Our question concerns the truth of this view. Is it borne out by the facts? If it is not borne out by the facts, then another question will confront us. To conclude that we are capable of high motives is not to affirm that we live up to our capacities. He who is most ardently respectful towards human nature will not deny that we live below them. How, then, does this come about? An old answer is that we are fundamentally at variance with ourselves. On one side of our nature, it was said, we are divine or at least have a spark of divinity, but on another side we are of the earth, earthy. Others affirm that to be conscious is to desire, and that desire, in and of itself, is a state of division and inherently painful, and that relief can be had only through the extinction of consciousness. Upon this supposed disunity with self another sort of pessimism has been built. However high some of our motivation may be, and whatever the rest of the universe is like, it is said, we are doomed to defeat through self-frustration. Even if we found deep grounds for self-respect, therefore, the spirit of disillusionment with reference to ourselves might not be wholly exorcized. In the present Part evidence will be given that neither the generalizations of science nor the run of everyday experience can justify the mood that has overflowed us. But this will have the effect of plunging us into an even more difficult problem--that of understanding the contrarieties within our nature. This will be the theme of Part III, and in Part IV the question will become, how to manage these contrarieties. As far as the case permits, this line of inquiry postpones the problems usually called metaphysical. But they will hover near our every step, and the conclusions that we reach will necessarily have a metaphysical squint. If we can respect ourselves after looking one another squarely in the face, then score one for the universe that brought us forth! It is not altogether shabby. This we could maintain even if what is found worthy of respect should be in unresolvable conflict with some negative principle either within or without. For then the world-system would bring forth tragedy, which is the opposite of littleness and meanness. Tragedy is possible only in a world that contains inherent greatness. Even if some ultimate defeat awaits us, who knows what dignity man might attain by some superior method of meeting his fate? But if, as I hope to show in the concluding division, there are ways in which we can utilize even the contrarieties of our nature--if we can win victories even through our defeats--then this, too, will suggest something concerning our world-system. An experience like this is an experience of freedom--an _experience_ of freedom, not proof except in the sense that “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Such experience would, however, become a datum for any metaphysics that fully takes in man. But all this belongs in the final section of the book. X