sophers have done by way of
bringing us to this point--the point where a final decision between
heroism and cowardice becomes inevitable.

To the argument that _we_ are superfluous, that with a Perfect God in
possession of the universe no reason can be given why imperfect beings
should be here at all, the philosophers make reply that the One must
needs "differentiate itself into a Many," the Eternal Consciousness
"reproduce itself" in a multitude of time-bound mortals like you and
me, troublers of the Divine Perfection, which is all the more clearly
perfect because it suffers and at last overcomes the trouble that our
presence creates.

But while reasons have been offered why the One should thus "reproduce"
or "differentiate" itself as a Many, no reason, so far as I am aware,
has ever been found, nor ever can be, why there should be just so many
of these troublers as there are--no more and no less. Nor why _you_
and _I_ should be among them. To explain why human units exist, does
not explain the existence of any single individual we choose to
name--of Julius Caesar, of Napoleon, of Mr Lloyd George, whose
significance in the universe, it will be admitted, consists not in
their being mere human units required to make up a certain number, but
in their being just the kind of men they happen to be. So too the
proof that a human unit must needs be there to fill the niche in time
and space you now occupy is no proof that you, and no other, must needs
be the unit in question. Another, substituted in your place, could
play the part of one in a multitude as well as you, and the theory of
the One and the Many would not even notice the change. But it would
make a notable difference to the facts. And as with the units, so with
the totality. If the number of souls now drawing the breath of life
were halved or doubled, nay, if they were all suddenly blotted out and
their places filled by an entirely new multitude, men, angels or devils
as the case might be, philosophy might still maintain its theory of the
One and the Many as though nothing had happened. Why these rather than
those? Why _you_? Why _me_? Philosophy precipitates this question
and leaves it, at the end of all theorizing, unanswered, poignant and
tremendous. "Who can say positively," writes Sir Leslie Stephen, "that
it would not be better for the world at large if his neck were wrung
five minutes hence?"[1]

Unable, as every man is, to give a convincing rea