nk in philosophical discussion that it appears
startling. And the mere fact that it does appear startling when
introduced into philosophy shows how, lamentably philosophy has
got itself imprisoned in dull, mechanical, mathematical formulae;
in formulae so arid and so divorced from life, that the conception
of personality, applied to man or to the gods, seems to us as
exciting as an incredible fairy story when brought into relation
with them.

As the souls of men, then, each with its own complex vision, move
side by side along the way, or across one another's path, they are
driven by the necessity of things to exchange impressions with
regard to the nature of life. In their communications with one
another they become aware of the presence, at the back of their
consciousness, of an invisible standard of truth, of beauty, of
goodness. It is from this standard of beauty and truth and
goodness, from this dream, this vision, this hope, that all these
souls seem to themselves to draw their motive of movement.
But though they seem to themselves to be "moving" into an
indetermined future still to be created by their wills, they also
seem to themselves to be "returning" towards the discovery of that
invisible standard of beauty, truth and goodness, which has as their
motive-impulse been with them from the beginning. This implicit
standard, this invisible pattern and test and arbitrament of all
philosophizing, is what I call "the vision of the immortals." Some
minds, both philosophical and religious, seem driven to think of
this invisible pattern, this standard of truth and beauty, as the
_parent_ of the universe rather than as its offspring. I cannot bring
myself to take this view because of the fact that the ultimate
revelation of the world as presented, to man's complex vision is
essential and unfathomably _dualistic_.

A "parent" of the universe can only be thought of as a
stopping-place of all thought. He can only be _imagined_--for
strictly speaking he cannot be thought of at all--as some unutterable
mystery out of which the universe originally sprang. From this
unutterable mystery, to which we have no right to attribute either a
monistic or a pluralistic character, we may, I suppose, imagine to
emerge a perpetual torrent of duality.

Towards this unutterable mystery, about which even to say "it is"
seems to be saying too much, it is impossible for the complex
vision to have any attitude at all. It can neither love it n