In the passion of love we have the mystic
germ of what might mean a total union of all sentient life. This
mystical germ wakes up in us on hearing the monistic utterances,
acknowledges their authority, and assigns to intellectual
considerations a secondary place.
I will dwell no longer on these religious and moral aspects of the
question in this lecture. When I come to my final lecture there will
be something more to say.
Leave then out of consideration for the moment the authority which
mystical insights may be conjectured eventually to possess; treat
the problem of the One and the Many in a purely intellectual way;
and we see clearly enough where pragmatism stands. With her
criterion of the practical differences that theories make, we see
that she must equally abjure absolute monism and absolute pluralism.
The world is one just so far as its parts hang together by any
definite connexion. It is many just so far as any definite connexion
fails to obtain. And finally it is growing more and more unified by
those systems of connexion at least which human energy keeps framing
as time goes on.
It is possible to imagine alternative universes to the one we know,
in which the most various grades and types of union should be
embodied.
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