204 THE WORLD-EHERGY 



thus give rise to many forces, is thus found to be equally 

 a power by which the one force must inevitably pene- 

 trate the other throughout its whole extent, and ulti- 

 mately mclude it as well. 



That which excludes also includes. The external is 

 ultimately the internal. The conception that there 

 are mutually exclusive forces proves self-contradictory. 

 There is ultimately but one force or energy, which 

 includes all, and is, at the same time, the "all" which 

 is included. It is a self -including , self-contained total. 



It thus turns out that energy is not merely an indivisi- 

 ble total, but that it is the very substance of all reality. 

 For, as energy, it is substance, and as active, it can find 

 its object only in substance. This substance, too, which 

 is the object of the activity of energy, must itself also be 

 a phase of energy, since it can be acted upon only by 

 reacting ; and, in reacting, it necessarily proves to be 

 energy. 



There can, besides, be but one substance. For, were 

 there two, these could be distinguished or maintained as 

 separate only through the possession, by the one, of char- 

 acteristics which the other lacked, and through lacking 

 what the other has. But thus, again, these two "sub- 

 stances" would prove to be mutually dependent, and 

 hence, but complementary phases of one total substance.* 



Thus, from whatever side we view it, energy is seen to 

 be an absolutely indivisible, all-inclusive unit. And yet, 

 as that which contains and also that which is contained, 

 the total energy, or substance, is different from itself, and 

 hence, self-exclusion, as well as self-mclusion. All the 

 relations that are possible to it, indeed, are relations of 



* Compare Spinoza : " Ethics," Part I., Propositions I. to VIII., inch 



