Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/417

398 of whatever, when taken in its wholeness, this our time-process means. This final view, for which the realm of Being possesses the unity of a single conscious whole, indeed ignores no fragment of finite consciousness; but it sees all at once, as the realm of truth in its entirety.

This, I say, is the unquestionable and inevitable outcome of our Fourth Conception of Being. And the proof of this outcome is very brief.

For whatever is has its being, once more, only as a fact observed, and exists as the fulfilment of a conscious meaning. That is our definition of Being. But now let one say, There are many facts, ideas, and meanings in the world. Each of these exists only as the object that fulfils the whole meaning of a knowing process. So far, then, there exist many knowing processes, each with its own meaning fulfilled. The world so far contains many knowers, many ideas, or many Selves, if you are pleased to use that word. But our Fourth Conception hereupon continues: Are these many knowers mutually related or not? Answer as you will. Let them be or not be in any specific sort of mutual relation. Then this, the fact about their relations, exists, but exists only as a known fact. For our theory asserts universally that all which has Being exists only as known object. The fact about the true relations of the various knowing beings and processes is, however, a fact unintelligible except as expressing and including their own very existence; and by hypothesis this inclusive fact is a consciously known fact. That the various knowers are, then, and that they are in given relationship or in given relative independence of one another, — all this is a consciously known