THE FOUR THEORETICAL DIVISIONS 107 



It can seek a relation to the totality of those whom we aim to acknow- 

 ledge as real subjects. It thus becomes independent of the chance 

 experience of this or that man, or this or that movement, which 

 appeals to us, but involves in an independent way the reference to 

 every one who is to be acknowledged as a subject at all. Such refer- 

 ence, which is no longer bound to any special group of historical in- 

 dividuals, thus becomes strictly over-individual. We can then dis- 

 criminate three stages: our merely individual will; secondly, our will 

 as bound by other historical individuals; and thirdly, our over- 

 individual will, which is not influenced by any special individual, 

 but by the general demands for the idea of a personality. 



Each of those four great types of will-attitude which we insisted on 

 that is, of submitting, of approving the given, of approving change, 

 and of transcending can be carried out on these three stages, that 

 is, as individual act, as historical act, and as over-individual act. 

 And we may say at once that only if we submit and approve and 

 change and transcend in an over-individual act, do we have Truth 

 and Beauty and Morality and Conviction. If we approve, for instance, 

 a given experience in an individual will-act, we have simply personal 

 enjoyment and its object is simply agreeable; if we approve it in har- 

 mony with other individuals, we reach a higher attitude, yet one which 

 cannot claim absolute value, as it is dependent on historical considera- 

 tions and on the tastes and desires of a special group or a school or a 

 nation or an age. But if we approve the given object just as it is in an 

 over-individual will-act, then we have before us a thing of beauty, 

 whose value is not dependent upon our personal enjoyment as indi- 

 viduals, but is demanded as a joy forever, by every one whom we 

 acknowledge at all as a complete subject. In exactly the same way, 

 we may approve a change in the world from any individual point of 

 view: we have then to do with technical, practical achievements; or 

 we may approve it in agreement with others: we then enter into the 

 historical interests of our time. Or we may approve it, finally, in an 

 over-individual way, without any reference to any special person- 

 ality: then only is it valuable for all time, then only is it morally good. 

 And if our will is transcending experience in an individual way, it can 

 again claim no more than a subjective satisfaction furnished by any 

 superstition or hope. But if the transcending will is over-individual, 

 it reaches the absolute values of religion and metaphysics. 



Exactly the same differences, finally, must occur when our will sub- 

 mits itself to experience. This submission may be, again, an individ- 

 ual decision for individual purposes; no absolute value belongs to it. 

 Or it may be again a yielding to the suggestions of other individuals; 

 or it may, finally, again be an over-individual submission, which seeks 

 no longer a personal interest. This submission is not to the authority 

 of others, and is without reference to any individual; we assume 



