290 THE WORLD-ENERGY 



simplest (and complementary) factors in the process of 

 creation, as we have seen, are universality and partic- 

 ularity. 



We have now to note and emphasize the fact that it is 

 the complete fusion of these factors in a self-renewing 

 process that must constitute genuine,, concrete individ- 

 uality. This, too, we have already seen to be the vital 

 characteristic of the World-Energy itself, considered as 

 Spirit. That is, genuine individuality is an essentially 

 spiritual characteristic. The genuine, adequate concep- 

 tion of an individual is that of a spiritual, self-conscious, 

 self-active unit. An individual is a subject which un- 

 folds itself as object. It is, then, legitimate, as well as 

 of utmost interest to ourselves to inquire whether there 

 is, as many have actually believed, but one genuine, 

 abiding individual? whether all "other" individualities, 

 including the human, are in fact only relative, vanish- 

 ing, illusory forms or modes of the One ? 



We have seen that the World-Energy, as Spirit, is its 

 own end its own final purpose. Consistently with this, 

 too, we have seen that its total activity is a process in 

 which the subjective forever unfolds into the object- 

 ive. Nor is this the whole truth. Rather it so develops 

 the objective aspect of its own existence that through 

 and in this objective aspect the subjective comes ever 

 into greater and greater prominence so that the par- 

 ticularized object, as such, proves to be dominated 

 by, and with increasing degree to express, a specialized 

 phase of subjectivity. The specialized object, let us 

 repeat, is, in its specific character of specialized object, 

 itself but an outerance or manifestation of the absolute 

 Subject. 



