TRECOSMIC CONDITIONS OF THE PROCESS. 433 



even though of the most imperfect and rudimentary 

 kind. Thus the pre-cosmic conditions of the world- 

 process he beyond and outside the process, and form 

 a Hmit to the world and our thought about \t, a parte 

 ante. For when our thought travels back to this 

 point, the subject and the means of our inquiries 

 alike disappear. We cannot ask what the world 

 was before the world was, what was before Time 

 was. For without an interaction of the Many there 

 is no world to explain, and as neither Time nor 

 Causation apply to the changeless {cp. \ 4), there 

 are no means of explaining it. We cannot answer 

 questions as to what the pre-cosmic is in itself, be- 

 cause they cannot be validly asked, i.e., formulated 

 without a reference to cosmic conditions which are 

 ex hypothesi inapplicable to the pre-cosmic. Our 

 thought is silenced because all its questions hold 

 good only for the world- process, and become un- 

 meaning in face of the pre-cosmic. Yet the pre- 

 cosmic is the presupposition of the world-process 

 (ch. xi. § 16), hence we have already had occasion to 

 anticipate it in several ways. Thus It represents 

 the hypothetical state of the absolute Independence 

 of the individual atoms, which was implied as the 

 logical Ideal In the theory of the development of 

 matter (ch. viii. § 1 7). And again it forms the condi- 

 tions which limited the Deity (ch. x. § 2), the ultimate 

 nature of thincrs which was not identical with God 

 (ch. x. § 24), the resisting Egos whose consciousness 

 could not be destroyed but only depressed (ch. Ix. 

 § 27-28), the Immortal spirits of the development of 

 which all living beings are phases (ch. xi. § 14). 



But though the conception of a pre-cosmic state is 

 a logical Inference from that of a real world-process, 

 It must be admitted that our Imagination has no 



R. ofS. F F 



