Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/354

Rh here the object remains precisely object of an unfulfilled idea.” I answer: An error is an error about a specific object, only in case the purpose imperfectly defined by the vague idea at the instant when the error is made, is better defined, is, in fact, better fulfilled, by an object whose determinate character in some wise, although never absolutely, opposes the fragmentary efforts first made to define them. As for failure, or practical defeat of our plans: The practical object that we have not yet won remains for us a Beyond, or Other than our search, precisely so long as we still seek it; and no merely external buffetting of so-called hard facts ever proves to the resolute will that its practical objects are unattainable, or have no existence, until we see an inner reason why just these objects are really excluded by a fuller understanding of our own ideal purposes themselves. I do not will just now to fly, because my purpose in conceiving nature is now relatively fulfilled in a system of ideas which excludes my possession of the power to fly. But were I an inventor trying to perfect flying-machines, I should continue the effort to find the determination of my will present in a flying-machine, until I became convinced that my purpose as defined stood somehow in conflict with itself, or with the whole idea of nature of which it is a portion.

And now as to what results from all this concerning the essential nature of the object of any idea, and as to that determinateness and individuality of Being which has so perplexed us.