HARMOIVY OF DETERMINISM AND FREEDOM 355 



Hence the world of minds must embrace, y?rj/, the 

 Supreme Instance, in which the self-definer defines 

 himself from every other by the peculiarity of per- 

 fect self-fulfilment in eterjiity, so that all ideal 

 possibilities, all rational perfections, are in him 

 eternally actualised, and there is an absolutely per- 

 fect mind, or God, whose very perfection lies in 

 his giving complete recognition to all other spirits, 

 as the complement in terms of which alone his 

 own self-definition is to himself completely think- 

 able. But, secondly, the world of minds must 

 embrace this complemental world, and every mem- 

 ber of this complement, though indeed defining 

 himself against each of his fellows, must define 

 himself primarily against the Supreme Instance, 

 and so in terms of God. Thus each of them, in 

 the very act of defining his own reality, defines 

 and posits God as real — as the one Unchangeable 

 Ideal who is the indispensable standard upon which 

 the reality of each is measured. The price at which 

 alone his reality as self-defining can be had is 

 the self-defining reality of God. If Jic is real, then 

 God is real ; if God is not real, then neither can 

 he be real. 



In the system then, as it really is, God not only 

 eternally defines himself, and so is self-existent 

 eternally, but he is likewise freely defined as self- 

 existent by every other self-defining being. He is 



