im, on the strength of this "a
priori" a precedence over the second, it has no real right to make
such a claim. The truth of the situation is indeed the reverse of this;
and upon this truth, more than upon anything else, our whole
method of enquiry depends. For the fact that we are unable to think
of our integral personal self _as actually_ being this "a priori"
consciousness, and are not only able but are bound to think of our
integral personal self as _actually being_ this individual "soul"
within time and space, we are driven to the conclusion that this "a
priori" observer outside time and space is nothing more than an
inevitable trick or law or aspect or play of our isolated logical
reason.

Our logical reason is itself only one attribute of our real concrete
self, the self which exists within time and space; and therefore we
reach the conclusion that this "a priori unity," which seems outside
time and space, is nothing but a necessary inevitable abstraction
from the concrete reality of our personal self which is within time
and space. There is no need to be startled at the apparent paradox of
this, as though the lesser were including the larger or the part the
whole, because when space and time are eliminated there can be no
longer any large or small or whole or part. All are equal there
because all are equally nothing there.

This "a priori" unity of consciousness, outside time and space, is
only real in so far as it represents the inevitable manner in which
reason has to work when it works in isolation, and therefore
compared with the reality of the personal self, within time and
space, it is unreal.

And it is obvious that an unreal thing cannot be larger than a real
thing; nor can an unreal thing be a whole of which a real thing is a
part.

The method therefore of philosophic enquiry, which I name "the
philosophy of the complex vision," depends upon the realization of
the difference between what is only the inevitable play of reason,
working in isolation, and what is the inevitable play of all the
attributes of the human soul when they are held together by the
synthetic activity of what I name the "apex-thought." But this
logical revelation of the "a priori" unity of consciousness outside of
time and space is not the only result of the isolated play of some
particular attribute of personality. Just as the isolated play of
reason evokes this result, so the isolated play of self-consciousness
evokes yet an