142 Some Implications of the Incarnation [CH. 



But I cannot think this to be more than a confusion of 

 thought. If we believe in the Atonement it seems to me 

 that we must cling to the truth of the Incarnation; 

 must never let go our belief in the perfect humanity of 

 Jesus, and so in His kenosis. The Godhead was not 

 immanent in His Godhead; the statement involves a 

 contradiction; it was immanent in His Manhood, as it 

 is immanent in the manhood of each one of us. But 

 because limitation is part of the real experience of God, 

 being viewed by Him as part of the Whole which ex- 

 presses His Being in all its fullness, His complete limita- 

 tion in manhood does not make Him any the less really 

 God. The limitation is not in the plane of absolute 

 reality, nor of an eternal existence that is merely a 

 totum simul, but as part of a reality an eternal exist- 

 ence that is a whole because it expresses the activity 

 of Divine Being. 



Having discussed what we mean by the laying aside 

 of Godhead we may now return to the questions we 

 asked in regard to our Lord's consciousness of His 

 Divinity and Mission, and His memory of existence in 

 the Eternal Unity of the Godhead. 



In this matter Bergson's doctrine of Pure Memory 

 one of the fundamentals of his system will be found 

 decidedly helpful. The doctrine is so simple and satis- 

 fying that I cannot but believe that it represents a real 

 truth, if not the whole truth. Readers of Bergson's 

 philosophy will remember that he distinguishes entirely 

 between memory and perception, and does not say, as 

 many psychologists do, that memory is a weaker kind 

 of perception. Pure perception is entirely in the present ; 

 pure memory is entirely in the past. But the past is not 

 that which has ceased to exist ; it has only ceased to act. 

 The relation between action, perception and memory is 

 vital. Action is the means of progress. Perception en- 

 ables the vital impulse to react with the environment in 



