Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/488

Rh my act. As my act this my present will is as unique as is the whole divine life, as free as is the whole meaning of which the whole world is an expression. Not by virtue then of any supposed causal efficacy is the divine will as a power the producer of the world. And just so, not by virtue of its potency as a physical agent is our human action a free cause.

To our later series of lectures must be altogether left the discussion of any sort of causation in its real, but in its extremely subordinate, place in the constitution of reality. But what we at present say to the finite being is: You are at once an expression of the divine will, and by virtue of that very fact the expression here and now, in your life, of your own will, precisely in so far as you find yourself acting with a definite intent, and gaining through your act a definite empirical expression. We do not say, Your individuality causes your act. We do not say, Your free will creates your life. For Being is everywhere deeper than causation. What you are is deeper than your mere power as a physical agent. Nothing whatever besides yourself determines either causally or otherwise just what constitutes your individuality, for you are just this unique and elsewhere unexampled expression of the divine meaning. And here and now your individuality in your act is your freedom. This your freedom is your unique possession. Nowhere else in the universe is there what here expresses itself in your conscious being. And this is true of you, not in spite of the unity of the divine consciousness, but just because of the very uniqueness of the whole divine life. For all is divine, all expresses meaning. All