Or perhaps you think of numbers, and accordingly count one, two, three. Your idea of these numbers is abstract, a mere generality. Why? Because there could be other cases of counting, and other numbers counted than the present counting process shows you. And why so? Because your purpose in counting is not wholly fulfilled by the numbers now counted. Incompleteness here goes with universality. There could be other instances of the idea, just because what is needed to fulfil the purpose in question is not all here. And this you know in the form both of present imperfect satisfaction, and in the form of the idea of other numbers, and of other counting processes than are here present to you.
Well, if in all such cases of your present and imperfect passing ideas, other cases of your idea were also fully present to your consciousness just now, what would you experience? I answer, You would experience at once a greater fulfilment of your purpose, and a more determinate idea. But were not only some, but all possible, instances that could illustrate your idea, or that could give it embodiment, now present, even at this very instant, and to your clear consciousness, what would you experience? I answer, first, the complete fulfilment of your internal meaning, the final satisfaction of the will embodied in the idea; but secondly, also, that absolute determination of the embodiment of your idea as this embodiment would then be present, — that absolute determination of your purpose, which would constitute an individual realization of the idea. For an individual fact is one for which no other can be substituted with-
