WHY THE ABSOLUTE CAN HAVE NO PURPOSE. 33 1 



possibly have effected thereby ? What difference 

 could creation make to it ? What could it realize 

 by creation that was not already real ? It must be 

 supposed to have created all things out of itself, 

 seeing that it could create them neither out of 

 nothing nor out of something outside it. But it 

 already was all things, and contained all things ; and 

 so could neither realize itself nor anything else any 

 more than it was realized already. 



And the idea that the Absolute attains to self-^ 

 consciousness in man is equally untenable, when 

 analysed. The Absolute either contains self-con- 

 sciousness already, and then it is nothing new, or it 

 does not, and then the same question arises as to 

 how anything can come into being within the circle 

 of an all-embracing being. For the paltry excuse 

 that all things exist potentially in the Absolute be- 

 fore the creation, but not actually until the world is 

 created, will not help us out of the difficulty. Poten- 

 tial existence, as we saw, is nothing (ch. vii. \ i8), 

 nothing but a reference to a higher actuality. And 

 in this case there is no higher actuality to refer to ; 

 for it would have to be an actuality that could dis- 

 pose the all-mcluding Absolute to realize its poten- 

 tialities. We require something to explain how in 

 the Absolute potentiality can be something and 

 something different from actuality, to explain how the 

 difference between them could arise. If the world 

 was ever potential, then why did it become actual ? 



And besides, the idea that our consciousness is of 

 any value to the Infinite surely displays the most 

 extreme extravagance of human arrogance. Why 

 should the Absolute become self-conscious in man ? 

 Because he happens to be the highest being with 

 which our limited knowledge is acquainted 1 But 



