The Complex Vision

by John Cowper Powys

Since what we call beauty is the evocation of these two confronted existences, the existing thing which we call the soul and the existing thing which we call the objective mystery, it follows that there resides, as a potentiality, in the nature of the objective mystery, the capacity for being converted into Beauty at the touch of the soul. There is thus a three-fold complication of reality in this thing we call the beauty of the universe.

There is the individual, human, subjective reality of it, dependent upon the temperament of the observer. There is the universal potential reality of it, existing in the objective mystery. And finally there is the ideal reality of it, objective and absolute as far as we are concerned, in the vision that I have called "the vision of the immortals." If it be asked why, in all these ultimate problems, it is necessary to introduce the vision of the immortals, my answer is that the highest human experience demands and requires it.

At those rare moments when the "apex-thought" reaches its rhythmic consummation the soul is conscious that its subjective vision of Truth and Beauty merges itself and loses itself in an objective vision which carries the "imprimatur" of eternity. This is a definite universal experience which few introspective minds will dare to deny.

But since, as we have already proved, the ultimate reality of things is personality, or, to be more exact, is personality, confronting the objective mystery, it is clear that if the subjective vision of the soul is to correspond with an objective reality outside the soul, that objective reality outside the soul must itself be the vision of personality. It may be asked, at this point, why it is that the potentiality or the capacity for being turned into beauty at the touch of the soul, which resides in the objective mystery is not enough to explain this recognition by the soul of an eternal objective validity in its ultimate ideas.

It is not enough to explain it, because this potentiality remains entirely unrecognized until it is touched by personality, and it is therefore quite as much a potentiality of inferior beauty, inadequate truth, and second-rate goodness, as it is a potentiality of the rarest of these things.

The objective mystery by itself cannot explain the soul's experience of an eternal validity in its deepest ideas because the objective mystery in its role of pure potentiality is capable of being moulded into the form of any ideas, whether deep or shallow. Thus our proof of the real existence of "the vision of the immortals" depends upon two facts.

It depends upon the fact that the soul experiences an intuitive assurance of objective reality in its ideas. And it depends upon the fact that there is no other reality in the world, with any definite form or outline, except the reality of personality. For an idea to be eternal, therefore, it must be the idea of a personality, or of many personalities, which themselves are eternal; and since we have no evidence that the human soul is eternal and does not perish with the body we are compelled to assume that somewhere in the universe there must exist beings whose personality is able to resist death and whose vision is an immortal vision.

It might be objected at this point, by such as follow the philosophy of Epicurus, that, even though such beings exist, we have no right to assume that they have any regard for us. My answer to this is that in such moments as I have attempted to describe, when the rhythmic activity of the soul is at its highest, we become directly and intuitively conscious of an immense unutterable harmony pervading all forms of life, whether mortal or immortal; a harmony which could not be felt if there were not some mysterious link binding all living souls together.

We become aware at such moments that not only are all living souls thus bound together but that all are bound together by the fact that the ideal vision of them all is one and the same. This is not only my answer to such as maintain that though there may be Beings in the system of things superior to man, such Beings have no necessary connection with man; it is also my answer to the question as to how, considering the capricious subjectivity of our human vision, we can be assured that the ideal vision of the immortals does not vary in the same way among themselves. We are assured against both these possibilities; against the possibility of the immortals being indifferent to humanity, and against the possibility of the immortals being divided among themselves, by the fact that, according to the very basic revelation of the complex vision, wherever there is a living soul, that living soul is dependent for its continued existence upon the overcoming of malice by love.

This duality is so much the essence of what we call personality that we cannot conceive of personality without it. If, therefore, the immortals are possessed of personality they must be subject to this duality; and the fact that they are subject to it puts them necessarily in at least a potential "rapport" with all other living souls, since the essence of every living soul is to be found in the same unfathomable struggle.