Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/263

248 mind is only an ‘epiphenomenon’. or occasional result of the physical processes of body, like sparks struck out by grating machinery, possessing no causal significance. Further, if we are taking away the reality of things by resolving them into energy, then Idealism is not alone at fault; the naturalistic philosophies do the same—With this difference that Idealism gives a reason for so doing; materialism does not.

It need not be assumed, however, that Idea and consciousness are fully co-extensive. Idea is a synthesis of tendencies which may exist without rising into consciousness. Full self-awareness and self-control are latent potentialities in that Idea which is the essence of the Self. But in the abysmal depths of its personality there may be a world of potentialities which remain Idea unrealised, and beneath the level of self-consciousness. But can there be such a thing as an absolute Good? To this extension of the Idea of Good to the Absolute the. usual objections may be urged: that good is a meaningless word when applied to the absolute, and that absolute good, even if absolute good were possible, would be altogether unthinkable to a finite and relative being.

But to a correct conception of the absolute, good has a meaning. Its absoluteness does not consist in its being an inert block of substance, but in its infinite power of self-realisation—it is not dead being, but living becoming. And further, a relative being, just because it is relative, is a function in the life of the absolute, a finite reproduction; and hence there must be some analogy, however remote—something in common, proportionate to their difference. Indeed we may say: as the absolute is to absolute good, so is the relative being to relative good.

Hence the Idealistic conception of the World—We may here consider, then, the general conception of the world