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 considered as the state of my self, or, again, of my soul. It can be so considered, because in one aspect it actually is so. But this one aspect may be an infinitesimal fragment of its being. And never in any case can what I experience be the mere adjective of my self. My self is not the immediate, nor again is it the ultimate, reality. Immediate reality is an experience either containing both self and not-self, or containing as yet neither. And ultimate reality, on the other hand, would be the total universe.

In a former chapter we noticed the truths contained in Solipsism. Everything, my self included, is essential to, and is inseparable from, the Absolute. And, again, it is only in feeling that I can directly encounter Reality. But there is no need here to dwell on these sides of the truth. My experience is essential to the world, but the world is not, except in one aspect, my experience. The world and experience are, taken at large, the same. And my experience and its states, in a sense, actually are the whole world; for to this slight extent the one Reality is actually my self. But it is less misleading to assert, conversely, that the total world is my experience. For it appears there, and in each appearance its single being already is imperfectly included.

Let us turn from an objection based on an irrational prejudice, and let us go on to consider a point of some interest. Can the Absolute be said to consist and to be made up of souls? The question is ambiguous, and must be discussed in several senses. Is there—let us ask first—in the universe any sort of matter not contained in finite centres of experience? It seems at first sight natural to point at once to the relations between these centres. But such relations, we find on reflection, have been, so far, included in the