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268
THE CONCEPTION OF GOD

can, or, from God’s point of view, nobody else shall fulfil. This exclusive interest might, of course, be more or less met by Socrates the biological variation, — the unique temperament, unlike that of other sons of men. But in any truly moral sense it can only be met in case the ideal of Socrates, the meaning of his life in its wholeness, is such as no other moral process in the universe can fulfil. And this I take to be, in fact, the ultimate meaning of the individuality of Socrates. The meaning implies, of course, that Socrates the moral individual shall not cease from the world until his goal is fulfilled.

As to what has been called individualism in general, in the social and practical sense of the term, — as we referred to it in the first section of this Part of our paper, so now we observe that its eternal significance lies in the fact that since individuals are the objects, and, as moral individuals, the embodiments, of exclusive interests, such as cannot twice be realised, the last word of philosophy to the individual must be: Be loyal, indeed, to the universe, for therein God’s individuality is expressed; but be loyal, too, to the unique. Be unique, as your Father in Heaven is unique.


VIII
INDIVIDUALITY AND WILL

The circle of our inquiry is, in a very general sense, complete. We have seen that a theoretical view of the world implies the wholeness, the completion, of the unity of the Absolute Consciousness