Finitude

“ Thus we may see from the side alike of cognition and of will how the whole life of the finite being forms a constant endeavour to widen experience into the complete apprehension of a content which, because infinite, could not be apprehended without the disappearance of finitude itself. ”

“ The category of finitude was at a much earlier period elucidated and explained at its place in the Logic: an elucidation which, as in logic for the more specific though still simple thought-forms of finitude, so in the rest of philosophy for the concrete forms, has merely to show that the finite is not, i.e. is not the truth, but merely a transition and an emergence to something higher. ”

“ But the finite, just because its very nature as finite is to aspire to a perfection which is out of reach, must have its experience marked with the distinction of now from by and by, of desire from performance. In this temporal character of all finite experience we may perhaps afterwards discern the ultimate ground of morality, as we can already discern in the unresting struggle of the finite to overcome its finitude, practical evidence that time is not a form which adequately expresses the nature of Reality, and must therefore be imperfect appearance. ”

“ We may regard, then, immediate existence, both in the purely physical and spiritual sense of the term, as a finitude, or more justly as a finitude which does not satisfy its notion and for this very reason declares its finitude. For the notion, and more concretely still, the Idea, is essentially independent and free. Purely animal life, although as Life it is the Idea, is no manifestation of infinity as such or freedom. ”

“ But it means that, in even the most purely contingent-seeming soul, and in its apparently but Institutional and Historical assents and acts, there ever is, there can never fail to be, some, however, implicit, however slight, however intermittent, sense and experience of the Infinite, evidenced by at least some dissatisfaction with the Finite, except as this Finitude is an occasion for growth in, and a part-expression of, that Infinite, our true home. ”

“ We have reached the position that the finite as a whole and finite knowledge are incapable of grasping the Infinite in general, as well as the Infinite in the form it takes as absolute necessity, and also of comprehending the Infinite by the aid of the conceptions of contingency and finitude from which finite knowledge starts. ”

“ Can an argument like Professor Royce’s prove an Absolute Mind distinct from each thinker’s mind, or an Absolute Mind coexisting with other genuine minds, unquestionably as real as itself? What is the true test of reality? — and how alone can finitude coexist with unabated reality? Is not that test self-active intelligence? — and, in order to our being real notwithstanding our finitude, must not Nature be conceived as conditioned by human nature, instead of conditioning it? ”

“ But, for such an experience, this constitution of the finite is a fact determined from an absolute point of view, and every finite incompleteness and struggle appears as a part of a whole in whose wholeness the fragments find their true place, the ideas their realisation, the seeking its fulfilment, and our whole life its truth, and so its eternal rest, — that peace which transcends the storms of its agony and its restlessness. ”

“ Which Fate’s own acts as if in itself shows;
And men, like children, seeing the image there,
Take place for cause and make our will Fate bear.
XXXV. Good. I have done. My heart weighs. I am sad.
The outer day, void statue of lit blue,
Is altogether outward, other, glad
At mere being not-I (so my aches construe) .
I, that have failed in everything, bewail
Nothing this hour but that I have bewailed,
For in the general fate what is’t to fail?
Why, fate being past for Fate, ’tis but to have failed.
Whatever hap-or stop, what matters it,
Sith to the mattering our will bringeth nought? ”

“ If a vision was granted to you, if you saw, beforehand, what would be in the future, and if now the vision is followed by what is, or appears to be, a reality, is that any reason why your strength and presence of mind should desert you?' A pause, and then, answering the thought of his heart, the voice went on, 'Fate! That is true. Everything is fate. But our resistances are predicted and foreseen as well as our trials. Arise and be of good cheer. ”

“ What is the end, the final destiny of the individual? Does he perish at death, or does he enter into another state of being; and under what conditions of happiness or woe does he exist there? What is the end, the final aim of the great whole, that far-off divine event towards which the whole creation moves? It is vain to tell man not to ask these questions. ”

“ And he says thus to himself: “Finite is the world, so that a path could be traced round it [161] . And why is this so? Since I, by means of ardour of exertion of application of earnestness of careful thought, can reach up to such rapture of heart that, rapt in heart, I dwell in the world perceiving it to be finite-by that I know this.”
‘This, brethren, is the first case.
18. ‘The second case is similar, only that the conclusion is: [23] ‘Infinite is the world without a limit. Those recluses and Brahmans who say it is finite, so that a path could be traced round it, are wrong [162] .” ”

“ This term for ends in general is as old as the days of Anaxagoras. Let us now attend to these two conceptions, intelligence or thought considered as the beginning, and the good considered as the end. And let us suppose an illustrative case drawn from human nature: it may, perhaps, assist us in forming some imperfect conception of the divine intelligence and its ends. Let us suppose that a savage has the thought of some good, or some end. Now he must think of this as a particular good or particular end; no man can think of good in general or end in general. ”

“ Now, what, then, is that world which is to exist absolutely, and which, therefore, is the absolute expression of the final end, and after the realization of which the final end will have been altogether achieved and made visible? Evidently that world which exists for its own sake, and not for the sake of another world. ”

“ The contemplation of the final judgment, and the sentence to be passed upon the wicked, is truly a solemn one, and should startle every mind, But oh, how few, comparatively, seem to stop and reflect upon this momentous subject? And yet all are rapidly hastening on to their final doom. Few are aware of the vast numbers that are passing from time into eternity—even each year, each month, each day each hour, or each minute. ”

“ We speak of the end of life—although it is true, not the one which we understand, but the one which would be understood by the highest reason. The purpose is just the same as the cause. The cause is looking backward, the purpose is looking forward, but the cause, the conception of the cause (and therefore of an end) appears only then when there is time, i.e., a being is limited in his conceptions by time. ”

“ Consistently with this we have the conclusion stated in the succeeding section on the Will. “Good, the final end of the world, has being only while it constantly produces itself. And the world of the spirit and the world of nature continue to have this distinction, that the latter moves only in a recurring cycle while the former certainly also makes progress.” ”

“ But when we have asserted, as we have now done, that every moment of every finite consciousness has some unique character, and when we have asserted, as we have also done, that in our rational life our momentary will and its finite expression belong to this very unique aspect of our finite life, we have indeed found, in our finite will, an aspect which no causation could ever by any possibility explain. ”

“ The commencement of a thing is immediately connected, in idea if not in time, with its end. “Lightly come, lightly go.” The will has called it into existence—the will calls it back again into nothing. ”

“ The logical consequence was to make dying the chief end of living. Who cannot remember being told to despise the present, to consider how brief it is, like a cloud before the dawn of the endless day? It was compared to the short waiting outside some door beyond which was warmth, cheer, and unending bliss. So that the pious soul thought of life only in terms of waiting, watching, enduring. ”

“ There's neither rhyme nor reason in it that I can see. But it's the rule of life that it should end in death. For some the end is swift—for some it's slow—some know when it's coming—some don't,—the last are the happiest. ”

“ But the question is, Does this continuity terminate now in the living series, and is there then a break—a sharp, clear discontinuity, and beyond, another realm immeasurably less endowed, known as the realm of not-life? or Does what has been taken for the clear-cut boundary of the vital area, when more deeply searched, reveal the presence of a force at present unknown, which changes not-living into the living, and thus makes all nature an unbroken sequence and a continuous whole? ”

“ Our own observation and experience teach us how to apply it to ourselves. As to us, duration is dependent and finite; as to God, it is infinite; but in both cases the originality or dependence, the finiteness or infinity of it, arises, not out of the nature of duration itself, but out of other qualities of the subjects respectively. ”

“ It may be that the end is more remote than we now think. But even if we assent to the conclusion that in theory the end is in the infinite future, it seems certain that so far as the possibilities of human life are concerned there will be an end. ”

“ It was a time, he considered, when the processes or means by which life is lived constituted the end of life itself, without seeking for some other end external to them and often incompatible with them. ”

“ And certainly, what in no sense has an end transcends what is ended in any sense. Or, in this way also dost thou transcend all things, even the eternal, because thy eternity and theirs is present as a whole with thee; while they have not yet that part of their eternity which is to come, just as they no longer have that part which is past? ”

“ Yet in my heart everything still lives— nor even in death can I see the end of it all: rather, in death there seems to be ever so much more of repining. What is to be ended must be ended in this life—there is no other way out. ”

“ It will bring thee to heaven, and there thy days shall be multiplied in infinitum—to infinity, and the years of thy life shall be increased without end." There is no true wisdom but in the say of religion and no true life but in the end of that way. ”

“ How can I think of myself when infinitude o'er me is glowing,
Glowing with tokens of love from the land where my sorrows shall cease?
Oh, summer-night of the South! Oh, sweet languor of zephyrs love-sighing!
Oh, mighty circuit of shadowy solitude, holy and still!
Music scarce audible, echo-less harmony joyously dying,
Dying in faint suspirations o'er meadow, and forest, and hill!
I must go forth and be part of it, part of the night and its gladness.
But a few steps, and I pause on the marge of the shining lagoon. ”

“ We know that from the Past, stretching back into infinity, we have ourselves made the Present,—and according to Divine law we also know that from this Present, stretching forward into infinity, we shall ourselves evolve all that is yet To Come. ”

“ Shall we leave the finite wherein we dwell to be swallowed up in this or the other infinite? In other words, shall we end by absorption in the infinite which our reason conceives, or shall we remain eternally in that which our eyes behold, that is to say, in numberless changing and ephemeral worlds? ”

“ Where one sees something else, hears something else, understands something else, that is the finite. The Infinite is immortal, the finite is mortal.'
'Sir, in what does the Infinite rest?'
'In its own greatness—or not even in greatness [253] .'
2. 'In the world they call cows and horses, elephants and gold, slaves, wives, fields and houses greatness. I do not mean this,' thus he spoke; 'for in that case one being (the possessor) rests in something else, (but the Infinite cannot rest in something different from itself.) ”

“ And the millions around us still alive are missing their End to-day. "This very End"—think of it—Mortality swallowed up in Life—Death only an absence, Life for ever a presence—Present with the Lord who has prepared us "for this very End." ”

“ These two grand divisions of Eternity, of which the one is continually effacing the other, are entirely unlike. The one is dark with sorrow and disappointment, the other bright with prosperity and joy. The Past is the region of sobs, the Future is the realm of song. ”

“ Virtually he has existed from the very beginning, from an infinite period; infinity multiplied by two remains infinity. I announce final extinction, young men of good family, though myself I do not become finally extinct. ”

“ But there is, we are told, an internal finality: each being is made for itself, all its parts conspire for the greatest good of the whole and are intelligently organized in view of that end. Such is the notion of finality which has long been classic. Finalism has shrunk to the point of never embracing more than one living being at a time. ”

“ It is plain that all that has happened and is now happening is but the preparation for the accomplishment of God’s good purpose, and not the end, as it shall be in perfection. We shall probably not see this end, but die on the road thither. ”

“ And, giving a great leap, his heart began to thrash with the excitement of a chase all but completed, with the foreknowledge that, in the next few minutes, destiny was making, life and death were being weighed, the balances of fate about to tip! ”