MINE AND THINE 77 



But is it not possible that self -consciousness, through 

 which objects are related to one another, instead of abolish- 

 ing, maintains the mutual externality of things in space 

 and time ? Spirit may be as vitally interested in difference 

 as it is in unity. 1 Under-reaching or subsuming the suc- 

 cessive moments of time, the self-exclusion of extended 

 space and of cause and effect, and the alternation of the 

 forms of a constantly transmuting physical energy, spirit 

 may still leave the distinctions, the differences standing, and 

 even give them fuller play. The not-self through which 

 alone the self builds up its life may, after all, not be vain 

 show, and the self may not be condemned to realise itself 

 by reference to its own shadowy products. 



We might learn from Natural Biology to look every- 

 where for a double movement in natural life ; for differ- 

 entiation and integration advance together. But Idealism, 

 in dealing with the higher life of reason, has been intent 

 merely upon the affinity of all objects with spirit. 2 It is 

 still occupied in endeavouring to reduce all things into 

 spirit : it is trying to show that every natural object, and 

 every atomic part of every natural object, and, I suppose, 

 every point in space and every instant of time, if they are 

 real, must be spiritual realities, that is, conscious or feeling 

 centres. 3 It is assumed that only in this way can the world 



1 In a similar way evolution is as vitally interested in maintaining the 

 variety of the manifestations of life as it is in maintaining its unity : a 

 truth apt to be overlooked " when the accent falls on * the survival of the 

 fittest.' " 



2 It had to refute Materialism : a task in which it would appear it has 

 been completely successful. 



3 The reader will find in Lotze's account of space, and of distance an 

 instructive instance of the attempt to reduce all " realia " into feeling 

 points. 



