Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/306

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SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY BY PROFESSOR ROYCE
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in a single moment. We have seen that this completion demands the presence of a factor not separate from thought and experience, yet not definable in terms either of bare thought or of the data of immediate experience, in so far as they are merely felt, or are present as the merely sensuous fulfilment of thought. This new factor we have defined as Will. We have seen that it does not form merely one of the contents of experience to which thought refers, but determines the world which fulfils thought to be this world rather than any other of the abstractly possible but not genuinely possible worlds. We have defined this aspect of the Universal Consciousness as its individuating aspect. Turning to the concept of the Individual, we have seen, on the other hand, that it is definable only as the object of Will. The object of Will must have contents, and must have a universal character; but as individual object it is defined neither by its contents nor by its character, in so far as this character is conceived by thought. As individual, the object of Will is the object of an exclusive interest, or love, which can permit no other to take its place. Thus knowledge, for its own completion, requires both Will as an attribute of the Absolute Knower, and Individuality in the world, as the object that expresses the will, or love, of the Absolute. But, since contents, as conceived by thought or presented by sense, do not define individuality, therefore in case we have reason to assume the presence in the world of various individuals, we are not forced to draw any conclusions as to the kind of variety or separation of the contents