phrase expresses merely the empty abstraction of an impersonal deity. To say, The nature of God is good, is correct as to a single quality of his nature, but the good is not God, nor the nature of God. It is but one of the qualities which infinite love, his nature, founds. In like manner it may be said, he is holy, sublime, or all-wise, but these terms merely affirm certain qualities or manifestations of his nature. It cannot be made clear to thought that goodness, holiness, truth, or beauty is God or his nature. They are not, one nor all, identical in thought with love, his self-determining action; and for the reason, that love is action while they are but qualities of action. Since the good is only a quality of action, it is not real, except when determined by some reality. As a quality is nothing other than a property of some actual being, it is a chimera unless it is realized in action.

Chief good is the satisfaction of love. It is the highest practical excellence, or worth, of being; the highest practical satisfaction of the perfect nature to himself, and of finite beings to themselves, individually and as a whole. Being, alone, has positive good. Nonbeing, or nonexistence, is nothing, contains no possibilities, is worthless. It cannot be thought good in any but a negative sense; in which it may be deemed a less evil than abused, self-degraded being. But it cannot be a positive good, although there may be modes of being which, by their own determination, are so evil as to be worse than worthless. Any type or mode of being which has in it a satisfaction, interest, or possibility better than nonbeing has the quality of goodness; and any such being which realizes perfection of its type attains its chief good. Hence, "chief good" signifies the highest practical satisfaction or worth of true being; and it is, therefore, correct to

Since the possibility of good can be thought only of being, it subsists for dependent beings in two factors, namely, the conditions of such beings, and their selfdetermination in the use of these conditions. Hence, the good of finite being must, also, be achieved subjectively. For the independent being the possibilities for good are in but one factor, self-determination. Inasmuch as the unconditioned person must be thought as realizing infinite being, his being must found the infinite good. The infinite good, then, is not identical with love, but is love's satisfaction, a practical quality, or property, of absolute perfection.

But all these qualities, the true, the holy, the beautiful, and the good, must each and all be but illusions unless they are enacted; each and all must be merely conventional unless they are founded in independent action. If they are nowhere so realized it must remain an open question whether they are real or realizable. Hence, without action of a nature which realizes them as its qualities they must remain in the region of myth. Since a quality is nothing but a property of action, the "highest good" can mean nothing other than the highest practical worth of being. "Absolute truth," the consciousness of perfect being, the infinite ideal, cannot be essential truth except as realized in perfect personality. We may say that relative truth is harmony with absolute truth, but both are only as our minds construe things unless absolute truth is realized in perfect action. So, also, the holy would be a superstition and beauty a dream unless founded in actual perfection.

It is equally plain that unconditioned action cannot realize them, as obeying or seeking them as objects; for in that case such action would be conditioned by them,

fore, action which can realize these infinite qualities must be thought of as the action which founds them.

But, inasmuch as the fact of my own dependent being pushes upon me the fact of the independent, and the independent must be unconditioned, or perfect, being, and perfect being is perfect action, and perfect action is love, nothing can be thought more real than that perfect nature, love; whose practical satisfaction is the supreme good, whose self-consciousness is absolute truth, whose authoritative sentiment is the holy, and whose infinite beauty is the fountain of limitless pleasure.

Love is not to be classed with these qualities, but is that unconditioned action in which they are founded. Love is the only kind of action which we can think capable of unconditioned perfection; hence, it is our only possible conception of the nature of an unconditioned. being. Any other kind of self-determining action falls into conditions; love, alone, is sufficient to itself. It is independent, infinite. It is at once the conception and the achievement of the infinite reality-perfect being, rejoicing in infinite truth, goodness, holiness, and beauty. Love, independently realizing perfect being, immutably self-assured, gives those qualities living, permanent reality.

Moreover, it is not only unconditioned, but, as such, is capable of being all-conditioning action. While it is the fullness of self-assured perfection, it is adequate to conceive, realize, and sustain a perfect system of dependent being, evermore. Only that which is perfect, independent self-determination can be thought to be the primary conditioning power. And since love is the nature of the unconditioned it is the nature of that action which establishes original conditions, the force which originates

Love is the answer to the question raised in the former part of this chapter, "What kind of a being is He?" It is that which realizes perfect being. It affords the only and ample occasion for an objective creation, and renders to each dependent person a full account of one imperious fact his own dependent, yet self-determining, being. Reality is action, action is life, perfect action is love!

Thus, by following the order in which our knowledge naturally arises, beginning with the perceived facts, as given in self-perception and sense-perception, these, under the hand of reason, take the form of definite conceptions which become crystallized convictions which we must affirm, namely:

I. Perfect action, conscious and infinitely free, is the highest generalization, the primary unit, the unconditioned nature of independent being.

II. Perfect action is perfectly intentional.

III. The nature of perfect action is perfect self-love, realizing a perfect ego.

IV. Self-love, by realizing perfect, that is, infinite, egoism, founds perfect, that is, limitless, altruism.

V. Self-love and love are, objectively, the same. VI. Love founds all those qualities which must be thought as originating in independent action.

VII. Moral authority has its original ground in God's actual perfection.

These affirmations outline a conception of the unconditioned One, but a philosophic conception of being which can satisfy reason must include conditioned being also. For convenience we deal with this in a separate chapter, though it is but a continuance of this inquiry into "being, as conceived."

CHAPTER III

BEING, AS CONDITIONED

In Him we live, and move, and have our being.-Saint Paul.

THE implications of being have forced upon us the conception of an unconditioned person whose nature is love; action which is a simple unit, at once the consciousness and realization of infinite, perfect being-perfectly self-conscious in perfect self-determination. Self-conscious, it is the supreme devotement of self-determining

act.

We have been compelled, also, to recognize in this conception a life which is a perfect ego, capable of perfect altruism, or, in other words, an egoism which is perfectly self-dependent and self-assured, and is therefore perfectly free to evince his changeless perfection by unreserved devotion to other beings. This unreserved devotion to others is what we mean by "perfect altruism"; a manifestation, the highest and clearest, of independent egoism. It is a love which implies such perfect consciousness of egoistic independence that it can manifest its ineffaceable perfection in all the abandon of an unreserved external devotement; a manifestation which is an eternal beneficence and an infinite glory.

Altruistic freedom, let us term this feature of infinite love. Failure to grasp this characteristic of perfect being, we suspect, has been a vitiating weakness in much of the philosophizing of the past. It has rendered thinkers unable to think their way out from an unconditioned God to a conditioned universe which is objective to God. They have argued that, to human thought, a finite universe