Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/607

588 reflectively grasp the true nature of Thought. For the Other which Thought restlessly seeks is simply itself in individual expression, — or, in other words, its own purpose in a determinate and conscious embodiment. Since this embodiment has to assume the form of Selfhood, its detail must be infinite. The world is an endless Kette, whatever else it is. Yet this infinite wealth of detail is not opposed to, but is the very expression of the internal meaning of the purpose to be and to comprehend the Self. The infinite wealth is determinate because it fulfils a precisely definable purpose in an unique way, that permits no other to take its place as the embodiment of the Absolute Will. And the One and the Many are so reconciled, in this account, that the Absolute Self, even in order to be a Self at all, has to express itself in an endless series of individual acts, so that it is explicitly an Individual Whole of Individual Elements. And this is the result of considering Individuality, and consequently Being, as above all an expression of Will, and of a Will in which both Thought and Experience reach determinateness of expression.