Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/346

Rh ality attributed to Being, let us add yet one further consideration: Whenever an idea of any grade aims at truth, it regards its object as other than itself, and that the object shall be thus other than itself is even a part of what the idea means and consciously intends. But as a will seeking its own fulfilment, the idea so selects the object, that, if the idea has a perfectly definite meaning and truth at all, this object is to be a precisely determinate object, such that no other object could take its place as the object of this idea. And in spite of the fact that the object is such solely by the will of the idea, the idea undertakes submissively to be either true or false when compared with that object.

Now the obvious way of stating the whole sense of these facts is to point out that what the idea always aims to find in its object is nothing whatever but the idea’s own conscious purpose or will, embodied in some more determinate form than the idea by itself alone at this instant consciously possesses. When I have an idea of the world, my idea is a will, and the world of my idea is simply my own will itself determinately embodied.

And what this way of stating our problem implies may first be illustrated by any case where, in doing what we often call “making up our minds,” we pass from a vague to a definite state of will and of resolution. In such cases we begin with perhaps a very indefinite sort of restlessness, which arouses the question, “What is it that I want? What do I desire? What is my real purpose?” To answer this question may take a long time and much care; and may involve many errors by the way, errors, namely, in understanding our own purpose.