Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/87



RUTH," says the philosopher, answering Pilate's question, "is the unity of universal and subjective will." But who is to elucidate for the Pilates of our time the meaning of universal will? I once made a heroic attempt to unhusk the logic of Schopenhauer and to unravel the metaphysical skein of Hegel. But something forbidding, even obnoxious, seemed to stand between me and my purpose. The husk of generalization was too thick, too hard, and, what is worse, too thorny. It was the exogenous growth, particularly the spinosity, of a purely subjective mind. The philosopher's ego, in other words, adumbrated the universal will. And in following it, we follow a shadow that aspires to Deity.

It aspires, moreover, in conflict, not in harmony. To put it mildly and plainly, there often lurks a personal interest in the generalization of philosophers. It is often