[192] P. 339.
[193] This ghost of subjectivism haunts the entire part of the essay in which the final fulfilment of finite ideas is found in "a certain absolute system of ideas."
[194] P. 330; italics mine.
[195] P. 337.
[196] P. 286.
[197] P. 307.
[198] P. 297.
[199] This reduction of the purposive to the representative function carries with it an interesting implication concerning the whole character and relationship of thought and will. From beginning to end, on almost every page, Mr. Royce insists upon the idea as an expression of will. At the outset we read: "When we try to define the idea in itself, as a conscious fact, our best means is to lay stress upon the sort of will or active meaning which any idea involves for the mind that forms the idea" (p. 22). Again: "The idea is a will seeking its own determination. It is nothing else" (p. 332)—and so on throughout the lectures. And we have already seen how consistently this is worked out in the analysis of concrete acts, such as singing, etc. But now, as related to the absolute system, the will, as embodied in the idea, is to find its final determination in approximating the certain absolute system of ideas. This would seem to make will but little more than the mere form of representation itself. The idea is a will, but in its relation to truth its will is "to correspond even in its vagueness to its own final and completely individual expression."
[200] P. 339.
[201] P. 338.