our action and our volition (pp. 158, 159, 161, 165). In impulse we know reality directly, for impulse is psychical and physical at one and the same time. It is the physical process or movement in impulse which gives us the sensation of reality—nay, which is reality (p. 81). Neither the will nor the idea is the ultimate reality in man's nature, but both of them together; the idea is the parallel accompaniment to the will (p. 82). The idea can only be understood as an expression of the will, a kind of consciousness that the will has of itself (p. 477). All ideas and thoughts are purely mental functions, and mental functions are also at the same time organic or corporeal functions; we have always a feeling, even though it is only vague, of our mental and corporeal unity (p. 184; cf. also pp. 181 ff.). What a philosophy this is! Spiritualism, Voluntarism, Materialism, Parallelism, and various other conceptions are combined without any attempt to account for their apparent contradictions. Sometimes the ultimate reality is physical, sometimes psychical, sometimes both.
But let us take the voluntaristic tack and proceed. The will is the true reality, and we come face to face with it in consciousness. I know reality only in so far as I will it or live it (p. 159). All knowledge short of our volitional consciousness of ourselves is necessarily imperfect and unsatisfactory. From the standpoint of conceptual knowledge alone, the consistent philosopher is necessarily to a large extent a sceptic (pp. 478, 165). We are conscious that this will or effort is an individual will, a personal will. Man thinks of himself as a real individual because he is partly conscious of acting and willing as a real individual. The will strives after more complete individuality, after ever more and more concrete expression; at least the will of man is always striving after a more complete assertion of his personality (p. 430). The intellect tends to universalize things, to see them only in the light of their universal relations; the will individualizes (pp. 430, 464). The will gives things and human beings an element of particularity, of existence in and for self (p. 464). The tendency of man to be real in his own life and personality, is the highest tendency of the universe. Just because this is an effort of his will, and not a mere idea of his intellect, may he lay hold on a separate personal existence and claim it as his own (p. 465).
That man has willed, and that he has accomplished something in his volition, is the best proof that the world is rational, and is making for the realization of rational purpose. The world is not unconscious; there is no merely unconscious will. The world represents an energy or a force which asserts itself in different degrees of consciousness
