so clearly; because it always remains possible for
any unbeliever in a spiritual unity of this absolute kind to use the
term "parent," if he pleases, for that incomprehensible "substance"
under the dominion of space and time which takes the triple form
of the "substance" out of which the substratum of the soul is made,
the "substance" out of which the "objective mystery" is made, and
the substance out of which is made the surrounding "medium"
which holds all personal souls together.

The question of the mortality or the immortality of the soul does
not divide them so clearly; because such a question is entirely
insoluble; and a vivid consciousness of its insolubility
accompanies all argument. The question of race does not divide
them so clearly; because both with regard to race and with regard
to class the division is very largely a superficial thing, dependent
upon public opinion and upon group-consciousness and leaving
many individuals on each side entirely unaffected.

The question of sex does not divide them so clearly; because there
are always innumerable examples of noble and ignoble treachery
to the sex-instinct; not to speak of a certain intellectual neutrality
which refuses to be biased. The idea of communism is on the
contrary so profoundly associated with the original revelation of
the complex vision that it must be regarded as the inevitable
expression of all the attributes of this vision when such attributes
are reduced to a rhythmic harmony.

That this is no speculative hypothesis but a real fact of experience
can be proved by any sincere act of personal introspection.

The philosophy of the complex vision is based upon those rare and
supreme moments when the soul's "apex-thought" quivers like an
arrow in the very heart of the surrounding darkness. By any honest
act of introspection we can recall to memory the world-deep
revelations which are thus obtained. And among these revelations
the one most vivid and irrefutable, as far as human association is
concerned, is the revelation of the idea of communism.

So vivid and so dominant is this idea, that it may be said that no
motive which drives or obsesses the will in the sphere of external
relations can approach or rival it in importance. And that this is so
can be proved by the fact that the opposite of this idea, namely the
idea of private property, is found when we analyse the content of
our profoundest instincts to be in perpetual conflict with the