it would mean no more than a receptacle of momentary impressions which would vanish as soon as their physical effects had passed away.  But man is in reality more than all this.  In the form of memory and experience he is able to hold together in a core of his being the meaning of these impressions after they have filtered into his consciousness.  That is what we find, in however obscure a way, as the very beginning of every human life.  This unity or whole, as already stated, may be no more than a potency in the beginning of life, but it gains in content and depth as it passes from impression to impression, and from experience to experience.  And all further impressions and experiences have to be referred to this nucleus of the nature in order that they may be used and may prove themselves helpful.  It is in this nucleus of the nature that everything obtains its meaning and value.

The Whole consequently grows, and gradually man becomes conscious of his personality as over against the environing world and even his own body.  This consciousness of [p.36] inwardness is of slow growth, because the natural tendency of life is to give a primary place to the world from which we have emerged—­the world of physical existence, and also because much of that physical world reigns powerfully within our nature.  But when reflection turns into itself, it becomes aware that the inwardness constitutes the kernel of a reality higher in its nature than anything either in the physical world or in the physical life which the man has to lead.

Two modes of reality now present themselves to the life, neither of which allows itself to be conceived of as an illusion.  On the one hand, we find the physical world and our own physical nature.  We discover that we cannot jump out of these without destroying all we possess; we have to come to some kind of understanding with the physical world and our own physical existence.  Yet, on the other hand, the consciousness of a kernel of our being, non-sensuous and spiritual in its nature, has for ever broken our satisfaction with the physical world and our own physical existence.  There are only two alternatives on which we can act.  Either we are to conceive of our spiritual personality as something secondary and subsidiary to the natural world, or we are to insist on its independence, and acknowledge it as the beginning of a new mode of existence. If the former alternative is chosen, the personality can never pass to a state of self-subsistence, [p.37] but will conceive of reality as something which is mainly physical.  The consequence is that the personality will suffer seriously in its evolution, for such an evolution is brought about through the recognition and willing acknowledgment of the breaking forth of a new kind of reality within the spiritual nucleus of life.  If the latter alternative is chosen, this nucleus of life is now seen as something quite other than a quality