Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/266

1925] nature to be an Idea or purpose, it promises continuance of existence (1) so long as the Self continues to fulfil its purpose and (2) so long as its purpose is incomplete and unexhausted. If it fail in its purpose, it will simply “fall out of line,” and sink into nothingness, because fulfilment of purpose was the essence of its existence. On the other hand, we may suppose its purpose to become fully fufilled—its Idea, fully realised. In this case the individual will become identified with its fulfilment, and cease to be an individual as we understand the term. Still this may not be the same thing as being annihilated—if may still live in the accomplished purpose though we cannot conceive how. But on the other hand its purpose may be eternal as a factor in the absolute Idea, and the life of the individual may therefore be in some form eternal, viz., as being contained in the life of the absolute.

This view, then, has to be considered in comparison with other possible views such as (a) that individual soul is an occasional and accidental by-product of the material processes of the organism, with no substantial reality of its own; (b) That it is an eternal and indestructible unit of substance and independent of everything else—having existence inherent in its nature (as was once supposed to be the case with atoms of matter). But in this case, it would be without life as we know it, because life is the activity of self-preservation and self-realisation, and therefore never complete in itself but a perpetual becoming. (c) Or we may be satisfied with simply saying that God made it as it is, and inquire no further. But if God made it and God does nothing without purpose, then it must be the embodiment of a purpose, and its life must be contained in the realisation of the Divine Idea.

Is Idealism refuted by the existence of Evil? This doctrine, however, that whatever is real is rational, brings us back to the perennial difficulty of the origin of evil. This rational