Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/416

Rh ing, or of the relation of idea and object. If any fact, not at any instant consciously present to the finite thinker, is really meant by him, then there is something true, about his consciousness, which his momentary consciousness of his own meaning at once implies, and nevertheless in its internal meaning does not directly and wholly exhaust for him, here and now. And this relatively external truth which is intended by the finite consciousness, and which is inclusive of all that at any instant this finite consciousness finds present to itself, is a truth whose Being can be neither of the realistic type, nor of the mystical type, nor of the merely valid type of Being, nor of any form except a conscious form, — a form whose existence includes and completes what the finite thinker at any moment undertakes to know. It follows of necessity that in the world as we define it, there can exist no fact except as a known fact, as a fact present to some consciousness, namely, precisely to the consciousness that fulfils the whole meaning of whoever asserts that this fact is real.

In view of this essential feature of our finite situation as thinkers, it follows at once that the whole world of truth and being must exist only as present, in all its variety, its wealth, its relationships, its entire constitution, to the unity of a single consciousness, which includes both our own and all finite conscious meanings in one final eternally present insight. This complete insight is indeed not merely one, but is observant of all the real finite varieties, of experience, of meaning, and of life. Nor is the external insight merely timeless; but it is possessed of an inclusive view of the whole of time, and