RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 479 



pline unto perfection. To be a self-conscious 

 being is, therefore, a very high attainment, the 

 steps toward which we can see all the way 

 down the ladder of Nature from the start. The 

 Ego is created by the Creator to create itself, 

 and so it is like to the Creator. It passes 

 through the stages of determined existence in 

 order to reach the self-determined. Its God- 

 given gift of freedom it must earn through a 

 long training of unf reedom in order to possess 

 such a gift. That training we may follow 

 through all the steps of Evolution. The ex- 

 perience of all Nature's unf reedom the Ego 

 must get in order to surmount the same and 

 to attain its freedom, or its own inner self- 

 active consciousness. 



Using another set of terms, we may recur to 

 the conception of Physis and Psyche, as ex- 

 pressing the pervasive dualism of Nature. But 

 when Psyche becomes self-dividing and self- 

 returning in one, or self-individuating within 

 itself, it declares its independence of Physis, 

 even if it recognizes its former dependence, 

 and finally accepts and even formulates its 

 previous evolution in, with, and out of Physis. 

 In its new freedom Psyche can return not only 

 upon its free self, but also upon its unfree self 

 and observe its process toward its (psychic) 

 freedom. Thus it becomes a perpetual self- 

 reproduction as the essence of its own self- 



