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Chapter XXVIIIDiversity in OnenessIT IS essential to keep constantly in view the fundamentalpowers and realities of life if we are not to be betrayed bythe arbitrary rule of the logical reason and its attachment tothe rigorous and limiting idea into experiments which, howeverconvenient in practice and however captivating to a unitarianand symmetrical thought, may well destroy the vigour and impoverishthe roots of life. For that which is perfect and satisfyingto the system of the logical reason, may yet ignore the truth of lifeand the living needs of the race. Unity is an idea which is not atall arbitrary or unreal; for unity is the very basis of existence. Theoneness that is secretly at the foundation of all things, the evolvingspirit in Nature is moved to realise consciously at the top; theevolution moves through diversity from a simple to a complexoneness. Unity the race moves towards and must one day realise.But uniformity is not the law of life. Life exists by diversity; itinsists that every group, every being shall be, even while one withall the rest in its universality, yet by some principle or ordereddetail of variation unique. The over-centralisation which is thecondition of a working uniformity, is not the healthy method oflife. Order is indeed the law of life, but not an artificial regulation.The sound order is that which comes from within as theresult of a nature that has discovered itself and found its ownlaw and the law of its relations with others. Therefore the truestorder is that which is founded on the greatest possible liberty;for liberty is at once the condition of vigorous variation and thecondition of self-finding. Nature secures variation by divisioninto groups and insists on liberty by the force of individuality inthe members of the group. Therefore the unity of the human raceto be entirely sound and in consonance with the deepest lawsof life must be founded on free groupings, and the groupingsagain must be the natural association of free individuals. This is