CHAPTER I Multiplicity of States of the Being
Any being, whether human or otherwise, can clearly be envisaged from a large number-it can even be said, an indefinite number-of viewpoints; these are very unequal in importance, but all are equally legitimate in their respective domains, provided that none of them seeks to encroach beyond its own proper limits, or, what is still worse, to become exclusive and end by denying the others. Granted that this is so, and that accordingly none of these viewpoints, not even the most secondary and contingent of them, can be denied the place that belongs to it by the mere fact that it answers to some possibility, it is no less obvious, on the other hand, that from the metaphysical viewpoint, which alone concerns us here, the consideration of a being in its individual aspect is necessarily insufficient, since "metaphysical" is synonymous with "universal". Hence no doctrine that confines itself to the consideration of individual beings can merit the name of metaphysics, whatever may be its interest and value in other repects; such a doctrine can always be called "physical" in the original sense of the word, because it lies exclusively within the realm of " nature", that is to say, of manifestation; with the further restriction that it envisages only formal manifestation, and even more especially one of the states that constitute the latter.
Far from being an absolute and complete unity in himself, as most western philosophers, at any rate all modern ones, would regard him, the individual in reality constitutes but a relative and fragmentary unity. He is not a closed and selfsufficient whole, an "enclosed system" after the fashion of Leibnitz's " monad"; and the notion of "individual substance", thus understood, to which these philosophers generally attach so much importance, has no truly metaphysical
bearing: fundamentally, it is nothing else but the notion of the "subject" in logic, and while it may undoubtedly possess great usefulness in that respect, it cannot be legitimately carried beyond the limits of that special point of view. The individual, even when considered in the full extension of which he is capable, is not a total being, but only a particular state of manifestation of a being, a state subject to certain special and determined conditions of existence, and occupying a certain place in the indefinite series of the states of the total being. What characterizes a state as individual is the presence of form among these conditions of existence; it is obvious, however, that this form need not necessarily be conceived as spatial, for it is so only in the corporeal world, space being precisely one of the conditions that properly define that world. [1]
Reference must here be made, at least in summary fashion, to the fundamental distinction between the "Self" and the "ego", or between the "personality" and the "individuality", which has been dealt with more fully elsewhere. [2] The "Self", as has been pointed out, is the transcendent and permanent principle of which the manifested being, the human being for example, is no more than a transient and contingent modification, which moreover can in no wise affect this principle. Immutable in its own nature, the Self develops its possibilities in all the modalities of realization, indefinite in their multitude, which for the total being amount to so many states, each of which has its limiting and determining conditions of existence, and only one of which constitutes the portion, or rather particular determination, of this being which is the "ego" or human individuality. Again, this development is only such, in reality, when viewed from the standpoint of manifestation, outside of which everything must necessarily be in perfect simultaneity in the "eternal present"; on that account the "permanent actuality" of the Self is not affected thereby. The Self is thus the principle by which all the states of the being exist, each in its own proper sphere, which may be called a degree of existence;
and this must be understood not only of the manifested states-whether individual, like the human state, or supraindividual, in other words whether formal or formless,but also, though the word " exist " then becomes inadequate, of the unmanifested states, comprising all those possibilities which, by their very nature, do not admit of any manifestation, as well as the possibilities of manifestation themselves in their principial state; but this Self subsists by itself alone, for in the total and indivisible unity of its innermost nature it has not, and cannot have, any principle external to itself.
It has just been said that the word " exist" cannot properly be applied to the Unmanifest, or in other words to the principial state; in fact, taken in its strictly etymological sense (from the Latin ex-stare), this word indicates the being that is dependent on a principle other than itself, or, in other terms, one which is not for itself its own sufficient cause, in short, a contingent being, which is the same thing as a manifested being. [3] When we speak of Existence, we thus mean universal manifestation, with all the states or degrees that it contains, each of which may equally be described as a " world", one of a series that are indefinite in their multiplicity; but this term no longer fits the degree of pure Being, the principle of all manifestation though itself unmanifested, nor, a fortiori, does it fit that which lies beyond Being itself.
Before all else, it must be stated that Existence, regarded universally according to the above definition, is one and indivisible in its inner nature, just as Being is one in itself ; indeed this unity of Existence derives directly from the oneness of Being, since universal Existence is nothing but the total manifestation of Being, or, to be more exact, the realization, in manifested mode, of all the possibilities that Being implies and contains principially in its very one-ness. Again, like the one-ness of Being, the unity of Existence [4]
does not exclude the multiplicity of the modes of manifestation or become affected thereby, since it equally comprehends all these modes by the very fact that they are equally possible, this possibility implying that each of them shall be realized under the conditions appropriate to it. Hence, in its unity, Existence implies, as has just been explained, an indefinitude of degrees, corresponding to all the modes of universal manifestation; and this indefinite multiplicity of the degrees of Existence implies correlatively, for any being considered in its totality, an equally indefinite multiplicity of possible states, each of which must be realized in a given degree of Existence.
This multiplicity of the states of the being, which is a fundamental metaphysical truth, holds good even when one confines oneself to considering the states of manifestation, as has just been done here, and as must always be done whenever Existence alone is under discussion; hence it holds good a fortiori if one considers the states of both manifestation and non-manifestation at once, the combination of which constitutes Being in its totality; the latter is then no longer envisaged in the sole domain of Existence, even taken in the whole integrality of its extension, but in the unlimited realm of universal possibility. It should be clearly understood, in fact, that Existence comprises only possibilities of manifestation, and even then with the restriction that these possibilities are conceived only in so far as they actually manifest themselves, for, in so far as they are not manifested, that is, principially, they are at the degree of Being. Hence, Existence is far from covering the whole of possibility, conceived as truly universal and total, that is to say outside and beyond all limitations, even including that first limitation which constitutes the most primordial determination of all, namely the affirmation of pure Being. [5]
When the states of non-manifestation of a being are in question, there is again a distinction to be drawn between the degree of Being and what lies beyond; in the latter case, it is clear that the term " Being " itself can no longer be strictly applied in its proper sense; yet limitations of language oblige one to retain it for want of a better, while not attributing to it any but a purely analogical and symbolical value; it would otherwise be impossible to speak at all of what one is dealing with. We may accordingly continue to speak of the total being as at the same time both manifested in certain of its states and unmanifested in others, without thereby in any way implying that in the case of the latter it is necessary to stop short at the consideration of what corresponds to the degree which is properly that of Being. [6]
The states of non-manifestation are essentially extraindividual, and like the principial Self from which they cannot be separated, they cannot in any way be individualized; as for the states of manifestation, some are individual, while others are non-individual, a difference which, as has been explained, corresponds to the distinction between formal and formless manifestation. If we consider the case of man in particular, his present individuality, which properly speaking constitutes the human state, is only one state of manifestation among an indefinitude of others, which must all be conceived as equally possible, and thereby as existing at least virtually, if not effectively realized by the being whom we are considering, under a relative and partial aspect, in this individual human state.