Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/263

244 whether this whole conception is at all capable of finality. The truth is, indeed, valid; but is it only valid? The forms are eternal; but are they only forms? The universal principles are true; but are they only universal? The moral order of the world seems genuine; but is it only an order? Is God identical with the world of Forms?

These questions arise in all sorts of ways in our age. They remind us that our problem is here once more a problem about the meaning and the place of individuality in the system of Being, and about the relation of individual and universal in our conceptions.

And now, upon what basis shall we judge the conception at present before us? In one sense it appears to be peculiarly fortified against attack. Unlike Realism, it is from the beginning an essentially reflective and critical conception of Being. It attributes reality to objects only at the very moment of recognizing, as in some sense real, the ideas that relate to these objects. And, unlike Mysticism, it recognizes that to lose sight of the value and positive meaning of finite ideas, is to render naught the very objects which the ideas seek. It observes that when you declare any object to be real, you are in possession of an idea, however exact, or however inexact, however transient and relative, or however universal and eternal, — an idea to which you attribute an essentially teleological significance; since you assert that this idea is true, is valid, or in other words, is adapted to its ideal end. Our present conception regards this adaptation of