6 THE WORLD-EKERGY 



It is only because the unknown is fundamentally related 

 to that is, possesses the same nature as the known, 

 that it can ever be transformed into the known. Just 

 that and only that which is wholly unlike the known, 

 and hence wholly incapable of ever being brought into 

 relation with the known, is, with the utmost ease and 

 certainty, already known as being absolutely "unknow- 

 able." It is opposed to intelligence in its very nature, 

 and hence may be at once " recognized " by the intelli- 

 gence as unknowable, simply because of its sheer vacuity, 

 because of its being absolutely void of any characteristic 

 through which it can or could ever be an object to the 

 intelligence. 



The only world, then, which can possibly be known, or 

 even conceived as existing, is a world essentially related 

 to, and hence possessing, in truth, the same fundamental 

 nature as the knowing self. Such would seem, at this 

 point, to be the natural inference. 



There is suggested here also this further inference : 

 That the only intelligence I can ever know is of the same 

 fundamental nature as my own intelligence. For I could 

 only know it by taking up its modes of activity into my 

 own consciousness. And that must mean that thus far 

 the modes of my own consciousness are the same as the 

 modes of that intelligence assumed to be essentially differ- 

 ent from my own. It is only by an act of my own reason 

 that I could conceive of a reason as different from my 

 own. But in the very act of conceiving it as different 

 from my own I must pronounce such " reason " to be 

 unreason. In other words, such conception utterly con- 

 tradicts itself and thus annuls itself in the very process of 

 its formation. 



