APPENDIX E 429 



perfect can be different, that is, none that are perfect with- 

 out immixture of imperfection, and that are wholly supra- 

 temporal in their being. The conjunction of this unmixed 

 perfection with eternity is what constitutes the proof for the 

 soleness of God. Mr. McTaggart fails to get the force of 

 it, I think, because he silently omits this divine differe^itia 

 before the word " perfect " as I use it of God. And thus, 

 contrasting God and other selves as the Perfect and the 

 unrelieved imperfect, he draws the unwarrantable conclu- 

 sion about " superiority " and " inferiority " which he seems 

 so much to dislike. But I intend no relation of this sort 

 between God and the souls. They are different, and un- 

 changeably different ; they are even different in species, God 

 being perfection eternally fulfilled, the other selves having 

 a time-world of unfulfilment and having to carry it on toward 

 the goal of fulfilment evermore. Thus the difference be- 

 tween them, in this reference, is permanent, — to answer 

 my reviewer's question on this point. But I do not teach 

 that it is a difference of " inferior " and " superior " ; quite 

 the contrary is the fact, as any one who rightly reads my 

 pp. 243-256 will know beyond question. 



(4) Finally, Mr. McTaggart objects to my caUing this 

 sole mind possessing absolute and eternal perfection, God. 

 He insists that the traditional usage shall be absolutely 

 venerated, which makes God the name of the one only self- 

 existent Being, who brings all other beings into existence 

 by creation ex nihilo. Here I am quite unable to agree 

 with him. I not only do not think that this solitude of self- 

 existence, conjoined with this universal efficient causality, 

 is the central and essential thing in the traditional religious 

 thouglit of Christendom, but I am sure that the most spir- 

 itually-minded Christians would at once declare that it is 

 not such ; they would say, on the c(jntrary, that the essen- 

 tial thing in the being of God is his holiness, justice, and 

 infinite Idvc. Now, what I point out is, not only that the 



