450 CONCLUSION. 



of life. It Is only If we remember to regard perfect 

 happiness as the resultant harmony of perfect good- 

 ness and perfect wisdom that It will serve iis an un- 

 objectionable popular statement of the formal nature 

 of Perfection. 



§ 10. And as the attainment of Perfection de- 

 pends on the attainment of a complete harmony of 

 the whole environment, It must Include all beings. 

 The happiness of each Is bound up with that of all. 

 For If there remained any portion of the environ- 

 ment, however humble and however remote, excluded 

 from the harmonious adjustment of perfection, there 

 would be no security that It might not enter Into 

 active interaction with the rest and destroy the 

 harmony and changeless eternity of the perfected 

 elements. 



And from this necessity not even God Is exempt. 

 To deny this Is equally Impossible on philosophic 

 and on religious grounds. 



Philosophically Its denial involves a denial of the 

 category of Interaction, for If there is any interaction 

 between the Deity and the world, the former also 

 must be affected. If God acts upon the world, the 

 world must react upon God : if God is conscious of 

 the Time-process, then God also Is not eternal while 

 the process lasts ; if God realizes His purpose In 

 the world, then Its attainment involves a change in 

 God. And God must be conscious of the existence 

 of the world, if the world Is to be conscious of his 

 existence, for it is only by his action upon us that 

 Ave are led to infer the existence of a God. The 

 Aristotelian account of a Deity totally unconscious 

 of the worlds existence and unaffected by It, who 

 yet Is its prime mover, by a magical attraction he 

 exercises upon It, is utterly Impossible, though it 



