136 PERSONALITY 



observation with equally painful and accurate 

 thought and action, we cannot realise our 

 true existence. This observation, thought, 

 and action must also be the educated observa 

 tion, thought, and action of personality, and 

 must focus in itself the spiritual inheritance 

 of personality. 



In personality there is always the element 

 of the here and now. New experience is 

 always, as it were, welling up within it, and 

 gradually taking the form of new truth and 

 new duty. Personality is living, suffering, 

 rejoicing, and working existence. This idea 

 is clearly embodied in the Christian conception 

 of God ; and when we try to penetrate through 

 the sensuous mist which blurs that conception 

 we can see that our discussion has brought us 

 very near to it. 



In concluding these lectures I should like 

 to summarise briefly the course of the 

 argument. In the first lecture I stated as 

 clearly as I could the arguments in favour of 

 the mechanistic theory of life, and the fatal 

 objections which may be urged against 

 vitalism or animism. The second lecture 

 was devoted to criticism of the mechanistic 



