440 CONCLUSION. 



What need then of self-consciousness In Heaven, 

 and what could cause it in a state of perfection ? 

 What could there be doubtful to dispute ? Who 

 would raise a question about the reality of bliss 

 such that it could arouse self- consciousness to refute 

 its absurdity ? Would happiness be any the more 

 real for being re- asserted against denial, or would 

 not such assertion ipso facto destroy its perfection ? 

 And if all were blessed, there would be no tempter 

 to raise the question. 



The idea that consciousness Is impossible without 

 self-consciousness Is merely a pernicious example 

 of the fallacious tendency to suppose that all reality 

 must be capable of being expressed In terms of 

 discursive thought, and this Idea It was found neces- 

 sary to reject long ago (ch. ii. § 21, and ill. ^ 14-19). 



s^ 6. There Is, however, a kindred error rnore 

 deep-rooted even than that of regarding conscious- 

 ness as dependent on change, and even more fatal 

 to a proper appreciation of the nature of perfection ; 

 the Idea, to wit, that a state of Being Is a state of 

 Rest 



Our Ideas of activity are so moulded upon activities 

 involvlncr motion and chanoe that Rest is reo^arded 



o c> o 



as the natural antithesis to change, and so we are 

 wont to speak of Heaven as a changeless state of 

 Rest. Or If the ethical Inadequacy of this treat- 

 ment strikes us, we sometimes rush into the opposite 

 extreme, and still more absurdly regard perfection 

 as a state of luork, i.e., of impeifect activity, which 

 Is not its own end. In either case the effects u^^on 

 the conception of Perfection are disastrous, and the 

 failure to grasp the true alternative to work has 

 gone far to banish It from philosophy and to render 

 it ridiculous In religion. And yet nothing could be 



