312
ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY
the Good, the spring of all excellence and worth, by our recognition of the society of minds in our primary act of being conscious of ourselves. Strange elemental paradox, self-affirmation by self-denial, self-denial in self-affirmation! Ego per alteros! — he that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life, the same shall find it! And thus the easy argument of exhibiting the least conditions sufficient for experience, so like a simpleton in its seeming clutch at the thin surface of things, carries in its subtle heart the proof of an imperishable persistence in all that gives life meaning and value.
