosophy. The pragmatic attitude,
though it would be unfair to call it superficial, does not
appeal to the philosophy of the complex vision as being one
of the supreme, desperate struggles of the human race to
overcome the resistance of the Sphinx. The philosophy
of the complex vision implies the difficult attainment of an
elaborate harmony. It regards ** philosophy" as the most
difficult of all *' works of art." What it seems to be sus-
picious of in pragmatism is a tendency to seek mediocrity
rather than beauty, and a certain humorous opportunism
rather than the quiet of an eternal vision. It seems to
look in vain in ''Pragmatism" for that element of the
impossible, for that strain of Quixotic faith, in which no
high work of art is found to be lacking. It seems unable
to discover in the pragmatic attitude that "note of trag-
edy" which the fatality of human life demands.

It certainly shares with the pragmatic philosophy a ten-
dency to lay more stress upon the freedom of the will than
is usual among philosophies* But the "will" of the corn-

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 157

plex yision moves in closer association with the aesthetic
sense than does the ''will" of pragmatism. It is perhaps
as a matter of "taste" that pragmatism proves most un-
satisfactory to it. I It seems to be conscious of something
in pragmatism, which, though itself perhaps not precisely
''commercial," seems curiously well adapted to a com-
mercial age. It IB aware, in fine, that certain high and
passionate intimations are roused to unmitigated hostility
by the whole pragmatic attitude. And it refuses to out-
rage these intimations for the sake of any pi^chological
contentment.

In regard to the particular kind of "truth" championed
by pragmatists, the "truth" namely which gives one on
the whole the greatest amount of practical efficiency, the
philosophy of the complex vision remains unconvinced.
The pragmatic philosophy judges the value of any "truth"
by its effective application to ordinary moments. The phi-
losophy of the complex vision judges the value of any
"truth" by its relation to that rare and difficult harmony
which can be obtained only in extraordinary moments. To
the pragmatic philosopher a shrewd, efficient and healthy-
minded person, with a good "working" religion, would
seem the lucky one, while to the philosophy of the complex
vision some desperate, unhappy suicidal wastrel, who by the
grace of the immortals was allowed some high unutterable
moment, might approach much more closely to the vision
of those "sons of the universe" who are the pattern of
us all.

This comparison of the method we are endeavouring to
follow with the method of "pragmatism" helps to throw
a clear light upon what the complex vision reveals about
these "ultimate ideas" in the flow of an indiscriminate
mass of mental impression.

To the passing fashion of modem thought there is some-
thing stiff, scholastic, archaic, rigid, and even Byzantine,

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168 THE COMPLEX VISION

about the words **tnith,'' "beauty/' "goodneflB," thus
pedestalled side by side. But just as with the old-fash-
ioned word *' matter" and the old-fashioned word '*soul,"
we must not be misled by a mere ''superstition of novelty"
in these things.

Modem psychology has not been able, and never can be
able, to escape from the universal human experiences which
these old-fashioned words cover; and as long as the ex-
periences are recognized as real, it surely does not make
much difference what names we give to them. It seems, in-
deed, in a point so human and dramatic as this, far better
to use words that have already acquired a clear traditional
and natural connotation than to invent new words accord-
ing to one's own arbitrary fancy. It would not be difficult
to invent such words. In place of *' truth" one could say
**the objective reality of things" rhythmically appre-
hended by the complex vision. Instead of ''beauty" one
could say "the world seen under the light of a peculiar
creative power in the soul which reveals a secret aspect of
things otherwise concealed from us." Instead of "good-
ness" one could say "the power of the conscious and living
iviU, when directed towards love." And in place of
"love" itself one could say "the projection of the essaice
of the soul upon the objective plane ; when such an essence
is directed towards life."

But it would be futile to continue this "fancy-work,"
of definition by an individual temperament. The general
traditional meaning of these words is clear and unmistak-
able; though there may be infinite minute shades of dif-
ference between one person's interpretation of such a
meaning and another's. What it all really amounts to is
this. No philosophic or scientific interpretation of life,
which does not include the verdict of life's own most con-
centrated moments, can possibly be adequate.

Human nature can perfectly well philosophize about its

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THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 159

nonnal stream of ixnpressioiis in ''cold blood/' so to speak,
and according to a method that discounts all emotional vi-
sion. But the resultant conclusions of such philosophizing,
with their easy-going assumption that what we call
"beauty" and ''gooodness" have no connection with what
we call ''truth/' are conclusions so unsatisfying to more
than half of our being that they carry their refutation on
the face of them.

To be an "interpretation of life" a philosophical theory
cannot afford to disregard the whole turbulent desperate
dramatic content of emotional experience. It cannot dis-
regard the fact, for instance, that certain moments of our
lives bring to us certain reconciliations and revelations
that change the whole perspective of our days. To "in-
terpret life" from the material offered by the uninspired
unconcentrated unrhythmical "average" moods of the soul
is like trying to interpret the play of "Hamlet" from a
version out of which every one of Hamlet's own speeches
have been carefully removed. Or, to take a different meta-
phor, such pseudo-psychological philosophy is like an at-
tempt to analyse the nature of fire by a summaty of the
various sorts of fuel which have been flung into the flame.

The act of faith by which these ultimate ideas are re-
duced to the vision of living personalities is a legitimate
matter for critical scepticism. But that there are such
ultimate ideas and that life cannot be interpreted without
considering them is not a matter for any sort of scepticism.
It is a basic assumption, without which there could be no
adequate philosophy at all. It is the only intelligible as-
sumption which covers the undeniable human experience
which gathers itself together in these traditional words.

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CHAPTER Vn

THE NATUBB OP ART

The only adequate clue to the historic mystery of that
thing which the human race has come to call ''beauty/'
and that other thing— the re-creation of this through in-
dividual human minds — ^which we have come to call "art"
— ^is found, if the complex vision is to be trusted at all, in
the contact of the emotion of love with the ''objective mys-
tery/' and its consequent dispersion, as the other aspects
of the soul are brought to bear upon it, into the three
primordial ideas of goodness, beauty, and truth.

The reason why this one particular aspect of the soul
which we call emotion is found to be the synthesis of what
is discovered by all the other aspects of the soul function-
ing together is that the nature of emotion differs radically
from reason, conscience, will, imagination, taste, and the
rest, in that it is not only a clarifying, directing and dis-
criminating activity but is also — ^as none of these others
are — an actual mood, or temper, or state of the soul, pos-
sessing certain definite vibrations of energy and a certain
sort of psychic fluidity or out-flowing which seems per-
petually to spring up from an unfathomable depth.

This synthetic role played by emotion in unifying the
other activities of the complex vision and preparing the
psychic material for the final activity of the apex-thought
may perhaps be understood better if we think of emotion
as being an actual outflowing of the soul itself, springing
up from unfathomable depths. Thinking of it in this way
we may conceive the actual size or volume of the "soul
monad" to be increased by this centrifugal expaiD»ion«

160

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THE NATURE OP ABT 161

By such an increase of the soul's volume we do not mean
an aetaal increase; because the depths of all souls are
equally unfathomable when their recession inwards is con-
sidered. By such an increase we refer to the forth-flowing
of the soul as it manifests itself through the physical body.
Thus our theory brings us back, as all theories must if they
are consonant with experience, to the traditional language
of the human race. For in ordinary language there is
nothing strange about the expression '^a great soul."
Such an expression simply refers to the volume of the
soul's outflowing through the body. And this outflowing is
the fulness, more or less, of the soul's well-spring of
emotion.

A ''great soul" is thus a soul whereof the outflowing
emotion—- on both sides of its inherent duality — ^is larger in
volume as it manifests itself through the body than in
normal cases; and a ''small soul" is a soul whose volume
of outflowing emotion is less than in normal cases.

It must be remembered, however, when we speak of the
outflowing emotion of the soul that we do not mean that
there pours through the soul from some exterior source a
stream of emotion distinct from the integral being of the
soul itself. WhalTwe mean is that the soul itself flnds it-
self divided against itself in an eternal contradiction which
may be compared to the positive and negative pole of
electricity.

This outflowing of emotion is not, therefore, the outflow-
ing of something which emerges from the soul but is the
outflowing, or the expansion and dilation through the body,
or the soul itself. What we are now indicating, as to the
less or greater degree of volume in the soul's manifestation
through the body, is borne witness to in the curious fact
that the bodies of persons under strong emotion — ^whether
it be the emotion of love or the emotion of malice— do
actually seem to dilate in bulk and stature.

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162 THE COMPLEX VISION

AU that we have been saying has a dear bearing npon
the problem of the relation between the emotional aspect
of the sonl and the other aspects. The emotion of the soul
is the outflowing of the sonl itself, on one side or other of
its inherent duality ; while the other aspects of the soul —
such as will, taste, imagination, reason, and so forth — are
the directing, selecting, darilying, interpreting activities
of the soul as it flings itself upon the objective mystery.

Thus, while it is by means of that activity of the soul
which we call conscience that we distinguish between good
and evil ; and by means of that activity called the aesthetic
sense that we distinguish between beauty and hideousness;
and by means of that activity called reason that we dis-
tinguish between reality and unreality; it is all the while
from its own emotional outflowing that the soul directed
and guided by these critical energies, creates the universe
which becomes its own, and then discovers that the uni-
verse which it has created is also the universe of the im-
mortals.

It is because this emotional duality of love and malice is
the inherent ''psychic stuff" of all living souls whether
mortal or immortal that the soul of man comes at last to
comprehend that those primordial ideas of goodness, beauty
and truth, out of which the universe is half -created and
half -discovered, draw, so to speak the sanction of their ob-
jective reality from the eternal vision of the immortals.

The distinction we have thus insisted upon between the
nature of emotion and the nature of the other aspects
of the soul makes it now clear how it Is that we are com-
pelled to regard these three primordial ideas of beauty,
truth and goodness as finding their unity and their original
identity in the emotion of love.

It has been necessary to consider these ultimate move-
ments of the soul in order that we may be in a position to
understand the general nature of this mysterious thing we

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THE NATUBB OP ABT 188

call ^'art/' and be able to track its river-bed, so to speak,
up to the original source. From a consideration of the fact
that the outflowing of the soul takes the form of emotion,
and that this emotion is at perpetual war within itself and
is for ever contradicting itself, we arrive at our first
axiomatic principle with regard to art, namely that art is,
and must always be, penetrated through and through by
the spirit of contradiction. Whatever else art may be-
come, then, one thing we can predicate for certain with
regard to it, namely that it springs from an eternal con-
flict between two irreconcilable opposites.

We are, further than this, able to define the nature of
these opposites as the everlasting conflict between creation
and what resists creation, or between 4ove and malice. It
is just here, in regard to the character of these opposites,
that the philosophy of the complex vision differs from the
Bergsonian philosophy of the ''£lan vital.''

According to Bergson's monistic system the only genuine
reality is the flux of spirit The spirit of some primordial
self-expansion projects what we call ''matter" as its secon-
dary manifestation and then is condemned to an unending
and exhausting struggle with what it has projected.

Spirit, therefore, is pure energy and movement and mat-
ter is pure heaviness and resistance. Out of the necessity
of this conflict emerge all those rigid logical concepts and
mathematical formulae, of which space and time, in the
ordinary sense of those words, are the ultimate generaliza-
tion.

Our criticism of this theory is that both these things—
this "spirit'' and this spirit-evoked "matter" — are them-
selves meaningless concepts, concepts which, in spite of
Bergson's contempt for ordinary metaphysic, are in reality
entirely metaphysical, being in fact, like the old-fashioned
entities whose place they occupy, nothing but empty bodi-
less generalizations abstracted from the concrete living

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164 .THE COMPLEX VISION

reality of the soul. But quite apart from our critieifim of
the Bergsonian ** spirit*' and *' matter" on the ground of
their being unreal conceptions illegitimately abstracted
from real personality we are compelled to note a second
vivid difference between our point of view and his in re-
gard to this matter of opposites and their contradiction.
Bergson's monism, as we have seen, resolves itself into a
duality which may be defined as conscious activity con-
fronted by unconscious inertness.

Our duality, on the contrary, which has behind it, not
monism, but pluralism, may be defined as conscious cre-
ation, or conscious love, confronted by conscious resistance
to creation, or conscious inert malice. Thus while Bergson
finds his ultimate axiomatic ^Mata" in philosophical ab-
stractions, we find our ultimate axiomatic ^'data" in the
realities of human experiences. Bergson seeks to interpret
human life in terms of the universe. We seA to interpret
the universe in terms of human life. And we contend that
we are justified in doing this since what we call ''the uni-
verse," as soon as it is submitted to analysis, turns out to
be nothing but an act of faith according to which an im-
mense plurality of separate personal universes find a single
universe of inspiration and hope in the vision of the im-
mortal gods.

The ultimate duality revealed by the complex vision is a
duality on both sides of which we have unfathomable
abysses of consciousness. On the one side this conscious-
ness is eternally creative. On the other side this conscious-
ness is eternally malicious, in its deliberate inert resistance
to creation. It is natural enough, therefore, that while
Bergson's ''creative evolution" resolves itself into a series
of forward-movements which are as easy and organic as the
growth of leaves on a tree, our advance toward the real
future which is also a return to the ideal past, resblves
itself in a series of supremely difKcult rhythms, wherein

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THE NATURE OP ABT 165

eternally conscious ''good" overcomes eternally conscious
**evil."

Our philosophy, therefore, may, in the strictest sense,
be called a '* human" philosophy in contra-distinction to a
** cosmic" philosophy; or, if you please, it may be called a
*' dramatic" philosophy in contra-distinction to a ** lyric"
philosophy. Prom all this it will be clearly seen that it
would be impossible for us to hypostasize a super-moral or
sub-moral universe in complete disregard of the primordial
conscience of the human soul. It will be equally clearly
seen that it would be impossible for us to project a the-
oretical universe made up of '^ cosmic streams of ten-
dency," whether ** spiritual" or ** material," in complete
disregard of the soul's primordial aesthetic sense.

The logical scrupulosity and rationalistic passion which
drive a cosmic philosopher forward, in his attempt to con-
struct a universe in disregard of the human conscience
and the human aesthetic sense, are themselves evidence that
while he has suppressed in himself the first two of the three
primordial ideas of which we speak, he has become an all-or-
nothing slave of the last of these three ideas — ^namely, the
idea of truth. He has sacrificed his conscience and his
taste to this isolated and abstracted 'Hruth," the quest of
pure reason alone, and, as a result of this fanaticism, the
real "true truth," that is to say the complete rhythmic vi-
sion of the totality of man's nature, has been suppressed
and destroyed.

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

That this is the case can easily be proved by recalling

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166 THE COMPLEX VISION

how thin^ how strained, how morbid, how nngracioiu, how
inhuman, those so-called " saints'' and ** artists" become,
when, in their neglect of reason and truth, they persist in
following their capricious, subjective, fantastic, individual
dreams, out of all concrete relation to the actual world we
live in.

We arrive, therefore, at a point from which we are able
to detect the true inner spirit of the nature of art; and
what we discover may thus be stated. Art is the expres-
sion, through the medium of an individual temperament,
of a beauty which is one of the primordial aspects of this
pluralistic world. The eternal duality of things implies
that this beauty is always manifested as something in per^
petual conflict with its opposite, namely with that antag-
onistic aspect of the universe which we name the hideous
or the ugly.

This duality exists as the eternal condition of each one
of the three primordial ideas out of which the universe is
evoked. Each of these three ideas is only known to us
as the result of a relative victory over its opposite. Beauty
is known to us as a relative victory over hideousness.
Gteodness is known to us as a relative victory over eviL
Truth is known to us as a relative victory over the false
and the unreal. The fact that each of these ideas can
only be known in a condition of conflict with its opposite
and in a condition of relative victory over its opposite is
due to the fact that all three of them are in their own
nature only clarifying, selecting, and value-giving activi-
ties; whereas the actual material upon which they have
to work, as well as the toergy from which they derive
their motive-power, is nothing else but that mysterious
out-flowing of the soul itself which we call emotion.

For since emotion is eternally divided against itself into
love and malice, the three primordial ideas which deal with
this emotion are also eternally divided against themselves,

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THE NATUBB OP ART 167

into beauty and hideonsness, into goodness and evil, into
reality and unreality. And since the very existence of
emotion depends upon the struggle between love and mal-
ice, in the same way the very existence of our aesthetic
sense depends upon the struggle between beauty and hid-
eousness; and the very existence of reason depends upon
the struggle between reality and unreality. The only love
we can possibly have to deal with is a love which is for
ever overcoming malice. The only beauty we can i)ossibly
have to deal with is a beauty which is for ever overcoming
hideousness. /

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

A world where all minds could apprehend all truth with-
out any illusion or admixture of unreality, would not be
a world at all, as we know the world. It would be the
colourless dream of an immobile plurality of absolutes.
As far as we are concerned it would be synonymous with
death. Thus the ultimate nature of the world is found
to be unfathomably dualistic. A sharps dividing line of
irreconcilable duality intersects every living soul; and the
secret of life turns out to be the relatively victorious strug-
gle of personality with the thing that in itself resists its
fuller life.

This verdict of the complex vision is in unison with the
natural feeling of ordinary humanity and it is also in
unison with the supreme illuminated moments when we
seem to apprehend the vision of the gods. When once
we have apprehended the inherent nature of beauty, we
are in a position to understand what the spirit of art
must be, whose business it is to re-create this beauty in
terms of personality. The idea of beauty itself is pro-
foundly personal even before art touches it, since it is one

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16^ THE COMPLEX VISION

of the tliree primordial ideas with which every conscious
soul sets forth.

But it is not only personal. It is also objective and
impersonal. For it is not only the reaction of a particular
soul to its own universe; it is also felt, in the rare mo-
ments when the apex-thought of the complex vision is cre-
ating its world rhythm, to be nothing less than the vision
of the immortals.

Art, therefore, which is the representation in tenns of
some particular personal temperament, of that sense of
beauty which is the inheritance of all souls bom into the
world, must be profoundly penetrated by the victorious
struggle of the emotion of love with the emotion of malice.
For although the human sense of the beauty of the world,
which may be called the objective sense of the beauty of
the world, since the vision of the immortals lies behind
it, is the thing which art expresses, it must be remembered
that this sense is not an actual substance or concrete en-
tity, but is only a principle of selection or a process of
mental reaction, in regard to life.

The thing which may be called an actual substance is
that out-flowing of the soul itself in centrifugal waves of
positive and negative vibration which we have chosen to
name by the name *' emotion.'' This may indeed be called
an actual concrete extension of the psychic-stuff of the
substantial soul. None of the three primordial ideas re-
semble it in this. They are all attitudes of the soul; not
conscious enlargements or lessenings of the very stuff of
the soul.

The idea of beauty is a x>articular reaction to the uni-
verse. The idea of truth is a particular reaction to the
universe. The idea of goodness is a particular act of the
will with regard to our relation to the universe. But the
emotion of love, in its struggle with the emotion of malice,
is mudv more than this. It is the actual out-flowing of

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THE NATURE OF ART 169

the soul itself; and it offers, as such, the very stuff and
material out of which truth and beauty and goodness are
distinguished and discerned.

Some clear hints and intimations as to the nature of
art may be arrived at from these considerations. We at
any rate reach a general criterion, applicable to all in-
stances, as to the presence or absence in any particular
case of the authentic and objective ''note" of true art.
This *'note" is the presence in a work of art of the de-
cisive relative victory of love over malice. When, on the
contrary, in any work of art, the original struggle of love
with malice issues in a relative overcoming of love by
malice, then such a work of art belongs, ipso facto, to an
inferior order of excellence.

This criterion is one of easy intuitive application, al-
though any exact analysis of it, in a particular case, may
be difBcult and obscure. Roughly and generally expressed
it amounts to this. In the great works of art of the
world, wherein the subjective vision of the artist expresses
itself in mysterious reciprocity with the objective vision of
the. immortals, there is always found a certain large ''hu-
manity." This humanity, wherein an infinite pity never
for a moment degenerates into weak sentiment, reduces
the co-existence of cruelty and malice to the lowest pos-
sible minimnm, consonant with the ebb and flow of life.

Some residuum of such malice and cruelty there must
be, even in the supremest work of art, else the eternal con-
tradictions upon which life depends would be destroyed.
But the emotion of love, in such works, will always be
found to have its fingers, as it were, firmly upon the
throat of its antagonist, so that the resultant rhythm shall
be felt to be the tdtimate rhythm of life itself, wherein the
eternal struggle of love with malice issues in the relative
overcoming of the latter by the former.

It would be invidious perhaps to name, in this place^

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170 THE COMPLEX VISION

any particular works of art in which the predominant
element is malice rather than love. But such works of art
exist in considerable number, and the lacerated and dis-
torted beauty of them remains as a perpetual witness to
what they have missed. In speaking of these inferior
works of art the aesthetic pcfychotogist must be on his
guard against the confusion of such moods as the creative
instinct of destruction or the creative instinct of simple
sensuality with the inert malice we are considering.

The instinct of destruction is essentially connected with
the instinct of creation and indeed must be regarded as an
indirect expression of that instinct \ for, as one can clearly
understand, almost every creative undertaking implies some
kind of destructive or at least some kind of suppressive
or renunciant act which renders such an undertaking i>os-
sible.

In the same way it is not difficult to see that the simple
impulse of natural sensuality, or direct animal lust, is
profoundly connected with the creative instinct, and is in-
deed the expression of the creative instinct on the plane of
purely material energy. But it must be understood, how-
ever, that neither the will to destruction nor the will to
sensuality are by any means always as innocent as the
forms of them I have indicated above.

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

The instinct of "sadism,'' or the deriving of voluptuous
pleasure from sensual cruelty, has its origin in the legiti-
mate association of the impulse to destroy with the impulse

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THE NATURE OP ART 171

to create, as these things are inseparably linked together
in the normal '' possession '' of a woman by a man. In
snch ''i)osse8sion" the active masculine principle has to
exercise a certain minimum of destruction with a view to
a certain maximum of creation ; and the normal resistance
of the female is the mental corollary of this.

The normal resistance of the artist's medium to the
activity of his energy is a sort of aesthetic parallel to this
situation; and it is easy to see how, in the creation of a
work of arty this aesthetic overcoming of resistance may
get itself mentally associated with the parallel sensation
experienced on the sensual plane. The point we have to
make is this: that while in normal cases the impulse to
sensuality is perfectly direct, innocent, aiiimal, and earth-
bom; in other cases it becomes vitiated by the presence
in it of a larger amount of destructive energy than can
be accounted for by the original necessity.

Thus in a great many quite famous works of art there
will be found an element of sadism. But it will always
remain that in the supreme works of art this sadistic de-
ment has been overcome and transformed by the pressure
upon it of the emotion of love. There exists, however,
other instances, when the work of art in question is obvi-
ously inferior, in which we are confronted by something
much more evil than the mere presence of the sadistic
impulse. What I refer to is a very subtle and complicated
mood wherein the simple sadistic impulse to derive sensual
pleasure from the contemplation of cruelty has been seized
upon and taken possession of by the emotion of malice.

The complicated mood resulting from this association
of sadistic cruelty with inert malice is perhaps the moat
powerful engine of evil that exists in the world ; although
a pure unmitigated condition of unscnsualized, unimpas-
noned, motiveless malice is, in its inmost self, more essen-
tially and profoundly evil. For while the energy of sad-

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172 THE COMPLEX VISION

ism renders the actual destructive x)Ower of malice much
more formidable, we must remember that what really con-
stitutes the essence of evil is never the energy of destruc-
tion but always the malicious inertness of resistance to
creation. We have thus arrived at some measure of in-
sight as to the nature of art and we find that whatever
else it may be it must be penetrated through and through
by the overcoming of malice by love. It must, in other
words, have the actual out-fiowing of the soul as the in-
strument of its expression and as the psycho-material me-
dium with which it inscribes its vision upon the objective
mystery that confronts it.

We have at least arrived at this point in our search for
a definite criterion : that when in any work of art a vein of
excessive cruelty or, worse still, a vein of sneering and
vindictive malice, dominates the emotional atmosphere,
such a work of art, however admirable it may be in other
respects, falls below the level of the most excellent. The
relation between the idea of beauty as expressed by the
aesthetic sense and those other ideas, namely of truth and
goodness, which complete the circle of human vision, is a
relation which may be suggested thus.

Since all three of these primordial ideas are unified by
the emotion of love it is dear that the emotion of love
is the element in which each of them severally moves.
And since it is impossible that love should be antagonistic
to itself we must conclude that the love which is the ele-
ment or substratum of beauty is the same love that is the
element or substratum of goodness and truth. And since
all these three elements are in reality one element, which
is indeed nothing less than the dominant out-flowing of
the soul itself, it follows that those portions of the soul ^8
out-flowing which have been directed by reason and by
conscience, which we call the idea of truth and the idea

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THE NATURE OP ART 173

of goodness, must have an ultimate identity with that por-
tion of the soul's out-flowing which has been directed by
the aesthetic sense and which we call the idea of beauty.

This identity between truth and goodness on the one
hand and beauty on the other cannot be regarded as an
absolute identity. The idea of truth continues to repre-
sent one facet of the universe^ the idea of goodness another,
and the idea of beauty another or a third. What we mean
by the use of the term '* identity'' is simply this: that
the universe revealed by each one of these three ideas is
the same universe as is revealed by the others, and the emo-
tional out-flowing of the individual soul, which reveals each
of these separate facets or aspects of the universe, is the
same in each of the three ideas which govern its direc-
tion.

It is, however, only at their supreme point, when they
are fused together by the apex-thought of the complex
vision, that the activity of these separate ideas is found
to be in complete harmony. Short of this extreme limit
they tend to deviate from each other and to utter con-
tradictory oracles. We may therefore lay it down as an
unalterable law of their activity that when any one of
these ideas contradicts another it does so because of a
weakness and imperfection in its own intensity or in the
intensity of the idea it contradicts. *

Thus if an idea of goodness is found irreconcilable with
an idea of beauty, something is wrong with one or the other
of these ideas, or perhaps with both of them. And we are
not only able to say that something is wrong with such
ideas when they contradict one another, we are able to
predicate with certainty as to what precisely is wrong.
For the ''something wrong" which leads to this contradic-
tion, the ** something wrong" which stands in the way of
the rhythmic activity of the soul's apex-thought, will in-

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174 THE COMPLEX VISION

variably be found to be a weakening of the out-flowingt of
the emotion of love in one or other or perhaps all three
of the implicated ideas.

For the out-flowing of the soul's emotion is not only the
life of the root of this "tree of knowledge''; it is also the
life of the sap of the uttermost branches; it is the force
that makes the fragrance of each topmost leaf mingle with
that of all the rest, in that unified breath of the whole tree
which loses itself in the air.

Thus we arrive at our final conclusion as to the nature
of art. And when we apply our criterion to any of the
supreme works of art of the world we find it does not fail
us. The figure of Christ, for instance, remains the su-
preme incarnation of the idea of goodness in the world;
and few will deny that the figure of Christ represents not
only the idea of goodness but the ideas of truth and beauty
also. If one contemplates many another famous "good
man" of history, such as easily may be called to mind,
one is at once conscious that the "goodness" of these
admirable persons is a thing not altogether pleasing to the
aesthetic taste, and a thing which in some curious way
seems to obscure our vision of the real truth of life.

A great work of art, such as Leonardo's "Virgin of the
Rocks," or Dostoievsky's "Idiot," is intuitively recogniised
as being not only entirely satisfying to the aesthetic sense
but also entirely satisfying to our craving for truth and
our longing for the inmost secret of goodness. Every great
work of art is the concentrated essence of a man's ultimate
reaction to the universe. It has an undertone of immense
tragedy ; but in the depths of this tragedy there is no de-
spair, because an infinite pity accompanies the infinite sor-
row, and in such pity love finds itself stronger than fate.
No work of art, however appealing or magical, can carry
the full weight of what it means to be an inheritor of
human tradition, of what it means to be a living soul,

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THE NATURB OP ABT 176

imtfl it has arrived at that ifaythm of the apex-thoaght
which is a fusion of what we call the ''good" with what we
call the ''beautiful" and the "true."

It is only when our notion of what is good and what i$
true falls short of the austere demands of the aesthetic
sense that a certain uneasiness and suspicion enters into
a discussion of this kind. And such an uneasiness is jus-
tified by reason of the fact that the popular notion both
of goodness and truth does so often fall lamentably short
of such demands. The moral conscience of average hu-
manity is a thing of such dull sensibility, of such narrow
and Ihnited vision, that it is inevitable that its "goodness"
should clash with so exacting a censor as the aesthetic sense.

The rational conscience of average humanity is a thing
of such dense and rigid and unimaginative vision that it
is inevitable that its "truth" should dash with the secrets
revealed by the aesthetic sense. The cause, why the
aesthetic sense seems to come on the scene with an appara-
tus of valuation so much more advanced and refined than
that possessed by the conscience or by the reason, is that
both conscience and reason are continually being applied
to action, to conduct, to the manipulation of practical af-
fairs, and are bound in this commerce with superficial cir-
cumstance to grow a little blunt and gross and to lose
something of their fine edge.

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

Conscience is compelled to be satisfied with something
less than its own rigid demands. Reason is compelled to
accept something less than its own rigid demands. Both
of these things tend to become, under the pressure of the
play of circumstance, pragmatical, time-serving, and op-
portunist But the aesthetic sense, although in itself it
has always room for infinite growth, is in its inherent

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176 THE COMPLEX VISION

nature unable to compromise ; nnable to bend this way and
that; unable to dally with half -measures.

Any action, in a world of this kind^ necessarily implies
compromise; and since goodness is so largely a matter of
action, goodness is necessarily penetrated by a spirit of
compromise. Indeed it may be said that a certain meas-
ure of common-sense is of the very essence of goodness.
But what has common-sense to do with art? Common-
sense has never been able, and never will be able, to under-
stand even the rudiments of art. For art is the half -dis-
covery of something that must always seem an impossibil-
ity to common-sense; and it is the half -creation of some-
thing that must always render common-sense irrelevant and
unimportant. Truth, again, in a world of so infinite a
complication, must frequently have to remain an open
question, a suspended judgment, an antinomy of oppo-
sites. The agnostic attitude — as, for instance, in the mat-
ter of the immortality of the soul — ^may in certain cases
come to be the ultimate gesture of what we call the truth.

But with the aesthetic sense there can never be any sus-
pension of judgment, never any open question, never any
antinomy of opposites, never the least shadow of the prag-
matic, or 'forking" test. It is therefore natural enough
that when persons possessed of any degree of cultivated
taste hear other persons speak of ^'goodness'' or ^'truth"
they* grow distrustful and suspicious, they fed uneasy and
very much on guard. For they know well that the con-
science of the ordinary person is but a blunt and clumsy
instrument, quite as likely to distort and pervert the essen-
tial spirit of ''goodness" as to reveal it, and they know
well that the ** truth" of the ordinary person's reason is
a sorry compound of logical rigidity and practical oppor-
tunism; with but small space left in it for the vision of
imagination.

It is because of their primary importance in the sphere

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THE NATURE OP ART 177

of practical action that the conscience and the reason have
been developed out of all proportion to the aesthetic sense.
And it is because the deplorable environment of our pres-
ent commercial Gfystem has emphasized action and conduct,
out of all proportion to contemplation and insight, that it
is so difficult to restore the balance. The tyranny of ma-
chinery has done untold evil in increasing this lack of.
proportion ; because machinery, by placing an unmalleable
and inflexible material — a material that refuses to be hu-
manized — ^between man's fingers and the actual element he
works in, has interrupted that instinctive aesthetic move-
ment of the human hands, which, even in the midst of the
most utter clumsiness and grossness, can never fail to in-
troduce some touch of beauty into what it creates.

We have thus arrived at a definite point of view from
which we are able to observe the actual play of man's
aesthetic sense as, in its mysterious fusion with the energy
of reason and conscience, it interprets the pervading beauty
of the fifystem of things, according to the temperament of
the individual. It remains to note how in the supreme
works of art this human temperamental vision is caught
up and transcended in the high objectivity of a greater
and more universal vision ; a vision which is still personal,
because everything true and beautiful in the universe is
personal, but which, by the rhythm of the apex-thought,
has attained a sort of impersonal personality or, in other
words, has been brought into harmony with the vision of
the immortals.

The material upon which the artist works is that original
"objective mystery," confronting every individual soul,
out of which every individual soul creates its universe.
The medium by means of which the artist works is that
out-flowing of the very substance of the soul itself which
we name by the name of emotion. This actual passing of
the substantial substance of the soul into whatever form

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178 THE COMPLBX YISION

or shape of objective mystery the soul's vision has half-
discovered and half -created is the true secret of what hap-
p^is both in the case of the original creation of the artist
and in case of the reciprocal re-creation of the person
enjoying the work of art.

For Benedetto Croce, the Italian philosopher, is surely
right when he asserts that no one can enter into the true
spirit of a work of art without exercising upon it some-
thing of the same creative impulse as that by the power
of which it originally came into existence. In the con-
templation of a statue or a picture or a piece of bric-JL-brac,
in the enjoyment of a poem or an exquisite passage of prose,
just as much as in the hearing of music, the soul of the
recipient is projected beyond its normal limitation in the
same way as the soul of the creator was projected beyond
its normal limitation.

The soul which thus gives itself up to Beauty is actually
extended in a living ecstasy of vibration until it flows into,
and through, and around, the thing it loves. But even
this is an inadequate expression of what happens; for this
out-flowing of the soul is the very force and energy which
actually is engaged in re-creating this thing out of what
at present I confine myself to calling the ''objective mys-
tery."

The emotion of the soul plays therefore a double part.
It half-discovers and half-creates the pervading beauty of
things; and it also loses itself in receptive ecstasy, in em-
bracing what it has half -created and half-found.

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

Since what we call beauty is the evocation of these two
confronted existences, the existing thing which we call the
soul and the existing thing which we call the objective
mystery, it follows tiiat there resides, as a potentiality,
in the nature of the objective mystery, the capacity for

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THE NATURE OP ART 179

being converted into Beauty at the touch of the soul.
There is thus a three-fold complication of reality in this
thing we call the beauty of the universe.

There is the individual, human, subjective reality of it,
dependent upon the temperament of the observer. There
is the universal potential reality of it, existing in the ob-
jective mystery. And finally there is the ideal reality of
it, objective and absolute as far as we are concerned, in
the vision that I have called ''the vision of the immortals."
If it be asked why, in all these ultimate problems, it is
necessary to introduce the vision of the inmfortals, my an-
swer is that the highest human experience demands and
requires it. ^

At those rare moments when the *' apex-thought '' reaches
its rhythmic consummation the soul is conscious that its
subjective vision of Truth and Beauty merges itself and
loses itself in an objective vision which carries the ''im-
primatur" of eternity. This is a definite universal expe-
rience which few introspective minds will dare to deny.

But since, as we have already proved, the ultimate real-
ity of things is personality, or, to be more exact, is per-
sonality, confronting the objective mystery, it is clear that
if the subjective vision of the soul is to correspond with
an objective reality outside the soul, that objective reality
outside the soul must itself be the vision of personality.
It may be asked, at this point, why it is that the xK)tential-
ity or the capacity for being turned into beauty at the
touch of the soul, which resides in the objective mystery
is not enough to explain this recognition by the soul of an
eternal objective validity in its ultimate ideas.

It is not enough to explain it, because this xK)tentiality
remains entirely unrecognized until it is touched by per^
sonality, and it is therefore quite as much a potentiality
of inferior beauty, inadequate truth, and second-rate good-
ness, as it is a potentiality of the rarest of these things.

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180 THE COMPLEX VISION

The objective mystery by itself cannot explain the soiU's
experience of an eternal validity in its deepest ideas be-
cause the objective mystery in its r61e of pure potentiality
is capable of being moulded into the form of awy ideas,
whether deep or shallow. Thus our proof of the real
existence of ''the vision of the immortals" dei>ends upon
two facts.

It depends upon the fact that the soul experiences an
intuitive assurance of objective reality in its ideas. And
it depends upon the fact that there is no other reality in
the world, with any definite form or outline, except the
reality of personality. For an idea to be eternal, there^
fore, it must be the idea of a personality, or of many per-
sonalities, which themselves are eternal ; and since we have
no evidence that the human soul is eternal and does not
perish with the body we are compelled to assume that
somewhere in the universe there must exist beings whose
personality is able to resist death and whose vision is an
immortal vision.

It might be objected at this point, by such as follow the
philosophy of Epicurus, that, even though such beings
exist, we have no right to assume that they have any regard
for us. My answer to this is that in such moments as I
have attempted to describe, when the rhythmic activity
of the soul is at its highest, we become directly and in-
tuitively conscious of an immense unutterable harmony
pervading all forms of life, whether mortal or immortal;
a harmony which could not be felt if there were not some
mysterious link binding all living souls together.

We become aware at such moments that not only are
all living souls thus bound together but that all are bound
together by the fact that the ideal vision of them all is
one and the same. This is not only my answer to such
as maintain that though there may be Bein^ps in the sys-
tem of things superior to man, such Beings have no neces-

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THE NATURE OP AET 181

sary connection with man; it is also my answer to the
question as to how, considering the capricious subjectivity
of our human vision, we can be assured that the ideal
vision of the immortals does not vary in the same way
among themselves. We are assured against both these
possibilities; against the possibility of the immortals be-
ing indifferent to humanity, and against the possibility of
the immortals being divided among themselves, by the fact
that, according to the very basic revelation of the complex
vision, wherever there is a living soul, that living soul is
dependent for its continued existence upon the overcoming
of malice by love.

This duality is so much the essence of what we call per-
sonality that we cannot conceive of personality without it.
If, therefore, the immortals are possessed of personality
th^ must be subject to this duality; and the fact that
they are subject to it puts them necessarily in at least a
potential '^ rapport" with all other living souls, since the
essence of every living soul is to be found in the same un-
fathomable struggle.

But granting that there are superior Beings, worthy to
be called Qods, who in their essential nature resemble hu-
manity, how can we be assured that there is any contact
between them and humanity f We are assured of this in
the intuitive revelation of a most definite human expe-
rience, an experience which few philosophers have been
sceptical enough to deny, although their explanations of
it may have been different froiii mine.

William James, for instance, whose p^chological inves-
tigations into the phenomena of religious feeling are so
thorough and original^ describes the sense we have of the
presence of these unseen Powers in a very interesting and
curious way. He points out that the feeling we experience
at such moments is that there exists below the level of our
ordinary consciousness a deep and limitless reservoir or

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182 THE COMPLEX VISION

cistern containing ''more'' of the same stream of spiritual
emotion which we are conscious of as being our very in-
most self or soul of our soul.

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

It is needless to indicate how the Ideas of Plato, the
"subspecie aetemitatis" of Spinoza, the "Liberation''
from "the Will" of Schopenhauer, the "Beatific Vision"
of the Catholic saints are all analogues and parallels, ex-
pressed under different symbols, of the same universal
feeling. The difference between these philosophic state-
ments of the situation and mine, is that, whereas these are
content, with the doubtful exception of Plato, to eliminate
from this subconscious "more" of what is "best" in our
own soul, every trace and element of personality, I am
unable to escape from the conviction that compared with
personality no power in the universe, whether it be called
"Idea" or "Substance" or a "WiU to annihilate Will"
or "Life Force" or "Stream of consciousness" or any
other name, is worthy to be regarded as the cause and
origin of that intimation of "something more" by which
our soul comes into contact with the secret of the systan
of things.

To assume that the vision of unutterable truth which is
reached in the supreme works of art is anything less than
the vision of super-human Personality is to assume that
something other than Perapity is the secret of life. And
how can man, who feels so profoundly conscious that his
own personal "I am I" is the inmost essence of his being,
when it comes to the question of the cause of his sensa-
tion of "riding on the waves" of this something "more,"
be content to find the cause in mere abstractions from per-

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THE NATURE OF ART 183

sonality, such as '^ streams of consciousness'' or '' life-
force" or '' Absolute Substance "f

What we know for eertain, in this strange imbroglio, is
that what we call Beauty is a complex of two mysteries,
the mystery of our own "I am I'* and the mystery of
the ' 'objective something" which this ''I am I" confronts.
And if , as is the case, our most intense and passionate ex-
perience, when the rhythm of our nature is at the fullest,
is the intuition of some world-deep authority or sanction
giving an eternal validity to our ideas, this authority or
sanction cannot be interpreted in mere metaphors or
similes abstracted from x>®rsonality, or in any material
substance without a mind, or in any ''stream of thought"
without a thinker ; but can only be interpreted in terms of
what alone we have an inside consciousness of, namely in
terms of personality itself.

To some temperaments it might seem as though this re-
duction of the immense unfathomable universe to a con-
geries of living souls were a strangling limitation. There
are certain human temperaments, and my own is one of
them, whose aesthetic sense demands the existence of vast
interminable spaces of air, of water, of earth, of fire, or
even of blank emptiness. To such a temperament it might
seem as though to be jostled throughout eternity by other
living souls were to be shut up in an unescapable prison.
And when to this unending population of fellow-denizens
of space we add this doctrine that our deepest ideas of
Beauty remain subjective and ephemeral until they have
received the "imprimatur" of some mysterious super-
human Being or Beings, such rebellious temperaments as
I am speaking of might conceivably cry aloud for the
Psalmist's "wings of a dove."

But the aspect of things which I have just suggested is
after all only a superficial aspect of the situation. Those

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184 THE COMPLEX VISION

hollow spaces of .nnplumbed darkness, those gulfs filled
with primordial nothingness, those caverns of midnight
where the hoary chemistry of matter swirls and ferments
in eternal formlessness ; these indeed are taken away from
ns. But as I have indicated again and again, no move-
ment of human logic, no energy of human reason, can de-
stroy the unfathomableness of Nature. The immense spec-
tacle of the material universe, with its perpetually reced-
ing background of objective mystery, is a thing that cannot
be destroyed. Those among us who reluct at every human
explanation of this panorama of shadows, are only too
easily able to **flee away and be at rest" in the bottomless
gulf they crave.

The fact that man's apex-thought reveals the presence
of an unending procession of living souls, each of whose
creative energy moulds this mystery to its own vision,
does not remove the unfathomableness of the world-stuff
whereof they mould it. As we have already seen, this
aboriginal world-stuff, so impenetrable to all analysis,
assumes as far as we are concerned a three-fold form. It
assumes the form of the material element in that fusion
of matter and consciousness which makes up the substance
of the soul. It assumes the form of the universal medium
which binds all souls together. And it assumes the form
of the objective mystery which confronts the vision of all
souls. Over these three forms of the "world-stuff'' hangs
irrevocably the great ** world-curve" or ** world-circle" of
omnipresent Space, which gives the final and ultimate unity
to all possible universes.

The temperamental revolt, however, which I am endeav-
ouring to describe, against our doctrine of personality, does
not stop with a demand for de-humanized air and space.
It has a passionate ** penchant" for the projection of such
vague imaginative images as ''spirit" and **life." For-
getful that no man has ever seen or touched this ** spirit,"

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THE NATURE OP ART 185

apart from a personal soul, or this **life,'' apart from some
living thinly the temperament I am thinking of loves to
make imaginative excursions into what it supposes to be
vast receding abysses of pure '^spirit" and of impersonal
inhuman **life."

It gains thus a sense of liberation from the boundaries
of its own personality and a sense of liberation from the
boundaries of all personality. The doctrine, therefore,
that the visible universe is a mysterious complex of many
concentrated mortal visions, stamped, so to speak, with
the *' imprimatur" of an ideal immortal vision, is a doc-
trine that seems to impede and oppose such a tempera-
ment in this abysmal plunge into the ocean of existence.
But my answer to the protest of this temperament — and
it is an answer that has a certain measure of authority,
since this temperament is no other than my own — is that
this feeling of ** imprisonment'' is due to a superficial
understanding of the doctrine against which it protests.
It is superficial because it does not recognize that around,
above, beneath, within, every form of personality that the
** curve of space" covers, there is present the aboriginal
*' world-stuff," unfathomable and inexplicable, out of which
all souls draw the material element of their being, in which
all souls come into contact with one another, and from
which all souls half -create and half -discover their personal
universe.

It was necessary to introduce this question of tempera-
mental reaction just here, because in any conclusion as
to the nature of Beauty it is above all things important
to give complete satisfaction to every great recurrent exi-
gency of human desire. And this desire for liberation
from the bonds of personality is one of the profoundest
instincts of personality.

We have now arrived at a point of vantage from which
it is possible to survey the outlines of our final problem;

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186 THE COMPLEX VISION

the problem, namely as to what it really is which renders
one object in nature more beautiful than another object,
and one work of art more beautiful than another work of
art. We know that in the intuitive judgment which aflSxes
these relative valuations there must be the three elements
of mortal subjective vision, of immortal objective vision,
and of the original ''world-stuff" out of whidi aU visions
are made.

But upon what criteria, by what rules and standards,
do we become aware that one tree is more beautiful than
another tree, one landscape than another landscape, one
poem or person or picture than another of the same kindf
The question has already been lifted out of the sphere of
pure subjective taste by what has been said with regard
to the eternal Ideal vision. But are there any permanent
laws of Beauty by which we may analyse the verdict of this
objective vision f Or are we made aware of it, in each
individual case, by a pure intuitive apprehension!

I think there are such laws. But I think the ''science,"
so to say, of the aesthetic judgment remains at present in
so rudimentary a stage that we are not in a i>osition to
do more than indicate their general outline. The following
principles seem, as far as I am able to lay hold upon this
evasive problem, of more comprehensive application than
any others.

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

It must carry with it the impression, illusive or other-
wise, that it is the outward form or shape of a living per-
sonal soul.

It must satisfy, at least by iQonbolic association, the
physical desires of the body.

It must obey certain hidden laws of rhythm, proportion,

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THE NATURE OF ART 187

balance, and harmony, both with regard to colour and form,
and with regard to magical suggestiveness.

It must answer, in^ some degree, the craving of the hu-
man mind for some symbolic expression of the fatality of
human experience.

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

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

It must convey the impression of something unique and
yet representative; and it must carry the mind through
and beyond itself, to the very brink and margin of the
ultimate objective mystery.

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

It must, if it belong to nature, convey that magical and
world-deep sadness which springs from an inarticulate ap-
peal; or, if it belong to art, that wistful loneliness which
springs from the creation of immortality by the hands of
mortality.

The above principles are not offered as in any way ex-
haustive. They are outlined as a temporary starting point
and suggestion for the more penetrating analysis which
the future will surely provide. And I have temporally
excluded from them, as can be seen, all references to those
auxiliary elements drawn from reason and conscience
which, according to the philosophy of the complex vision,
must be included in the body of art, if art is to be the
final expression of human experience.

But after gathering together all we have accumulated
among these various paths leading to the edge of the mys-
tery of art, what we are compelled to recognize, when we

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188 THE COMPLEX VISION

confront the palpable thing itself, is that, in each unique
embodiment of it, it arrests and entrances us, as with a
sudden transformation of our entire universe.

Out of the abysses of personality — ^human or super-human
— every new original work of art draws us, by an irresistible
magnetism, into itself, until we are compelled to become
wh<U it is, until we are actually transformed into its in-
most identity.

What hitherto has seemed to us mere refuse and litter
and dreariness and debris — all the shards and ashes and
flints and excrement of the margins of our imiverse — ^take
upon themselves, as they are thus caught up and trans-
figured, a new and ineffable meaning.

The terrible, the ghastly, the atrocious, the abominable,
tiie apparently meaningless and dead, suddenly gather
themselves together and take on strange and monumental
significance.

What has hitherto seemed to us floating jetsom and blind
wreckage, what has hitherto seemed to us mere brutal
lumps of primeval clay tossed to and fro by the giant
hands of chaos, what has hitherto seemed to us slabs of
inhuman chemistry, suddenly assumes under the pressure
of this great power out of the abyss a strange and lovely
and terrible expressiveness.

Deep calls to Deep; and the mysterious oceans of Per-
sonality move and stir in a terrific reciprocity.

The unfathomable gulfs of the eternal duality within us
are roused to ondreamed-of response in answer to this
abysmal stirring of the powers that create the world.

What is good in us is enlarged and heightened; what is
evil in us is enlarged and deepened; while, under the in-
creasing pressure of this new wave of the perilous stuff
**of emotion,'' slowly, little by little, as we give ourselves
up to the ecstasy of contemplation, the intensified '^good"
overcomes the intensified **eviL"

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THE NATURE OF AET 189

It is then that what has begun in agitation and disturb-
ance sinks by degrees into an infinite peace; as, without
any apparent change or confusion, the waves roll in, one
after another, upon our human shore, and we are lifted
up and carried out on that vast tide into the great spaces,
beneath the morning and the evening, where the eternal
vision awaits us with its undescribable calm.

Let art be as bizarre, as weird, as strange, as rare, as
fantastic, as you please, if it be true art it must spring from
the aboriginal duality in the human soul and thus must
remain indestructibly personal. But since the two ele-
ments of personality wrestle together in every artist's soul,
the more personal a work of art becomes the more com-
prdiensive is its impersonality.

For art, by means of the personal and the particular,
attains the impersonal and the universal. By means of
sinking down into the transitory and the ephemeral, by
means of moulding chance and accident to its will, it is
enabled to touch the eternal and the eternally fatal.

From agitation to peace; from sound to silence; from
creation to contemplation; from birth and death to that
which is immortal; from movement to that which is at
rest — such is the wayfaring of this primordial power.

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

The controven^ as to the superior claims of an art that
is just **art,'' with an appeal entirely limited to texture
and colour and line and pure sound, and an art that is
imagistic, symbolic, representative, religious, philosophical,
or prophetic, is rendered irrelevant and meaningless when
we perceive that all art, whether it be a thing of pure line
and colour or a thing of passionate human content, must

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190 THE COMPLEX VISION

inevitably spring from the depths of some particular per-
sonal vision and must inevitably attain, by stressing this
personal element to the limit, that universal impersonality
which is implied in the fact that every living soul is com-
posed of the same elements.

It may require no little subtlety of vision to detect in
the pure beauty of line, colour, and texture that compose,
say, some lovely piece of bric-i-brac, the hidden presence
of that primordial duality out of which all forms of beauty
emerge, but the metaphysical significance latent in the
phrase **the sense of difficulty overcome" points us to-
wards just this very interpretation. The circumstantial
and the sexual ^'motifs'' in art, so appealing to the mob,
may or may not play an aesthetic part in the resultant
rhythm. If they do, they do so because such ** interest'*
and such ''eroticism" were an integral portion of the orig-
inal vision that gave unity to the work in question. If
they do not, but are merely dragged in by the un-aesthetic
observer, it is easy enough for the genuine virtuoso to dis-
regard such temptation and to put *' story," ''message,"
"sentiment," and "sex-appeal" rigidly aside, as he seeks
to respond to the primordial vision of an "unstoried" non-
sexual beauty springing from those deeper levels of the
soul where "story," "sentiment," and sex have no longer
any place.

More dangerous, however, to art, than any popular crav-
ing for "human interest" or for the comfort of amorous
voluptuousness, is the unpardonable stupidity of puritan-
ical censorship. Such censorship, in its crass impertinence,
assumes that its miserable and hypocritical negations rep-
resent that deep, fierce, terrible "imperative" uttered by
the soul's primordial conscience.

They represent nothing of the sort.

The drastic revelations of "conscience" are, as I have
pointed out again and again, fused and blended in their

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THE NATURE OF ART 191

sapreme moments with the equally drastic revelations of
reason and the aesthetic sense.

They are inevitably blended with these, because, as we
have proved, they are all three nothing less tiian divergent
aspects of the one irresistible projection of the soul itself
which I have named *' creative love."

Thus it comes about that in the great, terrible moments
of tragic art there may be an apparent catastrophic de-
spair, which in our normal moods seems hopeless, final,
absolute.

It is only when the complex rhythm of the apex-thought
is brought to bear upon these moments of midnight that a
strange and unutterable healing emerges from them, a
shy, half -hinted whisper or something deeper than hox)e,
a magical effluence, a ^' still, small voice'' from beneath
the disastrous eclipse, which not only ''purges our pas-
sions by pity and terror" but evokes an assured horizon,
beyond truth, beyond beauty, beyond goodness, where the
mystery of love, in its withdrawn and secret essence, trans-
forms all things into its own likeness.

The nature of art is thus found to be intimately asso-
ciated with the universal essence of every personal life.
Art is not, therefore, a thing for the ''coteries" and the
"cliques"; nor is it a thing for the exclusive leisure of any
privileged class. It is a thing springing from the eternal
"stuff of the soul," of every conceivable soul, whether
human, sub-human, or super-human.

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

AU that the will does, in gathering together its impres-
sions of life and its reactions to life, must, even in regard
to the most vague, shadowy, faint and obscure flicherings

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192 THE COMPLEX VISION

of contemplation, be regarded as a kind of intimate '^work
of art/' with the soul as the '^artist" and the flow of life
as the artist's material.

Every personal soul, however ''inartistic/' is an artist
in this sense; and every x>^rsonal life thus considered is
an effective or ineffective "work of art."

The primal importance of what in the narrow and re-
stricted sense we have come to call ''art" can only be fully
realized when we think of such "art" as concentrating
upon a definite material medium the creative energy which
is for ever changing the world in the process of changing
our attitude to the world.

The deadly enemy of art — ^the power that has succeeded,
in these commercial days, in reducing art to a pastime for
the leisured and wealUiy — is the original inert malice of
the abyss.

This inert malice assumes, directly it comes in contact
with practical affairs, the form of liie possessive instinct.
And the attitude towards art of the "collector" or the
leisured "epicurean," for whom it is merely a pleasant
sensation among other sensations, is an attitude which
undermines the basis of its life. The very essence of art
is that it should be a thing common t.o all, within the reach
of all, expressive of the inherent and universal nature of
all. And that this is the nature of art is proved by the
fact that art is the personal expression of the personal
centrifugal tendency in all living souls; an expression
which, when it goes far enough, becomes impersotKU, be-
cause, by expressing what is common to all, it reaches the
point where the particular becomes the universal.

It thus becomes pianifest that the true nature of art will
only be incidentally and occasionally manifested, and
manifested among us with great difSculty and against
obstinate resistance, until the hour comes when, to an ex-
tent as yet hardly imaginable, the centripetal tendency of

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THE NATURE OF ART 193

the possesdye instinct in the race shall have relinquished
something of its malicious resistance to the out-fiowing
force which I have named *Uove." And this yielding of
the centripetal power to that which we call centrifugal can
only take place in a condition of human society where the
idea of communism has been accepted as the ideal and, in
some effective measure, realized in fact.

For every work of art which exists is the rhythmic ar-
ticulation, in terms of any medium, of some personal vision
of life. And the more entirely ''original*' such a vision
is, the more closely — such is the ultimate paradox of things
— ^will it be found to approximate to a re-creation, in this
I>articular medium, of that ''eternal vision'' wherein all
souls have their share.

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CHAPTER Vni

THB NATURE OF LOVB

The secret of the iiniyerse, as by slow degrees it reveals
itself to us, turns out to be personality. When we con-
sider, further, the form under which personality realizes
itself, we find it to consist in the struggle of personality
to grapple with the objective mystery. When, in a still
further movement of analysis, we examine the nature of
this struggle between the soul and the mystery which
surrounds the soul, we find it complicated by the fact that
the soul's encounter with this mystery reveals the exist-
ence, in the depths of the soul itself, of two conflicting emo-
tions, the emotion of love and the emotion of malice.

The word ''love" has been used so indiscriminately In
its surprising history that it becomes necessary to eluci-
date a little the particular meaning I give to it in connec-
tion with this ultimate duality. A strange and grotesque
commentary upon human life, these various contradictory
feelings that have covered their **mtiltitude of sins" under
this historic name!

The lust of the satyr, the affectionate glow of the do-
mestic habitu6, the rare exalted passion of the lover^ the
cold, clear attraction of the intellectual platonist, the will
to possession of the sex-maniac, the will to voluptuous
cruelty of the sex-pervert, the maternal instinct, the race-
instinct, the instinct towards fetish-worship, the instinct
towards art, towards nature, towards the ultimate mystery
— all these things have been called **love" that we should
follow them and pursue them; all these things have been

194

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THE NATUBE OP LOVE 195

called ^'loye'^ that we should avoid them and fly from
them.

The emotion of love in which we seem to detect the ulti-
mate creative force is not precisely any of these things.
Of all normal human emotions it comes nearest to passion-
ate sympathy. But it is much more than this. Th^ elno-
tion of love is not a simple nor an easily defined thing.
How should it be that, when it is one aspect of the out-
pouring of the very stuff of the soul itself! How should
it be that when it is the projection, into the heart of the
objective mystery, of the soul's manifold and complicated
essence f

The best definition of love is that it is the creative appre-
hension of life, or of the objective mystery, under the form
of an eternal vision. At first sight this definition might
seem but a cold and intellectual account of love ; an account
that has omitted all feeling, all passion, all ecstasy.

But when we remember that what we call **the eternal
vision'' is nothing less than the answer of love to love,
nothing less than the reciprocal rhythm of all souls> in
so far as they have overcome malice, with one another ai^d
with the mystery which surrounds them, it will be seen
that the thing is something in which what we call ''intel-
lect" and what we call ''feeling" are both transcended.
Love, in this sense, is an ecstasy ; but it is an ecstai^ from
which all troubling, agitating, individual exactions have^
been obliterated. It is an ecstasy completely purged of
the possessive instinct. It is an ecstasy that brings to us
a f eding of indescribable peace and calm. It is an ecstasy
in which our personal self, in the fullest realization of its
inmost identity, loses itself, even at the moment of such
realization, in something which cannot be put into words.

At one moment our human soul finds itself harassed by
a thousand vexations, outraged by a thousand miseries.
Physical pain torments it, spiritual pain torments it; and

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196. THE COMPLEX VISION

a great darkness of thick, heavy, iK)isoiioiis obscurity wraps
it round like a grav^-cloth. Then, in a sudden movement
of the will, the soul cries aloud upon love ; and in one swift
turn of the ultimate wheel, the whole situation is trans-
formed.

The physical pain seems to have no longer any hold
upon the soul. The mental misery and trouble falls away
from it like an unstrapped load. And a deep, cool, tide —
calm and still and full of infinite murmurs — ^rolls up
around it, and -pouTS through it, and brings it healing and
peace. The emotion of love in which personality, and
therefore in which the universe, finds the secret of its life,
has not the remotest connection with sex. Sexual passion
has its place in the world'; but it is only when sexual pas-
sion merges itself in the sort of love we are now consider-
ing that it becomes an instrument of real clairvoyance.

There is a savage instinct of cruel and searching illumina-
tion in sexual passion, but such an instinct is directed to-
wards death rather than towards life, because it is domi-
nated, through all its maaks and disguises, by the passion
of possession.

Like the passion of hate, to which it is so closely allied,
sexual passion has a kind of furious intensity which is able
to reveal many deep levels of human obliquity. But one
thing it cannot reveal, because of the strain of malice it
carries with it, and that is the spring of genuine love.
^'Like unto like" is the key to the situation; and the
deeper the clairvoyance of malice digs into the subter-
ranean poison of life, the more poison it finds. For in
Abiding poison it creates poison, and in finding malice it
doubles malice.

The great works of art are not motivated by the clair-
voyance of malice; they are motivated by the clairvoyance
of love. It is only in the inferior levels of art that mal-
ice is the dominant note; and even there it is only effec-

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THE NATURE OF LOVE 197

tive because, mixed with it, there is an element of de-
stractive hatred springing from some perversion of the
sexual instinct. Whatever difficulty we may experience
in finding words wherewith to define this emotion of love,
there is not one of us, however sceptical and malign, who
does not recognize it when it appears in the fiesh. Mal-
ice displays its recognition of it by a i)a8sion of furious
hatred; but even this hatred cannot last for ever, because
in every personality that exists there must be a hidden love
which answers to the appeal of love.

The feeling which love has, at its supreme moments, is
the feeling of ** unity in diflference** with all forms of life.
Love may concentrate itself with a special concentration
uiK)n one person or upon more than one ; but what it does
when it so concentrates itself is not to make an alliance
of '^attack and defence" with the person it loves, but to
fiow outwards, through them and beyond them, until it
includes every living thing. Let it not, however, be for a
moment supposed that the emotion of love resembles that
vague ^'emotion of humanity" which is able to satisfy
itself in its own remote sensationalism without any con-
tact with the bafSing and difficult mystery of real fiesh and
blood.

The emotion of love holds firmly and tightly to the
pieces and fragments of humanity which destiny has
thrown in its way. It does not ask that these should be
different from what they are, except in so far as love in-
evitably makes them different. It accepts them as its
^ ^universe," even as it accepts, without ascetic dismay, the
weakness of the particular ^'form of humanity" in which
it finds itself '^ incarnated."

By gradual degrees it subdues these weaknesses of the
flesh, whether in its own **form" or in the **form" of
others; but it is quite contrary to the emotion of love to
react against such weaknesses of the flesh with austere or

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198 THE COMPLEX VISION

crael contempt. It is humorously indulgent to them in the
form of its own individual ^'incarnation'' and it is ten-
derly indulgent to them in the form of the '^ incarnation"
of other souls.

The emotion of love does not shrink back into itself
because in the confused pell-mell of human life the alien
souls which destiny has chosen for its companions do not
satisfy, in this detail or the other detail, the desire of its
heart. The emotion of love is always centrifugal, always
out-flowing. It concentrates itself upon this person or
the other person, as the unaccountable attractions of like-
ness and difference dictate or as destiny dictates; but
the deepest loyalty of love is always directed to the eternal
vision; for in the eternal vision it not only becomes one
with all living souls but it also becomes one — ^though this
is a high and difficult mystery— with all the dead that
have ever loved and with all the unborn that will ever love.

For the apprehension of the eternal vision is at once
the supreme creation and the supreme discovery of the soul
of man ; and not of the soul of man alone, but of all souls,
whether of beasts or plants or demi-gods or gods, who
fill the unfathomable circle of space.

The secret of this kind of love, when it comes to the mat-
ter of human relationships, may perhaps best be expressed
in those words of William Blake which imply the difficulty
which love finds in overcoming the murderous exactions of
the possessive instinct and the cruel clairvoyance of mal-
ice. **And throughout all eternity, I forgive you: you
forgive me : As our dear Redeemer said — This is the wine :
this is the bread."

This ** forgiveness" of love does not imply that love, as
the old saying runs, is ** blind." Love sees deeper than
malice; for malice can only recognize its own likeness in
everything it approaches. It must be remembered too that
this process of laying bare the faults of others is not a

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THE NATURE OF LOVE 199

pure proeess of discovery. Like all other forms of appre-
hension it is also a reproduction of itself. The situation,
in fact, is never a static one. These ** faults*' which mal-
ice, in its reproductive ''discoveries*' lays bare, are not
fixed, immobile, dead. They are organic and psychic con-
ditions of a living soul. They are themselves in a per-
petual state of change, of growth, of increase, of wither-
ing, of fading. They are affected at every moment by
the will and by the emotion of the subject of them. They
project themselves; they withdraw themselves. They di-
late; they diminish. Thus it happens that at the very
touch of this ''discovering," the malice which is thus
"discovered" dilates with immediate reciprocity to meet
its "discoverer"; and this can occur — such is the curious
telepathic vibration between living things — without any
articulate act of consciousness.

The art of psychological investigation is therefore a very
dangerous organ of research in the hands of the malicious;
for it goes like a reproductive scavenger through the field
of human consciousness increasing the evil which it is its
purpose to collect. The apostolic definition of "charity"
as the thing which "thinketh no evil" is hereby completely
justified; and^e profound Goethean maxim, that the way
to enlarge the capacities of human beings is to "assume"
that such capacities are larger than they really are, is jus-
tified also.

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

Love IS not blind or fooled or deluded when it waives
aside the faults of a person and plunges into the unknown
depths of such a person's soul. It is not blind, when, in

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200 THE COMPLEX VISION

the energy of the creative vision, such fanlts subside and
fall away and ieease to exist It is completely justified in
its declaration that what it sees and feels in such a person
is a hidden reservoir of unsatisfied good. It does see this;
it does feel this; because there arises, in answer to its
approach, an upward-flowing wave of its own likeness; be-
cause in such a person's inmost soul love, after all, re-
mains the creative impulse which is the life of that soul
and the very substance of that soul's personality.

The struggle between the emotion of love and the emo-
tion of malice goes on perpetually, in the depths of life,
below a thousand shifting masks and disguises. What we
call the ''universe'' is nothing but a congeries of innumer-
able ''souls," manifested in innumerable "bodies," each
one confronted by the objective mystery, each one sur-
rounded by an indescribable ethereal "medium."

What we call the emotion of love is the outflo¥ang of
any one of these souls towards the body and soul of any
other, or again, in a still wider sense, towards all bodies
and souls covered by the unfathomable circle of space.

I will give a concrete example of what I mean. Suppose
a man to be seated in the yard of a house with a few
patches of grass in front of him and the trunk of a soli-
tary tree. The slanting sunshine, we will suppose, throws
the shadows of the leaves of the tree and the shadows of
the grass-blades upon a forlorn piece of trodden earth-
mould or dusty sand which lies at his feet. Something
about the light movement of these shadows and their deli-
cate play upon the ground thrills him with a sudden thrill ;
and he finds he "loves" this barren piece of earth, these
grass-blades, and this tree. He does not only love their
outward shape and colour. He loves the "soul" behind
them, the "soul" that makes them what they are. He
loves the "soul" of the grass, the "soul" of the tree, and
that dim, mysterious, far-ofE "soul" of the planet, of

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THE NATURE OF LOVE 201

whose ''body" this barren patch of earth is a living por-
tion.

"What does this '*love" of his actually imply! It implies
an outflowing of the very stuff and substance of his own
towards the thing he loves. It implies, by a mysterious
vibration of reciprocity, an indescribable response to his
love from the ''soul'* of the tree, the plant, and the earth.
Let an animal enter upon the scene, or a bird, or a wind-
blown butterfly, or a flickering flight of midges or gnats,
their small bodies illumined by the sun. These new com-
ers he also loves; and is obscurely conscious that between
their "souls'* and his own there vibrates a strange reci-
procity. Let a human being enter, familiar or unfamiliar,
and if his will be set upon **love," the same phenomenon
will repeat itself, only with a more conscious interchange.

But what of ''malice'' all this time! Weill It is not
difficult to indicate what ** malice" will seek to do. Mal-
ice will seek to And its account in some physical or mental
annoyance produced in us by each of these living things.
This annoyance, this jerk or jolt to our physical or mental
well-being, will be what to ourselves we name the ''fault"
of the offending object.

The shadows will tease us by their incessant movement.
The tree will vex us by the swaying of its branches. The
grass will present itself to us as an untidy intruder. The
barren patch of earth will flll us with a profound depres-
sion owing to its desolate lack of life and beauty. The dog
will worry us by its fuss, its solicitation, its desire to be
petted. The gnats or midges will stir in us an indignant
hostility; since their tribe have been known to poison the
blood of man. The human invader, above all; how loud
and unpleasing his voice is! The eternal malice in the
depths of our soul pounces upon this tendency of grass to
be "a common weed," of gnats to bite, of dogs to bark,
of shadows to flicker, of a man to have an evil temper, of

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202 THE COMPLEX VISION

a woman to have an atrocious shrewishnesSy or an appalling
sluttishness; and out of these annoyances or ^'faults'' it
feeds its desire; it satisfies its necrophilistic lust; and it
rouses in the grass, in the earth, in the tree, in the dog, in
the human intruder, strange and mysterious vibrations of
response which add to the general poison of the world.
But the example I have selected of the activity of emotion
may be carried further than this. All these individual
''souls" of human, animal, vegetable, planetary embodi-
njent, are confronted by the same objective mystery and
surrounded by the same ethereal ''medium."

By projecting a vision poisoned by malice into the matrix
of the objective mystery, the resultant "universe" becomes
itself a poisoned thing, a thing penetrated by the spirit of
evil. It is because the universe is always penerated by
the malice of the various visions whose "universe" it is,
that we suffer so cruelly from its ironic "diablerie." A
universe entirely composed of the bodies and souls of beings
whose primordial emotion is so largely made up of malice
is naturally a malicious universe. The age-old tradition
of the witchery and devilry of malignant Nature is a proof
as to how deep this impression of the system of things has
sunk. Certain great masters of fiction draw the "motive"
of their art from this unhappy truth.

And just as the universe is penetrated through and
through by the malice of those whose universe it is, so we
may suppose that the ethereal "medium" which surrounds
all souls, before they have visioned their various "uni-
verses" and found them to be one, is a thing which also
may be affected by malice. It is an open question and
one which, in the words of Sir Thomas Browne, "admits
a wide solution," whether or not this ethereal "medium,"
which in a sense is of one stuff both with the objective mys-
tery and with the substratum of the soul, is itself the
"elemental body," as it were, of a living ubiquitous souL

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THE NATUBE OF LOVE 208

If this should be the ease — and it is no fantastic h7i>othesis
— ^we are then provided with an explanation of the curious
malignant impishness of those so-called ^'elementals" who
tease, with their enigmatic oracles, the minds of unwise
dabblers in ** psychic manifestations."

But what we are concerned with noting now is that just
as the primordial malice of all the souls it contains con-
tinually poisons the universe, so the primordial love of all
the souls it contains continually redeems and transforms
the universe. In other words it is no exaggeration to say
that the unfathomable universe is continually undergoing
the same ebb and flow between love and malice, as are the
souls and bodies of all the living things whereof it is com-
I>osed.

And what precisely is the attitude of love towards the
physical body! Does it despise the physical body! Does
its activity imply an ascetic or a puritanical attitude to-
wards the body and the appetites of the body! The truth
is quite the contrary of Uiis. What the revelation of the
complex vision indicates is that this loathing of the body,
this revulsion against the body, this craving to escape from
the body, is a mood which springs up out of the eternal
malice. It is from the emotion of love in its attitude to
the bo^ that we arrive at the idea of the sacredness of
the body and at the idea of what might be called ''the
eternal reality of the body."

This idea of the eternal reality of the body springs di-
rectly from those ideas of truth, beauty and goodness which
are pre-existent in the universe and therefore springs di-
rectly from that emotion of love which is the synthesis of
these.

The forms and shapes of stars and plants and rivers and
hills are all realized and consummated in the form and
shape of the human body. The magic of the elements, the
mystery of earth and air and water and fire, are incar-

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204 THE COMPLEX VISION

nated in this miracle of flesh and blood. In the counte-
nance of a human child, in the countenance of a man or a
woman, the whole unfathomable drama of life is expressed.
The most eyil of the children of men, asleep or dead, has in
his face something more tragic and more beautiful than
all the waters and all the land.

Not to **love'' flesh and blood, not to will the eternal
existence of flesh and blood, is not to know ^Uove" at all.
To loathe flesh and blood, to will the annihilation of flesh
and blood, is to be a victim of that original '^ motiveless
malignity*' which opposes itself to the creative force.

This insistence upon **the eternal idea of the body" does
not necessarily limit **the idea of the body" to the idea of
the human body ; but practically it does so. And it prac-
tically does so because the human body evidently incarnates
the beauty and the nobility of all other forms and shapes
and appearances which make up our existing universe.

There may be other and different bodies in the unfathom-
able spaces of the world ; but for those among us who are
content to deal with the actual experiences which we have,
the human body, summing up the magical qualities of all
other terrestrial forms and shapes, must, as far as we are
concerned, remain our permanent standard of truth and
beauty.

The substitution in art, in philosophy, and in religion,
of other i^ymbols, for this natural and eternal symbol of
the human body is always a sign of a weakening of the
creative impulse. It is a sign of a relative disintegration
of the power of **love" and a relative concentration of the
IK)wer of ''malice." Thus when, by an abuse of the meta-
physical reason, '*thought-in-the-abstract" assumes the
rights of a personality the principle of love is outraged,
because the eternal idea of the body is denied.

And when, by an abuse of the psychological reason, the
other activities of the soul are so stressed and emphasized

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THE NATUEE OF LOVE 205

that the attribute of sensation is forgotten, the principle
of love is outraged, because the eternal idea of the body
is denied. The principle of love, by the necessity of its
own nature, demands that the physiological aspect of real-
ity should retain its validity.

When, therefore, we come to consider the relation of
this "eternal idea of the body'* to those invisible **sons
of the universe" whose power of love is inconceivably
greater than our own, we are compelled, by the necessity
of the complex vision, to encounter one of those ultimate
dilemmas from which there appears to be no escape. The
dilemma to which we are thus led may be d^ned in the
following manner.

Because the secret of the universe and the ultimate har-
mony between the pre-existent ideas by which all souls
must live can be nothing less than what, in this rarified
and heightened sense, we have named 'Uove'' and because
the objective pattern and standard of this love is the crea-
tive enei^^y of those personal souls we have named ''the
sons of the universe,'* therefore "the sons of the universe"
must be r^arded as directing their desire and their will
towards what satisfies the inherent nature of such love.
And because the inherent nature of such love demands
nothing less than the eternalizing of the idea of flesh and
blood, therefore the "sons of the universe" must be re-
garded as directing their desire and their will towards
the eternalizing of the idea of flesh and blood.

And just as the will and desire of these "invisible com-
I>anions of men" must be regarded as directed towards
the eternalizing of this idea whose magical "stuff of
dreams" is one of the objects of their love, so the will
and desire of all living souls must be directed towards the
eternalizing of this same reality. And because the love
of all living souls remains restless and unsatisfied when
directed to any object except the "eternal vision" and

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206 THE COMPLEX VISION

because when directed to the '' eternal vision'* such love
loses the misery of its craving and becomes satisfied, there-
fore the ** eternal vision" must be regarded as the only
object which can ultimately and really satisfy the eternal
restlessness of the love of all living souls.

But the inherent nature of love demands, as we have
seen, the permanent reality of the physiological aspect jof
the universe. That is to say, the inherent dedre of the
love of all living souls is directed towards the etenudizing
of the idea of flesh and blood. From this it follows that
since the ** eternal vision" satisfies the desire of love "the
eternal vision" must include within it the eternal idea of
the body.

Both "the sons of the universe," therefore, and all other
living souls are compelled, in so far as they give them-
selves up to the creative energy, to direct their will towards
the etemalization of this idea. But is there not an inevi-
table frustration and negation of this desire and this willf

Are not both the "companions of men" and men them-
selves denied by the very nature of things the realization
of this idea! Is not the love of man for "the sons of the
universe" frustrated in its desire in so far as "the sons of
the universe ' ' cannot be embodied in flesh and blood f And
is not the love of "the sons of the universe" for man frus-
trated in its desire in so far as the physical form of each
individual soul is destroyed by death?

It seems to me that this dilemma cannot be avoided.
Love insists on the eternity of the idea of the body. There-
fore every soul who loves "the sons of the universe" de-
sires their incarnation. But if "the sons of the universe"
could appear in flesh and blood for the satisfaction of any
one of their lovers, all other souls in the wide 'world would
lose them as their invisible companions. But although
this dilemma cannot in its literal outlines be avoided, it
seems that the same inherent nature of love which leads to

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THE NATURE OP LOVE 207

this dilemma leads also to the vanishing point or gap or
lacnna in thought where the solution, although never ac-
tually realized, may conceivably exist.

What love desires is the eternalizing of the idea of flesh
and blood. It desires this because the idea of flesh and
blood is a necessary aspect of the fulness and complete-'
ness of personality. But though the idea of flesh and
blood is a necessary aspect of personality, every actual
incarnation of personality leaves us aware that the particu-
lar soul we love has something more of beauty and nobil-
ity than is expressed.

This '' something more" is not a mere hypothetical qual-
ity but is an actual and real quality which we must assume
to exist in the very stuff and texture of the soul. It exists,
therefore, in that "vanishing-point of sensation," as I
called it, which we have to think of, although we cannot
define it, as constituting the soul's essential self. Those
pre-existed ideas which find their synthesis in the emotion
of love are undoubtedly part of the unfathomable universe.
But they are this only because they are interwoven with the
unfathomable soul which exists in each of us. The "some-
thing," therefore, which is the substratum of the soul and
its centre of identity is a thing woven out of the very stuff
of these ideas.

This is the "vanishing point of sensation" to which I
have referred, the point namely where what we call
"mind" blends indissolubly with what we call "matter."
The emotion of love which desires the etemalization of the
idea of flesh and blood would be on the way to satisfaction,
even if it never altogether reached it, if it were able to feel
that this beauty and nobility and reality which exist in
this "vanishing point of sensation" which is the very self
of the souLwere actually the living essence of flesh and
blood, were, in fact, a real "spiritual body," of which the
material body was the visible expression.

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208 THE COMPLEX yiSION

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

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

This "spiritual body" of **the gods" or the ''sons of
the universe" must necessarily be more noble and more
beautiful than any visible embodiment of them could pos-
sibly be; though human imagination and human art have a
profound right to attempt to visualize such an impossible
embodiment; and the purest and most natural form of
"religion" would be the form which struggled most suc-
cessfully to appropriate such a visualization.

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

All this may carry to certain minds an ambiguous and
even distasteful association ; but I think it will only do so
to such minds as are reluctant to analyse, to the furthest

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THE NATURE OF LOVE 209

limit, their own capacity for the kind of **love'* I have
attempted to describe; and possibly also such minds as are
debarred, by some sub-conscious element of ** malice" in
them, from even desiring to develop such a capacity.

The ambiguity and unsatisfactory vagueness in what I
have been attempting to indicate may perhaps be in a
measure dissipated by a direct appeal to concrete expe-
rience. When one analyses this emotion of love in rela-
tion to any actual human object I think it becomes clear
that in our attitude to the physical body of the person we
love there is a profound element of pity.

The sexual emotion may destroy this pity; and any emo-
tion which is sensual as well as sexual may not only destroy
it but turn it into a very different kind of pity; into the
**pity," namely, of a torturer for his victim. But I fed
I am not wrong in my analysis of the kind of 'Uove" I have
in my mind, when I say that the element of pity enters
profoundly into our attitude towards tiiie body of the per-
son we love.

It enters into it for this reason ; namely because the phys-
ical body of the person we love does so inadequately and
so imperfectedly express the beauty of such a person's soul.
^'Love is not love" when the blemishes and defects and
maladies of the physical form of the person loved interfere
with our love and cause it to diminish. And such blemishes
and defects and maladies ivotdd interfere with love if love
were not in its essence profoundly penetrated by pity.

It may be asked — **how can love, which is naturally as-
sociated with beauty and nobility, endure for a moment
in the presence of such lamentable hideousness and repul-
siveness and offensiveness, as exists in some degree in the
physiological aspects of us all f" It is able to endure be-
cause in the presence of this what it desires is, as I have
said, not so much the actual physical body of the object
of its love as the ^'eternal idea" of such a body.

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210 THE COMPLEX VISION

When the individual soul allows itself to demand with
too desperate a craving the actual incarnation of these
''sons of the universe" it is in reality false to its desire
for the ''eternal idea of the body/' because no actual in-
carnation of these immortal ones could realize in any com-
plete sense this "eternal idea/'

In the same way when we feel the emotion of love to-
wards any human soul, our attitude towards the physical
form of such a soul must of necessity be profoundly pene-
trated by pity and by a tender and humorous recognition
that such a physical form only expresses a very limited
portion of the unfathomable soul which we love.

If, with a desperate craving to contradict the essential
nature of love, we insist upon regarding the physical body
as the complete expression of the soul, we fall into the same
fatal weakness as that into which those fall who'demand
a physical incarnation of the "companions of men," and
along with such as these we are false to love's true craving
for the "eternal idea of flesh and blood."

In other words, this craving of love for "the eternal
idea of the body" does not imply that we are false to love
when we are unable to change our natural repugnance in
the presence of the repulsive and/ the offensive into attrac-
tion to these things. Love certainly does not mean a mor-
bid attraction to what is unattractive. The sexual emo-
tion, the emotion which we call "being in love," does
sometimes include this morbidity, just because, by reason
of its physiological origin^ it tends to remain the slave of
the physiological. But although love does not imply a
morbid attraction to the repulsive and the offensive, and
although the presence of the repulsive and offensive in con-
nection with those we love is a proof to us that "the eternal
idea of the body," is not realized in the actual body, it is
clear that "love is not love" when it allows itself to be

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THE NATURE OP LOVE 211

diminished or destroyed by the presence of these things.

What love really demands, both with regard to the uni-
verse and with regard to any individual soul in the uni-
verse, is not so much the retention of the physiological as-
pect of these things, as we know them now, but of the
physiological aspect of them implied in such a phrase as
*'the eternal idea of matter" or *'the eternal idea of flesh
and blood/'

It may be put still more simply by saying that what
love demands is the existence of something in what we
call "matter" or the ''body" which guarantees the eternal
reality of these aspects of life. It does not demand that
we should love the repulsive, the offensive, the false, or the
evil, because these exist in the bodies and the souls of
those we love.

Eversrthing in the universe partakes of the eternal dual-
ity. The hideous, the false and the evil are not confined
to what we call **mind" but exist in what we call ''matter"
also. Consequently love, when in its craving for complete
reality it demands ''the eternal idea of the body" does not
demand that this eternal idea should be realized in any
actual body.

When a demand of this kind is made, it is not made by
love but by the sexual instinct, and it is invariably doomed
to a ghastly disillusion. For it is just this very craving,
namely that in some actual human body "the eternal idea
of the body" should be realized, that the sweet and ter-
rible madness of sexual love continually implies. But real
love, the love which is the supreme synthesis of those ideas
which represent the creative power in the ultimate duality,
can never be disillusioned.

And it cannot be disillusioned because it is able to see,
beneath the chaotic litter and unessential debris of "mat-
ter," the eternal idea of "matter" and because it is able

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212 THE COMPLEX VISION

to see, under the lamentable repulsiyeness and offensive-
ness of so mncli actual flesh and blood/' the eternal idea
of flesh and blood."

Love's attitude toward this element of litter and chaos
in the universe is sometimes an attitude of humorous toler-
ation and sometimes an attitude of destructive Are. Love's
attitude towards the repulsive and the offensive in human
souls and bodies is sometimes an attitude of humorous
toleration and sometimes an attitude of destructive fire.

But along with this passion of destruction, which is so
essential a part of the passion of creation, and along with
this humorous indulgence, there necessarily mingles, where
human beings are concerned, an element of profound pity.
The best concrete example of the mood I am trying to indi-
cate is the emotion which any one would naturally feel in
the presence of some torturer or tyrant whom he had slain,
or even whom he had surprised asleep. For the preroga-
tive of both sleep and death is that they obliterate the
repulsive elements of flesh and blood and set free its eternal
idea.

And this is true of death even after the ghastly process
of chemical dissolution has actually begun. A loathing of
matter as matter, a hatred and contempt for the body as
the body, is therefore a manifestation not of love but of the
opposite oMove. Such a loathing of the physiological is
a sign of a weakening of the creative energy. It is also a
sign of the stiffening of the resistant ''malice," or ''mo-
tiveless malignity," which opposes creation. "What the
energy of love directs its desire and its will towards, is
first the "eternal idea of the soul," the idea of the rhythmic
harmony of "mind" and "matter" fused and lost in one
another, and then "the eternal idea of the body," the idea
of the rhythmic projection of this invisible harmony upon
the visible fabric of the world. <

Thus we arrive at the only definition of the nature of

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THE NATURE OP LOVE 213

love which is satisfactory to the deepest moments of feel-
ing experienced by the human soul. In such moments
the soul gathers itself together on the verge and brink of
the unknown. Something beyond the power of our will
takes possession then of all that we are. In our momentary
and transitory movement of the complex vision we are per-
mitted to pass across the ultimate threshold.

We enter then that mysterious rhythm which I have
called **The Eternal Vision'*; and in place of our desire
for personal immortality, in place of our desire for the
possession of any person or thing, in place of our contem-
plation of "forces'* and "energies" and "evolution" or
"dissolution," in place of our struggle for "existence" or
for "power," we become suddenly aware that in the out-
flowing and reciprocal inter-action of the emotion of love
there is something that reduces all these to insignificance,
something that out of the very depths of the poisonous
misery of the world and the irony of the world and the
madness of the world utters its defiant Babelaisian signal,
"Bon espoir y gist au fond."

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CHAPTER IX

THE NATURE OP THE GODS

We must now return to our original definition of the
true philosophical instrument of research in order to see
if we can secure from it a clearer notion as to the nature
of the Qods. Such an instrument is, as we have seen, the
apex-thought of the complex vision using all its attributes
in rhythmic unison. For the complex vision using all its
attributes in unison is only another name for the soul using
the body and using something more than the body.

If the soul could use no attributes except those given
to it by the body, it might, or it might not, arrive at the
idea of the ''sons of the universe." It certainly could not
enter into any relation with such immortal beings. But
since it has arrived at such a conception ''it is impossible
for it ever to fall entirely away from what it has reached."
For the same unfathomable duality which gave birth to the
sons of the universe has given birth to men; and between
these two, between the ideal figures who cannot perish and
the generations of souls who for ever appear and for ever
pass away there is an eternal understanding. And the un-
derstanding between these two depends upon the fact that
they are both children of the same unfathomable duality.

But this duality which is the cause why the universe is
the universe and not something other than the universe,
must remain as great a mystery to the souls of the "com-
panions of men" as it is to all the souls in the world who
recognize them as their ideal.

We cannot escape the impression that this^ complex vi-

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THE NATURE OP THE GODS 215

sion of ours, which is our iustrumeut of research and which
leaves us in the presence of an unfathomable duality, finds
a parallel in the complex vision of the sons of the universe
which is their instrument of research and which leaves
them also in the presence of an unfathomable duality.
We cannot escape from the impression that to these chil-
dren of the eternal duality the mystery of this duality is as
dark as it is to ourselves.

They find themselves struggling to overcome malice with
love, even as we find ourselves struggling to overcome mal-
ice with love. They find themselves driven to creation and
destruction. The complex vision, which is their instru-
ment of research, is bafiSed in the same way as the complex
vision which is our instrument of research.

If, therefore, in our desperate struggle with the unfath-
omable nature of this duality, we demand why it is that
the gods have failed, in spite of their love, to give us any
due to some ultimate reconciliation, the answer must be
that such an ultimate reconciliation is as much beyond the
reach of their vision as it is beyond the reach of ours. The
attainment of such a reconciliation would seem to mean
the absolute end of life as we know it and of creation as
we know it. Such a reconciliation would seem to mean
nothing less than the swallowing up of the universe in un-
thinkable nothingness.

The truth is that in this ultimate revelation of the com-
plex vision we are confronted with an inevitable triad, or
trinity, of primordial aspects. We are compelled to think
of a plurality of living souls of which our own is one ; of
certain ideal companions of all souls whose vision gives to
our vision its objective value ; and of an external universe
which is the creation of this .vision.

What the complex vision indicates, therefore, is a sys-
tem of things which has a monistic aspect, for there is only
one space and only one succession of time; a pluralistic

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216 THE COMPLEX VISION

aspect, for the system of things gives birth continually to
innumerable individual souls; and a dualistic aspect, for
the universe itself is created by the struggle between love
and malice.

What the complex vision does not indicate is any ulti-
mate principle which reduces this complex system of things
to the unbroken mass of one integral unity. The nearest
approach to such an unbroken, integral unity is to be found
in that indefinable "medium" which makes it possible for
the innumerable souls which compose the universe to com-
municate with one another and with their invisible pre-
existent companions. It is only the existence of this in-
definable medium which makes it possible for us to speak
of a universe at all. For this medium is the objective
ground, or basis, so to say, from the midst of which each
individual vision creates its own universe, always appeal-
ing as it does so to that objective standard or pattern of
truth offered by the vision of man's invisible companions.
What we roug^y and loosely call *'the universe" or ** na-
ture" is therefore an accumulated projection or creation
of all the souls which exist, held together by this pervading
medium which enables them to communicate with one an-
other. In this eternal process of creating the universe by
their united visions, all these souls must inevitably appeal,
consciously or unconsciously, to the vision of their pre-
existent companions.

The best justification which can be offered for the ex-
pression sons of the universe as applied to these invisible
companions is to be found in the inevitable anthropomorph-
ism of all human thought. The breaking point, so to
speak, of man's vision, that ecstasy of comprehension which
I call his apex-thought, is the moment which makes him
aware of these companions' existence. And, at this ecstatic
moment, all individual souls find their personality deep-
ened to such a point that they feel themselves possessed of

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THE NATURE OP THE GODS 217

the very secret of the ultimate duality, fed themselves t^
be, in fact, unfathomable personifications of that duality.
And their intimation or vision with regard to the gods
presents itself to them at that moment as ihe very nature
and time being of the gods. Yet it must be remembered
that this intimation is a thing which we reach only by pain
and exquisite effort; is a thing, in fact, which is the cul-
minating point of an elaborate and difficult "work of art'*
requiring a rhythm and a harmony in our nature attained
by no easy road.

Since, therefore, the reality of these invisible compan-
ions though implied in all our intercourse with one an-
other, is only visualized as actual and authentic when our
subjective vision is at its highest point, and since when
our subjective vision is at its highest point it conveys the
sensation, rightly or wrongly, that what we call our ** uni-
verse* 'is their universe also, it is not without justification
that we use the anthropomorphic expresssion "the sons of
the universe" to describe these invisible companions.

This expression, the sons of the universe, this idea of an
objective standard of all ideas, is something that we attain
with difficulty and not something that we just pick up
as we go along. The "objective," in this sense, '^ is the
supreme attainment of the "subjective." And although
when we have found these companions they become real
and actual, we must not forget that, in the long process of
escaping from the subjectivity of ourselves into the objec-
tivity of their existence, it was our own subjective vision
with the rhythmic ecstai^ of its apex-thought which led
us to the brink of this discovery. Thus the expression
"the sons of the universe" finds its justification. For
they are the objective discovery, as well as the objective
implication, of all our human and subjective visions. We
and they together create the universe and together be-
come the "children" of the ]^orld we create.

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218 THE COMPLEX VISION

And although the universe when thus created remains
the creation of man, assisted by the gods, it now presents
itself to us, in its acquired and attained objectivity, as a
pre-existent thing which is rather our parent than our
creation. This objective reality of it, with the inevitable
implication that it existed before we came on the scene at
all, and will exist after we have disappeared from the
scene, is a truth towards which our subjective vision has
led lis, but which, when once we reach it, seems to become
independent of our subjective vision.

Here again, therefore, in connection with the universe
as in connection with the gods, the creation of our sub-
jectivity is found to be something independent of our sub-
jectivity and something that, all the while, has been im-
plicit in the energy of our subjective vision. And pre-
cisely as the subjective vision of man creates the compan-
ions of men and then discovers them to be an objective
reality, so the subjective vision of man creates the uni-
verse and then discovers the universe to be an objective
reality. And in both cases this discovering finds its jus-
tification in a recognition that the idea of this resultant
objectivity was implicit in the subjective energy from the
beginning. But the universe once created or discovered,
is found to be the eternal manifestation of that ultimate
duality which is the essence of our own souls and of the
souls of the immortals.

In no other way can we think of the objectivity of the
universe; for in no other way can we think of ourselves.
And because it ia the evocation of that ultimate duality
which is the very stuff and texture of our creative vi^don,
the universe becomes naturally the parent of man's in-
visible companions as it becomes the parent of man him-
self. And thus are we justified in speaking of these mys-
terious ones as the ''sons of the universe."

It is out of pain and grief that we arrive at the concep-

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THE NATUEE OP THE GODS 219

tion of the nature of the gods. ''Those who have not eaten
their bread with tears, they know them not, the Heavenly
Powers!*' Pain and sorrow, both physical and mental,
seem to soften the porous shell, so to speak, of the human
intelligence, seem to throw back certain shutter-like shards
or scales with which it protects its malignant ignorance.

It is when our loneliness becomes intolerable, it is when
the poisonous teeth of the eternal malice in Nature have us
by the throat, it is when our malice rises up, in the miser-
able torture of hatred, to answer the malice of the system
of things, that, out of the depths, we cry to the darkness
which surrounds us for some voice or some signal that
shall give us an intimation of help. Merely to know that
our wretched pain is known to some one besides ourselves
is an incredible relief. Merely to know that some sort of
super-human being, even without special preoccupation
with human fate, can turn an amused or an indulgent
clairvoyance towards our wretchedness, can "note" it with
dispassionate sympathy, as we note the hurts of animals
or plants, is a sort of consolation. It is a relief to know
that A^hat we feel when we are hurt to the breaking-point
is not absolutely wasted and lost in the void, but is stored
up in an immortal memory along with many other pains
of the same kind. That cry, **Only He do know what I do
suffer" of the Wessex peasant is a cry natural to the whole
human race. It is not that we ask to be confronted and
healed by our immortal friend. We ask merely that our
sorrows should not be altogether drowned in the abyss as
though they had never been. There is a certain outrage
about this annihilation of the very memory of pain against
which humanity protests.

But it is necessary at this point to beware of the old
pathetic fallacy of human thought, the fallacy of assum-
ing that to be true, which we desire to be true. What our
complex vision reveals as to the nature of the gods does not

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220 THE COMPLEX VISION

satisfy in any abvious or facile manner this bitter need of
humanity. If it did so satisfy it, then for some profound
and mysterious reason man's own aesthetic sense would
revolt against it, would indignantly reject it, as too smooth
an answer to life's mystery.

For man's aesthetic sense seems in some strange way to
be in league with a certain inveterate tragedy in things,
which no facile optimism can ever cajole or melt.

That the gods are aware of our existence can hardly
be doubted. That they feel pity for us, in this or that
significant hour, can easily be imagined. That the evil
in us draws towards us what is evil in them seems like-
wise a not unnatural i)ossibility. That the love in us draws
towards us the love in them is a thing in complete accord-
ance with our own relation to forms of life lower than our-
selves. That even at certain moments the gods may, by a
kind of celestial vampirizing, use the bodily senses of men
to ''fill out," as it were, what is lacking in their own ma-
teriality, is a conceivable speculation.

But it is not in any definite relation between the indi-
vidual soul of man and the individual soul of any one
of the immortals that our hope lies. If this were all that
we could look for, our condition would be as miserable as
the condition of those unhappy ones who seek intermittent
and fantastic relief in attempted intercourse with the
psychic and the occult.

Our hope lies in that immemorial and traditional human
gesture which has, in the unique figure of Christ, gathered
up and focused, as it were, aU the vague and floating inti-
mations of super-human sympathy, all the shadowy ru-
mours and intimations of super-human help, which move
to and fro in the background of our apprehension.

The figure of Christ has thus become something more
than a mere name arbitrarily given by us to some name-
less god. The figure of Christ has become a i^anbol, an

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, THE NATURE OP THE GODS 221

intermediary, a kind of cosmic high-priest, standing be-
tween all that is mortal and all that is immortal in the
world, and by means of the love and pity that is in him
partaking of the nature of every living thing.

When, therefore, out of the bitterness of our fate we
cry aloud upon the Unknown, the answer to our cry comes
from the heart of Christ. In other words it comes from the
epitome and personification of all the love in the universe.
For to the figure of Christ has been brought, down the
long ages of the world, all the baffled, thwarted, broken,
unsatisfied love in every soul that has ever lived. It is
in the heart of Christ that all the nameless sorrows and
miseries, of the innumerable lives that Nature gives birth
to, are stored up and remembered. Not one single pang,
felt by plant or animal or bird or fish or man or planet,
but is embalmed for ever in that mysterious store-house
of the universal pity. Thus, if there were no other super-
human Beings in the world and if apart from the creative
energy of all souls Christ would never have existed, as it
is now He does exist because He has been created by the
creative power of all souls.

But while in one sense the figure of Christ is the su-
preme work of art of the world, the culminating achieve-
m,ent of the anonymous creative energy of all souls, the
turning of the transitory into the eternal, of the mortal
into the immortal, of the human into the divine; in an-
other sense the figure of Christ is a real and living person-
ality, the one personality among the gods, whose nature
n^e may indeed assume that we understand and know.

How should we not understand it, when it has been in
so large a measure created by our sorrow and our de-
sire T

But the fact that the anonymous striving of. humanity
with the objective mystery has in a sense created the figure
of Christ does not reduce the figure of Christ to a mere

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222 THE COMPLEX VISION

Ideal. As we have seen with regard to the primordial
ideas of Iruth, beauty, and goodness, nothing can be an
Ideal which has not already, in the eternal cfystem of
things, existed as a reality.

What we call the pursuit of truth, or the creation of
truth, what we call the pursuit of beauty or the creation
of beauty, is always a return to something which has been
latent in the eternal nature of the system of things. In
other words, in all creation there is a rediscovery, just as
in all discovery there is creation.

/ The figure of Christ, therefore, the everlasting inter-
mediary between mortality and immortality, has been at
once created and discovered by humanity. When any
living soul approaches the figure of Christ, or cries aloud
upon Christ out of the depths of its misery, it cries aloud
upon all the love that has ever existed in the world. It
enters at such a moment into definite communion with all
the suffering of all the dead and with all the suffering of
all the unborn.

For in the heart of Christ all the dead are gathered up
into immortality, and all their pain remembered. In the
heart of Christ all the unborn live already, in their pain
and in their joy ; for such pain and such joy are latent
in the ultimate duality of love and malice, and in the heart
of Christ this ultimate duality struggles with such ter-
rible concentration that all the antagonisms which the pro-
cession of time evokes, all t^e '^moments" of this abysmal
drama, in the past, in the present, in the future, are summed
up and comprehended in what that heart feels.

The ancient human doctrine of ** vicarious suffering,"
the doctrine that upon the person of Christ all the sins
and sorrows of the world are laid, is not a mere logical
conclusion of a certain set of theological axioms; but is a
real and true secret of life, discovered by our most inti-
mate experience.

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THE NATURE OP THE GODS 223

I

The profoundest of all the oracles, uttered out of the
depths, is that saying of Jesus about the 'losing" of life
to "save" it. This ''losing of life'^ for Christ's sake is
that ultimate act of the will by which the lusts of the flesh,
the pride of life, the possessive instinct, the hatred of the
body, the malice which resists creation, the power of pride,
are all renounced, in order that the soul may enter into
that supreme vision of Christ, wherein by a mysterious
movement of sympathy, all the struggles of all living things
are comprehended and shared.

Thus it is true to say that the object of life for all liv-
ing souls is the eternal vision. Towards the attainment
of the eternal vision the love in all living souls perpetually
struggles; and against the attainment of the eternal vision
the malice in all living souls perpetually struggles. We
arrive, therefore, at the only adequate conception of
the nature of the gods which the complex vision permits
us.

The nature of the gods, or of the immortals, or, as I have
preferred to call them, the sons of the universe, is a nature
which corresponds to our nature, even as our nature cor-
responds to the nature of animals or of plants. The ulti-
mate duality is embodied in the nature of the gods more
richly, more beautifully, more terribly, in a more dramatic
and articulate concentration, than it is embodied ih our
nature. Between us and the gods there must be a recip-
rocal vibration, as there is a reciprocal vibration between
us and plants and beasts and oceans and hills. The precise
nature of such reciprocity may well be left a matter for
vague and unphilosophical speculation; because the im-
portant aspect of it, in regard to the mystery of life and
the object of life, is not the method or manner of its func-
tioning but the issue and the result of its functioning.
And this issue and result of the reciprocity between mortal
and immortal, between man and his invisible companions,

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224 THE COMPLEX YISION

IB the eternal yision which they both share, the vision in
which love attains its object.

And the eternal vision, which was, and is, and is to
come, is the vision in which Christ, the Intermediary be-
tween the transitory and the permanent, contemplates the
spectacle of the unfathomable world ; and is able to endure
that spectacle, by reason of the creative power of love.

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CHAPTER X

THB FIGUBB OF CHBIST

In considering the figure of that great Intermediary be-
tween mortality and immortality whom we have come to
name Christ, the question arises, in view of the histpric
existence of other world-saviours, such as the Indian
Buddha, whether it would not be better to invent, out of
our arbitrary fancy, some completely new symbol for the
eternal vision which should be entirely free from those
merely geographical associations which have limited the
acceptance of this Figure to so much less than one-half
of the inhabitants of our planet.

The question arises— can there be invented any concrete,
tangible symbol which shall appeal to every attribute of
the complex vision and be an accumulated image of that
side of the unfathomable duality from which we draw our
ideas of truth, beauty, and goodness t

For the complex vision itself I have projected my own
arbitrary image of an arrow-head of many concentrated
flames; but when we approach a matter as important as
the choice of a symbolic image for the expression of the
ultimate synthesis of the good as contrasted with the evil
something very different from a mere subjective fancy is
required.

If it were possible for me, the present writer, to give
myself up so completely to the creative spirit as to become
suddenly inspired with the true idea of such a i^ymbolic
image, even then my image would remain detached, remote
and individualistic If it were possible for me to gather
up, as it were, and to bring into focus all the symbolic

225

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226 THE COMPLEX VISION

images used by all the supreme prophets and artists and
poets of the world, my synthetic fiymbol, including all
these different symbols, would still remain remote and dis-
tant from the feelings and experiences of the mass of hu-
manity.

But the ideas of truth, beauty, goodness, together with
that emotion of love which is their synthesis, ar^ not con-
fined to the great artists and prophets of the world. They
are felt and experienced by the common mass of human-
ity. They have indeed an even wider scope than this, since
they exist in the depths of the souls of the sons of the uni-
verse, and in the depths of that unfathomable universe
whose objective reality depends upon their energy. They
have the widest scope which it is x>ossible for the complex
vision to grasp. Wherever time and space are, they are;
and, as we have seen, time and space make up the ulti-
mate unity within wliose limits the drama of life pro-
ceeds.

Although the universe depends for its objective reality
upon the vision of the immortals and incidentally upon all
the visions of all the souls bom into the world, it is not
true to say that either the vision of the immortals or the
visions of all souls, or even both of these together, exhaust
the possibilities of the universe and sound the depths of
its unfathomableness. The complex vision of man* stops
at a certain point; but the unfathomable nature of the
universe goes on beyond that point. The complex vision
of the immortals stops at a definite point; but the un-
fathomable nature of the universe goes on beyond that
point.

If it be asked, *'how can it be said that an universe,
which depends for its objective reality upon the complex
vision, goes on beyond the point where the complex vision
stops t" I would answer that the complex vision does not
only create reality; it discovers reality. There is always

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THE PIOURB OP CHRIST 227

the primordial objective mystery outside the complex vi-
sion; that objective mystery, or world-stuff, or world-day,
out of which, in its process of half -creation and half -dis-
covery, the complex vision evokes the universe.

And although apart from the activity of the complex vi-
sion this primordial world-day or objective mystery is
almost nothing because it is only of its bare existence that
we are aware, yet it is not altogether nothing, because it
is, in a sense, the origin of everything we discover. When,
therefore, we speak of the unfathomable as receding into
depths beyond the point where the vision «of man stops
and beyond the point where the vision of the immortals
stops, we do not contradict the statement that the vision
of man and the vision of the immortals create the uni-
verse. They create the universe in so far as they discover
the universe; but the universe must be thought of as al-
ways capable of being further discovered and further cre-
ated. Perhaps the most adequate way of putting the situa-
tion would be to image the objective mystery as a kind of
colourless screen across which a coloured picture is slowly
moved. This coloured pictures is the universe as we know
it. Without the white screen as a background there could
be no picture. All the colours of the picture are latent
and potential in the whiteness of the screen ; but they re-
quire the f ocussed lime-light of the magic-lantern to call
them forth. The lantern from which the light comes, half-
creates, so to speak, and half-discovers the resultant colours.

When we say, therefore, that the universe, although cre-
ated by the complex vision, recedes into unfathomable
depths beyond the reach of the complex vision, what we
mean is that the boundary line between the moving colour-
picture, which is the universe, and the original whiteness
of the screen across which the picture is moved, which is
the objective mystery, is capable of endless recession. The
blank whiteness of the part of the screen over which the

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228 THE COMPLEX ;^^[SION

picture has not yet moved is capable of revealing every
kind of colour as soon as the f ocussed lime-light of the com-
plex vision reaches it. The colours are in the whiteness of
the screen as well as in the lime-light which is thrown upon
the screen ; but neither the lantern which throws the light
nor the screen ui>on which the light is thrown, can, in isola^
tion from one another, produce colour.

The universe, therefore, is half -created and half -discov-
ered by the complex vision; and it may be said to go on'
beyond the point where the complex vision stops, although
strictly speaking what goes on beyond the stopping place
of the complex vision is not the universe as we ^ow it but
a potential universe as we may come to know it ; a universe,
in fact, which is at present held in suspense in the un-
fathomable depths of the objective mystery.

This potential universe, this universe which will come
into existence as soon as the complex vision discovers it
and creates it, this universe across which gathers already
the moving shadow of the complex vision, is not a new
universe but only an extension into a further depth of the
objective mystery, of the universe which we already know.

We are not justified in saying of this objective mystery
or of this white screen across which the colours will pres-
ently flow, that it is outside time and space. We are not
justified in saying anything at all about it, except that it
exists and that it lends itself to the advance of the com-
plex vision. If in place of a white screen we could figure
to ourselves this objective mystery as a mass of impene-
trable darkness, we shoidd thus be able to envisage the
complex vision as I have tried to envisage it, namely as a
moving arrow-head of focussed flames with the point of it,
or what I have named the apex-thought of it, illuminating
that mass of darkness with all the colours of life.

But, as I have said, none of these subjective images can
serve as the sort of symbol we are in search oi^ because by

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THE FIOUBE OF CHBIST 229

reason of their being arbitrary and individualistie they
lack the organic and magical associations which cling round
such symbols as have become objective and historical. "^We
can content ourselves with such fanciful symbols as white
screens and arrow-heads and pyramids of fire in regard to
the organ of our research and the original protoplasmic
stuff out of which this organ of research creates the world ;
but when it comes to the purpose of life and the meaning
of lif e, when it comes to that unfathomable duality which
is the essence of lif e, we require for our symbol something
that has already gathered about it the whole desperate
stream of life's tears and blood and dreams and ecstasies
and memories and hopes.

We can find no symbol for the adversary of life, no sym-
bol for the malignant obscurantism and the sneering malice
that resist creation. To endow this thing which is in the
way, this unfathomable depth of spiritual evil, with the
vivid and imaginative life of a symbolic image would be
to change its inherent nature. No adequate symbol can
be found for evil, any more than a complete embodiment
can be found for evil. Directly evil becomes personal it
ceases to be evil, because personality is the supreme achieve-
ment of life. And directly evil is expressed in a living,
objective, historic, mythological image it ceases to be evil,
because such an image instantaneously gathers to itself
some potency of creative energy. Evil is a positive thing,
a spiritual thing, an eternal thing; but it is positive only
in its opposition to creation, in its corruption of the soul,
and in its subtle undermining of the divine moments of
the sold by the power of eternal dreariness and disillu-
sion.

What we need above everything is a symbolic image
which shall represent the creative energy of life, the cre-
ative power of love, and those eternal ideas of truth and
beauty and nobility which seem in some mysterious way

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280 THE COMPLEX VISION

derogated from, rendered less formidable and unfathom-
able, by being named 'Hhe good."

The desire for a symbol of this kind, which shall gather
together all the tribes and nations of men and all con-
flicting ideals of humanity, is a desire so deep and uni-
versal as to be perhaps the supreme desire of the human
race. No symbol arbitrarily invented by any one man,
even though he were the greatest genius that ever lived,
could supply this want or satisfy this desire. And it could
not do so because it would lack the organic weathering
and bleaching, so to speak, of the long panorama of time.
An individual genius might hit upon a better symbolic
image, an image more comprehensive, more inclusive, more
appealing to the entire nature of the complex vision ; but
without having been subjected to the sun and rain of actual
human experience, without having endured the passion of
the passing of the generations, such an image would remain,
foi^ all its appropriateness, remote, intellectual and barren
of magical suggestiveness.

I do not mean to indicate that there is necessarily any
determined or fatalistic process of natural selection in
these things by which one fiymbol rather than another
gathers about it the hopes and fears of the generations.
Chance no doubt plays a strange part in aU this. But
the concrete necessities of living human souls play a greater
part than chance; and without believing in any steady
evolutionary process or even in any law of natural selec-
tion among the evocations of human desire, it must still
remain that the symbol which survives will be* the symbol
adapted to the deepest instincts of complicate souls and
at the same time palpable and tangible to the touch of the
crudest and most simple.

It cannot be denied that there are serious difficulties in
the way of the acceptance of any historic symbol, the
anonymous evocation of the generations of men. Just be-

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THE PIOURE OF CHBIST 231

ieanse it has a definite place in history such a symbd will
necessarily have gathered to itself much that is false and
much that is accidental and unessential. It will have
entered into bitter controversies. It will have been hard-
ened and narrowed by the ferocious logic of rationalistic
definition. It will have been made the rallying cry of
savage intolerances and the mask for strange perversions.
Evil will naturally have attached itself to it and malice
will have left its sinister stain upon it. Because chance
and accident and even evil have had much to do with its
survival, it may easily happen that some primary attribute
of the complex vision, such for instance as the aesthetic
sense with its innate awareness of the humorous and the
grotesque, will have been forgotten altogether in the stuff
out of which it is made.

Considering such things, considering above all this final
fact that it may not satisfy every attribute of the complex
vision, and may even completely suppress and negate some
essential attribute, it remains still a perilous question
whether it were not, after all, better to invent a new symbol
that shall be deliberately adapted to the entire complex
vision, than to accept an already existing symbol, which
in the shocks and jolts and casualties, of history has been
narrowed, limited and stiffened by the malice of attack and
defence.

This narrowing and hardening process by which such a
symbol, the anonymous creation of humanity under the
shocks of circumstance, becomes limited and inadequate,
is a process frequently assisted by those premature and
violent syntheses of the ultimate contradiction which we
name dogmatic religions. To make such a symbol once
^rnore fluid and flexible, to restore it to its place in the
organic life of the soul, it is necessary to extricate it from
the clutch of any dogmatic religion. I do not say that
it is necessary to extricate it from religion, or even from

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232 THE COMPLEX VISION

every aspect of dogma; for it is of the very essence of such
qrmbol to be a stimulus to the religious ecstasy and there
are many dogmas which are full of imaginative poetry.

But it is necessary to extricate it from dogmatic religion
because dogmatic religion may be defined as a premature
metaphysical synthesis, masquerading beneath a system of
imaginative ritual. The truth of religion is in its ritual
and the truth of dogma is in its poetry. Where a dogmatic
religion becomes dangerous to any human symbol is when
it tries to rationalize it and interpret it according to a
premature metaphysical synthesis. In so far as it remains
purely symbolic and does not attempt to rationalize its
symbolism, a dogmatic religion must always contain within
the circle of its creed many profound and illuminating se-
crets. The false and ephemeral portion of a dogmatic
religion is its metaphysical aspect, because the whole sci-
ence of metaphysics is an ambiguity from the start, since
it is a projection of one isolated attribute of the complex
vision.

What the apex-thought of the complex vision does is to
undermine metaphysic; not by the use of metaphysic but
by the use of the rhythmic totality of all the attributes of
the soul. The philosophy of the complex vision has its
metaphysical, as it has its psychological and its physiolog-
ical aspect, but its real starting point must transcend all
these, because it must emanate from personality. And
personality is something super-metaphysical ; as it is some-
thing super-psychological, and super-physiological.

The creed of a dogmatic religion is not to be condemned
because it calls upon us to believe the impossible. Some sort
of belief in the impossible, some primordial act of faith is
an essential part of the process of life and, without it, life
could not continue. It is where dogmatic religion attempts
to justify its belief in the impossible by the use of meta-

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THE FIGURE OP CHRIST 233

physical reason that we must regard it as an enemy of the
truth of its own symbolism.

The supreme example of the evil and dangerous influence
of metaphysic upon religion is to be found in connection
with that inscrutable nothingness behind the universe, and
also behind the objective mystery out of which the soul
creates the universe. I refer to that ambiguous and un-
beautiful phantom, which has acquired for itself the name
of *'the absolute/' or the parent or first cause of life.

That the conception of *'the sons of the universe," to
which certain basic facts and experiences in regard to the
intercourse between living human souls has led humanity,
is not a metaphysical conception, is proved by the fact
that it is a conception of a reality existing inside and not
outside the ultimate unity of time and space. Any pure
metaphysical conception must, as we have seen, remain out-
side the categories of time and space, and remaining there
bear perpetual witness to its essential unreality.

The sons of the universe are living personal souls; and
being this, they must be, as all i>ersonalities are, super-
metaphysical, super-psychological, and super-physiological.

The perilous choice between the invention of an arbitrary
symbol which shall represent in its full complexity this
idea of the sons of the universe, and the acceptance of a
symbol already supplied by that chaotic mixture of acci-
dent and human purpose which we call history is a choice
upon which more than we can imagine or surmise may ulti-
mately depend. It is necessary in all matters of this kind,
wherein the rhythmic totality of the complex vision is in-
volved, to remain rigorous in our suppression of any par-
ticular usurpation of the whole field by any isolated at-
tribute of the soul. It is a most evil usurpation, for in-
stance, an usurpation of which the sinister history of dog-
matic religion is full, when the conscience is allowed to

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284 THE COMPLEX VISION

introduce the conception of a "dnty," of an ** ought," of
a '^ categorical" imperative, into Buch a choice as this.
There is no ought in philosophy. There is no ought in
faith. And there can be, in no possible way, any ought
of the usurping conscience, in regard to this choice of
an appropriate symbol which shall represent a thing so
entirely beyond the conception of any single attribute, as
this eternal protagonist of the ultimate struggle. The risk
of choosing for our symbol a mere arbitrary invention is
that it should remain thin and cold and unappealing.

The risk of choosing for our symbol a form, a figure, a
gesture, a name, offered us by history, is that it should
carry with it too many of the false accretions of accident,
chance, the passions of controversy and the hypocrisies of
malice. But after all the anonymous creative spirit of
the generations is so full of the wisdom of the earth and
so involved with the rhythmic inspiration of innumerable
souls, that it would seem better to risk the presence of cer-
tain sinister accretions, than to risk the loss of so much
magical suggestiveness.

If we do select for our S3anbol such a form, such a shape,
such a gesture and such a name, as history may offer, we
shall at any rate be always free to keep it fluid and malle-
able and organic. We shall be free to plunge it, so to
speak, again and again into the living reality which it has
been selected to represent. We shall be free to extricate it
completely from all its accretions of chance and circumr
stance and material events. We shall be free to extricate
it from all premature metaphysical syntheses. We shall
be free to draw it from the clutches of dogmatic religion.
We shall be free to make it, as all such fiymbols should be
made, poetical and mythological and, in the aesth'etic sense,
shamelessly anthropomorphic. Above all we shall be com-
pletely free, since it represents for us those sons of the
universe who are the -embodiment of the creative energy,

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THE PIOURE OP CHBIST 235

to associate it with every aspect of the life of the soul. We
shall be free to associate it with those aspects of the soul
which in the process of its slow invention by the genera-
tions have, it may be, been disassociated from it and sep-
arated from it. We shall be free to use it as a symbol for
the fuller, complete life of the future, and for every kind
of revolt, into which the spirit of creation may drive us,
against the evil obscurantism and malicious inertness which
resist the power of love.

The conclusion to which we are thus led, the choice which
we are thus copipelled to make, is one that has been an-
ticipated from the beginning. No other name except the
name of Christ, no other figure except the figure of Christ,
can possibly serve, if we are to make any use of history
at all, as our symbol for the sons of the universe.

The choice of Christ as our symbol for these invisible
companions does not imply that we are forced to accept
in their entirety the scriptural accounts of the life of Jesus;
or even that we are forced to assume that the historic Jesus
ever lived at all. The desire which the soxd experiences
for the incarnation of Christ does not prove that Christ
has already been incarnated, or ever will be incarnated.
And it does not prove this because, in the greater, nobler,
and more spiritual moods of the soul, there is no need for
the incarnation of Christ. In these rare and indescribable
moments, when the past and future seem annihilate and
we experience the sensation of eternity, Christ is felt to be
so close to us that no material incarnation could make him
any closer.

The association of Christ with the figure of Jesus is a
sublime accident which has had more influence upon the
human soul than any other historic event; and it must
be confessed that the idea of Christ has been profoundly
affected by this association. It has been so deepened and
enlarged and clarified by it that the substitution of the

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236 THE COMPLEX VISION

religion of Jesus for the religion of Christ has been an
almost entirely fortunate event, since it has furnished
the soul with a criterion of the true nature of love which
otherwise it might never have gained.

Jesus undoubtedly came so much nearer than any other
to the understanding, of the nature of love, and conse-
quently of the nature of '*the immortids," that the idea
of the incarnation — ^that beautiful concession to the weak-
ness of the flesh — emanated with an almost inevitable nat-
uralness from their association. Jesus himself felt in his
own soul the presence of the invisible companions; al-
though he was led, by reason of his peculiar religious bent,
and by reason of the influences that surrounded him, to
speak of these companions as a ''heavenly father."

But the words of Jesus which carry with them the very
magic of truth are not the words in which he speaks of his
''father," but the words in which he speaks of himself
as if he were the very incarnation of Love itself. There
is no doubt that the sons of the universe found in Jesus a
soul so uniquely harmonious with their own that there
existed between them a sympathy and an understanding
without parallel in the history of humanity.

It is this fiympathy which is the origin of those un-
equalled words used by the son of Mary in which he speaks
as if he were himself in very truth an incarnation of the
vision of the immortals. The whole situation is one which
need have little mystery for those who understand the na-
ture of love. In moment after moment of supreme ecstasy
Jesus felt himself so given up to the will of the invisible
companions that this own identity became lost. In speak-
ing for himself he spoke for them; in suffering for him-
self he suffered for them, and in the great hours of his
tragic wayfaring he felt himself so close to them that, by
reason of his love, he knew himself able to speak of the
secret of life even as the immortals themselves would speak.

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THE PIGUEB OF CHRIST 237

We are permitted indeed in reading the divine narrative
to distingnish between two moods in the soul of Jesus. In
one of these moods he refers to his ''father" as if his fa-
ther were distinct and separate from him and even very
distant. In the other mood he speaks as if he himself were
in very truth a god; and were able, without any appeal
to any other authority, to heal the wounds of the world
and to reveal to mankind the infinite pity of the love which
is beyond analysis.

It is towards the words and gestures of the son of Mary,
when he spoke of himself rather than of his ''father" that
we are inevitably drawn, in our search for an adequate
symbol for the eternal vision. It is when he speaks with
authority as if he himself were an immortal god, as if he
himself were one of the invisible companions, that his
words and gestures carry the very breath and fragrance
of truth.

As the drama of his life unfolds itself before us we
seem to grow more and more aware of these two aspects
of his souL It was his reason, brooding upon the traditions
of his race, that led him into that confusion of the invisible
witnesses with the jealous tribal Qod of his father David.
It was the rhythmic harmony of his soul, rising up out
of the depths of his struggle with himself, that led him, in
his passionate submission to the will of his invisible friends,
to feel as if he were identical with those friends, as if he
were himself the "son of man" and the incarnation of
man's supreme hope.

It is the emphasis laid by Jesus upon his identity with
his "father" which has produced the tragic results we
know. For although tWs was the personal conception of
the noblest of all human souls, it remains a proof of how
much even the soxd of Jesus was limited and restricted by
the malicious power which opposes itself to love.

The living companions of men are as we have seen a

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238 THE COMPLEX VISION

necessary answer to the craving of the complex vision for
sofne objective standard of beauty and reality, which shall
give these things an eternal nnity and purpose. Such a
vision is an answer to our desire that the spirit of creative
love, which is one side of the unfathomable duality, should
be embodied in personality.

And we have a right to use the name of Christ in this
sense ; and to associate it with all that immortal anonymous
company, so beautiful, so pitiful, so terrible, which the
name of '^the gods'' has, in its turbulent and dramatic
history, gathered about itself.

The idea of Christ is older than the life of Jesus; nor
does the life of Jesus, as it has come down to us in eccle-
siastical tradition, exhaust or fulfil all the potentialities
latent in t^ie idea of Christ. What the complex vision
seems to demand is that the invisible companions of men
should be regarded as immortal gods. If, therefore, we
throw all hesitancy and scruple aside and risk the appli-
cation of the name of Christ to this vision of the sons of the
universe, then we shall be compelled to regard Christ as
an immortal Gh>d.

The fact that there must be some objective standard
which shall satisfy all the passionate demands of the com-
plex vision is the path by which we reach this conception
of Christ. But once having reached him he ceases to be
a mere conception of the intellect, and becomes an objec-
tive reality which we can touch and appeal to with our
emotion, our imagination, and our aesthetic sense. But al-
though Christ as our symbolic image of the invisible com-
panions, must be assumed to be the objective standard of
all our ideas of truth, it is obvious that we cannot escape
from subjectivity in our individual interpretation of his
deeper and truer vision.

Thus there are two parallel streams of growth and
change. There is growth and change in the soul of Christ

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THE PIOURE OF CHBIST 239

as he continually approximates nearer and nearer to his
eternally receding ideal. And there is growth and change
in the accumulated harmony of our individual ideas about
his ideal, as each human soxd and each generation of hu-
man souls restates this ideal in terms of its own limited
vision.

Each new restatement of this accumidated interpreta-
tion of the ideal of the son of man brings necessarily with
it an innate convicti(m of its truth because it finds an im-
mediate response in every individual sold in so far as such
individual souls are able to overcome their intrinsic evil
or malice.

What Jesus did for the universe was to recognize in it
the peculiar nature of that love which is its essential life.
He would have done yet more for it had he been able to
disassociate his vision from the conception of an imaginary
father of i;he universe and from his traditional interest in
the tribal god of his ancestors. But Jesus remains the one
human soul who has revealed to us in his own subjective
vision the essential secret of the vision of the immortals.
And that he has done so is proved by the fact that all his
words and actions have come to be inextricably associated
with the Christ-idea.

In this way Jesus remains the profoundest of all human
philosophers and the subtlest of all human p^chologists ;
and although we have the right to disassociate the Christ-
idea from the sublime illusion of Jesus which led him to
confuse the invisible companions of humanity with the
tribal God of the Hebrews, we are compelled to recognize
that Jesus has done so much for humanity by the depth
of his psychological insight that we do not experience any
shock when in the ritual of the Church the name of the son
of David becomes identical with the name of Christ

The essential thing to establish is that there are greater
depths in the Christ-idea than even Jesus was able to

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240 THE COMPLEX VISION

fathom ; and that compared with the soul of Jesus or with
the soul of any other man or god or spirituied entity, the
figure of Christ has come now at last to be for humanity
the only god we need; for he is the only god whose love
for all living things is beyond question and dispute, and
whose existence is assumed and implied when any soul in
the universe loves any other soul.

It is necessary then to do two things. To accept without
reserve the vision which Jeepa had as to the secret of love ;
because to nothing less than this does the Ic^ve which we
possess in our own souls respond. And in the second place
to be merciless and drastic, even at the risk of pain to the
weakness of our human flesh, in separating the personality
of Christ, the immortal god, from the historic figure of the
traditional Jesus. By doing these two things, and by this
alone, we establish what the complex vision desires, upon a
firm ground. For we retain what the vision of Jesus has
revealed to us as to the inherent nature of the invisible
companions and we are saved from all controven^ as to the
historic reality of the life of Jesus.

It does not matter to us whether Jesus ''really lived' ^;
or whether, like other great figures, his personality has been
created by the anonymous instinct of humanity. What
matters to us is that humanity itself, using the vision of
Jesus as its organ of research or as the focus point of its
own passionate clairvoyance has in some way or another
recognized that the secret of the universe is to be found
in the unfathomable duality of love and malice. From
this point, now it has been once reached, the intrinsic na-
ture of all human souls makes sure that humanity cannot
go back. And it is because, either by his own sublime in-
sight or by the accident and chance of history, the figure
of Jesus has become associated with the reality of the im-
mortal gods that we are justified in using for our symbol

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THE FIGURE OP CHRIST 241

of these sons of the universe no other name than the name
of Christ.

We shall, however, be doing wrong to our conception of
Christ, if, while recognizing that the kind of love, of which
Jesus revealed the secret, is the essence of Christ's soul, we
refuse to find in him also many aspects and attributes of
life which occupy but little place or no place at all in the
traditional figure of Jesus.

All that is most beautiful and profound, all that is most
magical and subtle, in the gods of the ancient world, must
be recognized as existent in the soul of Christ who is our
true "Son of the Morning." The earth-magic of the an-
cient gods must be in him; and the Titanic spirit which
revolted against such gods must be in him also. The mys-
tery of the elements must be interwoven with the very stuff
of his being and the unfathomable depths of Nature must
be a path for his feet. In him all mythologies and all
religions must meet and be transcended. He is Prome-
theus and Dionysus. He is Osiris and Balder. He is the
great god Pan. "All that we have been, all that we are,
and all that we hope to be, is centred in him alone.'' His
spirit is the creative spirit which moves for ever upon the
face of the waters. In him all living souls find the object
of their love. Against him the unfathomable i)ower of evil
struggles with eternal demonic malice. In his own soul it
struggles against him ; and in the universe which confronts
him it struggles against him. His inmost being is made
up of the duality of this struggle even as is the inmost be-
ing of all that exists. If it were not for the presence of
evil in him his passion of love would be as uothing. For
without evil there can be no good, and without malice
there cannot be love. His soul and our human souls re-
main the ultimate reality. These alone are concrete, defi-
nite, actual and personal. All except these is ambiguous,

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242 THE COMPLEX VISION

half -real and unstable as water. These and the oniyerse
which they create are the true truth ; and compared with
these every other "truth" is dubious, shadowy and unsub-
stantial.

These are the true truth, because these are personal ; and
we know nothing in life, and can know nothing, with the
interior completeness with which we know x)ersonality.
And the essence of that interior knowledge with which we
know personality is our recognition of the unfathomable
duality within ourselves. We cannot imagine the good in
us as existing without the evil in us ; and we cannot imag-
ine the evil in us as existing without the good in us.

And this ultimate essence of reality must apply to the
soul of Christ. And this duality has no reconciliation ex-
cept the reconciliation that it is a duality in ourselves and
a duality in him. For both the good and the evil in us
recede into unfathomable depths. So that the ultimate
reality of the universe is to be found in the two eternal emo-
tions which perpetually contradict and oppose one an-
other; of which the only unity and reconciliation is to be
found in the fact that they both belong to every separate
soul; and are the motive power which brings the universe
into existence ; and in bringing the universe into existence
find themselves under the domination of time and space.

Every individual soul in the world is composed of two
unfathomable abysses. From the limitless depths of each
of these emanates an emotion which is able to obsess and
preoccupy the whole field of consciousness. Every indi-
vidual soul has depths, therefore, which descend into un-
fathomable recesses ; and we are forced into the conclusion
that the unfathomable recesses in the soul of Christ are
subject to the same eternal duality as the souls of men.

Every movement of thought implies an evocation of the
opposing passion of these two emotions. For no movement
of thought can take place without the activity of the com-

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THE FIGURE OP CHRIST 243

plex vision; and since one of the basic attributes of the
complex vision is divided into these two primary emotions,
we are compelled to conclude that it is impossible to think
any thought at all without some evocation of the emotion
of love and some evocation of the emotion of malice.

The emotion of love is the power that brings together and
synthesizes those eternal ideas of truth and beauty and
nobility which find their objective standard in the soul of
Christ. The emotion of malice is the power that brings
together and synthesizes and harmonizes those eternal ideas
of unreality and hideousness and' evil with which the love
of Christ struggles desperately in the unfathomable depths
of his soul. It matters to us little or nothing that we have
no name to give to any among the gods except to this god ;
for in this god, in this companion of men, in this immortal
helper, the complex vision of man finds aU it needs, the
embodiment of Love itself.

We arrive, therefore, at the very symbol we desire, at
the symbol which in tangible and creative power satisfies
the needs of the soul. We owe this symbol to nothing less
than the free gift of the gods themselves; and to the anony-
mous strivings of the generations. And once having
reached this sjrmbol, this name of Christ, the same phe-
nomenon occurs as occurs in the establishment of the real
existence of the external universe. That, like this, was at
first only a daring hypothesis, only a supreme act of faith,
reached by the subjective effort of the innumerable indi-
vidual souls. But once having been reached, it became, as
this has become, a definite objective fact, whose reality
turns out to have been implicit from the beginning.

Thus the name, the word, which we arrive at as the only
I)06sible symbol of our hope is found to be, as soon as we
reach it, no longer merely a symbol but the outward sign
of an invisible and eternal truth. And thus although it
remains that we are forced to recognize that the world is

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244 THE COMPLEX VISION

full of gods and that the Person we name Christ is only
one of an innumerable company of invisible companions
to whom in our loneliness we have a right to turn, yet just
because the vision of humanity has found in Christ a com-
pleter, subtler, more beautiful, more revolutionary figure
upon which to fix its hope than it has found in Buddha
or Confucius or Mahomet, or any other name, the figure
of Christ has become the supreme and solitary embodiment
of the Ideal to which we look, and about this figure has
come to gather itself and focus itself all the hopeless long-
ing with which the soul of man turns to the souls of the
immortals.

These divine people of the abyss, these sons of the uni-
verse, are for us henceforth and must be now for us for
ever summed up and embodied in this one figure, the only
one among them all whose nature and being has been drawn
so near to us that we can appropriate it to ourselves.

It remains that the unity of time and space contains an
immeasurable company of immortals; but of these im-
mortals only one has been articulated and outlined, and
so to speak ''touched with the hand," by the troubled
passion of humanity. Henceforth, therefore, while the
necessity of the complex vision compels us to think of the
invisible company of the sons of the universe as a vast
hierachy of supernatural beings, the necessity of the com-
plex vision compels us also to recognize, that of this com-
pany, only one— only one until the end of time— can be
the true symbol of what our heart desires.

It is better to think of the evocation of this figure as
due to the pity of the gods themselves and to the anonymous
craving of humanity than to think of him as dependent
upon the historic evidence as to the personality of Jesus.
The soul requires something more certain than historic
evidence ui>on which to base its faith. It requires some-
thing closer and more certain even than the divine **logoi"

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THE PIGUEB OP CHBIST 245

attributed to the historic Jesus. It requires a living and
a personal soul for ever present to the depths of its own
nature. It requires a living and a personal soul for ever
ready to answer the cry of its love. The misery and un-
happiness, the restlessness and pain of all our human
** loves," is due to the fact that the only eternal response
to Love as it beats its hands against the barriers set up
against it, is the embodiment of Love itself as we feel it
present with us in the figure of Christ.

TJhe love which draws two human souls together can only
become eternal and indestructible when it passes beyond
the love of the two for one another into the love of both
of them for the Lover who is immortal. This merging of
the love of human lovers into the love of the immortal
Lover does not imply the lessening or diminishing of the
love which draws them together. The nature of this love
cries out against their separation, cries out that they two
shall become one. And yet if they actually and in very
truth became one, that unity in difference which id the very
essence of love would be destroyed. But though they know
this well enough there still remains the desperate craving
of the two that they should become one ; and this is of the
very nature of love itself. Thus it may be seen that the
only path by which human lovers can be satisfied is by
merging their love for one another into their love for
Christ. In this way, in a sense profounder than mortal
flesh can know, they actuaUy do become one. They become
so completely one that no power on earth or above the
earth can ever separate them. For they are bound to-
gether by no mortal link but by the eternal love of a soul
beyond the reach of death. Thus when one of them comes
to die the love which was of the essence of that soul lives
on in the soul of Christ ; and when both of them are dead
it can never be as though their love had not been^ for in
the eternal memory of Christ their love lives on, increas-

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246 THE COMPLEX VISION

ing the love of Christ for others like themselves and con-
tinually drawing the transitory and the mortal nearer to
the eternal and the immortal.

It therefore becomes evident why it is that the vision of
the invisible companions which remains our standard of
reality and of beauty is not broken up into innumerable
subjective visions but is fixed and i>ermanent and sure.
All the unfathomable souls of the world, and all souls are
unfathomable whether they are the souls of plants or ani-
mals or planets or gods or men, are found, the closer they
approach one another^ to be in possession of the same vi-
sion. For this immortal vision, in which what we name
beauty, and what we name ''reality,*' finds its synthesis,
is found to be nothing less than the secret love. And while
the great company of the immortal companions are only
known to us by the figure of one among them, namely by
the figure of Christ, this figure alone is sufiScient to contain
all that we require of life; for being the embodiment of
love this figure is the embodiment of life, of which love is
the creator and the sustainer.

Thus what the apex-thought of man's complex vision
reveals is not only the existence of the gods but the fact
that the vision of the gods is not broken up and divided
but is one and the same; and is yet for ever growing and
deepening. And the only measure of the vision of the
gods which we possess is the figure of Christ ; for it has
come about by reason of the anonymous instinct of hu-
manity, by reason of the compassion of the immortals, and
by reason of the divine insight of Jesus, that the figure of
Christ contains within it every one of those primordial
ideas from which and towards which, in a perpetual ad-
vance which is also a perpetual return, the souls of all
living things are for ever journeying.

Whether the souls of men and of beasts, of plants and
of planetary spheres survive in any form after they are

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THE FIOUEB OP CHRIST 247

dead we know not and can never know. But this at least
the revelation of the complex vision makes clear, that
the secret of the whole process is to be found in the mys-
tery of love; and to the mystery of love we can, at the
worst, constantly appeal ; for the mystery of love has been
at last embodied for us in a living figure over whom Death
has no controL

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CHAPTER XI

THB ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTEB

The philosophy of the complex yision is based, as I have
shown, upon nothing less than the whole personality of
man become conscious of itself in the totality of its rhythmio
functioning. This personality, although capable of being
analysed in its constituent elements, is an integral and
unfathomable reality. And just because it is such a real-
ity it descends and expands on every side into immeasur-
able depths and immeasurable horizons.

We know nothing as intimately and vividly as we know
personality and every knowledge that we have is either
a spiritual or a material abstraction from this supreme
knowledge. This knowledge of personality which is our
ultimate truth, implies a belief in the integral and real
existence of what we call the soul. And because person-
ality implies the, soul and because we have no ultimate
conception of any other reality in the world except the
reality of personality, therefore we are compelled to as-
sume that every separate external object in Nature is pos-
sessed of a soul.

The peculiar psychological melancholy which sometimes
seizes us in the presence of inanimate natural objects, such
as earth and water and sand and dust and rain and vai>our,
objects whose existence may superficially appear to be en-
tirely chemical or material, is accounted for by the fact
that the soul in us is baffled and discouraged and repulsed
by these things because by reason of their superficial ap-
pearance they convey the impression of complete soulless-
ness. In the presence of plants and animals and all ani-

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THE ILLUSION OP DEAD MATTER 249

mate things we are also vaguely conscious of a strange psy-
chological melancholy. But this latter melancholy is of a
less poignant character than the former because what we
seem superficially conscious of is not ''soullessness" but a
psychic life which is alien from our life, and therefore
bafiSing and obscure.

In both of these cases, however, as soon as we are bold
enough to apply the conclusions we have arrived at from
the analysis of the knowledge which is most vivid and real
to us, namely, the knowledge of our own soul, this peculiar
psychological melancholy is driven away. It is a melan-
choly which descends upon us when in any disintegrated
moment the creative energy in us, the energy of love in us,
is overcome by the evil and inertness of the aboriginal
malice. Under the influence of this inert malice, which
takes advantage of some lapse or ebb of the creative energy
in us, the rhythmic activity of our complex vision breaks
down; and we visualize the world through the attributes
of reason and sensation alone. And the world, visualized
through reason and sensation alone, becomes a world of
uniform and homogeneous monotony, made up either of
one all-embracing material substance, or of one all-embrac-
ing spiritual substance. In either case that living plural-
ity of real separate "souls" which correspond to our own
soul vanishes away, and a dreary and devastating oneness,
whether spiritual or chemical, fills the whole field. The
world which is the emanation of this atrophied and dis-
torted vision is a world of crushing dreariness; but it is an
unreal world because the only vivid and unfathomable
reality we know is the reality of innumerable souls. The
curious thing about this world of superficial chemical or
spiritual uniformity is that it seems the same identical
world in the case of all separate souls whose complex vi-
sion is thus distorted by the prevalence of that which op-
poses itself to creation and by the consequent ebb and

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250 THE COMPLEX VISION

weakening of the energy of love. It is imi>ossible to be
assured that this is the case; but all evidence of language
points towards such an identity of desolation between the
innumerable separate ''universes" of the souls which fill
the world, when such souls visualize existence through
reason and sensation alone.

This also is a i>ortion of the same ''illusion of imper-
sonality'' into which the inert malice of the ultimate "re-
sistance" betrays us with demonic cunning. What man is
there among ns who does not recall some moment of vi-
sionary disintegration, when, in the presence of both these
mysteries, an unspeakable depression of this kind has over-
taken himt He has stood, perhaps, on some wet autumn
evening, watching the soulless reflection of a dead moon
in a pond of dead water; while above him the motionless
distorted trunk of some goblinish tree mocks him with its
desolate remoteness from his own life.

At that moment, with his abortive and atrophied complex
vision, all he sees is the eternal soullessness and deadness
of matter; dead moonlight, dead water, dead mud and
slime and refuse, dead mist and vapour, dead earth-mould
and dead leaves. And while the desolate chemistry of
nothingness grips him with its dead fingers and he turns
hopelessly to the silent tf^e-trunk at his side, that also
repels him with the chill breath of psychic remoteness;
and it seems to him that that also is strange and impersonal
and unconscious; that that also is only a blind pre-de-
termined i>ortion of some huge planetary life-process that
has no place for a living soul, but only a place for auto-
matic impersonal chemistry. Brooding in this way, with
the eternal malice of the system of things conquering the
creative impulse in the depths of his soul, he becomes
obsessed with the idea that not only these isolated i>ortions
of Nature, but the whole of Nature, is thus alien and re-
mote and thus given up to a desolate and soulless uniform-

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THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 251

ity. Unutterable loneliness takes possession of him and he
feels himself to be an exile in a dark and hostile assem-
blage of elemental forces. If at such a moment by means
of some passionate invocation of the immortal gods, or by
means of some desperate sinking into his own soul and
gathering together of the creative energy in him, he is able
to resist this desolation, how strange and sudden a shifting
of mood occurs ! He then, by a bold movement of imagina-
tion, restores the balance of his complex vision; and in a
moment the spectacle is transfigured.

The apparently dead pond takes to itself the lineaments
of some indescribable living soul, of which that particular
portion of elemental being is tife outward expression.
The apparently dead moonlight becomes the magical influ-
ence of some mysterious ** lunar soul" of which the earth's
silent companions is the external form. The apparently
dead mud of the pond's edge becomes a living portion of
that earth-body which is the visible manifestation of the
soul of the earth. The motionless tree-trunk at his side
seems no longer the desolate embodiment of some vague
''psychic life" utterly alien from his own life but reveals
to him the immediate magical presence of a real soul there,
whose personality, though not conscious in the precise man-
ner in which he is conscious, has yet its own measure of
complex vision and is mutely struggling with the cruel
inertness and resistance which blocks the path of the energy
of life. When once, by the bold synthesis of reason and
sensation with those other attributes of the complex vision
which we name instinct, imagination, intuition, and the
like, the soul itself comes to be regarded as the substratum
of personal existence, that desolating separation between
humanity and Nature ceases to baffle us. As long as the
substratum of personal life is regarded as the physical
body there must always be this desolating difference and
this remoteness.

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252 THE COMPLEX VISION

For in such a case the stress is inevitably laid ui>on the
physiological and biological difference between the body
of a man and the body of the earth or the moon or the
sun or any plant or animal. But as soon as the sub-
stratum of personal life is regarded not as the body but
as the soul it ceases to be necessary to lay so merciless a
stress upon the difference between man's elaborate physio-
logical constitution and the simpler chemical constitution
of organic or inorganic objects.

If the complex vision is the vision of the soul, if the soul
uses its bodily sensation as only one among its other in-
struments of contact with life, then it is obvious that be-
tween the soul of a man and the soul of a planet or a plant
there need be no such appalling and desolating gulf as that
which fills us with such profound melancholy when we re-
fuse to let the complex vision have its complete rhythmic
play and insist on sacrificing the revelations made by in-
stinct and intuition to the falsifying conclusions of rea-
son and sensation, energizing in arbitrary solitude.

The '*mort-main" or ''dead-hand" of that aboriginal
malice which resists life is directly responsible for this^
illusion of ''unconscious matter" through the midst of
which we grope like outlawed exiles. Reason and the
bodily senses, conspiring together, are perpetually tempt-
ing us to believe in the reality of this desolate phantom-
world of blind material elements ; but the unreality of this
corpse-life becomes evident directly we consider the reve-
lation of the complex vision.

For the complex vision reveals to us that what we call
"the universe" is a thing which is for ever com^ig newly
and freshly into life, for ever being re-bom and re-consti-
tuted by the interplay between the individual soul and the
"objective mystery." Of the objective myatery itself,
apart from the individual soul, we are able to say nothing.
But since the "universe" is the discovery and creation

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THE ILLUSION OP DEAD MATTER 253

of the individual soul, there must be as many different
'* universes '* as there are living souls.

Our belief in *'one unverse,'* whose characteristics are
relatively identical in the case of all the souls which con-
template it, is a belief which in part results from an orig-
inial act of faith and in part results from an implicit appeal
to those ''invisible companions** whose concentrated will
towards ''reality*' and "beauty** and "nobility** offers
us our only objective standard of these ideas. Prom the
ground, therefore, of this trinity of incomprehensible sub-
stances, namely the substance which is the substratum of
the individual soul, the substance which is "the objective
mystery** out of which the individual soul creates its uni-
verse, and the substance which is the "medium" or "link**
which enables these individual souls to communicate with
one another, emerge the only realities which we can know.
And since this trinity of incomprehensible substances, thus
divided one from another, must be thought of as domi-
nated by the same unity of time and space, it is inconceiv-
able that they should be anything else than three aspects
of one and the same incomprehensible substance. Prom
this it follows that from the ground of one incomprehen-
sible substance which in its first aspect is the substratum
of the soul, in its second aspect is the objective mystery
confronting the soul, in its third aspect ia the medium
which holds all souls together, there must be evoked all the
reality which we can conceive.

And this reality must, from the conclusions we have al-
ready reached, take two forms. It must take the form of
a plurality of subjective "universes** answering to the
plurality of living souls. And it must take the form of
one objective "universe,** answering to the objective stand-
ard of truth, beauty, and nobility, together with the oppo-
sites of these, which is implied in the tacit appeal of all
individual souls to their "invisible companions.**

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254 THE COMPLEX VISION

In this double reality; the reality of one objective uni-
verse identical in its appearance to^ all souls but depend-
ent for its identity upon an implicit reference to the ''in-
visible companions," and the reality of as many subjective
universes as there are living souls; in this double reality
there is obviously no place at all for that phantom-world
of unconscious "matter/' which in the form of soulless ele-
ments, or souUess organic automata, fills the human mind
with such devastating melancholy.

The dead pond with its dead moonlight, with its dead
mud and its dead snow, is therefore no better than a
ghastly illusion when considered in isolation from the soul
or the souls which look forth from it. To the soul of which
those elements are the ''body" neither mud nor water nor
rain nor earth-mould can appear desolate or dead. To the
soul which contemplates these things there can be no other
way of regarding them, as long as the rhythm of its vision
is unimpeded, than as the outward manifestation of a per-
sonal life, or of many personal lives, similar in creative
energy to its own.

Between the soul, or the souls, of the elements of the
earth, and the soul of the human spectator there must be,
if our conclusions are to be held good at all, a natural and
p]X)found reciprocity. The apparent "deadness," the ap-
parent automatism of "matter," which projects itself be-
tween these two and resists with corpse-like opacity their
reciprocal understanding, must be one of the ghastly illu-
sions with which the sinister side of the eternal duality un-
dermines the magic of life.

But although in its objective isolation, as an absolute en-
tity, this "material deadness" of earth and water and rain
and snow and of all disintegrated organic chemistry must
be regarded as an "illusion," it would be a falsifying of the
reality of things to deny that it is an "illusion" to which
the visions of all souls are miserably subject. They are for

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THE ILtiUSION OF DEAD MATTER 255

ever subject to it because it is precisely this ** illusion'*
which the unfathomable power hostile to life for ever
evokes.

Nor must we for a moment suppose that this material
objectivity, this pond, these leaves, this mud, this snow, are
altogether unreal. Their reality is demanded by the com-
plex vision and to deny their reality would be the gesture
of madness. They are only unreal, they are only an ** illu-
sion," when they are considered as existing independently
of the **souls" of which they are the **body." As the ex-
pression and manifestation of such ^' souls" they are en-
tirely real. They are indeed, in this sense, as real as our
own human body.

The human soul, when it suffers from that malignant
I>ower which has its positive and external existence in the
soul itself, feels itself to be absolutely alone in the midst
of a dark chaotic welter of monstrous elemental forces. In
a mood of this kind the thought of the huge volumes of
souUess water which we call ''oceans" and *'seas" crushes
us with a devastating melancholy. The thought of the in-
terminable deserts of ''dead" sand and the vast polar ice
fields and the monstrous excrescences that we call "moun-
tains" have the same effect. But the supreme example of
the kind of material ghastliness which I am trying to indi-
cate, is, as may easily be surmised, nothing less than the
appalling thought of the unfathomable spatial gulfs through
which our whole steUar system moves. Here also, in this
supreme insistence of objective "deadness," the situation
is relieved when we realize that this unthinkable space is
nothing more than the material expression of that inde-
finable "medium" which holds aU souls together.

Moreover we must remember that these stellar gulfs
cannot be thought of except as the habitation of innumerable
living souls, each one of which is using this very "space"
as the ground of its creation of the many-coloured impas-

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256 THE COMPLEX VISION

sioned ** universe" whieh is its own dwelling. In all these
instances of ''objective deadness/' whether great or small,
we must not forget that the thing which desolates us and
fills us with so intolerable a nostalgia is a thing only half
real, a thing whose full reality depends upon the soul which
contemplates it and upon the soul's implicit assumption
that its truth is the truth of those ** invisible companions"
who supply us with our perpetually renewed and recon-
stituted standard of what is ''good" and what is "evil."

There is an abominably vivid example of the kind of
melancholy I have in my mind, which, altiiough obviously
less common to normal human experience than the forms
of it I have so far attempted to suggest, is as a rule even
more crushing in its cruelty. I refer to the sight of a
dead*" human body; and in a less degree to the sight of a
dead animal or a dead plant.

A human corpse laid out in its coffin, or nailed down in
its coffin, how exactly does the particular attitude towards
life, which for convenience* sake I name the philosophy
of the complex vision, find itself regarding ihatt Such
a body, deserted by its living soul, is obviously no longer
the immediate and integral expression of a personal life.
Is it therefore no more than a shred or shard or husk or
remnant of inconceivably soulless matter? The gods for-
bid I Certainly and most assuredly it is more than that.

An isolated heterogeneous mass of dead chemistry is a
monstrous illusion which only exists for us when the weak-
ness of our creative energy and the power of the original
malice in the soul destroys our vision. This dead body
lying in its wooden coffin is certainly possessed of no more
life than the inanimate boards of the coffin in which it lies.
But the inanimate boards of the coffin, together with the
inanimate furniture of the house or room that contains it,
and the bricks and stones and mortar of such a house, are

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THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 257

themselves nothing less than inevitable portions of the
vast earth-body of our planetary globe.

And this planetary globe, this earth upon which we live,
cannot under any eonceivable kind of reasoning to which
imagination has contributed its share, be regarded as a dead
or a soulless thing. In its isolated integrity, as a separate
integral personality, the soul has deserted the body and
left it "dead.'' But it is only "dead" when considered
in isolation from the surrounding chemistry of planetary
life. And to consider it in this way is to consider it falsely.
For from the moment it ceases to be the expression of the
life of an individual human soul, it becomes the expression
— ^through every single phase of its chemical dissolution —
of the life of the planet.

In so far as the human soul, which has deserted it, is
concerned it is assuredly no better them a dead husk; but
in so far as the soul of the planet is concerned it is an
essential portion of that planet 's living body and in this
sense is not dead at all.

Its chemical elements, as they resolve themselves slowly
back into their planetary accomplices, are part and parcel
of that general "body of the earth" which is in a state
of constant movement, and which has the "soul of the
earth" as its animating principle of personality. And
just as the human corpse, when the soul has deserted it,
becomes a portion of those chemical elements which are the
body of the planet's "personal soul," so do the dead bodies
of animals and plants and trees become portions of the
same terrestrial bodies.

Thus strictly speaking there is no single moment when
any material form or body can be called "dead." In-
stantaneously with the departure of its own individual
soul it is at once "possessed" by the soul of that planetary
globe from whose chemistry it drew its elemental life and
from whose chemistry, although the form of it has changed.

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258 THE COMPLEX VISION

it still draws its life. For it is no fantastic speculation
to affirm that every living thing whether human or other-
wise plays, while it lives, a triple part upon the world
stage.

It is in the first place the vehicle of the individual soul.
It is in the second place the medium of the "spiritual
vampirizing" of the invisible planetary spirits. And it is
in the third place a living portion of that organic elemental
chemistry which is the body of the terrestrial soul. Thus
it becomes manifest that that "illusion of dead matter"
which fills the human soul with so profound a melancholy
is no more than an everlasting trick of the malice of the
abyss.

And the despair which sometimes results from it is a
despair which issues from no "dead matter" but from
the terrible living depths of the soul itself. It is from a
consideration of the especial kind of melancholy evoked
in us by the illusion of "objective deadness" that we are
enabled to analyse ihose peculiar imaginative feelings which
sometime or another affect us all. I refer to the^ extraor-
dinary tenacity with which we cling to our bodily form,
however grotesque it may be, and the difficulty we expe-
rience in disassociating our living soul from its particular
envelope or habitation; and the tendency which we have,
in spite of this, to imagine ourselves transferred to an
alien body. For the soul in us has the power of "think-
ing itself" into any other body it may please to select.

And there is no reason why we should be alarmed at
such an imaginative power ; or even associate its fantastic
realization with any terror of madness. The invisible en-
tity within us which says "I am I" can easily be conceived
as suddenly awakening out of sleep and discovering, to its
astonishment, that its visible body has suffered a bewilder-
ing transformation.

Such a transformation can be conceived as almost un-

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THE ILLUSION OP DEAD MATTER 259

limited in its humorous and disconcerting possibilities.
But no such transformation of the external envelope of
the soul, whether into the form of an animal or a plant or
a god, need be conceived of as necessarily driving us into
insanity. The ''I am I" would remain the same in regard
to its imagination, instinct, intuition, emotion, self-con-
sciousness and the rest. It would be only ** changed" in
regard to sensation, which is a thing immediately depend-
ent upon the particular and special senses of the human
body.

This is a truth to the reality of which the wandering
fancies of every human child bear ample witness; not to
speak of the dreams of those childlike tribes of the race,
who in our progressive insolence we are pleased to name
"uncivilized." The deeper we dig into the tissue of con-
vuluted impressions that make up our universe the more
vividly do we become aware that our only redemption from
sheer insanity lies in "knowing ourselves"; in other words,
in keeping a drastic and desperate hold upon what, in the
midst of ambiguity and treachery, we are definitely as-
sured of.

And the only thing we are definitely assured of, the only
thing which we really know "on the inner side," and with
the kind of knowledge which is unassailable, is the reality
of our soul. We know this with a vividness completely
different from the vividness of any other knowledge because
this is not what we feel or see or imagine or think but
what we are. And all feeling, all seeing, all imagining
and all thinking are only attributes, of this mysterious
"something" which is our integral self.

To the superficial judgment there is always something
weird and arbitrary about this belief in our own soul.
And this apparent weirdness arises from the fact that our
superficial judgments are the work of reason and sensation
arrogating to themselves the whole field of consciousness.

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260 THE COMPLEX VISION

Bat directly we bring to bear upon this mass of impres-
sions which is our "universe'' the full rhythmic play of
our complete identity this weirdness and arbitrariness
disappear and we realize that we are, not this thought or
this sensation or even this stream of thoughts and sensa-
tions, but the definite living '^ monad" which gives these
things their only link of continuity and permanence. And
it is better to accept experience, even though it refuses to
resolve itself into any rational unity, rather than to leave
experience in the distance and permit our reason to evolve
its desired unity out of its own rules and limitations.

We must readily admit that to take all the attributes of
personality and to make them adhere in the mysterious
substratum of the soul rather than in the little cells of the
brain, seems to the superficial judgment a weird and arbi-
trary act. But the more closely we think of what we are
doing when we make this assumption the more inevitable
does such an assumption appear.

We are driven by the necessity of the case to find some
''point," or at least some "gap" in thought and the sys-
tem of things, where mind and matter meet and are fused
vnth one another. Absolute consciousness does not hdp
us to explain the facts of experience; because "facing"
absolute consciousness, directly it isolates itself, we are
compelled to recognize the presence of "something else,"
which is the material or object of which absolute con-
sciousness is conscious.

And what we do when we assume the little* cells of the
physical brain to be the point in space or "the gap in
thought" where mind and matter meet and become one is
simply to place these two worlds in close juxtaposition and
then assert that they are one. But this placing them side
by side and asserting that they are one does not make
them one. They are just as far apart as ever. The cells
of the brain remain material and the phenomenon of con-

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THE ILLUSION OP DEAD MATTER 261

sciousness remams immaterial and they are still as remote
from one another and as '^nnfnsed" as if conscionsness
were ontside of time and space altogether.

It is only when we come to regard the '* fusion-point *' of
these two things as being itself a living and personal thing;
it is only when we come to regard the sabstratum of the
soul as a mysterious ''something" which is, at one and the
same time, both what we call ''mind" and what we call
"matter," that the difficulty I have described disappears.
For in this case we are dealing with something which, un-
like the little cells of the brain, is totally invisible and
totally beyond all scientific analysis; and yet with some-
thing which, because it is affected by bodily sensations
and because it is under the sway of time and space, cannot
be regarded as utterly outside the realm of material sub-
stance. We are in fact, in this case, dealing with some-
thing which we feel to be the integral and ultimate real-
ity of ourselves, as we certainly do not feel the little cells
of the brain to be ; and we are dealing with something that
is no mere stream of impressions, but is the concrete per-
manent reality which gives to all impressions, whether ma-
terial or immaterial, their unity and coherence. /

When once we are put into possession of this, when once
we come to recognize our invisible soul as the reality which
is our true self, it is found to be no longer ridiculous and
arbitrary to endow this soul with all those various at-
tributes, which, after all, are only various aspects of that
unique personality which is the personality of the soul.
To say "the soul has imagination," or "the soul has in-
stinct, " or " the soul has an aesthetic sense, ' ' has only a ridic-
ulous sound when under the pressure of the abysmal malice
which opposes itself to life we fall into the habits of per-
mitting those usurping accomplices, pure reason and pure
sensation, to destroy the rhythmic harmony of the complex
vision.

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262 THE COMPLEX VISION

When once we are in full possession of our own sold it is
no mere fanciful speculation but an inevitable act of faith
which compels us to envisage the universe as a thing
crowded with invisible souls, who in some degree or other
resemble our own. If this is ' ' anthropomorphism, ' ' though
strictly strictly speaking it ought to be called "pan-
p^chism/' then it is impossible for us to be too anthro-
morpfaic. For in this way we are doing the only philo-
sophical thing we have a right to do— namely, interpreting
the less known in the terms of the more known.

When we seek to interpret the soul, which we vi^dly
know, in terms of chemical or spiritual abstractions of
which we have no direct knowledge but which are merely
rationalized symbols, we are proceeding in an illegitimate
and unphilosophical manner to interpret the more known
in terms of the less known, which is in the true sense
ridiculous.

The only escape from that profound melancholy so easily
engulfed in sheer insanity, which is the result of submis-
sion to ''the illusion of dead matter," lies in this tenacious
hold upon the concrete identity of the soul. So closely
are we linked, by reason of the chemistry of our mortal
body, to every material-element; that it is only too easy
for us to merge our personal life by a perverted use of the
imagination in that phantom-world of supposedly ''dead
matter" which is the illusive projection of the abysmal
malice.

Thus just as the soul is driven by extreme physical pain
to relinquish its identity and to become "an incarnate sen-
sation," so the soul is driven by the power of malice to
relinquish its centrifugal force and to become the very
mud and slime and excremental debris which it has en-
dowed with an illusive souUessness.

The clue to the secret pathology of these moods, to whose
brink reason and sensation have led us and into whose

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THE ILLUSION OP DEAD MATTER 268

abyss perverted imagination has plunged ns, is therefore
to be found in the unfathomable duality of good and evil.
If it seems to the kind of mind that demands ''rational
unity'* at all costs, even at the cost of truth to experience,
that this duality cannot be left unreconciled, the answer
which the philosophy of the complex vision must make, is
that any reconciliation of such a sort, any reduction to
monistic unity of the eternal adversaries out of whose strug-
gle life itself springs, would bring life itself back to noth-
ingness.

The argument that because, in the eternal process of
destruction and creation, life or love or what we call ''the
good" depends for its activity upon death or malice or
what we call "evil," these opposites are one and the same,
is shown to be utterly false when one thinks of the analogy
of the struggle between the sexes. Because the activity
of the male depends upon the existence of the female, that
is no reason for concluding that the male and the female are
one and the same thing.

Because "good" becomes more "good" out of its conflict
with "evil," that does not mean that "good" is responsi-
ble for the existence of "evil"; any more than because
"evil" becomes more "evil" out of its conflict with
"good" does it mean that "evil" is responsible for the
existence of "good." Neither is responsible for the exist-
ence of the other. They are both positive and real and
th^ are both eternal. They are both unfathomable ele-
ments in every personal individual soul, whether of man
or plant or animal or god or demi-god that has ever
existed or will ever come to exist.

The prevalent idea that because good "in the long run"
and over vast spaces of time shows itself to be a little —
just a little — ^more powerful than evil, evil must be re-
garded as only a form of good or a necessary negation of
good is a fallacy derived from the illusion that life is the

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264 THE COMPLEX VISION

creation of a '* parent" of the nniverge whose nature is
absolutely ''good." Such a fallacy takes for granted that
somewhere and somehow ''Good" will finally triumph over
"evil."

The revelation of the complex vision destroys this fal-
lacy. Such a complete triumph of "good" over "evil"
would mean the end of eversrthing that exists because
everything that exists depends upon this abysmal struggle.
But for personalities who are able to recognize that the
mere fact of their being alive is already a considerable
victory of "good" over "evil," there is nothing over-
whelming in the thought that "good" can never com-
pletely overcome "eviL" It is enough that life has given
them life; and that in the perpetually renewed struggle
between love and malice they find at the rare moments
when love overcomes malice a flood of happiness which
brings with it "the sensation of eternity."

For such souls eternity is here and now; and no antici-
pated absolute triumph of the "good" in the world over
the "evil" can compare for a moment with the indescrib-
able happiness which this "sensation of eternity" brings.
It is this happiness, evoked by the rhythmic play of the
soul's apex-thought in its supreme hours, which alone,
even in memory, can destroy "the illusion of dead mat-
ter."

The pQTchological situation brought about by the fact
that this illusion is a perpetually recurrent one and a thing
that is always liable to return whenever reason and sensa-
tion are driven to isolate themselves i§ a situation a good
deal more complicated than I have so far indicated. It is
complicated by the fact that although in certain moods
the contemplation of "the illusion of dead matter" pro-
duces profound melancholy, in other moods it produces a
kind of demonic joy.

It seems as though the melancholy mood, which carried

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THU ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTEB 265

io an extreme limit borders on absolute despair, comes about
when the creative energy in our soul, although under the
momentary dominance of what resists creation, is still, so
to speak, the master of our will.

Under such circumstances the will, still resolutely turned
towards life, is confronted by what appears to be the very
embodiment of death. Under these conditions the will is
baffled, i>erplexed, defeated and outraged. It beats in vain
against the ''inert mass'' which malice has projected; and
feels itself powerless to overcome it. It then turns furi-
ously round upon the very substratum of the soul and
rends and tears at that, in a mad effort to reach the secret
of a phantom-world which seems to hold no secret. If
some sort of relief does not come, such relief for instance
as physical sleep, the inert misery of the submission of the
will, following upon such a desperate struggle, may easily
drift into a deadly apathy, may easily approach the borders
of insanity.

But there is another condition under which the soul may
confront ''the iUusion of dead matter.'' This condition
comes about when the will, instead of being turned towards
creation, is definitely turned towards the opposite of crea-
tion. It is impossible for the will to remain in this con-
dition for more than a limited time. Some outward or in-
ward shock, some drastic swing of the psychic pendulum,
must sooner or later restore the balance and bring the will
back to that wavering and indecisive state — ^poised like the
point of a compass between the two extremes — ^which seems
to be its normal attitude.

Any human will unchangeably directed towards "the
good" would be the will of a soul that in its inherent
depths were already "absolutely good"; and this, as we
have seen, is an impossible phenomenon. The utmost
reach of "wickedness" that any soul, whether it be the
soul of a man or of a god, can attain to, is a recurrent

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266 THE COMPLEX VISION

c(mcentration of the will upon evil and a recurrent over-
coming, for rdatively increasing spaces of time, of the
power of love. This incomplete and constantly inter-
rupted concentration upon evil is the nearest approach to
''the worship of Satan'' which any will is able to reach.
The exquisite pleasure, therefore, culminating in a kind of
insane ecstasy, which the soul can enjoy when, in the
passion of its evil will, it leaps to welcome ''the illusion of
dead matter," is a pleasure that in the nature of things
cannot last. And the condition of inert malignant apathy
which follows such an "ecstasy of evil" is perhaps the
nearest approach to a consciousness of "eternal death"
which the soul can know.

And it is in this malignant apathy, rather than in the
demonic exultation of the mood that preceded it, that the
extreme opposite of love finds its culmination. For in its
hour of demonic exultation, when the will to evil buries
itself with insane joy in "the illusion of dead matter," it
is drawing savagely upon the energy of life. It corrupts
such energy as it draws upon it and distorts it from its
natural functions; but the energy itself, although "pos-
sessed" by the abysmal malice, is living and intense; and
therefore cannot be regarded as so entirely the opposite
of love as that inert condition of malignant lifdessness
which inevitably succeeds it.

The demonic ecstasy, full of invincible magnetism, which
looks forth from the countenance of a soul obsessed with
evil, has much more in common with the magnetic exulta-
tion of a soul possessed with love than has that ghastly
inertness, with its insane malignant attraction to death.
For out of the countenance of this latter looks forth every-
thing that is hostile to life; and its expression has in it
the obscene cunning, mixed with frozen despair^ of a
corpse which has become utterly dehumanized.

It is frequently a matter of surprise to minds whose

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THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 267

view of what is ''good" has excluded the concept of energy
that i)ersons obviously under the obsession of ''evil" are
able to display such immense reserves of inexhaustible
power. But this surprise disappears when it is realized
that such "worshippers of Satan" are drawing upon the
creative energy and corrupting it, in the process of draw-
ing upon it, by the malignant power which resists creation.

The "illusion of dead matter" conceived as we have
conceived it, as a thing made up of unconscious chemical
elements, is after all only one aspect of the phantom-world
of illusive souUessness which the abysmal malice delights
to project. It is only to particular sensitive natures that
this peculiar "despair of the inanimate" takes the form of
mud or sand or refuse or water or dead planetary bodies
or empty space.

To other natures it may take the form of those innumer-
able off-shoots of economic necessity, which are not them-
selves necessary either to human life or human welfare but
which are the arbitrary creations of economic avarice di-
vorced from necessity and indulged in out of an inert hatred
of what is beautiful and real Any labour, whether mental
or physical, which directly satisfies the economic needs of
humanity carries with it the unfathomable thrill of creative
happiness. But when we come to consider those innumer-
able forms of financial and commercial enterprise which
in no way satisfy human needs but exist only for the sake
of exploitation we find ourselves confronted by a weight
of unreal soulless hideousness which by reason of the fact
that it is deliberately protected by organized society is
a more devastating example of "the thing which is in the
way" than any amount of mud and litter and refuse and
excremental debris. For this unproductive commercial-
ism, this "unreal reality" projected by the malignant
power whicK resists creation, is not only an obscene outrage
to the aesthetic sense; it is actually an assassination of

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268 THE COMPLEX VISION

life, "When, therefore, a philosopher who uses the com-
plex vision of the soul as his organ of research is asked
the question, ''where are we to look for the type of human
being most entirely evil?" the answer which he is com-
pelled to give is not a little surprising to many minds.

For there are many minds whose physiological timidity
corrupts their judgment, and who lack the clairvoyance to
unmask with infallible certainty that look of sneering
apathy which is the pure expression of malice. And to
such minds some wretched devil of a criminal, driven to
crime by an insane perversion of the creative instinct —
for creation and destruction are not the true opposites —
might easily seem the ultimate embodiment of evil.

Whereas the particular type of human being from whom
the philosopher of the complex vision would draw his stand-
ard of evil would be a type very different from any per-
verted type even from those whose mania might take the
form of erotic cruelty. It would be a type whose recur-
rent ''evil" would take the form of a sneering and ma-
lignant inertness, the form of a cold and sarcastic dis-
paragement of all intense feeling. It would be a type
entirely obsessed by "the illusion of dead matter"; not
80 much the "illusion of dead matter" where Nature is con-
cerned, but where the economic struggle has resulted in
some unnecessary and purely commercial activity, alto-
gether divorced from the basic necessities of human life.
A person of this type would, in his evil moods, be more
completely dominated by a malignant resistance to every
movement of the creative spirit than any other type, unless
it were perhaps one whom the heavy brutality of "official-
dom" had blunted into inhuman cidlousness.

Compared with persons such as these, by whom no actual
positive "wickedness" may have ever been perpetrated,
the confessed criminal or the acknowledged pervert re-
mains far less committed to the depths of eviL For in

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THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTEB

persons who have habitnaUy lent themselves to ''the illu-
sion of dead matter,'* whether in regard to Nature or in
regard to commercial or financial exploitation, there oc-
curs a kind of ''death-in-life'' which gives the sneering
malignity of the abyss its supreme opportunity; whereas-
in the souls of those who have committed "crimes," or have
been guilty of passionate cruelty, there may easily remain
a vivid and sensitive response to some form of reality or
beauty, or self -annihilating love.

For "the illusion of dead matter" is the most formi-
dable expression of evil which we know; and it can only
be destroyed by the magic of that creative spirit whose
true "opposite" is not hatred or cruelty or violence or de-
struction^ but the motiveless power of a deadly obscurant-
ism.

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CHAPTER Xn

PAIN AND PLEASURE

Since neither pleasure nor pain can be experienced with-
out consciousness; and since consciousness finds its sub-
stratum not in the body but in the soul ; we are driven to
the conclusion that what we call the capacity of the body
for pleasure and pain is really the capacity of the soul
for pleasure and pain. But the capacity of the soul for
pleasure and pain is not confined to its functioning through
the body. Sensation, that is to say, the use of the bodily
senses, gives the soul one particular form of pain and one
particular form of pleasure; but that the soul possesses
other forms of pleasure and pain independently of the body
is proved by the psychological fact that intense bodily pain
is sometimes accompanied by intense spiritual pleasure
and intense bodily pleasure is sometimes accompanied by
intense spiritual pain.

What is called "the pursuit of pleasure," that rational-
istic abstraction from our real psychological experience,
that abstraction which has been made the basis of the false
philosophy called "hedonism," cannot stand for a mo-
ment against the revelation of the complex vision. Under
certain rare and morbid conditions, when reason and sen-
sation, in their conspiracy of assassination, have usurped
for a while the whole field of consciousness, such a "pur-
suit of pleasure" may become a dominant motive. But
even under these conditions there often comes a shifting
of the stage according to which the pleasure-seeker, sick
to death of pleasure, deliberately "pursues" pain.

If it be said that this change is no real change because

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PAIN AND PLBASUEB 271

what is then pursued is the pleasure of "contrast" or even
''the pleasure of pain/' the retort to such reasoning can
onlj be that in this case the whole hedonistic theory has
been given up; for what is really then ''pursued" Is
neither pleasure nor pain but the sensation of novelty or
the sensation of new experience.

Pleasure and pain are emotionalized sensations accom-
panying various physical and mental states. The psycho-
logical truth about their "pursuit" is simply that we "pur-
sue" certain objects or conditions because of their imme-
diate attractiveness or "attractive terribleness," and that
the accompanying pleasure becomes first a kind of orches-
tral background to our pursuit; and then, later, becomes,
by the action of the law of association, part and parcel of
the thing's attractiveness or "attractive terribleness."
Thus what jreally occurs is precisely opposite to the hedon-
ist 's contention. For the thing "pursued" swallows up
and appropriates to itself the pleasure and pain of the
pursuit; and, by the law of association, becomes more
vividly, even than at the start the motive force which lures
us.

The most ghastly, the most obscene, the most intolerable
thing in the world is when the pain of pure sensation, the
pain of the body, is accentuated to such a pitch of atrocious
suifering that the other attributes of the soul are annihi-
lated; and the humanity of the person thus suffering is
temporarily destroyed; so that what "lives" at such a
moment is not a person at all but an incarnate pain.

That this ultimate ghastliness, this dehumanization by
pain, can only occur where the aboriginal malice of the
soul has previously weakened the soul's independent life,
is proved by the fact that the most atrocious tortures have
been successfully endured, even unto the point of death, by
such as have been martyrs for an idea. And the reason
of this endurance, the reason why, in the case of such mar-

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272 THE COMPLEX VISION

tyrizing, the victim has been able to resist dehomaniza-
tion is found in the fact that the soul's creative energy
or the power of love has been so great that it has been able
to assert its independence of bodily torment, even to the
last moment of human identity.

Since pain and pleasure, although so often the direqt
evocation of the soul's attribute of bodily sensation, are al-
ways composed of the primordial ''stuff" of emotion; and
since emotion is a projection of the soul independently of
the body, it is natural that the soul should, in the reverse
manner, colour its emotion with the memory of sensation.
Thus it follows that although it is possible for the soul,
when its emotional feeling is outraged or excited, to ex-
I>erience pain or pleasure apart from sensation, there is
usually present in such an emotional pa^ or pleasure a
residual element of sensation ; for the soul is not a thing
which simply ''possesses'' certain functions; but a thing
which is present in some degree or other in all its various
aspects of energy.

What we call "memory" is nothing more than the plastic
consciousness of personal identity and continuity. And
when once the pain or pleasure of a bodily sensation has
been lodged in the soul, that pain or pleasure becomes an
integral portion of the soul's life, to be worked upon and
appropriated for good or evil by the soul's intrinsic dual-
ity. /

Thus although the creative energy in the soul, emerging
from fathomless abysses, can enable the soul to endure
until death the most infernal torments, the fact remains
that since the attribute of sensation, which depends en-
tirely upon the existence of the bodily senses, is one of the
soul's basic attributes and has its ground in the very sub-
stratum of the soul, the sensations of pain and pleasure
whether coloured by emotion and imagination or left

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PAIN AND PLBASUEB 273

''pure'' in the dear element of conscionsneBSy are sensa-
tions from which the sonl cannot escape.

From this we are forced to conclude that to affirm that
the soul can remain wholly untouched and unaffected by
bodily pain or pleasure is ridiculous. Bodily pain and
pleasure are the soul's i>ain and pleasure; because the
attribute of sensation, through which the bodily senses feed
the soul, is not the body's attribute of sensation but the
soul's attribute of sensation.

To say, therefore, that the soul can ''conquer" the body
or be ''indifferent" to the body is as ridiculous as to say
that the body can "conquer" the soul or be "indifferent"
to the soul. The fact that the attribute of sensation is a
basic attribute of the soul and that the attribute of sensa-
tion is dependent upon the bodily senses must inevitably
imply that the pressure or imjmct of the bodily senses de-
scend to the profoundest depths of the soul.

The thing that "conquers" pain in the invincible mar-
tyr is love, or "the energy of creation," in the soul. The
abysmal struggle is not between the soul and the body or
between the flesh and the spirit, but between the power
of life and love, in the body and the soul together, and the
power of death or malice, in the body and the soul to-
gether.

What we are compelled to assume with regard to those
"sons of the universe," whose existence affords a basis for
the objectivity of the "ultimate ideas," is that, with them,
what I have called "the eternal idea of the body" takes
the place in their complex vision of our actual physical
body. Their complex vision must be regarded, if our
philosophy is to remain boldly and shamelessly anthropo-
morphic, as possessing, even as our own, the basic attribute
of sensation.

But since their essential invisibility, and consequent upon

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274 THE COMPLEX VISION

tliis their ubiquity under the dominant categories of time
and place, precludes any i>os8ibility of their incarnation,
we are compelled to postulate that their complex vision's
attribute of sensation, in the absence of any bodily senses,
finds its contact with ''the objective mystery" and with
the objective ** universe" in some definite and permanent
''intermediary" which serves in their case the same primal
necessity as is served in our case by the human body.

If no such 'Mntermediary" existed for them, we should
be compelled to relinquish the idea that they possessed a
complex vision at all, for not only the attribute of sensa-
tion, but the attrluate of emotion also, demands for its ac-
tivity something that shall represent the human body and
occupy in their objective "universe" the place occupied
by our physical bodies in our "universe."

As we have already shown, this primary demand for tiie
"eternalizing of fiesh and blood" is a demand which springs
from the prof oundest depths of the soul, for it is a demand
which springs from the creative energy itsdf, the eternal
protagonist in the world-drama. We must conclude, there-
fore, that although these super-human children of Nature
cannot in the ordinary sense incarnate themselves in flesh
and blood they can and do appropriate to themselves out
of the surrounding body of the ether, and out of the body
of any other living thing they approach, a certain attenu-
ated essence of flesh and blood which, though invisible to us,
supplies with them the place of our human body. This,
therefore, is the "intermediary" which, in the "invisible
companions" of our planetary struggle, occupies the place
which is occupied by the physical dement in our human
life. And this is evoked by nothing less than that "eternal
idea of the^body," or "that eternal idea of flesh and
blood," which the creative energy of love demands. A
very curious and interesting possibility follows from this
assumption ; namely, that by a process which might be called

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PAIN AND PLBASUEB 275

a process of ''spiritual yampirizing" the same creative
XMiflsion which demands satisfaction in the eternalizing of
"the idea of the body'^ actually suffers, by means of its
Tivid sympathy with living bodies, the very pains and
ideasures through which these bodies pass.

The possibility that ''the invisible companions," or in
more traditional language that the "immortal gods,"
should be driven by the passion of their creative love, to
suffer vicarious pain and pleasure through the living bod-
ies of all organic existences, is a possibility that derives a
certain support from two considerations, both of which are
drawn directly fr6m human experiences. It is certainly
a matter of common human experience to be conscious, for
good and for evil, of a kind of obsession of one's body by
some sort of spiritual power. We may regard these mo-
ments of obsession, with their consequent exhilaration or
profound gloom, as due purely to the activity of our own
soul; and doubtless very often this is the explanation of
them. But it is conceivable also that such obsessions are
aetually due to the presence near us and around us of the
"high immortal ones."

That when 'we experience this "spiritual vampirizing"
of our mortal bodies by immortal companions, such an
obsession is not necessarily "for good," is a thing inevi-
tably implied in our primary conception of personality.
For although a purely demcmic personality is an impossi-
bility, owing to the fact that personality is, in itself, an
achieved triumph over evil, it must still remain true that
the eternal duality of creation and "what resists creation"
must find an arena in the soul of an "immortal" even as
it finds an arena in the soul of a "mortal"

Therefore we are driven to regard it as no fantastic
■peculation but as only too reasonable a possibility, that
when a i^ysical depression takes i>osses8ion of us it is due
to this "spiritual vampirizing," in an evil sense, by the

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276 THE COMPLEX YISION

power of some immortal whose '^malice'' at that particular
moment has overcome **love/' But just as the power of
physical pain may be dominated and overcome by the
energy of love arising from the depths of our own soul,
so this vampirisdng by the malice of an '^ invisible com-
panion," may be dominated and overcome by the energy
of love from the depths of our own soul.

It may indeed be regarded as certain that it is when the
malice in our own soul is in the ascendant, rather than the
love, that we fall victims to this kind of obsession. For
evil eternally attracts evil; acd it is no wild nor erratic
fancy to maintain that the malice in the human soul nat-
urally draws to itself by an inevitable and tragic reci-
procity the malice in the souls of the '' immortal compan-
ions."

The second consideration derived from human expe-
rience which supports this view of the vicarious i)ain and
pleasure experienced by the gods through the bodies of
all organic entities is the psychological fact of our own
attitude towards plants and animals. Any sensitive per-
son among us will not hesitate to admit that in watching
animals suffer, he has suffered wUh such animals; or again,
that in watching a branch torn from its trunk, leaving an
open wound out of which the sap oozes, he has suffered with
the suffering of the tree. And just as the phenomenon of
bodily obsession by some immortal god may be either ''for
good" or ''for evil" as our own soul dictates^ so the i^ym-
pathy which we feel for plants and animals may be either
"for good" or "for evil."

And this also applies to the relation between these bodi-
less "immortals" and the bodies of all organic planetary
life. According to the revelation of the complex vision,
with its emphasis upon the ultimate duality as the supreme
secret of life, both pain and pleasure are instruments, in

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PAIN AND PLBASURB 277

the hands of love, for rousing the soul out of that sleep of
death or semi-death which is the abysmal enemy.

The philosophies which oppose pain to pleasure, and
insist upon the *'good*' of pain and the ''evil" of pleas-
ure, are no less misleading than the philosophies which
oppose flesh to spirit, or matter to mind, calling the one
"good'* and the other "evil/' Such philosophies have
permitted that basic attribute of the complex vision which
we call conscience to usurp the place occupied, in the total
rhythm, by imagination ; with the result of a complete falsi-
fying of the essential values.

In a question of such deadly import as this, we have,
more than ever, to make our appeal to those rare mon^ents
of illumination which we have attained when the rhythmic
intensity of the arrow-point of thought was most concen-
trated and piercing. And the testimony of the^ moments
is given with no uncertain sound. In the great hours of
our life, and I think all human experiences justify this
statement, both pain and pleasure are transcended and flung
into a subordinate and irrelevant place. Something which
it is very difficult to describe, a kind of emotion which
resembles happiness, flows through us; so that pain and
pleasure seem to come and go almost unremarked, like dark
and light shadows flung upon some tremendous water-fall.

What we are compelled to recognize, therefore, is that
pain and pleasure are both instruments of the creative
power of life. They only become evil or are used for pur-
poses of evil, when, by reason of some fatal weakening in
the other attributes of the soul, the purely sensational
element in them dominates the emotional and they become
something most horribly like living entities — entities with
bodies composed of the vibrations of torment and souls
composed of the substance of torment — ^and succeed in an-
nihilating the very features of humanity.

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278 THE COMPLEX VISION

Pain and pleasure are not identical with the nnf athom-
able duality which descends into the abjss; for pain and
pleasure are definitely and quite unmistakenly fathomable;
though, as the gods know well, few enough of the sons of
mortals reach the limit of them. They are fathomable;
for carried to a certain pitch of intensity they end in
ecstasy or they end in death. They are fathomable; for
even in the souls of ''the immortals" they are only instru-
ments of life warring against death. They are fathom-
able; because they have one identical root; and this root
is the ecstasy of the rhythm of the complex vision which
transcends and surpasses them both.

The hideous symbol of ''hell" is the creation of the false
philosophy which makes the eternal duality resolve itself
into fl^ and spirit or into soul and body. The power of
love renders this symbol meaningless and abortive; for
personality is the supreme victory of life over what reosts
life; and consequently where personality exists "hell"
cannot exist; for personality is the scope and boundary
of all we know. The gymbol of "Satan" also is rendered
meaningless by the phUosophy of the complex vision; un-
less such a symbol is used to express those appalling mo-
ments when the evil in the soul attracts to itself and aaK>-
ciates with itself the evil in the soul of some immortal god«

But just as no mortal can be more evil than good» so
also no immortal can be more evil than good, that is to say
intrinsically and over a vast space of time. Momentarily
and for a limited space of time it is obvious that the hu-
man soul can be more evil than good ; and by a reasonable
analogy it is only too probable that the same thing applies
to the invisible sons of the universe. But the philosophy
of the complex vision has no place for devils or demons in
its world; for the simple reason that at the very moment
any soul did become intrinsically and unchangeably evil,
at that same moment it would vanish into nothingness, since

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PAIN AND PLEASURE 279

existence is the product of the straggle between good and
evil.

If any sotil, whether mortal or immortal, became entirely
and absolutely good, it would instantaneously vanish into
nothingness. For the life of no kind of living soul is
thinkable or conceivable apart from the unfathomable
duality. The false philosophy which finds its ideal in an
imaginary ** parent" of the universe whose goodness is
absolute is a philosophy conceived under the furtive influ-
ence of the power of evil. For the essence of the power
of evil is opposition to the movement of life ; and no false
ideal has ever done so much injury to the free expansion
of life as has been done by this conception of a ''parent"
of the universe who is a spirit of "absolute goodness."

It is entirely in accordance with the unfathomable cun-
ning of the x>ower of malice that the supreme historic ol>-
stacle to the power of love in the human soul should be this
conception of a ''parent" of the universe, possessed of
absolute goodness. In the deepest and most subtle way
does this conception oppose itself to the creative energy
of love. The creative energy of love demands an inde-
termined and malleable future. It demands an enemy
with which to struggle. It demands the freedom of the
individual will. Directly that ancient and treacherous
phantom, the "inscrutable mystery" behind the "uni-
verse," is allowed to become an object of thought; directly
this mystery is allowed to take the shape of a "parent of
things" who is to be regarded as "absolutely good," then,
at that very moment, the eternal duality ceases to be "eter-
nal" and ceases to be a "duality."

Qood and evil become the manifestations of the same
inscrutable power. Love and malice become interchange-
able names of little meaning. Satan becomes as significant
a figure as Christ. All distinctions are then blurred and
blotted out. The aesthetic sense is made of no account; or

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280 THE COMPLEX VISION

becomes a matter of accidental fancy. Imagination is left
with nothing to work upon. The rhythm of the C(»nplex
vision is broken to pieces. All is permitted. Nothing is
forbidden. The universe is reduced to an indiscriminate
and formless mass of excremental substance. Indiscrimi-
nately we have to swallow the ''universe" or indiscrimi*
natdy we have to let the ** universe*' alone. There is no
longer a protagonist in the great drama, for there is no
longer an antagonist. Indeed there is no longer any
drama. Tragedy is at an end; and Comedy is at an end.
All is equal. Nothing matters. Everything is at once
good and evil, beautiful and hideous, true and false. Or
rather nothing is beautiful, nothing is true. The ''par-
ent of the universe" has satisfied his absolute "goodness''
by swallowing up the universe;. and there is nothing left
for the miserable company of mortal souls to do but to bow
their resigned heads and cry "Om! Om!" out of the
belly of that unutterable "universal," which by becoming
"everything" has become nothing.

This conception of a universal being of "absolute good-
ness" looms like a colossal corpse in front of all living
movement. If instead of "absolute goodness" we say
"absolute love," the falseness and deadliness of this con-
ception appears even more unmistakable. For love is the
prerogative of personality alone. Ajmrt from personality
we cannot conceive of love. And we cannot conceive of
personality without the struggle between love and malice.
"Absolute love" is a contradiction in terms; for it is the
nature of love to be perpetually overcoming malignant
opposition; and, in this overcoming, to be perpetually ap-
proximating to a far-off ideal which can never be com-
pletely reached.

Devils and demons, or elemental entities of unredeemed
evil, are unreal enough ; and in their unreality dangerous
enough to the creative spirit; but tar more unreal and

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PAIN AND PLEASUEB 281

far more dangerous than any devil, is this conception of
an absolute being whose ''goodness'' is of so spnrioos a
nature that it obliterates all distinction. This conception
of ''a parent of the universe" who is responsible for the
** eternal duality," but in whom the ''eternal duality" is
reconciled, blots out all hope for mortal or immortal souls.
Between the soul of a man and the soul of an immortal
god, as for instance between the soul of a man and the
soul of Christ, there may be passionate and enduring love.
But between the soul of a man, in whom love is desperately
struggling with malice, and this monstrous being in whom
love and malice have arrived at some unthinkable recon-
ciliation, there can be no love. There can be nothing but
indignant unbelief alternating with profound aversion.
Towards any being in whose nature love has been recon-
ciled to malice, the true to the false, the beautiful to the
hideous, the good to the evil, there can be no alternative
to unbelief, except unmitigated hostility.

It is especially in connection with the atrocious cruelty
of physical pain that our conscience and our tastes — ^un-
less perverted by some premature metaphysical c^oithesis
or by some morbid religious emotion — ^reluct at the con-
ception of a "parent" of the universe. Personal love,
since it is continually being roused to activity by pain
and is continually being expressed through pain and in
spite of pain, has come to find in pain, perhaps even more
than in pleasure, its natural accomplice. Through the ra-
diant well-being which results from pleasure, love pours
forth its influence with a sun-like sweetness and profusion.
But from the profound depths of pain, love rises like si-
lence out of a deep sea ; and no path of moonlight upon any
ocean reaches so far an horizon.

And it is because of this intimate association of love with
pain that it is found to be impossible to bve any living
being who has not experienced pain. Pain can be entirely

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282 THE COMPLEX VISION

sensational; and in this case it needs a very passion of
love to prevent it becoming obscene and humiliating. But
it also can be entirely emotional; in which case it results
directly from the struggle of malice with love. When
pain is a matter of sensation or of sensationalized emotion,
it depends for its existence upon the body. But when
pain is entirely emotional it is independent of the body and
is a condition of the soul.

As a condition of the soul pain is inevitably associated
with the struggle between love and malice. For in pro-
portion as love overcomes malice, pain ceases, and in pro-
portion as malice overcomes love, pain ceases. A human
being entirely free from emotional pain is a human being
in whom love has for the moment completely triumphed;
or a human being in whom malice has for the moment
completely triumphed. There is an exultation of love
which fills the soul with irresistible magnetic power, so that
it can redeem the universe. There is also an exultation of
malice which fills the soul with irresistible magnetic power,
so that it can corrupt the universe. In both these extreme
cases — and they are cases of no unfrequent occurrence in
all deep souls — emotional pain ceases to exist.

Emotional pain is the normal condition of the human
soul; because the normal condition of the human soul is
a wavering and uncertain struggle between love and mal-
ice; but although love may overcome malice, or malice
may overcome love, with relative completeness, they neither
of them can overcome the other with absolute completeness.
There must always remain in the depths of the soul a liv-
ing potentiality; which is the love or the malice which has
been for the moment relatively overcome by its opposite.
And just as pain can be both emotional and sensational
so pleasure can be both emotional and sensational. Pleas-
ure, like pain, can be a thing of bodily sensation alone; in
which case it tends to become a thing of degrading and

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PAIN AND PLEASURE 283

humiliating reality. A human entity entirely obsessed by
physical pleasure is a revolting and obscene spectacle.
Even with animals it is only when their sensation of pleas-
ure is in some degree emotionalized that we can endure
to contemplate it with sympathy.

The soul of an animal is capable of being 'Me-animal-
ized'' in just as horrible a way by a pure sensation as the
soul of a man is capable of being '' de-humanized" by a
pure sensation. The sexual sensation of pleasure carried
to the extreme limit "de-animalizes" animals as it "de-
humanizes" human beings; because it drowns the conscious-
ness of personality. There is an ecstasy when personality
loses itself and finds itself again in a deeper personality.
There is also an ecstasy where personality loses itself in
pure sensation. In the region of sexual sensation, just
as in the region of sexual emotion, it is love alone which is
able to hold fast to personality in the midst of ecstasy; or
which is able to merge personality in a deeper personality.

It is because of love's intimate association with pain that
we are unable, except under the morbid pressure of some
metaphysical or religious illusion, to regard the imaginary
** parent of the universe" with anything but hostility.
Both pain and pleasure are associated with the unfathom-
able duality. And although the unfathomable duality de-
scends into abysses beyond the reach of both of these, yet
we cannot conceive of either of them existing apart from
this struggle. ;

But there can be no duality, as there can be no struggle,
in the soul of a being in whom love has absolutely over-
come malice. Therefore in such a soul there can be no
pain. And for a soul incapable of feeling pain we can feel
no love. It is of course obvious that this whole problem
is an imaginary one. We are not really confronted with
the alternative of loving or hating the unruf9ed soul of this
absolute one. And we are not confronted with this prob-

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284 THE COMPLEX VISION

lem for the simple reason that such a soul does not exist
And it does not exist because every soul, together with
the ''universe" created by every soul, depends for its
existence upon this ultimate struggle.

It is from a consideration of the nature of pain and pleas-
ure that we attain the clue to the ultimate duality. Pain
and pleasure are conditions of the soul; conditions which
have a definite and quite fathomable limit. Malice and
love are conditions of the soul; conditions which have no
definite limit, but which descend into unfathomable depths.
Extremity of malice sinks down to an abyss where pain
and pleasure are lost and merged in one another. Ex-
tremity of love sinks down to an abyss where pain and
pleasure are lost and merged in one another. But just as,
apart from the individual soul which is their possessor,
pain and pleasure have no existence at all ; so, apart from
the individual soul which is the arena of their struggle,
malice and love have no existence at all. Because we speak
of pain and pleasure as if they were ''things in them-
selves" and of malice and love as if they were "things in
themselves" this can never mean more than that they
are eternal conditions of the soul which is their habitation.

Apart from a personal soul, "love" has no meaning and
cannot be said to exist. Apart from a personal sotd,
"life" has no meaning and cannot be said to exist. There
is no such thing as the "love-force" or the "life-force,"
any more than there is such a thing as the "malice-force"
or the "death-force," apart from some personal soul. The
"life-force" is a condition of the soul which carried to
an extreme limit results in ecstasy. The "death force"
is a condition of the soul which carried to an extreme limit
results in ecstasy. Beyond these two ecstasies there is
nothing but total annihilation; which would simply mean
that the soul had become absolutely "good" or absolutely
"evil."

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PAIN AND PLEASXJBE 285

"What we call the ''death force" in the soul does not
Imply real death, until it has reached a limit beyond
ecstasy. It implies a malignant resistance to life which
may be carried to a i)oint of indescribable exultation. As
I have already hinted there is a profound association be-
tween the duality of love and malice and the duality of
pain and pleasure. But it would be false to our deepest
experience to say that love implies pleasure and that
malice implies pain. As a matter of fact, they both imply
a thrilling and ecstatic pleasure, in proportion as the
equilibrium between them, the balance of the wavering
struggle between them, is interrupted by the relative vic-
tory of either the one or the other.

The relative victory of malice or of the "death-force"
over love or over the '* life-force" is attended by exquisite
and poignant pleasure, a pleasure which culminates in un-
utterable ecstasy. The shallow ethioal thinker who re-
gard ''evil" as a negation are obviously thinkers whose
consciousness has never penetrated into the depths of their
own souls. Pain and pleasure for such thinkers must be
entirely sensationalized. They cannot have experienced, to
any profound depth, the kind of pain and pleasure which
are purely emotional.

The condition of the soul which gives itself up to the
"death force" or to the malignant power which resists
creation may be sometimes a condition of thrilling and
exultant pleasure. As we have already indicated, the
normal condition of the soul, wavering and hesitating be-
tween good and evil, is liable to be dianged into a profound
melancholy, when it is confronted by the "illusion of dead
matter." But, as we have also discovered, if, in the soul
thus contemplating the "illusion of dead matter," evil
is more i>otent than good, there may be a thrilling and
exquisite pleasure.

The "death-force" in our own soul leaps in exultation

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28G THE COMPLEX VISION

to welcome the ''death illusion" in material objects. Upon
this illusion, which it has itself projected, it rejoices to
feed. There is a ''sweet pain" in the melancholy it thus
evokes; a "sweet pain" that is more delicate than any
pleasure; and it is a mistake to assume that even the in-
sanity which this aberration may result in is necessarily
an insanity of disti^ss. It may be an insanity of ecsta^.
AU this is profoundly associated with the aesthetic sense ;
and we may note that the diabolical exultation with which
many great artists and writers fling themselves upon the
obscene, the atrocious, the cruel and the abominable, and
derive exquisite pleasure from representing these things
is not an example of the love in them overcoming the mal-
ice but an example of the "death-force" in them leaping
to respond to the death-force in the universe.

It is just here that we touch one of the profoundest
secrets of the aesthetic sense. I refer to that condition of
the soul when the creative energy which is life and love,
suffers an insidious corruption by the power which resists
creation and which is malice and death. This psycholog-
ical secret, although assuming an aesthetic form, is closely
associated with the sexual instinct.

The sexual instinct, which is primarily creative, may
easily, by the insidious corruption of the i>ower which
resists creation, become a vampirizing force of destruction.
It may indeed become something worse than destruction.
It may become an abysmal and unutterable "death-in-
life." That voluptuous "pleasure in cruelty" which is
an intrinsic element of the sexual instinct may attach itself
to "the pleasure in death" which is the intrinsic emotion
of the aboriginal inert malice; or rather fhe "pleasure in
death" of the adversary of creation may insidiously asso-
ciate itself with the "pleasure in cruelty" of the sexual
instinct and make of "this energy of cruelty" a new and
terrible emotion which is at once cruel and inert.

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PAIN AND PLEASURE 287

All this were mere fantastic speculation if it lacked touch
with direct experience. But direct experience, if we have
any psycho-clairvoyance at all, bears unmistakable wit-
ness to what I have been saying. If one glances at the
expression in the countenance of any human soul who is
deriving pleasure from the spectacle of suffering and who,
under the pressure of this queer fusion of the aesthetic
sense with the abysmal malice, is engaged in vampirizing
the victim of such suffering one will observe a very curious
and very illuminating series of revelations.

One will observe, for instance, the presence of demonic
energy and of magnetic dominance in such a countenance ;
but parallel with this and simultaneously with this, one
will observe an expression of unutterable sadness, a sad-
ness which is inert and death-like, a sadness which has the
soulless rigidity and the frozen immobility of a corpse.
We are thus justified, by an impression of direct expe-
rience, in our contention that the peculiar pleasure which
many artists derive from the contemplation of suffering
and from the contemplation of what is atrocious, obscene,
monstrous and revolting, is the result of a corruption of
both the sexual instinct and the aesthetic sense by the
abysmal malice.

For the pleasure which such souls derive from the con-
templation of suffering is identical with the pleasure they
derive from contemplating the ** illusion of dead matter."
Philosophers who give themselves up to the profoundest
pessimism do not do so, as a rule, under the influence of
love. The only exceptions to this are rare cases when pre-
occupation with suffering does not spring from a furtive
enjoyment of the spectacle of suffering but from an in-
curable pity for the victims of suffering. Such exceptions
are far more rare than is usually supposed, because the
self -preservative hypocrisy of most pessimists enables them
to conceal their voluptuousness under the mask of pity.

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288 THE COMPLEX VISION

Nor must we hide from ourselves the fact that even pity,
which iu its pure form is the very incarnation of love,
has a perverted form in which it lends itself to every kind
of subterranean cruelty. Our psychological insight does
not amount to very much if it does not recognize that
there is a form of pity which enhances the pleasure of
cruelty. There may indeed be discovered, when we dig
deep enough into the abysses of the soul, an aspect of pity
which thrills us with a most delicate sensation of tender-
ness and yet which remains an aspect of pity by no means
incompatible with the fact that we continue the process of
causing pain to the object of such tenderness.

Of all human emotions the emotion of pity is capable of
the most divergent subtleties. The only kind of pity which
is entirely free from the ambiguous element of "pleasure
in cruelty '^ is the pity which is only another name for
love, when love is confronted by suflPering. There is such,
a thing as a suppressed envy of ''the pleasure of cruelty''
manifested in the form of moral indignation against the
perpetrator of such cruelty.

Such moral indignation, with its secret impulse of sup-
pressed unconscious jealousy, is a very frequent phe-
nomenon when any sexual element enters into the cruelty
in question. But the psychologist who has learnt his art
from the profoundest of all psychologists — I mean the
Christ of the gospels — is not deceived by this moral ges-
ture. He is able to detect the infinite yearning of the
satyr under the righteous fury of the moral avenger.

And he has an infallible test at hand by which to ascer-
tain whether the emotion he feels is pure or impure pity ;
whether in other words it is merely a process of delicate
vampirizing, or whether it is the creative sympathy of
love. And the test which he has at his disposal is nothing
less than his attitude towards the perpetrator of the par-
ticular cruelty under discussion. If his attitude is one

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PAIN AND PLBASUBB 289

of implacable revenge he may be sure that his pity is
something else than the emotion of love. If his attitude
is one which implies pity not only for the victim but also
for the victim's torturer — ^who without question has more
need for pity — ^then he may be sure that his attitude is an
attitude of genuine love.

The mood of implacable revenge need not necessarily im-
ply a suppressed jealousy or envy ; but it certainly implies
the presence of an element which has its origin in the
sinister side of the great duality. The pleasure which
certain minds derive from a contemplation of the ''dead-
ness of matter" is closely associated with the voluptuous-
ness of cruelty drawn from the recesses of the sexual in-
stinct. Such cruelty finds one of its most insidious incen-
tives in the phenomenon of humiliation ; and when the phi-
losopher contemplates the ''deadness of matter" with ex-
quisite satisfaction, the pleasure which he experiences, or
the ''sweet pain" which he experiences, is very closely con-
nected with the cruel idea of humiliating the pride of the
human soul.

The duality of pleasure and pain helps us to understand
the nature of the duality of good and evil, for it helps us
to realize that good and evil are not separate independent
existences; but are — ^like pleasure and pain — emotional con-
ditions of the soul. Thus when we say that the ultimate
duality of good and evil, or of creation and what resists
creation, is the thing upon which the whole universe de-
pends, we must not for a moment be supposed to mean
that the ultimate reality of the universe consists of two
opposed "forces" who, like blind chemical energies, strug-
gle with one another in unconscious darkness. ^

The ultimate reality of the universe is personality, or
rather, let us say, is the existence of an innumerable com-
pany of personal souls, visible and invisible, /each of whom
half -creates and half-discovers his own universe; each of

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290 THE COMPLEX VISION

whom finds, sooner or later, in the objective validity of the
'' eternal ideas," a universe which is common to them all.
The unfathomable duality ui>on which this objective world,
common to them all, depends for its existence is a duality
which exists in every separate soul. Without such a dual-
ity it is impossible to conceive any soul existing. And di-
rectly such a duality were resolved into unity such a soul
would cease to exist. But because, without the presence
of evil, good would cease to exist, we have no right to say
that evil is an aspect of good. We have no right to say this
because, if good is dependent for its existence ui>on evil,
it is equally true that evil is dependent for its existence
upon good. y

The whole question of ultimate issues is a purely specu-
lative one and one that does not touch the real situation.
The real situation, the real fact of our personal experience
— ^which is the only experience worth anything — ^lies un-
doubtedly in this impression of unfathomable duality. It
cannot be regarded as a reconciliation between love and
malice merely to recognize that love and malice are not
independent ''forces," such as can be compared to chem-
ical ''forces," but are states of the soul.

It is true that they both exist within the soul, just as
the soul exists within time and space ; but since the soul is
unfathomable these two conditions of the soul are also un-
fathomable. The struggle upon which the universe de-
X>ends is a struggle which goes on within the circle of per-
sonality; but since personality is unthinkable without this
struggle, it may truly be said that the existence of person-
ality "depends" upon the existence of this struggle.
When we speak of pain and pleasure as if they were in-
dependent entities we are forgetting that it is merely as
"states of the soul" that pain and pleasure exist. When
we speak of love and malice as independent entities we
are forgetting that it is merely as "states of the soul" that

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PAIN AND PLEASURE 291

lave and malice exist. Love and malice, the life-force and
the deatfa^force, these are merely abstractions when sep-
arated from the sonl which is their arena.

It is certainly not in harmony with the revelation of
the complex vision to seek to imagine some vague ''begin-
ning of things"; when some inscrutable chemical or spirit-
ual "energy," called "life," rushed into objective exist-
ence and proceeded to create living personalities through
which it might be able to function.

The revelation of the complex vision is a revelation of a
world made up of unfathomable personalities. Of this
world, of these unfathomable personalities, we are unable
to postulate any "beginning." They have always existed.
They seem likely to remain always in existence. Our
knowledge stops at that point; because our knowledge is
the knowledge of i>ersonality. The revelation of the com-
plex vision is constantly warning us against any tendency
to evade the whole question of the original mystery by the
use of meaningless abstractions.

The word "energy" is such an abstraction. So also is
the word "movement." So also are those logical formulae
of the pure reason, such as the "a priori unity of apper-
ception" and the "absolute spirit." Apart from person-
ality, apart from the complex vision of the individual soul,
there is no such thing as "energy" or "movement" or
"transcendental unity" or "absolute spirit." In the same
way we are compelled to recognize that apart from x>er-
sonality the unfathomable duality has no meaning. But
in so far as it represents the eternal struggle between life
and death which goes on all the while in every living soul,
the unfathomable duality is the i>ermanent condition of
our deepest knowledge.

It is just here that the mystery of pain and pleasure
helps us to understand the mystery of love and malice.
For the same insensitiveness in certain souls that prevents

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292 THE COMPLEX YISION

their feeling any yivid pain or any yivid pleasare, also pre-
vents their feeling any intense malice. Bat this inaansi-
tiveness which prevents their feeling any intense malice
is, more than anything else, the especial evocation of the
power of malice. For intensity, even in malice, is a proof
that malice has been appropriating to its use the energy
of life. The real opposite of intense love is not intense
malice but inert malice.

For malignant inertness is the trae adversary of creation.
From this it necessarily follows that the sonl which is in-
sensitive to pain and pleasure and to malice and love is a
sonl in whom the profound opposite of love has already won
a relative victory. It is certainly possible, as we have
seen, for the victory of malice over love to be accompanied
by thrilling pleasure; but, when this happens malice has
lost something of its ''inertness" by drawing to itself and
corrupting for its own use the dynamic energy of love.
When malice displays itself in an intense and vivid activ-
ity of destruction it is less **evir' and less purely "ma-
lignant" than when it remains insensitive and inert For
this reason it is undeniably true that an insensitive i>ersony
although he may cause much less i>ositive pain than a pas-
sionately cruel person, is in reality a more complete incar-
nation of the power of **evil" than the latter; for the
latter, in the very violence of his passion, has appropriated
to himself something of the creative energy. It is true
that in appropriating this he has corrupted it, and it is
true that by the use of it he can cause far more immediate
pain; but it remains that in himself he is less purely
''evil" than the person whose chief characteristic is a
malignant insensitiveness.

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CHAPTER Xm

THE BBALITT OF THB SOUL IN BELATION TO MODEBN THOUGHT

It ought not to be forgotten, as at least an imi>ortant
Ijistorieal fact, in regard to what we have asserted as the
revelation of the complex vision concerning the reality of
the soul, that the two most influential modem philosophers
deny this reality altogether. I refer to Bergson and Wil-
liam James.

In the cQTstems of thought of both these writers there is
no place left for that concrete, real, actual ''monad," with
its semi-mental, semi-material substratum of unknown
hyper-physical, hyper-psychic substance, which is what we
mean, in philosophical as well as in popular language when
we talk of the ''soul/*

According to the revelation of man's complex vision this
hyper-physical, hyper-psychic "something,** which is the
concrete centre of will and consciousness and energy, is
also the invisible core or base of what we term personality,
and, without its reU existence, personality can have no
I>ermanence. Without the assumption of its real existence
personality cannot hold its own or remain integral and
identical in the midst of the process of life.

This then being the nature and character of the soul,
what weight is there in the arguments used against the
soul's concrete existence by such thinkers as James and
Bergson t The position of the American philosopher in
regard to this matter seems less plausible and less con-
sistent than that of his French master.

James is prepared to give his adherence to a belief in a

293

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294 THE COMPLEX VISION

soul of the eartb and in planetary souls and stellar souls.
He quotes with approval on this point the writings of
Gustav Theodor Feehner, the Leipzig chemist. He is also
prepared to find a place in his pluralistic world for at
least one quite personal and quite finite god.

If he is not merely exercising his philosophical fancy in
all this, but is actually prepared to assume the real con-
crete existence of an earth-soul and of planetary souls and
of at least one beneficent and quite personal god, why
should he find himself unable to accept the same sort of
real concrete soul in living human beings t Why should
he find himself compelled to say — "the notion of the sub-
stantial soul, so freely used by common men and the more
popular philosophers has fallen upon evil days and has
no prestige in the eyes of critical thinkers . . . like the
word 'cause' the word 'soul' is but a theoretic stop-gap
... it marks a place and claims it for a future explana-
tion to occupy ... let us leave out the soul, then, and
cohfront the original dilemma"!

This scepticism of the pragmatic philosophy in regard to
the ** substantial soul" is surely an unpardonable incon-
sistency. For in all other problems the fact of an idea
being **freely used by common men" is, according to prag-
matic principles, an enormous piece of evidence in its
favour. The further fact that all the great '*a priori"
metaphysical sjNStems have been driven by their pure logic
to discredit the ** substantiality" of the soul, just as they
have been driven to discredit the personality of God, ought,
one would think, where ** radical empiricism" is concerned,
to be a still stronger piece of evidence on the soul's side.

James has told us that he has found it necessary to
throw away "pure reason" and to assume an inherent
"irrationality" in the system of things. Why then, when
it comes to this particular axiom of irrational common-
sense, does he balk and sheer off t

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THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 295

One cannot resist the temptation of thinking that jnst
here the great Pragmatist has been led astray by that very
philosophical pride he condemns ill the metaphysicians.
One cannot help suspecting that it is nothing less than the
fact of the soul's appeal to ordinary common-sense that has
prejudiced this philosopher of common-sense so profoundly
against it.

What James does not seem to see is that his pseudo-
scientific reduction of the integral soul-monad into a
wavering and fitful series of compounded vortex-conscious-
ness is really a falling back from the empirical data of
human reality into the thin abstracted air of conceptual
truth. The concrete substantial soul, just because it is the
permanent basis of personality and the only basis of per-
sonality which common sense can apprehend, is precisely
one of those obstinate original particular "data" of con-
sciousness which it is the proud role of conceptual and in-
tellectual logic to explain away, and to explain away in
favour of attenuated rationalistic theories which are them-
selves ** abstracted'* or, shall we say, pruned and shaved
oflE from the very thing they are supposed to explain.

All these ''flowing streams," and ''pulses of conscious-
ness" and multiple "compoundings of consciousness" and
overlappings of sub-consciousness are in reality, for all
their pseudo-scientific air, nothing more or less than the
old-fashioned metaphysical conceptions, such as "being"
and "becoming," under a new name.

Nor is the new "irrational reason" by which the prag-
matist arrives at these plausible theories really in the least
dififerent from the imaginative personal vision which, as
James himself clearly shows, was at the back of all that
old-fashioned dialectic.

The human mind has not changed its inherent texture;
nor can it change it. We may talk of substituting intui-
tion for reason. But the "new intuition," with its arro-

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296 THE COMPLEX VISION

gant claims of getting upon the ''inner side" of reality,
is after all only ''the old reason '^ functioning with a
franker admission of its reliance upon that immediate per-
sonal vision and with less regard for the logical rules.

It is not> in fact, because of any rule of "logical iden-
tity with itself" that the human mind clings so tena-
ciously to the notion of an integral soul-monad. It is be-
cause of its own inmost consciousness that such a monads
that such a substantial integral soul, is in the deepest
sense its very self, and a denial of it a denial of its very
self.

The attitude of Bergson in this matter is much more
consistent than that of James. Bergson is frankly and
confessedly not a pluralist at all, but a spiritual monist.
As a spiritual monist he is compelled to regard what we
call "matter," including in this term the mechanical or
chemical resistance of body and brain, as something which
is produced or evolved or "thrown off" by spirit and as
something which, when once it has been evolved, spirit has
to penetrate, permeate, and render porous and submissive.

The complexity of Bergson 's speculations with regard
to memory and the "£lan vital," with regard above all to
the "true time," has done much to distract popular atten-
tion away from his real attitude towards the soul. But
Bergson 's attitude towards the existence of a substantial
soul-monad is consistently and inevitably hostile.

It could not be anything else as long as the original per-
sonal "fling" into life which gives each one of us his pe-
culiar angle of vision remained with him a question of one
unified spirit — ^"a continuum of eternal shooting-forth"
— ^which functioned through the brain and through all
personal life and perpetually created a new unforeseen
universe.

In the flux of this one universal "spirit," whereof
"duration," in the mysterious Bergsonian sense, is the

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THE REALITY OP THE SOUL 297

fanctional activity, there can obviously be no place for
an actual substantial soul. ^'The consciousness we have
of our own self in its continual flux introduces us to the
interior of a reality on the model of which we must repre-
sent other realities. All reality, therefore, is a tendency,
if we agree to mean by tendency an incipient change in
any direction." And when we enquire as to the nature
of this ** continual flux" of which the positive and in-
tegral thing we have come to call the soul is but a ripple,
or swirling whirlpool of centripetal ripples, the answer
which Bergson gives is definite enough. "We approach a
duration which strains, contracts, and intensifies itself
more and more ; at the limit would be eternity. No longer
conceptual eternity, which is an eternity of death, but an
eternity of life. A living, and therefore still moving eter-
nity in which our own particular duration would be in-
cluded, as the vibrations are in light; an eternity which
would be the concentration of all duration, as materiality
is its dispersion. Between these two extreme limits intui-
tion moves, and this movement is the very essence of meta-
physics."

Thus according to Bergson the essential secret of life is
to be found in some peculiar movement of what he calls
spirit ; a movement which takes place in some unutterable
medium, or upon some indescribable plane, the name of
which is "pure time" or "duration."

And listening to all this we cannot resist a sigh of dis-
may. For here, in these vague de-humanized terms —
"tendency," "flux," "eternity," "vibration," "dura-
tion," "dispersion" — we are once more, only with a
different set of concepts, following the old metaphjrsical
method, that very method which Bergson himself sets out
to confine to its inferior place. "Tendency" or "flux"
or "duration" is just as much a metaphysical concept as
"being" or "not being" or "becoming."

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298 THE COMPLEX VISION

The only way in which we can really escape from the
rigid coneeptualism of rational logic is to accept the judg-
ment of the totality of man's nature. And the judgment
of the totality of man's nature points unmistakably to the
existence of a real substantial soul. Such a soul is the
indispensable implication of personality. And the most
interior and intimate knowledge that we are in possession
of, or shall ever be in possession of, is the knowledge of
personality.

Bergson is i>erfectly right when he asserts that '^the
consciousness which we have of our own self" introduces
us **to the interior of a reality, on the model of which we
must represent other realities." But Bergson is surely
departing both from the normal facts of ordinary intro-
spection and from the exceptional facts of abnormal illumi-
nation when he appends to the words ^'the consciousness
which we have of our own self" the further words in its
/continual ''flux." For in our normal moods of human,
introspection, as well as in our abnormal moods of super-
human illumination, what we are conscious of most of all
is a sense of integral continuity in the midst of change, and
of identical permanence in the midst of ebb and flow.

The flux of things does most assuredly rush swiftly by
US; and we, in our inmost selves, are conscious of life's
incessant flow. But how could we be conscious of any of
this turbulent movement across the prow of our voyaging ~
ship, if the ship itself — ^the substantial base of our liv-
ing consciousness — were not an organized and integral
reality, of psycho-chemical material, able to exert will and
to make use of memory and reason in its difficult struggle
with the waves and winds t

The revelation of man's complex vision with regard to
the personality of the soul is a thing of far-reaching issues
and implications.

One of these implications is that while we have the right to

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THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 299

the tenn 'Hhe eternal flux" in regard to the changing waves
of sensations and ideas that pass across the horizon of the
soul's vision we have no right to think of this ''eternal
flux" as anything else than the pressure upon us of the
universe of our own vision and the pressure upon us of
the universe of other visions, as they seem, for this or that
passing moment, to be different from our own.

The kind of world to which we are thus committed is a
world crowded with living personaliti^. Each of these
personalities brings with it its own separate universe. But
the fact that all these separate universes find their ideal
synthesis or teleological orientation in ''the vision of the
immortals," justifies us in assuming that in a certain eter-
nal sense all these apparently conflicting universes are in
reality one. This unity of ideas, with its predominant
aesthetic idea — ^the idea of beauty — and its predominant
emotional idea — ^the idea of love — ^helps us towards a syn-
thesis which is after all only a dynamic one, a thing of
movement, growth and creation.

Such a teleological unity, forever advancing to a con-
summation never entirely to be attained, demands how-
ever some sort of static "milieu" as well as some sort of
static "material" in the midst of which and out of which
it moulds its premeditated future. It is precisely this
static "milieu" or "medium," and this static "material^
or formless "objective mystery," which Bergson's philoso-
phy, of the **6lan vitaV of pure spirit, spreading out into
a totally indetermined future, denies and eliminates.

In order to justify this double elimination — ^the, elim-
ination of an universal "medium" and the elimination of
a formless "thing-in-itself" — ^Bergson is compelled to
reduce space to a quite secondary and merely logical con-
ception and to substitute for our ordinary stream of time,
measurable in terms of space, an altogether new conception
of time, measurable in terms of feeling.

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300 THE COMPLEX VISION

When however we come to analyse this new Bergsonian
time, or as he prefers to call it ** intuitively-felt duration,'*
we cannot avoid observing that it is merely a new ''mys-
terious something" introduced into the midst of the sys-
tem of things, in order to enable us to escape from those
older traditional "mysterious somethings" which we have
to recognize as the ''immediate data" of human conscious-
ness.

It might be argued that Bergson's monistic "spirit,"
functioning in a mysterious indefinable "time," demands
neither more nor less of an irrational act of faith than our
mysterious psycho-material "soul" surrounded by a mys-
terious hyper-chemical "medium" and creating its future
out of an inexplicable "objective mystery."

Where however the philosophy of the complex vision
has the advantage over the philosophy of the "£lan vital"
is in the fact that even on Bergson's own admission what
the human consciousness most intensely knows is not "pure
spirit," whether shaped like a fan or shaped like a sheaf,
but simply its own integral identity. And this integral
identity of consciousness can only be visualized or felt in
the mind itself under the form of a living concrete monad.

It will be seen, however, when it comes to a "showing up"
of what might be called the "trump cards" of axiomatic
mystery, that the complex vision has in reality fewer of
these ultimate irrational "data" than has the philosophy
of the 61an vital.

Space itself, whether we regard it as objective or sub-
jective, is certainly not an irrational axiom but an en-
tirely rational and indeed an entirely inevitable assump-
tion. And what the complex vision reveals is that the
trinity of "mysterious somethings" with which we are
compelled to start our enquiry, namely the "something"
which is the substratum of the soul, the "something" which
is the "medium" binding all souls together, and the

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THE EBALITY OF THE SOUL 801

<r

something" which is the ''objective mystery" out of
which all souls create their universe, is, in fact, a genuine
trinity in the pure theological sense; in other words is a
real *' three-in-one." And it is a ** three-in-one" not only
because it is unthinkable that three ''incomprehensible sub-
stances" should exist in touch with one another without
being in organic relation, but also because all three of them
are dominated, in so far as we can say anything about them
at all, by the same universal space.

It is true that the unappropriated mass of "objective
mystery" upon which no shadow of the creative energy
of any soul has yet been thrown must be considered as ut*
terly "formless and void" and thus in a sense beyond space
and time, yet since immediately we try to imagine or visu-
alize this mystery, as well as just logically "consider" it,
we are compelled to extend over it our conception of time
and space, it is in a practical sense, although not in a
logical sense, under the real dominion of these.

When therefore the philosophy of the complex vision
places its trump-cards of axiomatic mystery over against
the similar cards of the philosophy of the "61an vital" it
will be found that in actual number Bergson has one more
' ' card ' ' than we have. For Bergson has not only his ' ' pure
spirit" and his "intuitively-felt time>" but has also—
for he cannot really escape from that by just asserting that
his "spirit" produces it — ^the opposing obstinate prin-
ciple of "matter " or "solid bodies" or "mechanical brains"
upon which his pure spirit has to work.

It is indeed out of its difSculties with "matter," that is
to say with bodies and brains, that Bergson 's "spirit" is
forced to forego its natural element of "intuitive duration"
and project itself into the rigid rationalistic conceptualism
of ordinary science and metaphysic.

The point of our argument in this place is that since the
whole purpose of philosophy is articulation or clarification

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302 THE COMPLEX VISION

and since in this process of clarification the fewer ''axio-
matic incomprehensibles" we start with the better; it is
decidedly to the advantage of any philosophy that it should
require at the start nothing more than the mystery of the
individual soul confronting the mystery of the world
around it. And it is to the disadvantage of Bergson's
philosophy that it should require at the start, in addition
to **pure spirit'* with its assumption of memory and will,
and ''pure matter" with its assumption of ordinary space
and ordinary time, a still further axiomatic trump-card,
in the theory of intuitive ''durational" time, in which the
real process of the life-flow transcends all reason and logic

Putting aside however the cosmological aspect of our
controversy with the "radical empirical" school of thought,
we still have left unconsidered our most serious divergence
from their position. This consists in the fact that both.
Bergson and James have entirely omitted from their orig-
inal instrument of research that inalienable aspect of the
human soul which we call the aesthetic sense.

With only a few exceptions — ^notably that of Spinoza
— all the great European philosophers from Plato to
Nietzsche have begun their philosophizing from a starting-
point which implied, as an essential part of their "or-
ganum" of enquiry, the possession by the human soul of
some sort of aesthetic vision.

To these thinkers, whether rationalistic or mystic, no
interpretation of the world seemed possible that did not
start with the asethetic sense, both as an instrument of
research and as a test of what research discovered.

The complete absence of any discussion of the aesthetic
sense in Bergson and James is probably an historic con-
fession of the tyranny of commercialism and physical sci-
ence over the present generation. It may also be a spir-
itual reflection, in the sphere of philosophy, of the rise
to political and social power of that bourgeois class which.

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THE BEALITY OF THE SOUL 803

of all classes, is the least interested in aesthetic speculation.

The philosophy of the complex vision may have to wait
for its hour of influence until the proletariat comes into
its own. And it does indeed seem as if between the
triumph of the proletariat and the triumph of the aesthetic
sense there were an intimate association. It is precisely
because these two philosophers have so completely neglected
the aesthetic sense that their speculations seem to have so
little hold upon the imagination. When once it is allowed
that the true instrument of research into the secret of the
universe is the rhythmic activity of man's complete nature,
and not merely the activity of his reason or the activity of
his intuition working in isolaton, it then becomes obvious
that the universal revelations of the aesthetic sense, if they
can be genuinely disentangled from mere subjective ca-
prices, are an essential part of what we have to work with
if we are to approach the truth.

The philosophy of the complex vision bases its entire
system upon its faith in the validity of these revelations;
and, as we have already shown, it secures an objective
weight and force for this ideal vision by its faith in certain
unseen companions of humanity, whom it claims the right
to name ''the immortals."

This is really the place where we part company with
Bergson and James. We agree with the former in his
distrust of the old metaphysic. We agree with the latter
in many of his pluralistic speculations. But we feel that
any philosophy which refuses to take account, at the very
beginning, of those regions of human consciousness which
are summed up by the words ''beauty" and "art," is a
philosophy that in undertaking to explain life has begun
by eliminating from life one of its most characteristic
products.

In Bergson 's interpretation of life the stress is laid upon
"spirit" and "intuition." In James' interpretation of

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304 THE COMPLEX VISION

life the stress is laid upon those practical changes in the
world and in human nature which any new idea must pro-
duce if it is to prove itself true.

In the view of life we are now trying to make clear,
philosophy is so closely dependent upon the activity of
the aesthetic sense that it might itself be called an art, the
most difficult and the most comprehensive of all the arts,
the art of retaining the rhythmic balance of all man's
contradictory energies. What this rhythmic balance of
man's concentrated energies seems to make clear is the
primary importance of the process of discrimination and
yaluation.

From the profoundest depths of the soul rises the con-
sciousness of the power of choice ; and this power of choice
to which we give, by common consent, the name of **will,"
finds itself confronted at the start by the eternal duality
of the impulse to create and the impulse to resist creation.
The impulse to create we find, by experience, to be identical
with the emotion of love. And the impulse to resist crea-
tion we find, by experience, to be identical with the emotion
of malice.

But experience carries us further than this. The im-
pulse to create, or the emotion of love, is found, as soon as
it begins a function, to be itself a living i^ynthesis of
three primordial reactions to life, which, in philosophic
language, we name ''ideas." These three primordial ideas
may be summed up as follows: The idea of beauty, which
is ^e revelation of the aesthetic sense. The idea of good-
ness or nobility, which is the revelation of conscience.
The idea of truth, or the mind's apprehension of reality,
which is the revelation of reason, intuition, instinct, and
imagination, functioning in sympathic harmony. Now it
is true that by laying so much stress upon the ''£lan vital"
or flowing tide of creative energy, Bergson has indicated
his acceptance of one side of the ultimate duality. But

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THE KBALITY OF THE SOUL 305

for Bei^pson this creative impulse is not confronted by evil
or by malice as its opposite, but simply by the natural
inertness of mechanical ''matter.''

And once having assumed his ''continuum" of pure
spirit, he deals no further with the problem of good and
evil or with the problem of the aesthetic sense.

From our point of view he is axiomaticaUy unable to
deal with these problems for the simple reason that his
£lan vital or flux of pure spirit, being itself a mere n^eta-
physical abstraction from living personality, can never,
however hard you squeeze it, produce either the human
conscience or the human aesthetic sense.

These things can only be produced from the concrete
activity of a real living individual soul. In the same way
it is true that William James, by his emphasis upon con-
duct and action and practical efficiency as the tests of
truth, is bound to lay enormous stress at the very start
upon the ethical problem.

What a person believes about the universe becomes itself
an ethical problem by the introduction on the one hand
of the efficiency of the will to believe and on the other of
the assumption that a person "ought" to believe that
which it is "useful" to him to believe, as long as it does
not conflict with other desirable truths. But this ethical
element in the pragmatic doctrine, though it is so dom-
inant as almost to reduce philosophy itself to a sub-divi^on
of ethics, is not, when one examines it, at all the same thing
as what the philosophy of the complex vision means by
the revelation of conscience.

Ethics with William James swallows up philosophy and
in swallowing up philosophy the nature of Ethics is changed
and becomes something different from the clear unqualified
mandate of the human conscience. With the philosophy
of the complex vision the revelations of conscience are
intimately associated with the revelations of the aesthetic

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306 THE COMPLEX VISION

sense; and these again, in the rhythmic totality of man's
nature, with the revelations of emotion, instinct, intuition,
imagination.

Thus when it comes to conduct and the question of choice
the kind of *' imperative" issued by conscience has been
already profoundly changed. It is still the mandate of
conscience. But it is the mandate of a conscience whose
search-light has been taken possession of by the aesthetic
sense and has been fed by imagination, instinct and in-
tuition.

It must be understood when we speak of these various
"aspects" or ** attributes" of the human soul we do not
imply that they exist as separable faculties independently
of the unity of the soul which possesses them.

The soul is an integral and indivisible monad and throws
its whole strength along each of these lines of contact with
the world. As will, the soul flings itself upon the world
in the form of choice between opposite valuations. As
conscience, it flings itself upon the world in the form of
motive force of opposite valuations. As the aesthetic sense,
it flings itself upon the world in the form of yet another
motive-force of opposite valuations. As imagination, it
half-creates and half -discovers the atmospheric climate, so
to speak, of this valuation. As intuition, it feels itself to
be in possession of a super-terrestrial, stiper-human author-
ity which gives objective definiteness and security to this
valuation. As instinct, it feels its way by an innate clair-
voyance into the organic or biological vibrations of this
valuation.

Thus we return to the point from which we started,
namely that the whole problem of philosophy is the prob-
lem of valuation. And this is the same thing as saying
that philosophy, considered in its essential nature, is noth-
ing less than art— the art of flinging itself upon the

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THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 807

world with all the potentialities of the soul^funetioniiig in
rhythmic harmony.

When Bergson talks of the *'61an vital" and suggests
that the acts of choice of the human personality are made
as nMurally and inevitably, under the pressure of the
''shooting out" of the spirit, as leaves grow upon the tree,
he is falling into the old traditional blunder of all panthe-
istic and monistic thinkers, the blunder namely of at-
tributing to a universal **Qod" or ''life-force" or "stream
of tendency" the actual personal achievements of indi-
vidual souls.

Bergson 's "apologia" for free-will is therefore rendered
ineflfective by reason of the fact that it does not really
leave the individual free. The only "free" thing is the
aboriginal "spirit," pouring forth in its "durational"
stream, and moulding bodies and brains as it goes along.

The philosophy of the complex vision does not believe in
"spirit" or "life-force" or "durational streams of tend-
ency." Starting with personality it is not incumbent
upon it to show how personality has been evolved. It is
no more incumbent upon it to show how personality has
been evolved than it is incumbent upon pantheistic ideal-
ism to show how God or how the Absolute has been evolved.
Personality with its implication of separate concrete psycho-
material soul-monads is indeed our Absolute or at any rate
is as much of an Absolute as we can ever get while we
continue to recognize the independent existence of one
universal space, of one universal ethereal medium, and of
on universal objective mystery.

Perhaps the correct metaphysical statement of our
philosophic position would be that our Absolute is a du-
ality from the very start — a duality made up on one
side of innumerable soul-monads and on the other side
of an incomprehensible formless mass of plastic material,

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308 THE COMPLEX VISION

itself subdivided into the two aspects of a medium binding
the soul-monads together, and an objective mystery into
which they pierce their way.

When the evolutionists tell us that personality is a
thing of late appearance in the system of things and a
thing of which we are able to note the historic or pre-
historic development, out of the ** lower'* forms of life,
our answer is that we have no right to assume that the life
of the earth and of the other planetary and stellar bodies
is a **lower'' form of life.

If to this the astronomer answer that he is able to carry
the history of evolution f urtl^er back than any planet or
star, as far back as a vast floating mass of homogeneous
fiery vapour, even then we should still maintain that this
original nebular mass of fire was the material ''body''
of an integral soul-monad; and that in surrounding im-
mensities of space there were other similar masses of
nebular fire — ^possibly innumerable others — who in their
turn were the bodily manifestations of integral soul-
monads.

When evolutionists argue that personality is a late and
accidental appearance on the world scene, they are only
thinking of human personalities; and our contention is
that while man has a right to interpret the universe in
terms of his soul, he has no right to interpret the universe
in terms of his body; and that it is therefore quite possible
to maintain that the ''body" of the earth has been from the
beginning animated by a soul-monad whose life can in no
sense be called "lower" than the life of the soul-monad
which at present animates the human body. And in sup-
port of our contention just here we are able to quote not
only the authority of Pechner but the authority of Pro-
fessor James himself approving of Pechner.

What the philosophy of the complex vision really does
is to take life just as it is — ^the ordinary multifarious

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THE EBaLITY of THE SOUL 309

spectacle presented to our senses and interpreted by our
imagination — and regard this, and nothing more recon-
dite than this, as the ultimate Absolute, or as near an Ab-
solute as we are ever likely to get.

From our point of view it seems quite uncalled' for to
summon up vague and remote entities, like streams of
consciousness and shootings forth of spirit, in order to in-
terpret this immediate spectacle. Such streams of con-
sciousness and shootings forth of spirit seem to us just
as much abstractions and just as much conceptual sub-
stitutions for reality as do the old-fashioned metaphysical
entities of ''being" and ''becoming."

No one has ever seen a life-stream or a life-force. No
one has ever seen a compounded congeries of conscious
states. But every one of us has seen a living human soul
looking out of a living human body; and most of us have
seen a living soul looking out of the mysterious countenance
of earth, water, air and Are.

The philosophy of the soul-monad has at any rate this
advantage over every other: namely, that it definitely
represents hxmian experience and can always be verified
by human experience. Any human being can try the ex-
periment of sinking into the depths of his own identity.
Let the reader of this passage try such an experiment
here and now; and let him, in the light of what he finds,
decide this question. Does he find himself fiowing mys-
teriously forth, along some indesoribable "durational"
stream, and, as he flows, feeling himself to be that stream?
Or does he feel himself to be a definite concrete Nactual "I
am I," "the guest and companion of his body" and, as
far as the mortal weakness of flesh allows, the motive-
principle of that body t

If the philosophy of the complex vision is able to make
an appeal of this kind with a certain degree of assurance
as to the answer, it is able to make a yet more convincing

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310 THE COMPLEX VISION

appeal, when — ^the soul's existence once admitted — ^it
becomes a question as to that soul's inherent quality.
No human being, unless in the grasp of some megalomania
of virtue, can deny the existence, in the depths of his nature,
of a struggle between the emotion of love and the emotion
of malice.

Out of this ultimate duality under the pressure of the
forms and shapes of life and the reaction against these of
the imagination and the aesthetic sense, spring into exist-
ence those primordial ideas of truth and beauty and good-
ness which, are the very stuff and texture of our fate.
But these ideas, primordial though they are, are so con-
fused and distorted by their contact with circumstances
aud accident, that it may well be that no clear image of
them is found in the recesses of the soul when the soul
turns its glance inward.

No soul, however, can turn its glance inward without
recognizing in its deepest being this ultimate struggle be-
tween love and malice. How then can any philosophy
be regarded as a transcript and reflection of reality when
at the very start it refuses to take cognizance of this fact t
If the only knowledge, which is in any sense certain, is
our knowledge of ourselves, and if our knowledge of our-
selves implies our knowledge of a definite '* soul-monad"
for ever divided against itself in this abysmal struggle,
how then may a philosophy be regarded as covering the facts
of experience, when in place of this personal contradic-
tion it predicates, as its explanation of the system of
things, some remote, thin, abstract tendency, such as the
''shooting forth of spirit" or the compounding of states
of consciousness"?

The whole matter may be thus summed up. The modem
tendencies of thought which we have been considering, get
rid of the old metaphysical notion of the logical Absolute
only to substitute vague pqrchological ''states of con-

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THE REALITY OP THE SOUL 8U

scionmess" in its place. But what philosophy requires,
if the facts of introspective experience are to be trusted, is
neither an Absolute in whose identity all difference is lost,
nor a stream of *' states of consciousness'' which is sus-
pended, as it were, in a vacuum.

What philosophy requires is the recognition of real
actual persons whose original revelation of the secret of
life implies that abysmal duality of good and evil beyond
the margin of which no living soul has ever passed.
Whether or not this concrete *' monad" or living sub-
stratum of personality survives the death of the body is
quite a different question; is in fact a question to which
the philosophy of the complex vision can make no definite
response. In this matter all we can say is that those su-
preme moments of rhythmic ecstasy^ whose musical equilib-
rium I have indicated in the expression '^ apex-thought,"
establish for us a conclusive certainty as to the eternal
continuance, beyond the scope of all deaths, of that in-
destructible aspect of personality we have come to name
the struggle between love and malice.

With the conclusive consciousness of this there neces-
sarily arises a certain attitude of mind which is singu-
larly dilBcult to decribe but which I can hint at in the
following manner. In the very act of recognition, in the
act by which we apprehend the secret of the universe to
consist in this abysmal struggle of the emotion of love
with the emotion of malice, there is an implication of a
<^mplete acceptance of whatever the emotion of love or
the principle of love is found to demand, as the terms of
its relative victory over its antagonist Whether this de-
mand of love, or to put it more exactly this demand of
*'all souls" in whom love is dominant, actually issues in
a personal survival after death we are not permitted to
feel with any certainty. But what we feel with oertaintyt
when the apex-thought of the complex vision reaches its

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312 THE COMPLEX VISION

consummation, is that we find our full personal self-realiza-
tion and happiness in a complete acceptance of whatever
the demand of love may be. And this is the case because
the ultimate happiness and fulfilment of personality does
not depend upon what may have happened to personality
in the past or upon what may happen to personality in the
future but solely and exclusively upon what personality
demands here and now in the apprehension of the un-
assailable moment.

This suspension of judgment therefore in regard to the
question of the immortality of the soul is a suspension of
judgment implicit in the very nature of love itself. For
if there were anything in the world nearer the secret of
the world than is this duality of love and malice, then
that alien thing, however we thought of it, would be the
true object of the soul's desire and the victory of love over
malice would fall into the second place.

If instead of the soul's desire being simply the victory
of love over malice it were, so to speak, the '' material
fruit" of such a victoryr— namely, the survival of per-
sonality after death — ^then, in place of the struggle be-
tween love and malice, we should be compelled to regard
personality in itself, apart from the nature of that per-
sonality, as the secret of the universe. But as we have
repeatedly shown, it is impossible to think of any living
personality apart from this abysmal dualism; the ebb and
flow of which, with the relative victory of love over malice,
is our ultimate definition of what living personality is.
The emotion of love abstracted from personality is not the
secret of the universe, because personality in its concrete
living activity is the secret of the universe. It is this very
abstraction of love, isolated from any person who loves, and
projected as an abstract into the void, that has done so
much to undermine religious thought, just as that other

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THE REALITY OP THE SOUL 313

absolute of ''pure being" has done so much to undermine
philosophic thought.

Love and malice are unthinkable apart from personality;
but personality divorced from the struggle between love
and malice is something worse than unthinkable. It is
something most tragically thinkable. It is in fact the
plain reality of death. A dead body is a body in which
the struggle between love and malice has completely
ceased. A dead planet would be a planet in which the
struggle between love and malice had ceased. We cannot
speak of a ''dead soul" because the soul is, according to
our original definition, the very fusion-point and vortex-
point where not only consciousness and energy meet but
where love and malice meet and wage their eternal
struggle.

Strictly speaking it is not true to say that the ultimate
secret of the universe is the emotion of love. The emotion
of love, just because it is an emotion, is the emotion of a ^
personality. It is personality, not the emotion of love,
which is the secret of the universe, which is, in fact, the very
universe itself. But it is personality considered in its
true concrete life, not as a mere abstraction devoid of all
characteristics, which is this basic thing. And personality
thus considered is, as we have seen, a living battleground of
two ultimate emotions. The complete triumph of love over
malice would mean the extinction of personality and fol-
lowing from this the extinction of the universe.

Thus what the soul's desire really amounts to, in those
rhythmic moments when its diverse aspects are reduced to
harmonious energy, is not the complete victory of love
over malice but only a relative victory. What it really
desires is that malice should still exist, but that it should
exist in subordination to love.

The ideal of the soul therefore in its creative moments

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314 THE COMPLEX VISION

IB the process of the overcoming of maUce, not the comple-
tion of this process. In order to be perpetnally oyercome
by love, malice must remain existent, mnst remain "still
there.'' If it ceased to be there, there would be nothing
left for love to overcome; and the ebb and flow of the
universe, its eternal contradictions, would be at an end.
The soul's desire, according to this view, is not a life after
death where malice, shall we say, is completely overcome
and ''good" completely triumphant. The soul's desire is
that malice, or evil, should continue to exist; but should
continue to exist under the triumphant hand of love. The
desire of the soul, in such ultimate moments, has nothing
to do with the survival of the soul after death. It has to
do with an acceptance of the demand of love. And what
love demands is not that malice should disappear ; but that
it should for ever exist, in order that love should for ever
be overcoming it. And the ecstasy of this process, of this
''overcoming," is a thing of single moments, moments
which, as they pass, not only reduce both past and future
to an eternal "now" but annihilate everything else but
this eternal "now." This annihilation of the past does
not mean the extinction of memory or the extinction of
hope. It only means that the profoundest of our mem-
ories are "brought over" as it were from the past into the
present. It only means that a formless horizon of im-
mense hope, indefinite and vague, hovers above the present,
to give it spaciousness and freedom.

The revelation of the complex vision does not therefore
answer the question of the immortality of the souL What
it does is to indicate the degree of importance of any an-
swer to this question. And this degree of importance is
much smaller than in our less harmonious moments we are
inclined to suppose. At certain complacent moments the
soul finds itself praying for some final assurance of per-
sonal survival. At certain other moments the soul is

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THE BBALITT OF THE SOUL 315

tempted to pray for complete annihilatioiL But at th^
moments when it is most entirely itself it neither prays
for annihilation nor for immortality. It does not pray
for itself at all. It prays that the will of the gods may be
done. It prays that the power of love in every soul in the
universe may hold the power of malice in subjection.

The soul therefore, revealed as a real substantial living
thing by the complex vision, is not revealed as a thing
necessarily exempt from death, but as a thing whose deep-
est activity renders it free from the fear of death.

In considering the nature of the contrast between the
philosophy of the complex vision and the most dominant
philosophic tendencies of the present time it is important
to make clear what our attitude is towards that hypo-
thetical assumption usually known as the Theory of Evo-
lution.

If what is caUed Evolution means simply change, then
we have not the least objection to the word. The universe
obviously changes. It is undergoing a perpetual series
of violent and revolutionary changes. But it does not
necessarily improve or progress. On the contrary during
enormous periods of time it deteriorates. Both progress
and deterioration are of course purely human valuations.
But according to our valuation of good and evil it may be
said that during those epochs when the malicious, the
predatory, the centripetal tendency in life predominates
over the creative and centrifugal tendency, there is deteri-
oration and degeneracy; and during the epochs when the
latter overcomes the former there is growth and improve-
ment.

It is quite obvious that from our point of view, there is
no such thing as inanimate chemical substance, no such
isolated evolutionary phases of ''matter," such as the
movements from ''solids" to "liquids," from "liquids" to
"gases," from "gases" to "ether," from "ether" to

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316 THE COMPLEX VISION

''electro-magnetism." All these apparent changes must be
regarded as nothing less than the living organic changes
taking place in the living bodies of actual personal souls.

According to our view the real and important variations
in the multiform spectacle of the universe are the variations
brought about by the perpetual struggle between life and
death, in other words between the personal energy of crea-
tion and the personal resistance of malice.

For us the universe of bodies and souls is perpetually
re-creating itself by the mysterious process of birth, per-
petually destroying itself by the mysterious process of
death.

It is this eternal struggle between the impulse to create
new life and the impulse to resist the creation of life, and
to destroy or to petrify life, which actually causes all move-
ment in things and all change; movement sometimes for-
ward and sometimes backward as the great pendulum and
rhythm of existence swings one way or the other.

And even this generalization does not really cover what
we regard as the facts of the case, because this backward
or forward movement, though capable of being weighed and
estimated ''en masse" in the erratic and violent changes of
history, is in reality a thing of particular and individual
instances, a thing that ultimately affects nothing but indi-
viduals and personalities, in as much as it is the weighing
and balancing of a struggle which takes place nowhere else
except in the arena of concrete separate and personal
souls.

What is usually called Evolution then, and what may
just as reasonably be called Deterioration, is as far as we
are concerned just a matter of perpetual movement and
change.

The living personalities that fill the circle of space are
perpetually reproducing themselves in a series of organic

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THE EBALITT OF THE SOUL 817

blrthSy and perpetually passing away in the process of
death.

We have also to remember that every living organism,
whether such an organism resemble that of a planet or a
human being, is itself the dwelling-place of innumerable
other living organisms dependent on it and drawing their
life from it, precisely as their parent organism depends on,
and draws its life from, the omnipresent universal ether.

What the philosophy of the complex vision denies and
refutes is the modem tendency to escape from the real
mystery of existence by the use of such vague hypothetical
metaphors, all of them really profoundly anthropomorphic,
such as "life-force'* or "hyper-space*' or "magnetic en-
ergy'' or ^'streams of sub-consciousness."

The philosophy of the complex vision drives these
pseudo-philosophers to the wall and compels them to con-
fess that ultimately all they are aware of is the inner per-
sonal activity of their own individual souls ; compels them
to confess that when it comes to the final analysis their
"life-force" and "pure thought" and "hyper-space" and
"radio-magnetic activity" are all nothing but onensided
hypothetical abstractions taken from the Qoncrete move-
ments of concrete individual bodies and souls which by an
inevitable act of the imagination we assume to reproduce
in their interior reactions what #e ourselves experience
in ours.

To introduce such a conception as that of those mysteri-
ous super human beings, whom I have named "the gods,"
into a serious philosophic system, may well appear to
many modem scientific minds the very height of absurdity.

But the whole method of the philosophy of the complex '
vision is based upon direct human experience; and from
my point of view the obscure and problematic existence of
some such beings has behind it the whole formidable weight

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818 THE COMPLEX YISION

of universal human feeling — a weight which is not made
less valid by the arrogant use of mere phrases of rational-
istic contempt such as that which is implied in the word
''superstition.*'

From our point of view a philosophy which does not in-
clude and subsume and embody that universal human ex-
perience covered by the term ** superstition'* is a philosophy
that has eliminated from its consideration one great slice
of actual living fact. And it is in this aspect of the prob-
lem more than in any other that the philosophy of the Com-
plex Vision represents a return to certain revelations of
human truth — call them mythological if you please — ^which
modem philosophy seems to have deliberately suppressed.
In the final 'result it may well be that we have to choose, as
our clue to the mystery of life, either ''mathematica" or
"mythology."

The philosophy of the complex vision is compelled by
the very nature of its organ of research to choose, in this
dilemma, the latter rather than the former. And the uni-
verse which it thus dares to predicate is at least a universe
that lends itself, as so many ''scientific" universes do not,
to that synthetic activity of the imaginative reason which
in the long run alone satisfies the souL And such a uni-
verse satisfies the soul, as these others cannot, because it
reflects, in its objective spectacle of things, the profoundest
interior consciousness of the actual living self which the
soul in its deepest moments of introspection is able to grasp.

Modem science, under the rhetorical spell of this talis-
manic word "evolution," seems to imply that it can explain
the multiform shapes and appearances of organic life by
deducing them, in all their vivid heterogeneity, from some
hypothetical monistic substance which it boldly endows
with the mysterious energy called the "life-force" and
which it then permits to project out of itself, by some sort

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THE BBALITY OP THE SOUL 819

of automatic volition, the whole long historic proeession of
living organisms.

This purely imaginative assumption gives it, in the popu-
lar mind, a sort of vague right to make the astounding
claim that it has ''explained" the origin of things. Little
further arrogance is needed to give it, in the popular mind,
the still more astounding right to daim that it has indi-
cated not only the nature of the ''beginning" of things but
the nature of their "end" also; this "end" being nothing
less than some purely hypothetical "equilibrium" when
the movement of "advance," coming full circle, rounds
itself off into the movement of "reversion."

The philosophy of the complex vision makes no claim
to deal either with the beginning of things or with the end
of things. It recognizes that "beginnings" and "ends"
are not things with which we can intelligibly deal; are, on
the contrary, things which are completely unthinkable.

What we actually see, feel, divine, imagine, love, hate,
detest, desire, dream, create and destroy, — ^these living,
dying, struggling, relaxing, advancing^ and retreating
^things— this space, this ether, these stars and suns, these
animals, fishes, birds, plants, this earth and moon, these
men and these trees and flowers, these high and unchanging
eternal ideas of the beautiful and the good, these transitory
perishing mortal lives and these dimly discerned immortal
figures that we name "gods," all these, as far as we are
concerned, have for ever existed, all these, as far as we are
concerned, must for ever exist.

La the immense procession of deaths and births, it is
indeed certain that the soul and body of the Earth have
given birth to all the souls and bodies which struggle for
existence upon her living flesh and draw so much of their
love and their malice from the unfathomable depths of
her spirit. But when on^ we accept as our basic axiom

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320 THE COMPLEX VISION

that where the ''soul-mjonad" exists, whether such a
''monad" be humane sob-human, or super-human, it exists
in actual concrete organic personal integrity, we are saved
from the necessity of explaining how, and by what particu-
lar series of births and deaths and change and variation,
the living spectacle of things, as we visualize it today, has
"evolved" or has ** deteriorated" out of the remote past.

It is in fact by their constant preoccupation with the
immediate and material causes of such organic changes,
that men of science have been distracted from the real
piystery. This real mystery does not limit itself to the
comparatively unimportant **How," but is constantly call-
ing upon us to deal with the terrible and essential ques-
tions, the two grim interrogations of the old Sphinx, the
''What'' and the ''Wherefore/'

It is by its power to deal with these more essential riddles
that any philosophy must be weighed and judged; and it is
just because what we name Science stops helplessly at this
unimportant ''How," that it can never be said to have
answered Life's uttermost challenge.

Materialistic and Evolutionary Hypotheses must always,
however far they may go in reducing so-called "matter"
to so-called "spirit," remain outside the real problem.
No attentuation of "matter" into movement or energy or
;magnetic radio-activity can reach the impregnable citadel
of life. For the citadel of life is to be found in nothing
less than the complex of personality — ^whether such per-
sonality be that of a planet or a plant or an animal or a
man or a god — ^must always be recognized as inherent in an
actual living soul-monad, divided against itself in the ever-
lasting duality.

Although the most formidable support to our theory of
an "eternal vision," wherein all the living entities that fill
space under the vibration of an unspeakable cosmic rhythm
and brought into focus by one supreme act of contempla-

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THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 321

tive "love,'* is drawn from the rare creative moments of
what I have called the "apex-thought," it still remains that
for the normal man in his most normal hours the purely
scientific view is completely unsatisfying.

I do not mean that it is unsatisfying because, with its
mechanical determinism, it does not satisfy his desires.
I mean that it does not satisfy his imagination, his instinct,
his intuition, his emotion, his aesthetic sense ; and in being
unable to satisfy these, it proves itself, "ipso-facto," false
and equivocal.

It is equally true that, except for certain rare and privi-
leged natures, the orthodox systems of religion are equally
unsatisfying.

What is required is some philosophic system which is
bold enough to include the element of so-called "super-
stition" and at the same time contradicts neither reason nor
the aesthetic sense.

Such a system, we contend, is supplied by the philosophy
of the complex vision; a philosophy which, while remain-
ing frankly anthropomorphic and mythological, does not,
in any narrow or impudent or complacent manner, slur
over the bitter ironies of this cruel world, or love the clear
outlines of all drastic issues in a vague, unintelligible, un-
aesthetic idealism.

What our philosophy insists upon is that the modem
tendency to reduce everything to some single monistic
"substance," which, by the blind process of "evolution,"
becomes all this passionate drama that we see, is a tendency
utterly false and misleading. For us the universe is a much
larger, freer, stranger, deeper, more complicated affair
than that.

For us the universe contains possibilities of real ghastly,
incredible evil, descending into spiritual depths, before
which the normal mind may well shudder and turn dis-
mayed away.

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822 THE COMPLEX VISION

For 118 the universe eontaiiifl possibilities of divine,
magical, miraculous good^ ascending into spiritual heights
and associating itself with immortal super-human beings,
before which the mind of the merely logical intelligence
may well pause, ba£9ed, puzzled, and obscurely indignant.

The ''fulcrum" upon which the whole issue depends, the
''pivot" upon which it turns, is the existence of actual liv-
ing souls filling the immense spaces of nature.

If there is no "soul" in any living thing, then our
whole qrstem crumbles to pieces. If there are living
"souls" in every living thing, then the universe, as re-
vealed by the complex vision, is more real than the universe
as revealed by the chief exponents of modem thought.

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CHAPTER XIV

THE mEk OF COMMUNISM

The philosophy of the complex vision inevitably issues,
when it is applied to political and economic conditions, in
the idea of communism. The idea of communism is in-
herent in it from the beginning; and in communism, and
in conununism alone, does it find its objective and external
expression.

The philosophy of the complex vision reveals, as we have
seen, a certain kind of ultimate duality as the secret of
life. This ultimate duality remains eternally unrecon-
ciled ; for it is a duality within the circle of every personal
soul; and the fact that every personal soul is surrounded
by an incomprehensible substance under the dominion of
time and space, does not reconcile these eternal antago-
nists; because these eternal antagonists are for ever un-
fathomable, even as the personal soul, of which they are
the conflicting conditions, is itself for ever unfathomable.

It is therefore a perpetual witness to the truth that the
idea of communism is the inevitable expression of the com-
plex vision that this idea should, more than other idea in
the world, divide the souls of men into opposite camps.
If the idea of conununism were not the inevitable expres-
sion of the philosophy of the complex vision as applied to
human life it would be an idea with regard to which all
human souls would hold infinitely various opinions.

But this is not the case. In regard to the idea of com-
munism we do not find this infinite variety of opinion.
We find, on the contrary, a definite and irreconcilable du-

823

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324 THE COMPLEX VISION

fdity of thonght. Human souls are diyided on this matter
not, as they are on other matters, into a motley variety of
eonvictions but into two opposite and irreconcilable con-
victions, unfathomably hostile to one another.

There is no other question, no other issue, about which
the souls of men are divided so clearly and definitely into
two opposite camps. The question of the existence of a
"parent of the universe" does not divide them so clearly;
because it always remains possible for any unbeliever in a
spiritual unity of this absolute kind to use the term
** parent," if he pleases, for that incomprehensible ** sub-
stance" under the dominion of space and time which takes
the triple form of the ''substance" out of which the sub-
stratum of the soul is made, the ''substance" out of which
the "objective mystery" is made, and the substance out^
of which is made the surrounding "medium" which holds
all personal souls together.

The question of the mortality or the immortality of the
soul does not divide them so clearly; because such a ques-
tion is. entirely insoluble; and a vivid consciousness of its
insolubility accompanies all argument. The question of
race does not divide them so clearly; because both with
regard to race and with regard to class the division is very
largely a superficial thing, dependent upon public opinion
and upon group-consciousness and leaving many individu-
als on each side entirely unaffected.

The question of sex does not divide them so clearly;
because there are always innumerable examples of noble
and ignoble treachery to the sex-instinct ; not to speak of a
certain intellectual neutrality which refuses to be biased.
The idea of communism is on the contrary so profoundly
associated with the original revelation of the complex
vision that it must be regarded as the inevitable expression
of all the attributes of this vision when such attributes are
reduced to a rhythmic harmony.

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THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM 325

That this is no speculative hypothesis but a real fact of
experience can be proved by any sincere act of personal
introspection.

The philosophy of the complex vision is based upon
those rare and supreme moments when the soul's '' apex-
thought " quivers like an arrow in the very heart of the
surrounding darkness. By any honest act of introspec-
tion we can recall to memory the world-deep revelations
which are thus obtained. And among these revelations
the one most vivid and irrefutable, as far as human asso-
ciation is concerned, is the revelation of the idea of com-
munism.

So vivid and so dominant is this idea, that it may be said
that no motive which drives or obsesses the will in the
sphere of external relations can approach or rival it in
importance. And that this is so can be proved by the fact
that the opposite of this idea, namely the idea of private
property, is found when we analyse the content of our
profoundest instincts to be in perpetual conflict with the
idea of communism.

And the inevitableness of the world-deep struggle be-
tween these two ideas is proved by the fact that in no
other way, as soon as the objective world is introduced at
all, can we conceive of love and malice as expressing them-
selves. Love must naturally express itself in the desire to
''have all things in conmion"; and malice must naturally
express itself in the desire to have as little as possible in
common and as much as possible for ourselves alone.

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 pstychological clairvoyance we can disentangle
this base element from some of the most passionate forms
of the sexual instinct and from some of the most passion-

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826 THB OOMPLBX VISION

ate forms, of the maternal inatinot. It is undeniable
that the poBseedTe instinct does accompany both these
emotions and we are compelled to recognize that^ when-
ever or whereyer it appears, it is the expresion 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 qmthesis. And there is no other i^ynthesis 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 con-
ceive 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 hypo-
thesis but a fact based upon experience, by a consideration
of the opposite ideal. For evil, as we have hinted in many
places, ha$ 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 re-
sistance 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.

Beason 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

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THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM 827

power of mallc6y derives exquisite satisfaotiim from the
theory of the aatomatism 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
I>ersonal soul. And therefore it is a theory which the iso-
lated 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 predes-
tined 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 de-
rived from intellectual sadism and from the unfathomable
malice of the soul.

Between a philosophic i>essimism which springs from
a genuine passion for reality and from a pure ''pity"
for tortured sentient things, and a philosophic pessimism
t^hich 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.

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828 THE COMPLEX VISION

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 advo-
cates of private property draw a certain malignant pleas-
ure from insisting that the possessive instinct is the strong-
est 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 con-
fine 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 possesa 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 sepa-
rate in our minds and not to allow the philosophical ad-
vocates of private property to confuse them. If the as-
sumption 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; un-
der 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 whidi is the strongest
of all human instincts and therefore one which it is insane
to attempt te 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

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THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM 329

life of the soul that if it had not already relatively over-
eome 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 ''good-
ness" which shall carry a stronger conviction to the mind
of such biassed philosophers than any appeal to the con-
science or even to the aesthetic senses The conscience and
the aesthetic sense speak with uncompromising finality upon
this subject and condemn the possessive instinct or the
instinct to i)ossess 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 in-
stinct 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.

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880 THE COMPLEX VISION

These necessities demand adequate food, adequate doth-
ingf adequate shelter and adequate leisure. They also
demand freedom, beauty, happiness, a considerable degree
of solitude, and final relief from the intolerab]# fear of
poverty. But the economio- and intellectual resources of
the human race are perfectly capable of providing all these
things for all human beings within the limits of a com-
munistic 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 illu-
sion of the value of private property be permitted to
fortify its insecure position by a fsJse appeal to these real
yalues.

The astounding achievements of modem science have
brought to light two things. They have brought to light
the fact that no human or social unit short of the intemap-
tional 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 inter-
nationalizing of economic distribution, if murderous cha-
otic conflict is to be avoided.

The real values of sufficient food, clothing, shelter,
leisure, and solitude can be secured for every human be-
ing inhabiting this planet, under a far from perfect or-
ganization of world-production and world-distribution.
Th^ astounding achievements of modem 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 modem science, especially in the
sphere of industrial machinery, have made it possible for
every human being to have sufficient food, clothing, shel-
ter, leisure and solitude. Man, in this sense, has already
conquered Nature; and has secured for his progeny how-
ever indefinitely increased, and for the frail and incompe-

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THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM 331

tent ones of his race, however indefinitely increased^ a more
than sa£Seient 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 co-
operation applied to the problems of production could se-
cure 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 advertise-
ment, monopoly, exploitation and every kind of chicanery
of unproductive accumulation of private property.

Our present commercial and industrial qrstem 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 arti-
ficially maintained by artificial values and by the fantastic
process of advertisement.

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332 THE COMPLEX VISION

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 main-
tained 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 in-
different 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,
I>ositive, and exhaustive manner, more than he can eat or
drink or wear or otherwise personally enjoy.

His "sensation of ownership," over lands, houses, gar-
dens, pictures, statues, books, animals and human beings,
is really and actually restricted to the immediate and di-
rect enjoyment which he is able in person to derive from
such things. Beyond this immediate and personal enjoy-
ment 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 re-
stricted to his personal capacity for entering into the liv-
ing 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 prov-
ince it is to preserve certain objects for other people to
enjoy, or, shall we say, for the permanent prevention of

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THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM 333

any people ever enjoying them. And jnst 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 i>06sessive 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 pos-
sessions" 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 ap-
parent increase of power and importance which accom-
panies it, and from its association with that necessary
minimum of food, shelter, clothing, leisure, comfort, free-
dom, solitude, and happiness, which is certainly real, es-
sential and indispensable.

The universal wisdom of the ages bears witness to the
fact that a "moderate poverty" or a "moderate compe-
tence" 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 so-
ciety, would be within the reach of even the least efScient.

The gloomy and melancholy argument brought forward
by the enemies of "communism" that under such a condi-
tion "the incentive of private initiative would disappear"
and that no other motive could take its place, is an argu-
ment based upon the assumption that human nature de-
rives more inspiration from the idea of dishonourable greed
than it derives from the idea of honourable and useful la-
bour; which is an assumption so wholly opposed to true

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884 THE COMPLEX VISION

INQTohoIogy that it has only to be nakedly stated to be sden
in its complete absurdity.

What the psychologist, interested in this abysmal strug-
gle between the idea of communism and the idea of pri-
vate property, has to note is the nature and character of
the particular individual who brings forward this argu-
ment 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
I>olitician 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 ex-
perienced ijie 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 unmis-
takable 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 cre-
ative work, is a doctrine springing directly from the ab-
original 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

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THE IDEA OP COMMUNISM 335

poflsessive instinet 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 itseU. 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. Appar-
ently and superficially what it aims at is the eternally
''static." In other worda 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 youthful-
ness in its ofCispring 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 ever-
lasting 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 be-
come 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 pos-
sessive instinct desires is what all malice desireSi namely

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336 THE COMPtEX VISION

the annihilation of lif^ Pretending to itsdf that it de-
sires 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 com-
pletely vanishes. It wants to destroy all separation be-
tween 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 be*
loved 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 posses-
sion, 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 de-;
sire to destroy. The possessive instinct is, in its profound--
est abyss, an amorist of death. What it secretly loves is
the dead; for the dead alone can never defraud it of its

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THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM 887

dfttiflfaction. Wberever love exercises its creatii!|e 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 pres-
ence 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 com-
plete abolition of private property; because private prop-
erty, 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. Undor
any realization, in actual existence, of the idea of com-
munism the creative energy finds itself free to expand and
dilate. All that heavy clogging burden of ''the person-
ally 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 iqrstem 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.

Modem Law is the qrstem of restriction by which we
\ protect private property.

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

Modem science is the system by which private property

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338 THE COMPLEX YISION

IB increased and the nses of it made more complicated.
Modem '' 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.

Modem art is tiie 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 in-
stinct 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 re-
alization of the vision of the Immortals; and it is only
under a communistic state that the vision of the Immor-
tals 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.

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CONCJLUSION

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
I>ower of our will and the portion of it which is supplied
by destiny or circumstance, and over which our ^^ 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
tfiinkers as Plato and Spinoza have afSxed 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 Uiat life is an art
towards which the will must be directed; and that the
larger portion of life manifests itself in interior contem-
plation and only the smaller part of it in overt action.

889

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940 THE COMPLEX VISION

In both theie spheres, in the sphere of contemplation aa
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 mani*
fested 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 liie vision which the intellect has accepted!

It must be remembered that the vision upon which this
philosophy depends and from which it derives its pri-
mordial assumptions is not the normal vision of the human
BouL The philosophy of the comjplex 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 mat-

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CONCLUSION 841

ter, 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, neces-
sarily 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
whi(^ we have made aU our basic assumptions is the point
of view that the secret of the universe is only revealed to
man in rare moments of ecstasQr; 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 passion-
ate 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 an-
other '* 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, fo-
cussed 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 fionstrncted harmony

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843 THE COMPLEX YISION

will have to wait for many days and years without expe-
riencing 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 I — ^it is of the
very nature of this niysterious thing to require for the mo-
ment of its activity something else than the contemplatiye
tension which has prepared the ground for its appearance.
For this synthetic apex-thought, which is the soiU'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 philo-
sophic equivalent of that free gift of the Qods 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 accumula-
tion 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 ob-
scure conditions which seem to be necessary before the
magic of the apex-thought is roused.

This preparing of the ground, this deliberate concentra-
tion 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 ideiL The second movement of

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CONCLUSION 343

\
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 strug-
gle 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 illum-
inative moment has been reached, the will finds itself irre-
sistibly plunged into this struggle, finds itself inevitably
ranged, c^ 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 to-
gether, 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 dark-
ness, never ceases from its abysmal struggle. For this is

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844 THE COMPLEX VISION

the conclusion of the whole matter. When we speak of the
eternal duality as consisting in a straggle between love and
malice, what we really mean is that the human soul, concen-
trated 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 per-
sonality; and it would be of a similar nature if the person-
ality in question were confronted by no other thing in the
universe except the objective mystery. I mean liiat the
soul would be committed to a struggle between its creative
energy and its inert malice even if there were no other liv-
ing persons in the world towards whom this love and this
malice could be directed.

I have compared the substance of the soul to an arrow-
head 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 substanoe of the invisible 0oul-
monad is itself divided into this eternally alternating dual-
ity, of which the projected "flames," or manifested ** ener-
gies'' are the constant expression. Each of these energies
has as its concrete "material," so to speak, the one pro-
jected 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

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CONCLUSION 345

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, imag-
ination, and the like — are less definitely divided up among
those three ^'primordial ideas" which we discern as
''truth," "beauty," and "gobdness," they are subject,
nevertheless^ since their substance is the stuff of emotion, to
the same duality of love and malice.

It is not difScult to see how this duality turns upon itself
in human instinct, in human imagination, and in human in-
tuition 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 wiU is that particular aspect of the soul-monad by
means of which it consciously intensifies or relaxes the out-
ward 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 d^ree;
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 contra-
dictory 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 elimina-

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346 THE COMPLEX VISION

tion 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 al-
though present to consciousness is different from conscious-
ness, and although intensifying and lessening 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 im-
portant 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 re-
sult 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 pro-
jected 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 sensa-
tion, 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 sensa-
tion alone, it is neglecting and betraying its main func-
tion, 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

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CONCLUSION 347

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 sensa-
tion 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 close-
ness 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 pen-
alty 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 eMuence 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 condi-
tions 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 excep-
tional moments seem to come more frequently to men than
to women, and while a greater number of the supreme ar-
tists and prophets of the world are of the male sex, it can-
not be denied that the average woman^ in every generation^

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348 TbE COMPLEX VISION

leads a more hnman and a more dignified life than the
average man. And she does this because the special la-
bours which occupy her, such as the matter of food, of
cleanliness, of the making and mending of clothes, of the
care of children and ani^nals 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 cen-
turies, a certain symbolic and poetic distinction which noth-
ing 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 continully 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 aver-
age 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 oases the material with which the will has to

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CONCLUSION 349

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 tpnda to obstruct and
embarrass her sonl 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 con-
centration, 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 ^nd 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 thiAg as though we said "the emotion of the soul
becomes imagination or intuition."

Emotion is our name, in fact, for the poycho-material
"stuff" out of which the organic substratum of the soul is
made. And since this "stuff" is etemaly divided against
itself into a positive and a negative "pole" we are com-
pelled 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,

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350 THE COMPLEX VISION

reason, imagination, conscience, intuition and so fortb, 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 inex-
plicable, is of frequent occurrence in human experience.
The ecclesiastical dogma of the Trinity is no fantastic in-
vention 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 aa
soon as it becomes conscious of itself at all. The older
philosophers begin their adventurous journey by the dis-
covery and proclamation of some particular clue, or catch-
word, 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. Modem 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 con-
tents 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 or-
ganic 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 move-
ment is therefore a perpetual setting-f orth 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

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CONCLUSION 851

nothing less than the huge spectacle of the visible niiiverse
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 unfathomable-
ness 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 uni-
verse which in its eternal beauty and hideousness haa
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 dimin-
ish the strangeness or unf athomableness of life. The fact
that the ultimate reality of such a universe is to be found
in the psycho-material substratum — ^ere mind and matter
become one — of the individual soul, does not lessen or di-
minish 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 crea-
tive energy of some personal soul we are not able to con-
ceive 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 be-
cause the psycho-material substance of the soul must be
considered as identical, on its psychic side, with the ''spir-
itual substance" of the universe "medium" through which.

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352 THE COMPLEX yiSION

all sonls borne into contact with one another, and identical
on its material aide with the objective mystery which is ex-
pressed in all bodies, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion
that the individual personality is surrounded by an ele-
mental and universal ''something'' similar to itself, domi-
nated 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 dom-
inated by one and the same space. The fact that the ma-
terial 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 every-
thing 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 ele-
ment" which makes it possible for all bodies to come in
contact with one another; and in the third place the "ma-
terial element" which is the original potentiality of all
universes and which has been named "the objective mys-
tery." .

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 hu-
man 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 ^t 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 ideal-

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CONCLUSION 853

istic i^ems 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 situa-
tion 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"t Such an
elemental soul would have no connexion with the "Abso-
lute 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 cor-
responding 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 im-
possible 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 univeraal living person-
ality t 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 buriedt It seems to me much moze

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354 THE COMPLEX VISION

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 em-
phatic, 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 susi>ended
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 to-
gether, and the material element which composes the objec-
tive mystery, must make up in its total weight and pressure
the body, so to speak^ of some sort of universal elemental
soult

And because no personality, whether universal or individ-
ual, can be regarded as absolute, since perpetual creation
is the essence of life, must it not f oUow 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 thia
being would be in fact its own ** objective mystery, "while
our "objective mystery" would be recognized as disappear-
ing in the same reality. Does this hypothesis reduce the
tragedy of life to a negligible quantity, or aflPord a basis
upon which any easy optimism could be reared? It does
not appear so. Wherever personality existed, there the

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CONCLUSION 355

ultimate duality would inevitably reign. And just as with
'Hhe 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 wor-
ship 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 unmortal gods can help being what they are.
That such an elemental personality would have to be re-
garded as a kind of demi-god can hardly be denied; but
there would be no reason for asserting that our highest mo-
ments of inspiration were due to its love for us. As with
the rest of the **imortals" it would be sometimes pos-
sessed 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 per-
sonality, 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 per-
sonality 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 con-

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356 ITHE COMPLEX VISION

nexion with the soul of man than any other invisible com-
panion* 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 asso-
ciation 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 i^3rmbol. 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 i^ymbol of {he 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 el^nent which binds all bodies together, must
not be confused wiih 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 ex-
cept in so far as the material element which is its body
would surround all living things and bring them into con-
tact with one another.

The elemental personality could in no sense be called an

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CONCLUSION 867

oyer-fiool, 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 spir-
itual 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 spir-
itual beauty in the world about us, this knowledge only be-
comes 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 i>ersonality.

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 at-
tenuated 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 enor-

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368 THE COMPLEX VISION

moTis yacnnm. Such a medium wotQd seem to demand, as a
reason for its existence, some living centre of energy such
as that which a personal sonl can alone supply. It is in this
way we arrive at the hypothetical conception of the ele-
mental souL

And our hypothesis is borne out by one very curious
human experience. I mean the experience whidi 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 Qoethe, 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 par-
ticular 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 ar-
rows 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 cre-
ates and is baffled in its creations. The soul loves and is
baffled in its loving. Good and evil grow strangely mingled

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CONCLUSION ' 359

as ihey wrestle in the bottomless abyss. And ever, above us
and beneath ns, the same immense space spreads out its en-
circling arms. And ever, out of the invisible, the beckon-
ing 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 Gbds 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 un-
guessed 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 t The world is still young and the immortal
Qods 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 I"
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 dif-
fused over all the chances and accidents of our life and may
be restored to us in a thousand faint and shadowy intima-
tions. It may be restored to us in broken glimpses, in little

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860 THE COMPLEX VISION

stirrings and ripples on the face of the water, in nunonrt
and whispers among the margin-reeds, in sighings of the
wind across the sea-bank. It may be restored to ns 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 dig-
nity 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 bom, even the most
lucky among us, under a disastrous eclipse. We all con-
tain something of that perilous ingredient which belongs to
the unplumbed depths. Deep cidls unto deep within us;
and in the circle of our mortal personality an immortal
drama unrolls itself. Waves of unredeemed chaos roU
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 diadow of our own malice. But the hu-
man race has not been destined to carry on the unending
struggle alone. Its subjective human vision has touched
in the darkness a subjective super-hmnan vision ; and the
symbol of the encounter of these two is the lonely figure of
Christ

Looking backward, as we thus reach our conclusioii, 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 af-
fected, when once it is reached, by the slowness or the speed
of the method with which we approach it. Nor will it be

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CONCLUSION 861

changed or transformed by the vision that finally grasps it,
as it would necessarily be if it were an objective fact which
we conld 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 mak-
ing our truth, down to the very depths, a gesture, an atti-
tude, 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 sub-
jective mind.

"Truth" cannot get blurred and distorted by the sub-
jective 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 i)ossible 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 tiie
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

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362 THE COMPLEX VISION

which it yisoalizes the world is not a dead or static etemily
but an eternity of living growth. The peace and quiet
which it attains is not the peace and quiet of the equilib-
rium 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 begin-
ning 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 modem ten-
dency 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 pro-
f oundest 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

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CONCLUSION 363

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 phe-
nomena 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 i)ower 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 everlast-
ing 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 o£
small account in the real life of the soul, it remains that hu-

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864 THE COMPLEX VISION

manity has absurdly and outrageously neglected the espe-
cial 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 i)erverted and distorted by their sex-instinct.

Could women of genius arise in sufficient numbers to
counteract this tendency, such sex-obsessed masculine ar-
tists 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
08 a woman, but the rhjrthmic and harmonious vision of
the human soul as it allies itself with the vision of the im-
mortals. Women in private life, and in private conversa-
tion, 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 in-
stincts of man. But this tendency is already beginning to
collapse under the freer atmosphere of economic independ-
ence; and in the future we may expect such a fierce con-
flict between the sex-vision of woman and the sex-vision of
man, that the human soul will revolt against both such par-
tialities and seek the ''ampler ether and diviner air" of

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CONCLUSION 865

a vision that has altogether transcended the difference of
sex.

As we look back over the trayelled road of our attempt
to articulate the ultimate secret, there arises one last stu-
pendous question, not to meet which would be to shirk the
heaviest weight of the problem. We have reached the con-
clusion that the secret of Nature is to be found in personal-
ity. We have reached the further conclusion that per-
sonality 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 com-
posed 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 ob-
jective 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 vis-
ualized such a spectacle. We can never see the objective
mystery cts 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 univen^
has actually appeared.

And since the final conclusion of our attempts articula-

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366 THE COMPLEX VISION

tion should rigorondy eliminate from our picture every-
thing that is relatively unreal, in favour of what is rela-
tively real, it becomes necessary, now at the end, to elim-
inate 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 with-
drawn 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 "objec-
tice 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 innu-
merable visible bodies which are themselves the manifes-
tation 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 spir-
itual soul.

The universe is an immense congeries of bodies, moved
and sustained by an immense congeries of souls. But it re-
mains that these souls, inhabiting these bodies, are linked
together by some mysterious medium which makes it pos-
sible for them to communicate with one another. What is
this mysterious medium f What we have already indicated,

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CONCLUSION 367

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 omni-
present body of this elemental soul is the material at-
mosphere or medium which unites all material bodies,
surely we are justified in assuming that the invisible pri-
mordial medium which binds all souls together, which hy-
pothetically binds them together even before they have, by
the interaction of their different visions, created the uni-
verse, 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 sub-
stances. 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 tncltiding 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 if 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

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368 THE COMPLEX VISION

fact remains that all we see and taste and touch and smell
and hear, all, in fact, that makes np 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 uni-
versal ether finds itself dominated, as all the rest are dom-
inated, by one inescapable circle of uiifathomable 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 ^hing 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 indi-
vidual 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; al-

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CONOIiUSION 869

thoagh in this case also, the stage of thought which it cov-
ers is a real movement of the mind.

But the creative activity in the apex-thought of our com-
plex vision is, after all, only a means, a method, a gesture,
which puts us into possession of the eternal vision. Whea
once the eternal vision has been ours, the memory of it does
not associate itself with any energy of our own. The mem-
ory 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 i>ersonality 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, thai we become. He who contemplates
malice becomes malicious. He who contemplates hideous-
ness becomes hideous. He who contemplates unreality be-
comes 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 suf-
fering of all these living things.

Thus in reaching a conclusion which tallies with our rar-
est 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

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370 THE COMPLEX VISION

that we can neither modify nor obliterate. AU 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 weak-
ness 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 bom, full of a significance which can-
not be put into words. The world-stuflf, 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 con-
template anything in the world without the emotion of mal-
ice or the emoticm 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

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