iv LOTZE S MONISM 69 



Let us ask then why we should change. This question 

 may be taken in two senses, according as the stress is 

 laid on the we or on the change. In the first case 

 the question will refer to the preservation of identity in 

 immanent change, and can be answered only by an appeal 

 to inner experience. That A v A 2 , A 3 are all states of A 

 is in our own case based on our feeling of our continuity 

 and identity. We can change, because we are conscious 

 beings with a feeling of our identity. But in so far as 

 we have here the ground for our easy acceptance of the 

 conception of immanent action, it is evidently inapplicable 

 to the Absolute. We can neither feel the Absolute s 

 continuity like our own, nor even infer it like other 

 people s on the analogy of our own. For if the Absolute 

 can be conceived as conscious at all, its consciousness 

 would differ radically from ours in that it would be all- 

 embracing, not merely in the sense of having representa 

 tions of all things within it, but in the sense of actually 

 being and feeling the inner and unique continuity of each 

 thing. 



If, secondly, we ask why we change, instead of remaining 

 as we are, our common reason seems unhesitatingly to 

 answer, either because we are stimulated from without, or 

 because our psychical condition is disequilibrated, is one 

 of unsatisfied desire, so that we long to change it. In 

 neither case do we consider ourselves subject to unprovoked 

 and capricious changes. In the first case, immanent change 

 in ourselves distinctly presupposes transeunt action upon 

 us from without and consists only of our self-maintenance 

 against such action. In the second case there is pre 

 supposed a defect of nature which puts a good we desire 

 beyond our reach. But in the Absolute immanent change 

 can be explained in neither of these ways. There is 

 nothing outside it to stimulate it to self-maintenance. 

 Nor can we not rashly ascribe to an Absolute which is to 

 have any religious value an essential want or defect in its 

 nature. The very considerations, therefore, that render 

 immanent action intelligible in our own case are utterly 

 unthinkable in the Absolute s ; the very reasons which 



