demons of circumstance and chance. This is that unconquerable
"mind-within-themselves" into which the great Stoics of Antiquity
withdrew at their will, and were "happy," beyond the reach of
hope and fear. This is the citadel from the security of which all the
martyrs for human liberty have mocked their tormentors. This is
the fortress from which the supreme artists of the world have
looked forth and moulded the outrage of life's dilemma into
monumental forms of imaginative beauty. This is the sanctuary
from which all human personalities, however weak and helpless,
have been permitted to endure the cruelty and pitilessness of fate.

After all, it does not so greatly matter that we are unable to do
more than know that this thing, this indescribable "something,"
really exists. Perhaps it is because its existence is more real than
anything else that we are unable to define it. Perhaps we can only
define those attributes which are the outward aspects of our real
being. Perhaps it is simply because the soul is nothing less than
our very self, that our analytical power stops, helpless, in its
presence. _We_ are what it is; and for this very cause it
perpetually evades and escapes us.

The reality of the soul, therefore, is the first revelation of the
complex vision. The second revelation is the objective reality of
the outward visible universe. Left to itself, in its isolated activity,
our logical reason is capable of throwing doubt upon this
revelation also. For it is logically certain that what we are actually
conscious of is no more than a unified stream of various mental
impressions, reaching us through our senses, and never interrupted
except in moments of unconscious sleep.

It is therefore quite easy for the logical reason, functioning in its
isolation from the other attributes, to maintain that this stream of
mental impressions _is all that there is_, and that we have no right
to call the universe real and objective, except in the ambiguous
sense of a sort of permanent illusion. But as soon as the complex
vision, in its totality, contemplates the situation, the thing takes on
a very different aspect. The pure reason may be as sceptical as it
pleases about the static solidity of what is popularly called
"matter." It may use the term energy, or movement, or ether, or
force, or electricity, or any other name to describe that _permanent
sensation of outward reality_ which our complex vision reveals.

But one thing it