ii GOD IN HIMSELF 317 



world a pantheism not different from that of any of 

 the higher religions. 



Neither in nature, however, nor in ourselves, in the God in 



u " if 



soul of man, is the whole being of God to be found. 

 Could we indeed see the substance, the truth of our- 

 selves, could our eye in seeing itself see all things, as 

 the eye of God in seeing other things sees itself, then 

 it would be possible to understand all things and to 

 create all things, for we should then in reality be God. 

 We never penetrate to the deep-lying individual in our- 

 selves, but see only the accidents, the externals ; as we 

 never see our own eye, but only its reflection from a 

 mirror, so our intellect cannot see itself in itself, nor 

 anything else in itself, but always some external form, 

 semblance, image, figure, sign. 1 The truth of things 

 God everywhere eludes our sense and our reason, 

 our discursive intelligence. It is revealed, as we have 

 seen, only to our intuitive, comprehensive glance a 

 sudden insight for which reason only prepares the way. 

 Yet even this insight, " comprehension," is not " com- 

 prehending." We are brought, perhaps, through it 

 into contact and into harmony with Him, but He is 

 never, even to intuition, knowable. To be known 

 would mean to be comprehended, limited, and therefore 

 finite. 



First, then, God, the Monad, or Mind, is the true, 

 innermost nature of things ; "in themselves things are 

 in motion, in matter, dependent, defective, are rather 

 non-entia than entia y for as from not-being they become, 

 so from being they may cease to be ; hence they truly 

 exist only where they cannot cease to be, i.e. in the first 

 cause and unfailing principle, which has power to bring 



1 Cf. Op. Lat. ii. 3. 90 (De Imag. Comp.}. "Intellect" is here used in a general 

 sense, not in the special one of " intuitive thought." 



