Page:Reason in Common Sense (1920).djvu/241

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nature, however, would soon revive their wills, contorted by unnatural oppression, and a vision of perfection would arise within them upon breathing a purer air. Freedom and perfection are synonymous with life. The peace they bring is one

whose names are also rapture, power,
Clear sight, and love; for these are parts of peace.

Thought belongs to the sphere of ultimate results. What, indeed, could be more fitting than that consciousness, which is self-revealing and transcendentally primary, should be its own excuse for being and should contain its own total value, together with the total value of everything else? What could be more proper than that the whole worth of ideas should be ideal? To make an idea instrumental would be to prostitute what, being self-existent, should be self-justifying. That continual absoluteness which consciousness possesses, since in it alone all heaven and earth are at any moment revealed, ought to convince any radical and heart-searching philosopher that all values should be continually integrated and realised there, where all energies are being momently focussed. Thought is a fulfilment; its function is to lend utility to its causes and to make actual those conceived and subterranean processes which find in it their ultimate expression. Thought is nature represented; it is potential energy producing life and becoming an actual appearance.