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The Attempt to Conceive the Absolute As A Spiritual Life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009
Extract
§ 1. “To the mind of the philosopher”, according to Plato,1 “there belongs a vision of all time and all being"; and certainly many of the great thinkers have made it their business to speculate about the omnitudo realitatis or the ens realissimum—about the universe as a whole and in its wholeness, or about that which is supremely real—in short (to use the most convenient term) about ‘ the Absolute ‘. It may be (as the history of philosophical speculation suggests) that this interest in the Whole lies at the heart of all genuine philosophy, giving to it its distinctive inspiration and character. It may be, on the other hand, that it is a misdirected solicitude—an anxiety to solve the inherently insoluble. The Absolute, we shall perhaps be told, is a vox nihili—a name for that which, being nothing, has no attributes ; or we, at least, can never hope to characterize it. All our available predicates, being drawn of necessity from a limited field, must ‘ come short‘must prove inadequate for so immense and so august a subject.
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References
page 137 note 1 Republic, 486 a, 
ύπάρχει 
μεγαλοπρέπια 
θεωρία 
χρόνον πάσης 
.
page 137 note 2 i.e. “ the universe as a whole and in its wholeness “ or “ that which is supremely real “; for between these apparent alternatives there is, I am convinced, no genuine difference, none that could be maintained against careful criticism.
page 138 note 1 Cf. e.g.Bosanquet, , The Meeting of Extremes, etc., p. 114Google Scholar: “The progressist runs from the paradox of reality. He will not understand that the infinite whole, in its wholeness, is a life and self-enrichment."; p. 211: “ We should submit ourselves to the universe and try to learn its lesson, being convinced that in all its bewildering diversity a fundamental unity—a simple energy and life—was revealing itself to us.” Cf. also pp. 111–12, p. 113, p. 183. Alexander, , Space, Time, and Deity, vol. i, p. 66Google Scholar: “ Space-Time, or the universe in its simplest terms, is a growing universe, and is through and through historical. If we resolve it into its phases, those phases must express its real life.”
page 139 note 1 ‘ Accompany ‘ is intended as a neutral term. The exact relationship or connection between the ‘ physical ‘ and ‘ spiritual ‘ levels of a life is a question on which I offer no opinion, except that I do not think the discussion of it indispensable for my present subject.
page 139 note 2 See, however, for certain qualifications, § 9.
page 140 note 1 See below, §§ 6 ff.
page 140 note 2 In a spiritual life “ to reach one goal is to start for others ”, as SirCharles, Sherrington has well said in speaking of the progress of physiology (Presidential Address to the British Association, September 1922)Google Scholar—well said if one italicizes the ‘ is’.
page 141 note 1 Excepting the first part, if any part is really ‘ first ‘.
page 142 note 1 I am indebted to Bosanquet’s, striking phrase, in which he describes the universe as “ an inexhaustible fountain of values ” (Meeting of Extremes, p. 183).Google Scholar
page 142 note 2 Ignoring the ‘ area of difficulty’ which I have provisionally ‘ masked’, cf. § 4.
page 143 note 1 Cf. Bosanquet's, “ simple statement “ (with the admirable remarks on “ coherence “ and “ contradiction “ which precede it) in his Meeting of Extremes, pp. 176–177.Google Scholar
page 143 note 2 Above, § 2, and see below, § 9.
page 144 note 1 In what follows, I am borrowing freely, and without regard to historical accuracy, certain features and elements of Aristotle's doctrine which suit my purpose. The distinction between 
and 
is expounded byAristotle in Phys. Γ 1 and 2, Metaph. Θ 1048 18–35, and (more loosely) N.E.1174a13ff.To prevent misunderstanding, let me say at once that, in my opinion, the sharp distinction (between Act and Process), which I am going to sketch, is quite untenable; so obviously untenable, indeed, that I have found it impossible to state it as plausibly as I should have liked. Cf. Below, § 11.
page 145 note 1 Cf. below, § 11.
page 146 note 1 the spiritual lives e.g. (or ‘ histories ’ shall we call them?) of Beethoven, Cromwell or Newton—or of vanished Societies, Nations and Races, though we have agreed to leave these out of account.
page 146 note 2 so far, at least, as any inference can be drawn to Beethoven’s ‘ acts ’ from his ‘ works ’. Contrast e.g. (in regard to concreteness, wealth and profundity of spiritual significance) the IXth Symphony and the Posthumous Quartets with the earliest symphonies and chamber music.
page 146 note 3 Cf. above, § 2.
page 147 note 1 Cf. below, § 11.
page 148 note 1 The statues in the Sieges-Allee in Berlin, the concentric spheres of the Aristotelian heavens, the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day—did not these ‘ originate’ in a ‘ creative vision’, an ‘ intellectual insight’, a ‘ decision’, which (as phases of some life) were occurrences formally timeless, i.e. ‘ acts ’ within the terms of our description?
page 149 note 1 Cf. above, § 1.
page 149 note 2 I am thinking of Plato's famous protest: Sophistes, 248 e.
page 150 note 1 For it is common enough to confuse aspects of a concrete fact, which it is necessary to distinguish and perhaps to set in sharp contrast, with the fact itself or with constituent elements of the fact.
page 151 note 1 Cf. Goethe, Wilhelm Meister: “ Wer nie sein Brod mit Thränen asz., der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte! “
page 151 note 2 Cf. Goethe, Faust: “ Verweile doch, du bist so schön! “
page 152 note 1 Cf. Bradley, , Appearance and Reality, p. 172Google Scholar (though the words are used in a different context and to enforce a different point): “ The Absolute does not want, I presume, to make eyes at itself in a mirror, or, like a squirrel in a cage, to revolve the circle of its perfections.”