PART IV
THE SELF-CONSCIOUS INDIVIDUAL
The concluding considerations in the foregoing Part of our discussion have been meant to be only suggestions. We now come directly to the serious problem: What is the nature of a self-conscious individual? As has already been indicated in the considerations just cited, my reply will in the end lay stress upon three theses: (1) The Absolute is a self-conscious individual, and the only ultimately real individual, because the only ultimately and absolutely whole individual. As such the Absolute is unique, embodies one Will, and realises this will in the unity of its one life. (2) On the other hand, every finite moral individual is precisely as real and as self-conscious as the moral order requires him to be. As such, every finite, moral, and self-conscious individual is unique, and, in his own measure, free, since there is an aspect of his nature such that nothing in all the universe of the Absolute except his own choice determines him, in this one aspect of his nature, to be whatever he is, and since no other finite individual could take his place, share his self-consciousness, or accomplish his ideal. He is unique, first, in that the object, namely, the Moral Goal, which he sets before himself, and with reference to which he is this
