By aid of Kant, with our short-cut to the logical and necessary end of his achievement, we have grasped the elemental source and solvent of man and his universe. It is Spirit in its evolution. But, in this evolution, man--or say rather and always _the principle of sensation and consciousness in which man inheres_--is merely the general form, diversely individualized, of the One All-Inclusive Spirit in the activity of self-manifestation. The earth, the sun, moon, and stars, the human body, its house and the landscape, with every particle of all of them, are outwoven of universal Spirit through the loom of subjective being and unity. The forms of matter, with no exception, are fabricated in this way. Thus, not figuratively, but literally and with exact knowledge, we may repeat after St. John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made." But the principle of animal apprehension and human apperception--or say just the conscious and the sub-conscious--is not the Ultimately Creative One, but is, in _us_, only a sub-creative power and agency. We simply individualize it in endless degrees and variations, all of us framing the same general world of objects, conceptions and feelings, but no one of us being, seeing, or feeling, in all respects, exactly like any other incarnation of our common identity. But while the _form_--the unity, and thus the individuality--of all things, is materialized from Spirit through sensation and consciousness in subjectivity--while this is the secret and genesis of all creation--we must ever hold fast to the equally basic and universal fact that the _filling_ of the form--the infinite variety of impact on subjectivity which furnishes the diversity of objects--all this comes from that ultimate spirit-background crudely called "the unknown and unknowable." Now this background of Absolute Spirit, the very withholding of which from finite creatures constitutes them such, institutes their law of progress, and gives movement of expression to the Infinite Itself, can only be absorbed and mastered by human beings through study, work, and experience. While genuine metaphysics, then, assures us of our spirit-origin and relative oneness with God--of being God's children far more directly and intimately than most of us have ever imagined--it teaches us that for practical purposes, in our condition of existence called "matter," it makes no difference _what_ we _call_ this condition. 'Tis something actual, something definite, something _fixed_, just as long as we are in our earthly relation to it. From this point of view, Dr. Johnson's kicking of the stone to refute Berkeley was a deserved kick, and even Byron's fun was justified in his tipsy lines, "When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter, And proved it, 'twas no matter what he said."