The world is not rigid being, but activity, not absolute existence but
a system of changing relations, not an abstract _Sein_ but a concrete
_Wirklichkeit_—a constant working of cause and effect. There is no
dualism in this, for the _Wirklichkeit_ is one and undivided.
Yet every relation admits of two standpoints, just as the line _AB_,
which may serve to represent a certain and definite relation, is
determinable from both ends, _A_ as well as _B_. Let us call _A_ the
subject and _B_ the object. Neither _A_ nor _B_ is a reality, a whole
complete _Wirklichkeit_. A thing in order to be real must be active, it
must work, it must stand in relation to something else. _A_ is a mere
mathematical point, but _AB_ representing a process does something, it
performs work, it is real. A thing in itself, if it could exist at all,
would be tantamount to non-existence, it would represent a _Sein_ without
being _Wirklichkeit_. When bearing this in mind, it appears natural
that the oneness of existence, representable in such relations as is
that of _AB_ = -_BA_ will admit of two standpoints, _BA_ representing
subjectivity, and _AB_ representing objectivity. We can consider the
relation of the world at large to one special point (which latter may
in its turn stand for a whole system of relations) or vice versa the
relation of this point to the world at large. The former standpoint is
that of the microcosm, or the soul, the latter that of the macrocosm or
the universe; the former results in awareness, the latter appears as
matter in motion. The former is subjectivity, the latter objectivity.
Reality must not be conceived of as being a compound of the elements of
feeling and of motion, of subjectivity and objectivity or of kinesis and
metakinesis. I do not think there are atoms one-half of which contains
the potentiality of sentience while the other half is freighted with
energy. I conceive of reality as being one throughout, but, being
throughout resolvable in relations, it will as a matter of course have
two sides. What these two sides are like can be known through experience
only, and experience teaches that under certain conditions the subjective
side develops into feeling and consciousness, while the objective side is
represented in the feeling of conscious beings as motions.
This view explains the duality of our conception of psycho-physical
facts, but it is certainly not dualism. The duality belongs to the
scaffold not to the facts themselves. The facts can only be thought of
as being one and undivided, and no conception can stand except it be
monistic.
Subjectivity and objectivity are terms that express relations and not
things in themselves. There are, however, philosophers who show a great
grief unless either the subjectivity of being, or the objectivity of
being, or the unities in which things or personalities are gathered
up, are considered as things in themselves. All those features of
reality which appear to their conception unexplainable, such as the
relations that obtain among things and especially the thoughts of
thinking beings are supposed to be the effects of some transcendental
entity, of a thing in itself. And if a philosophy denies the existence
of transcendentalistic thought-entities or of any such things in
themselves, which serve as cement to combine the _disjecta membra_ of
their world-conception, it is generally declared to lead straight on to
nihilism—not because the world itself but because their world-system
would thereby be annihilated.
All things that exist, if considered as separate things, will pass
away; but if considered as parts of the all-existence of reality, they
are eternal. In fact things are not separate things, in the sense of
isolated, absolute, or abstract beings, although we may speak of them as
such for our ephemeral purposes. All things that exist, the human soul
included, are and will remain parts of the One and All.
This destroys their individuality as little as a brick ceases to be a
brick because it serves its part in the building of a dome. The soul of a
man if his life be well spent, is not annihilated in death, his soul has
become a living stone in the temple of humanity. It continues to live and
marches on in the general progress of the race.
We are parts of a great whole now, and we shall remain parts of the same
great whole forever. We have never been and shall never be transcendental
selfhoods or metaphysical egos, or any kind of things in themselves. Our
personality is real life, it is actual being. As such it is bound up in
the universal life of the One and All and no particle of it will be lost.
We need not fear death, for the air we breathe is immortality.