AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 297 



through progressive stages in time. Only thus can the 

 created thinker or subject unfold into realized, objective 

 existence, through a spontaneous process which, as 

 essentially the self-objectification of ideally true sub- 

 jectivity, is in its nature one with the eternal Process 

 which constitutes the concrete truth and vitality of the 

 divine Subject. 



Following any other way the finite subject must fail of 

 self-realization. Following this and no other way, the 

 finite subject learns that in so doing it is but obeying the 

 law of its own nature; for this law is the law of absolute 

 Reason the absolute, unchangeable law inherent in the 

 true nature of every thinking agency. 



But thus it realizes its own freedom. For freedom 

 consists in conscious obedience to the law - of Reason, 

 whereby alone self-realization is attainable.* It is evident 

 at the same time that freedom can belong only to a think- 

 ing unit, to a genuine individual, to whom, and to none 

 other, is conscious obedience possible. 



But not only does the finite subject prove to be in its 

 nature capable of attaining to genuine, concrete freedom; 

 but another infinitely significant inference is warranted 

 from the fact of its identity in nature with the divine 

 Subject. In that fact lies the assurance that the finite 

 subject possesses an infinite destiny. 



It bears within itself, indeed, the most extraordinary 

 contradiction. It is created, and therefore finite. At 

 the same time it is a subject of identical nature with the 

 absolute, divine Subject, and is therefore infinite. Its 



* Here, indeed, in this conscious, glad obedience to the law of Reason, we 

 have the clue to the highest significance of that ultimate equilibration of 

 which Mr. Spencer (" First Principles,' 1 ' 1 ch. xxii,) writes so suggestively, and 

 yet, in the outcome, as it seems to me, so unsatisfactorily. 



