68 overcoming the worldcomplications that give an actual life its fullness. Such invulnerabil-
ity as we attain risks being achieved through the demoralization and
the thinning out of the only kind of experience that we can really
undergo.
If time is real, the distinctions among things are historical and
therefore transitory, but they are not illusory. Th ey are real so long as
they exist. We can understand them only as products of a history of
transformation.
Th e importance of this diff erence between a view denying the ulti-
mate reality of both distinction and time and a view affi rming the in-
clusive reality of time while insisting on the historical character of
transformation becomes clear when we consider its consequences for
action in the world. A conception that insists on the illusory character
of phenomenal distinction, of individual selfh ood, and of time under-
mines the will from two directions. It does so, fi rst, by attacking the
seat of the will in the self. It does so, second, by discounting the reality
of the habitual objects of the will. Th ese objects assume the reality and
signifi cance of the distinctions and changes that the radical metaphysic
of the overcoming of the world denies. If there are ultimately one being
and one mind, there is nothing that this one being and one mind can
will other than to be themselves.
Th e overcoming of the world thus becomes, as well, an overcoming
of the will: the development of an attitude to the world that is, so far as
possible, will- less. We might call this orientation to existence overcom-
ing the will rather than overcoming the world. Th e dismissal of time,
distinction, and individual selfh ood and the supersession of the will are
thus the two fi xed and central points in this metaphysical conception.
Th e campaign against the will in turn serves as a bridge connecting
this metaphysical view to the ideals of serenity through invulnerability
and of detached, universal benevolence that are characteristic of this
approach to life.
By contrast, a view that recognizes the contingent and mutable char-
acter of all types of being and affi rms the inclusive reality of time assures
the will of both a basis and an object. Its basis is the real, individual self.
Its object is a world of distinctions that are no less worthy of attention
for being ephemeral. For such a view, history is not a shadowy back-
drop to our engagement with timeless and unifi ed being. It is the set-