Every end, reason, motive, object of desire or aversion,
ground of sorrow or joy that we feel is in the world of finite
multifariousness, for only in that world does anything really happen,
only there do events come to pass.

In one sense this is a far-fetched and rather childish objection, for
so much of the history of the finite is as formidably foreign to us as
the static absolute can possibly be--in fact that entity derives its
own foreignness largely from the bad character of the finite which it
simultaneously is--that this sentimental reason for preferring the
pluralistic view seems small.[1] I shall return to the subject in my
final lecture, and meanwhile, with your permission, I will say no more
about this objection. The more so as the necessary foreignness of the
absolute is cancelled emotionally by its attribute of _totality_,
which is universally considered to carry the further attribute of
_perfection_ in its train. 'Philosophy,' says a recent american
philosopher, 'is humanity's hold on totality,' and there is no doubt
that most of us find that the bare notion of an absolute all-one is
inspiring. 'I yielded myself to the perfect whole,' writes Emerson;
and where can you find a more mind-dilating object? A certain loyalty
is called forth by the idea; even if not proved actual, it must be
believed in somehow. Only an enemy of philosophy can speak lightly
of it. Rationalism starts from the idea of such a whole and builds
downward. Movement and change are absorbed into its immutability as
forms of mere appearance. When you accept this beatific vision of
what _is_, in contrast with what _goes on_, you feel as if you had
fulfilled an intellectual duty. 'Reality is not in its truest nature
a process,' Mr. McTaggart tells us, 'but a stable and timeless
state.'[2] 'The true knowledge of God begins,' Hegel writes, 'when
we know that things as they immediately are have no truth.'[3] 'The
consummation of the infinite aim,' he says elsewhere, 'consists merely
in removing the illusion which makes it seem yet unaccomplished. Good
and absolute goodness is eternally accomplishing itself in the world:
and the result is that it needs not wait upon _us_, but is already ...
accomplished. It is an illusion under which we live. ... In the course
of its process the Idea makes itself that illusion, by setting an
antithesis to confront it, and its action consists in getting rid of
the illusion which it has created.'[4]

But abstra