1/2 £SSAVS IN PHILOSOPHY 



The attempt to take the universe as beyond or apart 

 from or plus consciousness has sublated itself into 

 bringing the universe wholly within consciousness 

 and coincident with it ; and the ancient saying, Ma7i 

 the vieasure of all things, comes round again, but in a 

 new and pregnant sense — a sense which in the last 

 resort gets its meaning from the intrinsic harmony 

 of human with divine cognition. Only, this uni- 

 verse-consciousness must be thought as it is, without 

 omission or exaggeration of any of its contents, and, 

 above all, by mastering the grounds of its existence 

 and the method of its possibility. 



What we have arrived at is this : All that is, comes 

 within consciousness and lies open to it, — the lit- 

 eral all, — whether "starry heavens without" or 

 " moral law within," sensible system of Nature, with 

 its bond of mechanical causation, or intelligible sys- 

 tem of moral agency, with its bond of free allegiance 

 constituting a "kingdom of Ends." A world of 

 spirits, a world of minds each self-active, with the 

 Father of Spirits omnipresent to all— conscious- 

 ness means that. In being conscious, we are con- 

 scious of a universe ; wherein each of us, to put the 

 case in a metaphor (inadequate, of course), is a sin- 

 gle self-luminous but focal point, upon which the 

 remaining whole of light is poured in rays that are 

 reflected back and then returned again, and so on 

 without end, each added return bringing rays in 



