Page:Religion in the Making.djvu/104



The purpose of God is the attainment of value in the temporal world. An active purpose is the adjustment of the present for the sake of adjustment of value in the future, immediately or remotely.

Value is inherent in actuality itself. To be an actual entity is to have a self-interest. This self-interest is a feeling of self-valuation; it is an emotional tone. The value of other things, not one’s self, is the derivative value of being elements contributing to this ultimate self-interest. This self-interest is the interest of what one’s existence, as in that epochal occasion, comes to. It is the ultimate enjoyment of being actual.

But the actuality is the enjoyment, and this enjoyment is the experiencing of value. For an epochal occasion is a microcosm inclusive of the whole universe. This unification of the universe, whereby its various elements are combined into aspects of each other, is an atomic unit within the real world.