structure. Its aim is to articulate the whole of thought or knowledge, and at the same time to reduce to order the rich variety of the whole Real which is its only adequate and commensurate object, nay more, to discover, apprehend, and make patent, first to itself and then to the common mind of humanity, the harmonious structure of that supreme, whole, and single Reality which embraces both itself and its object: to do this at least in its main outlines and dominating principles.
This unifying activity is the primary and most obvious characteristic of Philosophy. The desire to find and realize unity is the primordial source of its being; the confident belief in its reality is the support of its continuance in existence. Of course it is not content merely to reiterate that all is one: it endeavours to show how things are one, what sort of one they are. Still, it is for unity that it seeks; unity is its characteristic note. Now, at first sight, the nature of that which it takes for its province seems such as precisely to threaten defeat to its desire and refutation to its belief. Reality—actual Reality—as it encounters our gaze without and within us, presents an endlessly variegated spectacle; it is inexhaustibly fertile in the production and manifestation of differences, and appears to exist in and by ceaseless self-diremption and self-differentiation. Nature and Mind alike run riot into endless detail. Differences perpetually and everywhere break out. The mind seems to have no office but to note and register the differences thus thrust upon its observation, and in the endeavour to keep pace with this multiplication in its object is driven to depart from its own primitive simplicity, specializing itself into faculties, sub-faculties, and so on without limit. The hope of discovering or rediscovering
