Any kind of
influence whatever helps to make the world one, so far as you can
follow it from next to next. You may then say that 'the world IS
One'--meaning in these respects, namely, and just so far as they
obtain. But just as definitely is it NOT one, so far as they do not
obtain; and there is no species of connexion which will not fail,
if, instead of choosing conductors for it, you choose non-
conductors. You are then arrested at your very first step and have
to write the world down as a pure MANY from that particular point of
view. If our intellect had been as much interested in disjunctive as
it is in conjunctive relations, philosophy would have equally
successfully celebrated the world's DISUNION.
The great point is to notice that the oneness and the manyness are
absolutely co-ordinate here. Neither is primordial or more essential
or excellent than the other. Just as with space, whose separating of
things seems exactly on a par with its uniting of them, but
sometimes one function and sometimes the other is what come home to
us most, so, in our general dealings with the world of influences,
we now need conductors and now need non-conductors, and wisdom lies
in knowing which is which at the appropriate moment.
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