Page:Philosophical Review Volume 15.djvu/167

149 thrown forwards towards the results of this system. But neither can the purpose achieved by the process stand alone, for the necessity of the process must also be made plain. If an unconditional purpose were the secret of the universe, there could be no explanation of the means, the process, and the effort through which the purpose is realized. From the conception of purpose, then, we are again thrown back on origins, just as these throw us forward to their purpose. We have, in short, to conceive a single principle not realized in full in any one phase, but pervading the whole world-process. In this principle, the possible and the actual in a sense come together, for what it is to be is an integral condition that goes to make the world what it is. We cannot take any phase of reality as an absolute starting-point and regard it as determining everything that follows upon it mechanically, or everything that precedes it ideologically. If we conceive any process as making up the life of an intelligible world-whole, we must conceive its origin and issue as dependent on and implying one another. That is, we must conceive it as determined organically."

It is impossible to think of the universe as a whole in an absolute sense. We use the words, and they have a defensible meaning; but they do not mean what they seem to in discussions of this sort. When we speak of the totality of the universe, the totality of which we speak is such only from the particular point of view implied in the discussion. The very fact that we so conceive it is sufficient evidence that it is not limited in an absolute sense, for in thus conceiving it we have ourselves in some sense transcended it. The concept of unity as applied to the universe has therefore only a relative truth. It is true only in the light of the correlative concept of continuity. That is, the distinction contained in the dilemma of essence versus origin is a functional one. One horn of the dilemma expresses a truth, the truth of the unity of the universe as a system, a truth which, however, is true only when interpreted in relation to the other horn of the dilemma, which emphasizes the self-transcending character of this same system. Reality is a state only when viewed relatively as the culmination of a past process or as the source of a future