32 Preliminary Considerations 



absolutely Real can have no other meaning than this. 

 And this statement brings us back to our starting point ; 

 we are sure of our facts because Personality is the one 

 real, stable thing we know ; and Personality is the capa- 

 city for fellowship, which is Love. True unity is, in a 

 sense, the unity of a system, but that system is infinite 

 reciprocity, or Love; and so, is Personality. As our 

 discussion proceeds this great truth will become con- 

 tinually more full of meaning. In man we find that 

 unity is based on this. Man is a unity ; made one in the 

 freedom of emotion 1 . He is his own object, but yet he 

 is still consciously one. The plurality that bears so 

 hardly on his life, the misunderstandings and lack of 

 insight that are the source of all his pain and sorrow, 

 are the signs-manual of his limitation of his lack of 

 freedom, real to him, but not so real as the timeless 

 unity that is himself. Man, like God, is immanent, but 

 man touches the Eternal Godhead in transcendence. 

 With growing freedom comes growing love, which 

 brings him more and more into the union of complete 

 transcendence. Here lies the power for good that those 

 who believe in us wield they see through change into 

 the stable self, and make us more truly self-conscious; 

 make us realise more our eternal being ; make us ashamed 

 to do anything that may hamper the spirit with fresh 

 bonds. In that measure in which we are in communion 

 with the Transcendent God, and realise our fellowship 

 with Him, we know this inspiration in its highest form. 



We are now ready to gather up the threads. 



An attempt to formulate what we meant by Imma- 

 nence showed us that we could only do so by keeping 

 steadily in view the conception of Transcendence, since 

 only thus can we keep in touch with the whole. Trans- 

 cendence means both unity and activity, as well as 

 unchanging permanence. 



1 Vide infra, ch. iii. 



