And this brings to notice that at this point both the fragmentary and
unitary characters of experience take on new meaning. So far this
fragmentary character has been defined with reference to "the particular
inquiry in hand." Now, since the distinction between absolute and human
experience has emerged, the fragmentary character becomes an absolute
quality of the latter in contrast with the former. So, _mutatis
mutandis_, of unity. Up to this point unity, wholeness, has been
possible within human experience in the case of particular problems,
such as singing in tune, etc. But with the appearance of the absolute
system of ideas, wholeness is now the exclusive quality of the latter,
as incompleteness is of human experience, though of course the _working_
unity, the unity resulting in "pauses of satisfaction," must still
remain in the latter.
The problem now is to somehow work the absolute system of ideas into
connection with the conception of the idea as a purpose, as a concrete
plan of action. Here is where the third conception of the relation
between idea and purpose, described at the beginning, comes into
play--the conception in which the idea, instead of being the purpose, or
the fulfilment of a purpose, _has_ the purpose to correspond with, or
represent "its own final and completely individual expression,"
contained in the absolute system. From the previous standpoint the
idea's "own final and completely individual expression" has been found
in the fulfilling experiences of singing in tune, getting mathematical
equations, chemical precipitates, etc. Here this complete individual
experience can never be found in finite, human experience, but must be
sought in the absolute system--and this can be only "the object of love
and hope, of desire and will, never of present finding."
Notwithstanding the many previous protestations that the purposive
function of the idea is its "primary" and "most essential" character, we
are here forced to fall back upon correspondence--representation as the
primary, the essential, and indeed, it appears at times, as the sole
function. For in the attempt to bring these two functions together the
purposive function is swallowed up in the representative. The idea still
is, or has a purpose, a "plan of action," but this purpose, this plan,
is now nothing but to represent and correspond with its own final and
completed form in the absolute system. By this simple _coup_ is the
purposive function of the idea reduced at once to the representative.
Nor is it pertinent to urge at this point that every purpose involves
representation, that the plan must be some sort of an image or scheme
which symbolizes and stimulates the thing to be done. This no one would
question, but now the sole "thing to be done" apparently is to perfect
this representation of the complete and individual form in the absolute
system.[199]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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