Unity of being

“ Recognizing, as of course I distinctly do, the close historical relation of what I am saying to the whole tradition of recent Idealism, I can only point out here that our human interpretation of the unity of Being, however much it may be supplemented, in however different a light it may appear from some higher point of view, remains, in its own relative degree, true, just in so far as it is at once an assertion of unity, and a concrete illustration of that unity by facts found somewhere within the realm of man's actual experience. ”

“ He is the principle of unity which is present in whatever is an object of thought, and which gives the mind the power to co-ordinate the manifold of sensation into the harmony of truth; He is the principle of goodness and beauty, which makes the universe fair, and thrills the heart of man with hope and love. Amid endless change, He alone is permanent, and He is power and wisdom and love, and they only are good and wise and strong who cleave to His eternal and absolute being. ”

“ And we also know, with an astonishing universality of application, how great a multiplicity in unity is necessarily presented by every concrete object and by every mental act and emotional state of every sane human being throughout every moment of his waking life ”

“ But the love of the human race is increased by their individual differences, and the unity of the creature, as before we saw of all unity, made perfect by each having something to bestow and to receive, bound to the rest by a thousand various necessities and various gratitudes, humility in each rejoicing to admire in his fellow that which he finds not in himself, and each being in some respect the complement of his race. ”

“ Under the other aspect, the entire action which sets forth the relations of all the characters involved, of their several courses of experience as elements in the working out of the joint result, has its unity in the constitution of the universe,—the impersonal order, that structure of being itself, which is independent of man's will, which is imposed upon him as a condition of existence, and which he must accept without appeal. ”

“ This unity—on the one side of the being for another, or the making oneself into an outward thing, and on the other side of the being for oneself—this universal substance speaks its universal language in the usages and laws of his people: and yet this unchanging essence is itself nought else than the expression of the single individuality, which seems at first sight its mere opposite; the laws pronounce nothing but what every one is and does. ”

“ That kind of unity is like the unity reached by repeated striking of the same note on the keyboard of the piano. It is mere similarity of pattern; and you do not, by having a number of things exactly alike, make one whole. A unity in the pattern implies no unity of essential being. Reason demands, for its own satisfaction, a unity of a deeper and more vital kind. ”

“ I may here, in passing, and for the sake of illustration merely, express the fundamental principle of morality in the following formula: “So act that thou mayest look upon the dictate of thy will as an eternal law to thyself.”
The ultimate vocation of every finite, rational being is thus absolute unity, constant identity, perfect harmony with himself. ”

“ Its oneness may thus be said to be both objective and subjective. Thus the more completely our own inner life is the systematic expression of consistent purpose, the greater the right with which we may regard ourselves as being each truly “one thing” and as such truly individual. But when we remember how far what any one of us calls “his” inner life is from exhibiting such complete 127internal coherency of structure, we shall realise that even in the highest case the unity is still a matter of degree. ”

“ The omnipresent activity conjoins these kinds in various proportions. Hence men are not only of that power, but they are that power according to its manifestations in each. The unity of all being is eternal, immutable, but it has displayed itself alike in all ages. ”

“ But what is the conception of unity under which beings are presented to us? There is unity in the object when there is no distinction in the conception presenting it; and there is no distinction, when the perception of relative not-being is not combined in the object with that of being. We have unity whenever we perceive an object simply. ”

“ The circle of this vital influence may expand as the individual grows into the wider contemplation of his unity with Infinite Being; but any more comprehensive law of relationship it would be impossible to formulate. ”

“ And, on the other hand (and this is but the obverse of the same rule) , look upon everyone else as being from the moral point of view just as important as you are; nay, realize that every human being is but another self, a part of the same spiritual being that is in you, a complement of yourself, a part of your essential being. Realize the unity that subsists between you and your fellow-men, and then your life will be spiritual indeed. ”

“ It is only by this triplicity of personal relations that the unity of God as a living, concrete unity, or the unity of one, absolute, perfect, infinite being, containing in himself the actual plenitude of all that is conceivable or possible, can subsist or be vividly apprehended. ”

“ We thus get a vivid presentation of that variety in unity and unity in variety, which is of the very essence of the fully living soul; and we also see how incapable of being otherwise than caricatured, if expressed in but a few hyperbolic words, [298] was even her spirit of poverty and of mortification, in this her last stage, which, in some sense and degree, still retained and summed up, and in other ways added a special touch of a large freedom to, all the various previous stages of her life. ”

“ In the light which is undying.
'Thus we complete the Trinity of our religion, Humanity, the World, and Space. So completed we recognise power to {243} give unity and definiteness to our thoughts, purity and warmth to our affections, scope and vigour to our activity. We recognise its powers to regulate our whole being, to give us that which it has so long been the aim of all religion to give—internal union. We recognise its power to raise us above ourselves and by intensifying the action of our unselfish instincts to bear down unto their due subordination our selfishness. ”

“ for if simple unity could be adequately perceived by the sight or by any other sense, then, as we were saying in the case of the finger, there would be nothing to attract towards being; but when there is some contradiction always present, and one is the reverse of one and involves the conception of plurality, then thought begins to be aroused within us, and the soul perplexed and wanting to arrive at a decision asks 'What is absolute unity?' This is the way in which the study of the one has a power of drawing and converting the mind to the contemplation of true being. ”

“ All that believe, have the real unity, which is most glorious; because inward, and spiritual, in the Body, and to the Head. [7] For being united in forms, commonly called Uniformity, every Christian will for peace-sake study and do, as far as conscience will permit. And for brethren, in things of the mind we look for no compulsion, but that of light and reason. ”

“ The Sun of Truth hath ... O peoples of the world! The Sun of Truth hath risen to illumine the whole earth, and to spiritualize the community of man. Laudable are the results and the fruits thereof, abundant the holy evidences deriving from this grace. This is mercy unalloyed and purest bounty; it is light for the world and all its peoples; it is harmony and fellowship, and love and solidarity; indeed it is compassion and unity, and the end of foreignness; it is the being at one, in complete dignity and freedom, with all on earth. ”

“ For the little soul that cries aloud for continued personal existence for itself and its beloved, there is no help. For the soul which knows itself no more as a unit, but as a part of the Universal Unity of which the Beloved also is a part ”

“ This is the only thought which enables us to recognize ourselves, which maintains us in unity with ourselves, and prevents us from being robbed by parents, kinsfolk, friends, great masters, ambition, avarice, and other vices and sins, which take man from man, and keep him dispersed and dissipated, without suffering him ever to find himself and become at one with himself. ”

“ For the highest end with which we must be ever in touch, toward which we must be ever looking, is to make actual that unity between ourselves and others of which our moral nature is the prophecy. The realization of that unity is the goal toward which humanity tends. ”

“ In enquiring about any one individual we must ask how other individuals enter ‘objectively’ into the unity of its own experience. This unity of its own experience is that individual existing formally. ”

“ And thus the conception of the necessary unity of all that is resolves itself into the poverty of imagination, and a freer logic emancipates us from the strait-waistcoated benevolent institution which idealism palms off as the totality of being. ”

“ And just so far as I fall short of systematic individuality, whether from the poverty of my interests or their mutual incompatibility, the appearance of unity in my life is illusory, and I must be pronounced an unreal appearance. ”

“ It was character living itself out, an utterance of its entire unity, something drawn from the solemn depths of those life-convictions which all the personal and impersonal powers of a man, aglow and welded, unite in producing. ”

“ As some have liked to describe the change, the "universal individual," the individual as an authoritative and heaven-made type, that dictated a life and a belief to others generally, passed away, and in its stead, instead of unity as itself an individual, instead of an incarnate type, came unity as in the relation, or the activity maintaining the relation, of all individuals. ”

“ The sentiment of unity, of congruity, is profoundly active, and ever present in the human mind. Whatever man creates links itself with some other thing; borrows completeness from its environment, and bestows it in its turn. ”

“ By means of our own aspiration, we can now grasp, unite, and deepen all the goodwill, genuine feeling, and untiring activity of our day, which was hitherto inadequate only because it lacked inner unity and quickening spiritual power. ”

“ Here, on a small scale and on a precarious foundation, we may see clearly illustrated and foreshadowed that Life of Reason which is simply the unity given to all existence by a mind in love with the good. ”

“ Every history of the creation, and every traditionary account, whether from the lettered or unlettered world, however they may vary in their opinion or belief of certain particulars, all agree in establishing one point, the unity of man; by which I mean that men are all of one degree, and consequently that all men are born equal, and with equal natural right, in the same manner as if posterity had been continued by creation instead of generation, the latter being the only mode by which the former is carried forward; ”

“ Now we have a chance, all of us, to be ourselves! Each of us may say, ‘I am myself, one!’ Think of that, my friends, each one! Each of us a unit, responsible only to his or her unity, if I may so express it. ”

“ Man will once more feel his unity with his fellows, he will feel his unity with the animals, with the mountains and the streams, with the earth itself and the slow lapse of the constellations, not as an abstract dogma of Science or Theology, but as a living and ever-present fact. ”

“ But if we have that one constant thought with us, and if we are, through all the variety of occupations, true to the one purpose of serving and keeping near God, then we have a charm against the frittering away of our lives in distractions, and the misery of multiplicity; and we enter into the blessedness of unity and singleness of purpose; and our lives become, like the starry heavens in all the variety of their motions, obedient to one impulse. For unity in a life does not depend upon the monotony of its tasks, but upon the simplicity of the motive which impels to all varieties of work. ”

“ That you are everywhere in all the three worlds together with the soul abiding in them; and that you are no other than the unity itself; nor is there any duality of any body, apart from the unity which pervades the whole. ”

“ We may postulate such a unity only if the spiritual life is itself a universal life transcending that of the isolated individuals; if it bears in itself a unity which takes the multiplicity up into itself. ”

“ Here, as in the world of my station, we have the objective side, the many affirmations of the one will, the one body, the real ideal humanity, which in all its members is the same, although in every one it is different; and which is completely realized not in any one this or that, nor in any mere ‘collective unity’ of such particulars, but only in the whole as a whole. And we have the subjective personal side, where the one will of the whole is, in its unity with the conscious members, self-conscious, and wills itself as the personal identity of the universal and particular will. ”

“ Now if, with this fact in mind, I look back on the world which I attempted thus to describe, I find that the limitation which experience often seems to set to my postulates about the discrimination of facts, may well be founded in the deepest nature of things. The true world, the World of Values or of Appreciation, as rightly viewed by an absolute insight, would be a world of Selves, forming in the unity of their systems One Self. ”