Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/314

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In fact, how should any one individual Being present himself, in this external experience of yours, or of all men taken together, in such wise as to show not only that he is of this or this aspect, but that no other is like him in the whole realm of Being. It is this no-Other-character that persistently baffles both the merely internal meaning, and the merely external experience, so long as they are human and are sundered.

And, now, just this difficulty gives one further reason why our Third Conception of Being, in conflict with common sense, does, indeed, abandon the concept that Being is individual, and confines itself to forming internal meanings, and to confirming them by external experience. It tries to rest content with abstract universals, more or less determined by particular observations.

Yet, in doing thus, can this conception satisfy even the fragmentary internal meanings that we so far sunder from their external objects, and that we then seek to confirm or to refute by external experience? No; for if we can neither abstractly define within, nor yet empirically find without, the individuals that we seek, there can be no doubt that our whole interest in Being, is an interest in individuality. For the Other that we seek is that which, if found, would determine our ideas to their final truth. Now, only what is finally determinate can, in its turn, determine. As a fact, while we never abstractly define individuals as such, we certainly love individuals, believe in individuals, and regard the truth with which we are to correspond as determinate. So much is this the case, that whoever should try, as, in fact, our Third Conception of Being seems to try, to define the