Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/256

1925] exercises on other things, are themselves the essence of the real thing and not mere appearances.

Thus in the constant effort to acquire and elaborate ideas and preserve knowledge of things as necessary to its own preservation and higher development, the Self is working intellectually. Are we to say, then, that Intellect is the supreme function of mind, and that the Self is essentially Intellect—considering the other functions to be merely contributory? (Intellectualism.) No.

Thinking is not the whole self.—We can see that intellect is the working of one unitary self, i.e., of a power which connects the successive experiences of life, and perceives them to be revelations of a world of things and events in space and time, and which comes to understand itself as not only the underlying unity of past experiences, but as extending into future time, and as having therefore a highest Good; and which puts forth energy to know the nature of, and the means of realising its Good. This makes it clear that the activity of obtaining knowledge and understanding, is subsidiary to another kind of activity, viz., that applied directly to the realisation of the Good.

But this requires re-action by the self on the external world, and therefore a putting forth of energy to make changes in physical things. And though the work of Intellect is exercise of energy, the term Volition is usually applied to this higher kind to which Intellect is contributory. Hence

III. That the essential nature of the self is Volition in the sense of producing changes in external things. We have found that some hold mind to consist wholly in Feeling or that kind of consciousness which rises from being acted on by other things; while among others there has been a tendency to make it consist mainly in Intellect, i.e., in thinking and acquiring knowledge about things. Recently the tendency has become common to identify the self wholly with Volition