Page:The World and the Individual, Second Series (1901).djvu/88

Rh will, just now unchangeable by us, has determined each of us to a stubborn present inattention to the vast totality which we just called, in our discussion, “the rest of the world.” To undertake to define the concrete facts of that world by a direct application of our general concept of Being is prevented, at the outset, by the consideration that the inattention in question hides from us not only the particular facts themselves, but the reflective knowledge of what it is that we ourselves will. For of all our human ignorance, our reflective ignorance as to the Self seems most stubborn. It is just this limitation of ours which requires us from moment to moment to view the facts in terms of the category of the Ought. We must submit in order to succeed, and must be conscious of subordinating ourselves before we can hope to find ourselves expressed. Or, to state the matter in other terms, we are in a position where we can only hope to view the world as, in the concrete, the expression of our will, in case we first can learn definitely to act; while, on the other hand, we can view our action, at the present stage, only as a reaction. We have to presuppose our facts in order to make concrete our purposes, while we can define our facts, if at all, only in terms of our purposes. This is the fatal circle of our finitude, from which we can indeed escape, as we do in some measure, at every instant, by acting, — more or less blindly, — more or less at haphazard, — seeking in the process of experience both our own purpose, and the means of executing it, both our dream, and the interpretation thereof.

But when we still try to give our undertaking the clearest definition possible at this stage, the only way