THE FINAL UNION OF THE MANY. 359 



and Invalid. Our Inquiry must come to a stop 

 somewhere, and this Hmit, the ultimate ground of 

 existence, must be either the Irrational or the self- 

 evident and self-sufficient. Now of these alterna- 

 tives, It has been made abundantly evident that 

 monistic Pantheism adopts the former, and reduces 

 the world to the Irrational, to *' the delirium of an 

 insane God," whereas Pluralism, by uniting the 

 Many in an eternal harmony, necessarily arrives at 

 the latter, at a state in which the ever-present reality 

 of perfection permits no question Into what lies be- 

 yond and before the actual. 



But though this reconciliation of the One and the 

 Many affords us once again a view of the Ideal we 

 have already twice caught sight of, once in dis- 

 cussing the relation of the individual to society 

 (ch. viii. § 19), and once in analysing that of the 

 part to the whole (§ 19), we must leave its elucida- 

 tion to a later period (ch. xii.), and content ourselves 

 for the present with settling the comparative merits 

 of Monism and Pluralism. Irrespective of the hopes 

 Pluralism holds out for the future, it is enough that 

 it is superior in the present. Whatever the diffi- 

 culties that beset the question of ultimate existence, 

 they are the same for both, the same whether exist- 

 ence be ultimately one or many. And we are 

 clearly bound in our inquiry to draw the line at a 

 point where the conception of ultimate existence 

 will throw light upon the phenomenal existence of 

 our world. The world exists, and its existences 

 are many ; Pluralism admits the facts, and thereby 

 affords a valid theory of the world ; Monism can not 

 admit the facts, does not explain the world, and 

 therefore is not a valid theory of ultimate existence 

 or ontology. 



