The Complex Vision

t, in plain untechnical terms, is the revelation made to us by this complex medium? Here, as before, I am anxious, before I venture upon such a hazardous undertaking as an answer

ence "an illusion" is no more and no less illuminating than to call it "an ultimate truth." It is the only reality we are at pr

complete "ensemble." It is of course unavoidable that its aspects should be enumerated one by one and that in such an enumeration one aspect should be placed first and another last. Nevertheless, this "first" and "last" must not be regarded as of any reasonable importance; b

lf is the background of our complex vision. It is the personal "visionary" whose vision we are using. I say we have "within us" such a self. This "within us" is one of the inescapable original revelations. For though our consci

ision speak, and not one or other of its attributes. Nowhere has the fantastic and desolating power of pure abstract reas

"within us," and it has distorted it scientifically by reducing this personal self to an automa

f consciousness" with no local habitation. It becomes a consciousness which includes both the "within" and the "without," a consciousness in which our actual personal self is nothing but an illusory phenomenon, a consciousness which is outside both t

ent being becomes an infinite "I am I" which is nothing less than the unfathomable universe conscious of itself in its totality. Whether consciousness of self be added to this "consciousness-in-the-abstract" or not, it is hard to see

ore completely Itself than it was before, seem to us, when under the influence of our complex visio

nly knowable reality, the individual personal "I am I" finds itself resolved into a fatal automatic phenomenon of cause and effect; a phenomenon which has as its "cause" nothing, but the prehistoric chemical movements of "matter" or "energy." T

lity of our motive-impulses, leave no space, when they have all be

n a nexus of mechanical determinism. As against both these errors, to the complex vision this "soul" within us appears to be something altogether different

ct scrutiny it seems to melt away under our hands. The situation is indeed a kind of philosophical tragic-comedy; and is only too indicative of the baffling whimsicality of the who

it seems to vanish into thin air. But at least our complex vision, which is its complex vision, reveals to us the fact of its existence; and with its existence once ackno

cally by an immense weight of human tradition. Belief in the reality of the soul is older and more tenacious than any other human doctrine which our race has ever held

o be its nature to stop, whenever it reaches the limit of its scope in any direction. It stops here, with regard to the soul, just as it stops when confronted

is conscious of itself as a unity, whatever this "something" may be which is the centre and core of our living personality, it must at least be a definite irreducible "monad," "something" that cannot be resolved into anything el

drive the soul back upon itself. But while it lives it lives in its totality a

g about it except that it exists. Truly it is a tragic commentary upon the drama that we call our life, that we

nd of our life a living power of this kind, a power which can endure unafraid the very breaking point of disas

itable aspect of what the soul visualizes as possible. For since the soul is the creator and discoverer of all life, whe

man. All we can say is that it seems as if the death of the body destroyed the complex vision; and if the complex vision is destroyed it seems as though non-existence were bound to take the place of existence, and as though nothingness were bound to take the place of everything. The oriental conception of "Nirvana" is no more th

trictions and limitations of our present personal life. If the soul survives the body it must do so on the strength of its possession of some transforming energy which shall enable it to supply the place in its organic being which is at present occupied by the attribute of sensation. It is quite obvious that if the life of the soul depends upon the active functioning

e apex-thought is brought to bear upon such a feeling as this, that it either melts completely away, or is relegated to unimportance and insignificance. Such a feeling, ecstatic and intense though it may have been, has been no

nct word to say as to the importance of this whole question; and what it says in regard to this is-that it is not important at all! The revelation of the complex vision implies

pex-thought, is compelled to make. And it is compelled to make this assumption by reason of the inherent nature of love. For it is of the nature of love when confronted by two alternatives one of which lays the stress upon personal advantage and the other upon love itself apart from any personal advantage, whether one's own or another's, to choose, as the assumpti

wn or another's. The eternal is something which can be realized in one single moment; something which completely destroys in us any desire for survival after death; som

the emotion of love which rejects the dogma of the immortality of the soul. Were the soul proved beyond all possibility of doubt to be immortal, there would at once fall upon us a despair more appalling than any which we have known. For just as the idea of the eternal satisfies the very depths of our soul with an infinite peace, so the idea of immorta

lves" into which the great Stoics of Antiquity withdrew at their will, and were "happy," beyond the reach of hope and fear. This is the citadel from the security of which all the martyrs for human liberty have mocked their tormentors. This is the fortress from which the supreme

more real than anything else that we are unable to define it. Perhaps we can only define those attributes which are the outward aspects of our real being. Perhaps it is simply because

to itself, in its isolated activity, our logical reason is capable of throwing doubt upon this revelation also. For it is logically certain that what we are actually co

e, except in the ambiguous sense of a sort of permanent illusion. But as soon as the complex vision, in its totality, contemplates the situation, the thing takes on a very different aspect. The pure reason may be as sceptical as it pleases abou

be rationally resolved into a stream of mental impression. But the complex vision still persists in asserting that this permanent sensation of outward reality, which, except in dreamless sleep, is never normally interrupted, represents and bears witne

. Without this primordial act of faith the individual soul can never escape from itself. For the pure reason not only reduces the whole universe to an idea in the mind; but

sses other organs of research, in addition to reason and self-consciousness. Directly we temper reason with these other activities the whole situation has a different look. It is a thing of small consequence what word we use to de

complex visions," comparable with our own. And this is the case not only with regard to other human beings, but with regard to all living entities whether human or non-human. As to how the "souls" of plants, birds, and animals, or of planets or stars, differ in their nature

in its revelation the objective reality of our own physical body. Our evidence for the real outward existence

universe is an illusion then our o

icity," rather than "matter," so also the "stuff" out of which the body is made may be named by any scientific term w

ame universe; and assuming that each "vision" is so coloured by the individuality of the "visionary" as to be, in a measure, different from all the rest, it becomes obvious that in a very important sense there is not only

mysterious "something" which is the substratum of our own soul, confronted by that other mysterious "something" which is the substratum of all possible universes! With the complex vision's revelation that th

terious fourth-dimensional space. Bergsonian dialectic regards ordinary "spatial" time as an inferior category; and finds the

lves is a world entirely dependent upon what must be recognized as a permanent sensation of "ordinary" space and "ordinary" time. And as we have shown in the case of the objective exi

ion by an appeal to the complex vision. Shrewdly must we be on our guard against this double-edged trick of logic, which on the one hand seeks to destroy the basis of its own a

ly and inevitably seeks to hand us over to the menace of nothingness; in the first place of nothingness "within" us, and in the second place of nothingness "without" us. That the logic of the pure reason quickly becomes the slave of the emotion of ma

ggling against fate, is always found to display a certain irrationality. And the complex v

ere no soul to apprehend it, must be admitted. But it would not be really the same as nothing; since as soon as any kind of soul reappeared upon the scene the inevitable material of the objective mystery would

on of liberty, and the "flowingness" of time to an eternal now; but even at these moments it is conscious of a

sions of man in all the ages of his history. The primeval savage, the ancient Greek, the mediaeval saint, the eighteenth cen

on is allowed its orchestral harmony. The primeval savage looking up at the sky above him might regard the sun and moon as living gods exercising their influence upon a fixed unmoving earth. In this

great First Cause of the eighteenth-century deist, the primordial Life-Force of the modern man o

a tedious mathematical formula, marking the psychological point where the mind finds its stopping-place. All that the complex vision

is confronted with unfathomable space is simply a proof that space without an end is as unimaginable as space with an end. It is no proof that space is merely a subjecti

, space without end, is an eternal reminder that the forms, shapes and events of habitual occurrence,

what we call "matter" has these unthinkable horizons. We may take into our hands a pebble or a shell or a grain of sand; and we may feel as though the universe were within our grasp. But when we remember that this little piece of the earth is part of a conti

deed it gives up the task altogether-when it informs us that infinite space is a category of the human mind. We must regard it, then, as part of the original

cannot be regarded as absolutely separate is clear from the fact that they can communicate with one another, not only in human language but in a thousand more direct ways. But granting this communication between t

ant to use any but monistic terms. We say "the system of things," not "the systems of things." And yet it is only by an act of

y between the separate souls which fill the universe than the fact that they are able, after one primordial act of faith, to communicate with one another, these monistic

sical bodies are composed of the same mysterious force which we may call earth, fire, water, air, ether, electricity, energy, vibration, or any other technical or popular name, so long will it be legitimate to use these monistic expressions with which human language is, so to

ance of things, there is still enough unity available to prevent the Many from completely devouring the One. The experiences to which I am referring are experiences whi

egard to this particular problem, uttering so frequent and impressive an oracle that to neglect its voice, would be t

nation also, have an unfair advantage when it comes to words. For human language is compelled to draw its images from sensation and its logic from reason. But intuition-the peculiarly feminine attribute

f the masculine domination of language, has been adequately recognized, there will emerge upon the earth women-philosophers and women-artists who will throw completely new light upon many problems? The difficulty which women experience in getting expressed in definite terms, whether in philosophy or art, the co-ordinated rhythm of their complex vision, may it not be largely due to the f

s this very element, this strange wisdom of the abysmal "Mothers," wh

the complex vision articulate this mysterious oracle from the feminine

conception of unity is misleading because the wavering mass of impression which makes up our life has a margin which recedes on every side into unfathomablen

e rounded-off and complete "whole." According to this second aspect of the case, we think of the world as an

tality. It rejects the conception of "totality," because "totality," in this cosmic sense, is a thing of which it has no experience; and the revelation of the complex vi

system of things; and that is in the sense of continuity. Since this mass of impression, which we name the universe, is on all sides lost in a margin of unfathomableness, it is, after all, only a limited portion of it which comes into

this objective reality extends beyond the limited circle of our consciousness. The device by which the logical reason "rou

It is the actual experience of the soul itself, dropping its plummet into immensity, and finding immensity unfathomable. But as soon as the logical reason dominates the situation, in place of this palpable plunge into a real concrete e

life by the very enemy and antagonist of life, the aboriginal emotion of inert malice. This is why so often in the history of the human race the conception of "God" has been the worst enemy of the soul. The conception

e emotion of inert malice. As soon as the palpable unfathomableness of space is reduced to the barren notion of a mathematical "infinity" all the free and terrible beauty o

at something in us remains unsatisfied while our individual soul is thought of as absolutely isolated from all other souls. It is here, as I have already said, that the peculiarly feminine attribut

ak the isolating circle of the "I am I" and to invade, and mingle with, other personalities. It is something deeper than this, it is a desire to break the isolation of al

flow of happiness-which would destroy for us all fears and all weariness, and would end for ever the obscene and sickening burden of the commonplace. It is precisely at this point

heroic sacrifice, or of some magical effect of nature, or of some heart-breaking gesture of tragic emotion in some simple character, we have suddenly been transported out of the closed circle of our personal life into something

als," into a mood, a temper, a "music of the spheres," wherein the creative mystery of the emotion of love finds its consummation. The peculiar opportunity of an

natures almost irresistible. And yet, when intuition is divorced from the other aspects of the rhythm of life, its tendency towards what might be called "the passion of identity" very easily lapses into

confronted no longer by that impassable gulf between one's own soul and all other living souls! How desirable to cross the abyss whic

of the immortals," and in "the vision of the immortals" alone, its real escape from evil. This "passion of identity," offered us by the vice, by the madness of intuitio

expression of what might be called the "lyrical" element in things. But the secret of life is not lyrical, as many of the prophets have supposed, but dramatic, as all the great artists have shown. For the essence of life is contradiction. And contradiction demands a "for" and an "against," a protagonist and an antagonist. What the revelation of the complex vision discloses is the inherent duality of all things. Pleasure and pain, night and

e vision of the eternal implies the passing of the transitory. For what cannot cease from being beautiful has no real beauty; and what cannot cease from being true has no real truth. The art of life according to the revelation of the complex visi

ould be the object and purpose of our life. But the revelation of the complex vision, in our supreme moments, discloses to us that love itself is the only justification for lif

determinism, or free choice, in regard to the ultimate nature of the world. Man, in a very profound sense, perpetually creates the world according to his will and desire. Nor can he ever know at what point, in the struggle between personality and destiny, the latter is bound to win. Such a point may seem to b

tive will, can secure for itself, or can reject for itself. It may be, if we take

love, he is concentrating his will upon self-realization or self-continuance. What he is really doing is even worse than this. For since what we call "emotion" is an actual projection into the matrix of the objective mystery, of the very substance and stuff of the soul, when the will thus

esire from this. Love is not concerned with time at all-for time has a "future"; and any contemplation of a "future" implies the activity of something in the soul which is different from love, implies something which is concerned with outward events and occurrences and chanc

. I mean the instinctive disgust experienced by the aesthetic sense when men, who otherwise s

icant. The purpose of life is to attain the rhythmic ecstasy of all love's intrinsic potentialities. This desire for personal immortality is not one of love's intrinsic potentialities. Wh

s a disgust based upon our instinctive knowledge that this particular kind of inquiry would never occur to a supreme and self-forgetful love. For this enquiry, this agitation, this dabblin

the austere reserve of that passionate cry there is the ultimate acceptance, by Love itself, of the tragedy of having lived and loved at all. Th

therwise "good" men under the motive of saving their own souls, have, each of them, the same evil origin. Love sweeps aside, in one great wave of its own nature, all these doubts

the object of its love. It is a thing which is of the very nature of the eternity in which love habit

ct of the soul's universe and can be changed and transformed by the soul's will, it is inevitable that what the world has hitherto named "philosophy" and has regarded as the effort of "getting hold" of a reality whic