old tale in lectures; an anxious author, unready to deny his former books; a human disputant, eager not to be worsted in his dialectics, — well, these are the doings of fortune, and of his wretched earthly self. His only worth as philosopher lies, not, in the last analysis, in his consistency, or in his skill in defence, but purely in the transparency, if such they have, that permits the light occasionally to shine through his defects. In such a spirit I desire the following, which is in form a defence of my private thesis, to be estimated. However much I employ anew old material, the only worth of the task must lie in the present unity of the insight developed, whether in the author’s or in the reader’s mind.
This supplementary discussion will consist of five parts. In the first, I shall re-examine the general argument for the reality of the Absolute. In the second, following lines indicated in one of the supplementary and more private discussions of the Union at Berkeley, mentioned above, I shall endeavour to develope the relation of the notion of Will to the concept of the Absolute. In the third, I shall attack, in general terms, the logical and metaphysical problem of the nature of Individuality; or, to use the well-known scholastic phrase, I shall study the “Principle of Individuation,” in its general relations to the concept of Reality. In this division I shall dwell upon considerations which have grown upon me, in part, since the first publication of Professor Howison’s paper. In the fourth part, I shall apply both of the foregoing discussions, namely, that of the Will and that of the Principle of Individuation, to the problem
