THE WOKLD-ENERGY 



World-Energy. This has,, indeed, already come into view 

 under the phase of the unity of substance. What now 

 devejops, however, is the fact that the World-Energy as 

 such presents the character of vital reality. It is essen- 

 tially a total of activity, and of self -activity; whereas 

 substance appears rather as inert, relatively passive. 



As the vital sum of reality, then, the World-Energy 

 bears the aspect of absolute potentiality. All that is, 

 or is to be, alike with all that has been, could only be, 

 or have promise of being, or have actually been, through 

 the activity of the World-Energy. That is the absolute 

 presupposition of all things. All things are, or could 

 be, only as phases or modes of the World-Energy. 



Viewed as potentiality, however, the World-Energy 

 appears especially as a self-equal, self-poised unit. It 

 is the vital One, forever equal to itself. It is the uni- 

 versal of infinite extent. Self-comprised, it comprises all. 

 Self -related, it involves all relation within itself. 



But again, as self-related totality and, therefore, as 

 involving all relation within itself, it is the potentiality 

 of all distinction, differentiation, particularization. Thus 

 particularity is no less distinctively a mark of the total 

 World-Energy than is universality. 



At the same time this self-multiplying unity remains 

 forever One; multiplicity being but the form or mode of 

 the potentiality of the One.* So, again, as self -particu- 

 larizing universal, it must forever remain indivisible; for 

 the very setting up of particularity within it, is solely 

 the result of its own act as One. Its indivisible unity 

 is emphasized precisely through its own self-particular- 



*See the dialectic of the " One and the Many" in this abstract phase as 

 developed in Plato's Parmenides. 



