XI FUNCTIONS AND IDEALS 31S 



self -activity. In other words, the function of Freedom is to 

 attain Purity in the Personality. And similarly the function 

 of the ideal of Purity is to afford free play to the inward self- 

 determination and self-activity of the Personality by remov- 

 ing all external impediments, all stains and impurities, all vice, 

 cowardice, intemperance and injustice, all evil and ugliness; 

 in short, all elements alien to the nature of the Personality, 

 and thus to realise the Ideal of Freedom in the Personality. 

 This statement differs considerably from the usual ways 

 of formulating the Summum Bonum or Ethical End. The 

 Pleasure of the Hedonist, the Good of the Intuitionist, and 

 all the other abstract formulations of the Ethical End ap- 

 pear partial and one-sided from the holistic point of view. 

 The end of Personality does not lie outside it but is given 

 inwardly. As Goethe has so well said of Life: ^'Der Zweck 

 des Lebens ist das Leben selbst." Even more truly one may 

 say that the Whole knows no end beyond or outside itself. 

 The object of the holistic movement is simply the Whole, 

 the Self-realisation and perfection of the Whole. And the 

 same is true of Personality in so far as it is a whole. Its 

 object is to achieve self-realisation, to realise its wholeness, 

 to attain freedom not in a selfish, egoistic sense but in the 

 universal holistic order. Holistic self-realisation is no 

 doubt pleasurable to the individual; but the pleasure is a 

 mere side issue and by-product, so to say, of the striving 

 towards wholeness in the individual life and character, and 

 the same may be said in regard to all the other particular 

 ends and aims usually considered worthy of our serious en- 

 deavour. Learn to be yourself with perfect honesty, integ- 

 rity and sincerity; let universal Holism realise its highest) 

 in you as a free whole of Personality; and all the rest will 

 be added unto you — peace, joy, blessedness, happiness, good- 

 ness and all the other prizes of life. Nay, more: the great 

 evils of life — pain, and suffering, and sorrow — will only in 

 the end serve to accelerate the holistic progress of the Per- 

 sonality, will be assimilated and transformed in the spiritual 

 alchemy of the Personality and will feed the flame of the 

 pure and free soul. 



