346 MAN AND GOD. 



ity, and parts capable of standing related to many 

 and various wholes. The connection is never per- 

 manent and unconditionally valid. 



But perhaps it may be answered that in the case 

 of an all-embracing whole, like the universe, the 

 source of error arising out of the multiplicity of 

 wholes to which the parts may be related is elim- 

 inated by the fact that there is only one whole 

 of which the individual existences can form part. 

 There can be no misinterpretation of the parts of 

 the universal whole, for everything that exists must 

 form part of the Absolute. 



This rejoinder, however, would rest upon an illu- 

 sion. It appears correct only while we treat " the 

 universe " as an abstract conception, and only be- 

 cause the real question has already been begged in 

 the mode of statement. In speaking of "the uni- 

 verse," i.e., of an empty category, its imity has 

 already been covertly assumed, i.e., it has been 

 assumed that no misinterpretation of the parts was 

 possible, that they could only be related to a single 

 whole. But it is a delusion to suppose that when 

 things have been shown to form part of a whole, 

 they have also been shown to form part of a7iy pai^t- 

 icular whole. Accordingly, as soon as ever it is 

 attempted qualitatively to determine our category, 

 i.e., to infer that the individual existences must 

 form part, not of a universe as such, but of a real 

 universe of a certain character, the old difficulty 

 recurs, and it appears that they might form part of 

 all sorts of qualitatively different cosmlcal construc- 

 tions, and hence are not logically implied in any 07ie 

 of them. Taking, that is to say, the individual 

 existences as our data, we can so arrange them as 

 to construct '' the universe " in many different ways. 



I 

 I 



