The whole question resolves itself into a critical statement of the peculiar play of thought when thought is considered in its own inherent nature apart from concrete objects of thought. This original play of thought, apart from what it may think, can result in nothing better than isolated abstractions; because thought, apart from concrete objects of thought, is itself nothing more than one attribute of the complex vision, groping about in a vacuum and finding nothing. We are, however, bound by the "conscience of reason," and by what might be called reason's sense of honour to articulate as clearly as we can all these movements of pure thought working in the void; but we certainly are forbidden by the original revelation of the complex vision to accept them as the starting point of our philosophical enquiry. And we cannot accept them as a starting point, because the complex vision includes much more than self-consciousness and reason. It includes indeed so much more than these, that these, when indulging in their isolated conjuring-tricks, seem like irrelevant and tiresome clowns who insist upon interrupting with their fantastic pedantry the great tragic-comedy wherein the soul of man wrestles with its fate. As I have already indicated, it is necessary in dealing with a matter as dramatic and fatal as this whole question of ultimate reality, to risk the annoyance of repetition. It is important to go over our tracks again so that no crevice should be left in this perilous bridge hung across the gulf. Reason, then, working in isolation, provides us with the recognition of an ultimate universal "subject" or, in metaphysical language, with an "a priori unity of apperception." Simultaneously with this recognition, self-consciousness, also working in isolation, provides us with the recognition of an universal self-conscious "monad" or "cosmic self" which is not only able but is compelled to think of itself as its own object. Both these recognitions imply a consciousness which is outside time and space; but while the first, the outer edge of thought, can only be regarded as "pure subject," the second can be regarded as nothing else than the whole universe contemplating itself as its own object. In the third place the complex vision, working with all its attributes together, provides us with the recognition of a personal or empirical self which is the real "I am I" of our integral soul. This personal self, or actual living soul, must be thought of as possessing some "substratum" or "vanishing point of sensation" as the implication of its permanence and continuous identity. This "vanishing point of sensation," or in other words this attenuated form of "matter" or "energy" or "movement," must not be allowed to disappear from our conception of the soul. If it _were_ allowed to disappear, one of the basic attributes of the soul's complex vision, namely its attribute of sensation, would be negated and suppressed.