implies relations, and, through its relations, it unwillingly asserts always a superior unity. To suppose the universe plural is therefore to contradict oneself and, after all, to suppose that it is one. Add one world to another, and forthwith both worlds have become relative, each the finite appearance of a higher and single Reality. And plurality as appearance (we have seen) must fall within, must belong to, and must qualify the unity.
We have an idea of this unity which, to some extent, is positive (Chapters xiv., xx., xxvi.). It is true that how in detail the plurality comes together we do not know. And it is true again that unity, in its more proper sense, is known only as contradistinguished from plurality. Unity therefore, as an aspect over against and defined by another aspect, is itself but appearance. And in this sense the Real, it is clear, cannot be properly called one. It is possible, however, to use unity with a different meaning.
In the first place the Real is qualified by all plurality. It owns this diversity while itself it is not plural. And a reality owning plurality but above it, not defined as against it but absorbing it together with the one-sided unity which forms its opposite—such a reality in its outline is certainly a positive idea.
And this outline, to some extent, is filled in by direct experience. I will lay no stress here on that pre-relational stage of existence (p. 459), which we suppose to come first in the development of the soul. I will refer to what seems plainer and less doubtful. For take any complex psychical state in which we make distinctions. Here we have a consciousness of plurality, and then over against this we may attempt to gain a clear idea of unity. Now this idea of unity, itself the result of analysis, is determined by opposition to the internal plurality of distinctions. And hence, as one aspect over against
