Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/247

232 idea, material, and formative energy to put them together. He saw that it would be necessary to transfer the formative power to Idea itself. He does it in this way. From things which are, we must distinguish things which should be. These are not fancies merely, and only in individual minds; and are not things which come and go, like the fleeting objects of the sensible world around us. They are eternal realities, and their reality consists in this, that they are at the same time powers tending to realise themselves. He began to see that what does nothing has no reality, and that if Ideas are real, they must be made to be such by active power inherent in them. But how could this be? Because they are the forms of what should be; and, as such, though abstract, they press themselves forward into concrete existence, and tend thereby to evolve a world. But having no substance in themselves, they require a substance foreign to themselves, which they may transform into something which will express and embody their own nature. The forces of what should be, must enter into the formless substance of the world, and tend to transform it into a world of concrete things, real (concrete) beautiful and good. The ideas thus manifest themselves by entering into the at first formless substance of the world as soul into body, and evolving it into what it should be, namely, a world of things. These creative powers are many, but they are all included under one, which may be called the idea of Good. This supreme Idea is “the sun of the spiritual world,” that is, the power which gives life and action to all others. And they are perceived as eternal realities by the power of reason inherent in rational beings. They are therefore “Ideas”— forms of what is not, but should be,—and their essence is energy tending towards their own realisation, that is, to enter into and transform the world-substance to their own nature. And the excellence and wisdom of human minds consist in the clearness with which they perceive, and receive into themselves, and thereby become assimilated to, the eternal