inherent duality of all things.
Pleasure and pain, night and day, man and woman, good and evil,
summer and winter, life and death, personality and fate, love and
malice, the soul and the objective mystery, these are the threads
out of which the texture of existence is woven; and there is no
escape from these, except in that eternal "_nothingness_" which
itself is the "contradiction" or "opposite" of that "_all_," which it
reduces to chaos and annihilation. Thus runs the revelation of the
complex vision.

This integral soul of ours, made of a stuff which for ever defies
analysis; this objective mystery, made of a stuff which for ever
defies analysis; these two things perpetually confront one another
in a struggle that only annihilation can end. The vision of the
eternal implies the passing of the transitory. For what cannot cease
from being beautiful has no real beauty; and what cannot cease
from being true has no real truth. The art of life according to the
revelation of the complex vision, consists in giving to the
transitory the form of the eternal. It is the art of creating a rhythm,
a music, a harmony, so passionate and yet so calm, that the mere
fact of having once or twice attained it is sufficient "to redeem all
sorrows."

The assumption that death ends it all, is an assumption which the
very nature of love calls upon us to make; for, if we did not make
it make it, something different from love would be the object and
purpose of our life. But the revelation of the complex vision, in
our supreme moments, discloses to us that love itself is the only
justification for life; and therefore, by making the assumption that
the soul perishes, we put once and for all out of our thought that
formidable revival of love, the idea of personal immortality.

For the idea of personal immortality, like the idea of an Absolute
God, is a projection of the aboriginal "inert" malice. It must be
remembered that the revelation of the complex vision, by laying
stress upon the creative energy of the soul in its grappling with the
objective mystery, implies an element of _indeterminism_, or free
choice, in regard to the ultimate nature of the world. Man, in a
very profound sense, perpetually creates the world according to his
will and desire. Nor can he ever know at what point, in the
struggle between personality and destiny, the latter is bound to
win. Such a point may _seem_ to be reached; until some astounding
"act of faith" on the