When reality is conceived as a substance subsisting in itself, the passage to the Absolute is opened.  This Absolute is the most universal and complete meaning and value which the soul is capable of possessing; its very nature forces itself upon man as being true; and its value has revealed itself in its being the only power which will carry farther the spiritual evolution of the soul.  If such an Absolute is left out of account, it is evident that the most universal [p.139] truth which presents itself to life as absolutely necessary cannot enter into the deepest recesses of the soul; it cannot be more than a subsidiary element accompanying lower intellectual elements of life, which are more closely allied on such a lower level with physical processes of the body and with the physical world.  And when truth is treated in this manner, it cannot possibly make its abode and become a power in the soul.  Consciousness hesitates to create a further cleft within itself because the evidence of truth at such a height as this does not lend itself to the senses.  The result is that the full power of the truth fails to produce effects on the consciousness, and thus keeps it on practically the same level as that on which it has been accustomed to work.  The higher truth—­the higher spiritual life—­has not become anything more than a fact of knowledge or a probability.  It has not become one’s own life.  It is only when this higher aspect of spiritual life becomes one’s own life, and is acknowledged and used, that it is ever possible for man to become the possessor of an original energy, of an independent governing centre, and so to realise himself as a co-carrier of a cosmic movement.  This is the presupposition of religion:  it testifies that within man’s soul there appears something higher than sense or intellect, but which remains surrounded by alien elements which impose checks to its further development.  It is quite evident that the appearance of [p.140] truths which are absolute and complete within the life is in direct antagonism to much that was previously present within it.  This fundamental fact, however, is not evident without a great deal of attention paid to the nature of the higher elements which present themselves.  Without comparing the values of the higher and the lower elements, how is it ever possible to know what they are and what they mean?  When the whole being attends to both elements—­higher and lower—­there is no possibility of making a mistake concerning the different values of what are presented.  A higher grade of reality reveals itself over against all that had been previously gained.  The soul is forced to admit that something of a higher nature than it hitherto possessed seeks admission.  And this Higher, if it enters into the whole of life, so far from revealing itself as a continuation of what had already happened, reveals itself as something which is discontinuous with the ordinary life, and superior even to the highest attainments of the intellectual