Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/221

184 whose constitution, as a true constitution, must furnish an object which is ultimately the same for all points of view, and which fulfils the meaning of all assertions that may be made regarding reality. We have seen that both these definitions of the beyond require that its contents and character and meaning should be present in one unity of consciousness with all the moments and contents of finite thought and experience. Reality thus, so far, appears as Absolute Experience, together with all that content and constitution which shall prove to be necessary for the definition of an Absolute Experience.

The concept of an Absolute Experience, thus generally defined, has been further sketched, although briefly, in my original paper. It is a conception as inevitable from one point of view as it is naturally open to inquiry and more or less plausible objection from another point of view. The problem how to conceive an Experience sufficient unto itself, involving and including not only such experiences as ours, such thoughts as we frame, but a complete system of finished thought, a wealth of contents such as to fulfil this system of ideas in the completest manner logically conceivable, — this problem is obviously an extremely difficult one. It is one thing to show the necessity of such a conception, another to develope positively its implications. As a fact, it will not be surprising if in this development new aspects, besides those of thought and experience, prove to be necessary in order to complete the very conception of an Absolute Experience conceived as a concrete whole. In fact an Absolute Experience, in order to be such,