THE WORLD-ENERGY 



deal the only facts that can exist for it are the facts 

 of its own consciousness. The only world for me is the 

 world I know. 



At the same time, this statement is far from being 

 equivalent to saying that at any given moment the 

 individual, empirical consciousness already possesses all 

 the facts that can ever exist for it. This would indeed 

 be manifestly absurd, for the reason that the indi- 

 vidual consciousness has even thus far been unfolded 

 into reality only through the reciprocal activity that 

 has taken place from time to time between the " inner " 

 mind and the " outer " world. On the contrary, it is 

 to be understood as meaning that no new fact can be 

 added to the world of the individual save through the 

 activity of the individual in his character of a conscious 

 unit. And this is as much as to say that each new 

 "fact," as it comes into the consciousness of the indi- 

 vidual, passes through a transforming, creative pro- 

 cess, the primary element of which process, so far as 

 the individual is immediately concerned, is the spon- 

 taneous activity of the individual's own mind, consist- 

 ing in the seizure and fusion with itself of the given 

 outer element. It is only thus that any "fact" what- 

 ever can become known to the individual at all. 



Whence, let us repeat, it is impossible that the indi- 

 vidual should ever really know any fact whatever, other- 

 wise than in so far as it has already come to be a fact 

 of his own consciousness. So that the function of con- 

 sciousness appears to be primarily this: To seize upon 

 the elements offered it in the outer world of nature 

 and to interpret those elements into the inner world of 

 thought. 



