APPENDIX E 423 



another name for perfection] subjects itself in defining 

 itself from God." So, too, though more explicitly, when 

 (p. 374) I say : " The perfection of the ' creature' lies just 

 in this never ending /r^Jt^jj of victory. . . . Thus its life 

 shows its peculiar perfection by the mode in which , . . 

 it surely, though slowly and with heavy toil, heals its own 

 inherent wound." And, yet again: "The infinity of the 

 ' creature,' the infinity that embosoms finitude and ever- 

 more raises this toward likeness with the eternal." 



There are sundry other passages in my concluding essay 

 that affirm the distinction drawn by Mr. McTaggart between 

 the complete self-adequacy of the spirit as a whole in eter- 

 nity and the inadequacy of it as broken up in a time-process 

 and engaged in a perpetual struggle to attain conformity 

 with that eternal wholeness. In fact, this distinction fur- 

 nishes the whole basis for my reply in that essay to Professor 

 James's " Dilemma of Determinism." I am really quite at 

 one with Mr. McTaggart in what he says about the perfec- 

 tion of all eternal beings, in so far as they are eternal. I have 

 usually avoided the explicit use of the word, because it is 

 in many contexts misleading, and also because the too free 

 use of it would engender prejudice in most readers, thus 

 preventing the proper appreciation of the arguments offered 

 for the world of real freedom. That world as I intend it, 

 and habitually think it, answers to the principles of unity 

 and harmony quite as Mr. McTaggart suggests. 



Accordingly, my argument for the existence of God is 

 not reached by those of his suggested objections which are 

 founded on his assumption that I hold all minds but God 

 to be utterly and totally imperfect, without any aspect of 

 perfection at all. On the contrary, I hold, with him, that 

 all eternal beings are perfect, each in its own way. But the 

 way of God, I maintain, is the way of absolute perfection, 

 which eternally excludes defect ; whereas the way of every 

 other mind is the way that includes defect, conies (or 



