OF THE UNITY OF THOUGHT. 661 



tion. Such limitation, according to Lotze, exists in the 

 case of personalities that are finite ; but personality is 

 not necessarily finite ; the all-pervading universal and 

 spiritual substance, the Infinite, must be conceived as 

 Personality in the full sense of the term. Full person- 

 ality, in fact, belongs only to the Infinite. Finite beings 

 are only endowed v^ith imperfect or partial personality, 

 with so much of it as has been bestowed upon them 

 through the Infinite Source of their separate finite 

 existence. 



" The usual doubts," Lotze says, " as to a personal 

 reality of the Infinite have not shaken our conviction. 

 Whilst we have been trying to refute them we have 

 had the sensation of taking up a position which only 

 the most extraordinary contortion of all natural circum- 

 stances could have brought about. The course of philo- 

 sophical reasoning has forced us into the attitude of 

 showing that the Infinite is not awanting in those attri- 

 butes of personality which we meet with in the finite ; 

 the real state of things should rather have led us to 

 show that of the full personality which is only possessed 

 by the Infinite a faint reflection is vouchsafed likewise 

 to the finite ; for not the conditions but the hindrances 

 in the way of the development of self-sufficiency are the 

 peculiarities of the finite. To these we wrongly attach 

 its claim to personal existence. The finite person acts 

 everywhere by means of forces which he has not given 

 to himself, according to laws which he has not made — 

 that is to say, through the means of a mental organisa- 

 tion which exists not only in himself but likewise in 

 innumerable of his equals. It may, therefore, easily seem 



