eper within
us--'the inward man', which is not merely alike or akin but is the same
in all of us; beneath all our differences, strong against all our
weaknesses, wise against all our follies, what each of us rightly calls
his true self and yet what is not his alone, but all men's also. As we
reflect upon it duly, what discloses or reveals itself to us is a self
which is both our very own and yet common or universal, the self of each
and yet the self of all. The more we get to apprehend and understand it,
the more we become and know ourselves, not so much as being but as
becoming one with one another; the differences that sunder us in
feeling and thought and action melting away like mist. The removal of
these differences is just the unveiling of it, in which it at once comes
to be and to be known. In coming to know it we create it. The unity of
the spirit thus becomes and is known as indubitable fact, or rather (I
must repeat) not as fact, as if it were or were anything before being
known, but as something which is ever more and more coming to be, in the
measure in which it is coming to be known--known to itself. For this is
the hard lesson of modern philosophy, that our inmost nature and most
genuine self is not aught ready-made or given, but something which is
created in and by the process of our coming to know it, which progresses
in existence and substantiality and value as our knowledge of it
progresses in width and depth and self-assurance. The process is one of
creative--self-creative--evolution, in which each advance deposits a
result which prescribes the next step and supplies all the conditions
for it, and so constantly furnishes all that is required for an endless
progress in reality and worth. This is the process in which the spirit
of man capitalizes and substantiates its activities, committing its
gains to secure custody, amassing and using them for its
self-enrichment--in which it depends on no other than itself and is
sovereign master of its future and its fate. This is the way in which
selves are made, or rather, make themselves.

This is the discovery of modern Philosophy, the now patent secret which
it offers for the interpretation of all mysteries and the solving of all
problems--and it offers it with unquestioning assurance, for it has
explored the ground and has awakened to the true method of progress
within it. And as I have said or implied, to the reflective mind regress
is impossible, it cannot g