Preliminary Considerations 5 



the processes of limitation and change. On a priori 

 grounds we should look for some such possibility of 

 relation, and this could only exist if created beings 

 possessed some measure of transcendence; and we un- 

 questionably find this. Thus we were driven to conclude 

 that just as God is transcendent and immanent, so man 

 too is transcendent and immanent ; and is passing more 

 and more from immanence to transcendence as he pro- 

 gresses. This is indeed the mark and sign of human pro- 

 gress, individual and racial. But between the imma- 

 nence and transcendence of God and man there is a dif- 

 ference, which is causal in nature. Man is not simply 

 immanent and transcendent 05 God is immanent and 

 transcendent, but also because God is immanent and 

 transcendent. 



Along these lines we sought the meaning and reality 

 of eternal life, to which we shall return in the present 

 book. What is needed now is a clear statement of what 

 we mean and, equally important, of what we do not 

 mean by these two terms we so constantly use. The 

 present chapter will therefore be devoted to a definition 

 and a critique of the ideas involved in the terms imma- 

 nence and transcendence as applied to God and to man. 

 This will also entail a critique of the correlation of 

 immanence with time and space, and a discussion of 

 degrees of reality and knowledge. It is clear that any 

 adequate consideration would entail a survey of almost 

 all the material of metaphysic. No such ambitious 

 attempt will be made here. We shall only endeavour to 

 clarify our ideas, and narrow the limits of discussion by 

 indicating clearly the boundaries. 



Evidently, we are making in all this the assumption 

 that God is Personal. And indeed that assumption will 

 be found to be the very starting point of our inquiry, 

 and, except incidentally, we shall offer no justification 

 of it. Since Lotze wrote his Microcosmus the conception 



