298 ESSAYS /.V PHILOSOPHY 



and must therefore, as the only alternative, be 

 acknowledged to be contributions from the mind's 

 pure self-activity. 



But when we have reached this conclusive convic- 

 tion that the roots of our experience and our experi- 

 mental knowledge are parts of our own spontaneous 

 life, we then readily come to see, further, that the 

 system of our several elements of consciousness a 

 priori is precisely what we must really understand 

 by our unifying or enwholing self, — is exactly what 

 we try to express when we say v/e have a soul, and 

 that this soul possesses real knowledge ; that is, a 

 hold upon eternal things. The realm of the eternal, 

 in short, then becomes for us just the realm of our 

 self-active intelligence ; and this it is which, if we 

 can show its reality in detail, will prove to be the 

 clue to our immortal being. So the critical question 

 is, How can the real existence of such a priori con- 

 sciousness, such genuinely self-active intelligence, 

 be conclusively made out "i I have already in a few 

 sentences indicated the general line of this proof, as 

 we inherit it from Kant ; but there is now required 

 some fuller account of it, made intelligible and con- 

 vincing by clear particulars. 



Any comprehensive answer to our question would 

 carry us much farther into the fields of critical specu- 

 lation than I could possibly go in the brief time at 

 our disposal, and certainly much farther than I could 



