that their character, in part, is exclusive cannot be denied; but the question is in what sense, and how far, they possess it. For, if the repulsion is relative and holds merely within the one whole, it is compatible at once with our view of the universe.
An immediate experience, viewed as positive, is so far not exclusive. It is, so far, what it is, and it does not repel anything. But the “this” certainly is used also with a negative bearing. It may mean “this one,” in distinction from that one and the other one. And here it shows obviously an exclusive aspect, and it implies an external and negative relation. But every such relation, we have found, is inconsistent with itself (Chapter iii.). For it exists within, and by virtue of an embracing unity, and apart from that totality both itself and its terms would be nothing. And the relation also must penetrate the inner being of its terms. “This,” in other words, would not exclude “that,” unless in the exclusion “this,” so far, passed out of itself. Its repulsion of others is thus incompatible with self-contained singleness, and involves subordination to an including whole. But to the ultimate whole nothing can be opposed, or even related.
And the self-transcendent character of the “this” is, on all sides, open and plain. Appearing as immediate, it, on the other side, has contents which are not consistent with themselves, and which refer themselves beyond. Hence the inner nature of the “this” leads it to pass outside itself towards a higher totality. And its negative aspect is but one appearance of this general tendency. Its very exclusiveness involves the reference of itself beyond itself, and is but a proof of its necessary absorption in the Absolute.[1]
- ↑ The above conclusion applies emphatically to the “this” as signifying the point in which I am said to encounter reality. All contact necessarily implies a unity, in and through which it takes place, and my self and the reality are, here, but partial appearances. And the “mine” never, we may say, could strike me as “not-mine,” unless, precisely so far as it does so, it is a mere factor in my experience. I have spoken above on the true meaning of that sense of reality which is given by the “this.”
