character which we feel always, or again in union with some particular content. And we have to ask if, so understood, the “this” is incompatible with our Absolute.
The question, thus asked, seems to call for but little discussion. Since for us the Absolute is a whole, the sense of immediate reality, we must suppose, may certainly qualify it. And, again, I find no difficulty when we pass to the special meaning of “this.” With every presentation, with each chance mixture of psychical elements, we have the feeling of one particular datum. We have the felt existence of a peculiar sensible whole. And here we find beyond question a positive content, and a fresh element which has to be included within our Absolute. But in such a content there is, so far, nothing which could repel or exclude. There is no feature there which could resist embracement and absorption by the whole.
The fact of actual fragmentariness, I admit, we cannot explain. That experience should take place in finite centres, and should wear the form of finite “thisness,” is in the end inexplicable (Chapter xxvi.). But to be inexplicable, and to be incompatible, are not the same thing. And in such fragmentariness, viewed as positive, I see no objection to our view. The plurality of presentations is a fact, and it, therefore, makes a difference to our Absolute. It exists in, and it, therefore, must qualify the whole. And the universe is richer, we may be sure, for all dividedness and variety. Certainly in detail we do not know how the separation is overcome, and we cannot point to the product which is gained, in each case, by that resolution. But our ignorance here is no ground for rational opposition. Our principle assures us that the Absolute is superior to partition, and in some way is perfected by it. And we have found, as yet, no reason even to
