THE FINITE LIMITS ITSELF. 349 



State that we are not able to mourn our dead as we 

 ought, that love and grief are transient, and, like 

 ourselves, are swept away in the rushing flood of 

 life. But even so, we may, in this approximation 

 to a mutual dependence of part and whole, catch 

 another view of the ideal we first caught sight of at 

 the end of chapter viii., that of an eternal and har- 

 monious interaction of individuals, who could not 

 exist except as members of a perfect society, in a 

 society which could not dispense with the services 

 of a single member. But though such a whole 

 would be heavenly, it would not be God, for it 

 would be a hypostasization of the Interaction of the 

 existent. And still less would It explain what after 

 all needs explanation most, viz., the why of the 

 world-process, why the world of which we form 

 " parts" at present falls so far short of the purity of 

 our Ideals. If, therefore, we choose to hypostasize 

 the Interaction of the Existent under the name of 

 the Absolute, we must do so with a full conscious- 

 ness that it Is out of relation to the world as it 

 actually exists, and can explain nothing in it. 



But there is no need to hypostasize it ; no reason 

 to assume an " Infinite" to envelop and sustain the 

 " Finite." To make the Infinite the metaphysical 

 support of reality only involves us In superstitions 

 as endless and as groundless as those which sup- 

 ported the physical world on an elephant, and the 

 elephant on a tortoise, etc., etc. But just as little as 

 the physical world requires an Atlas to bear it up, 

 as little does the spiritual world require an infinite 

 Absolute to confer reality upon it. And just as the 

 celestial bodies maintain their positions by their 

 mutual attractions and repulsions, so the Finite 

 suffices to /zmz^ itselj] and the individuals are real 



