Of course this definition has to do with the Definition of Thing already given. Here I consider for itself an essential aspect of what can be called thingness. The other aspect is Relation.

Let us think of John Lamb on the seashore. John Lamb picks up a handful of sand. He lets fall all the sand except one grain. He looks at that grain of sand. Before it was part of a certain amount of sand he had enclosed within his fingers; earlier it was part of sand on a wide seashore stretching into space on both sides of John, going into water before him.

Now he looks at this one instance of sand. He may decide to take it with him to a drawing room. It was unique in his hand, on the seashore; it is more obviously unique in a drawing room with mirrors. But its uniqueness was stated, or affirmed, by what John Lamb did; even before the rather unusual decision of John, it was one grain of sand, different from all other grains of sand, and different from everything else.

If John is of a deeply, truly sentimental way of mind (and I choose him to be) he can look at the instance of sand intensely, lengthily, faithfully, and come to feel a large, elemental relation between him and the sand. There is no other relation quite like this. John has put himself into the sand. Two beings have met. John sees himself as of the sand. The fact that this one instance of sand is apart from all the other instances, makes for a kind of love between him and the bit of sand. He sees himself as alone in a world of manyness; and so he sees the instance of sand. There is affection in him for it; for he has given himself to it. He has recognized its great uniqueness, its inexplicable, magnificent oneness. In doing so, his own oneness has been effectively, greatly insisted on.

And John does not depreciate the uniqueness of the instances of sand not in the drawing room, not alone in his hand. The relation of the bit he has to all other examples, somehow ennobles the single instance and all the instances not singled out.

Whenever we can honestly and fairly see the uniqueness of something, meanwhile not lessening the relation aspect, the uniqueness of ourself amidst relation, is also affirmed. Uniqueness appeals to uniqueness, meets it, gives it dimension and meaning.

When we can see uniqueness wholly, the sight of the form of the world becomes ours. And sight does something to us. Every sight of a thing makes that thing more ourselves. And a sight of the form of the world brings reality closer to us. Reality has intense uniqueness and comprehensiveness.

There is a painful aspect of uniqueness which is called loneliness. The grain of sand can certainly be seen as lonely. If it is alone on a polished floor, it can be seen as lonely, and distinguished in its loneliness; even magnificent. The grain of sand has the grandeur of attested profound singularity.

Uniqueness, along with making for loneliness, makes for aloneness as independence. Once a thing exists, it exists as apart from, independent of all else. A word in a large folio can be seen as apart, independent. The reason is, it is; and when a thing is, and it is seen as wholly, sharply being, it is seen as independent.

Since the uniqueness of a thing is that which permits it to be, when that uniqueness is seen, the thing is regarded with the insight and comprehensiveness of knowledge equivalent to affection. We love that which we take the trouble wholly to see. Seeing implies the giving oneself; and if we can give ourselves, we love.

The unique is, then, that which accents indefinite contrast, and can lovingly accent contrast. To be unique means to be infinitely different; for there are an endless number of things a unique thing is different from. The existence of other things emphasizes the difference of any one thing.

The unique thing, however, can be compared. It can be compared, which means that it can unceasingly be approximately identified; but it cannot be wholly identified as unique. If it were wholly the same, or nothing but the same as something else, it would not be a thing.

Yet, since the unique can be compared, it can also be seen as not lonely, not independent. This is so because a thing could not exist if other things weren’t. So it has all relation. In the very depths of a thing is a tremendous, inconceivably majestic poise of indefeasible individuality and the most opulent relation. Between these two aspects of a thing there is an in-between or finiteness or somethingness of possible comparison and possible contrast.

A grain of sand, for example, can be compared to a grain of sugar, and contrasted with the smooth marble floor of a big railroad station. It can be compared to an ant and contrasted with the space of sky above New Mexico. The greatest thing, however, about the grain of sand is that it is a thing, which means the universe had to be for it to be, and yet, it is like nothing else and has something the universe as a whole has not.

To want to see the uniqueness and relation of another self is to love that self. The love exists in proportion as the desire to see exists. We can liken any object to a self. I have shown that we can liken, in a fashion, a grain of sand to a self. (The love by the French officer Charney in J.X.B. Saintine’s Picciola, of the flower growing between the stones of the jailyard where he was imprisoned, is related to what I have just said.) We can give self to inanimate objects. We can see a comma as lonely in the phrase “as lonely as a comma without a sentence.” If we feel the loneliness of the comma, it is because we have given self, feeling about self, to it.

To see the uniqueness of something is to see it clearly. To be able to compare it accurately with other things is also to see it clearly. Logic and feeling both do this. Where logic and feeling actively work in the relation of self to a self, we have knowledge by each self of what it is, what the other is, and what they are not. This means that logic and feeling where self is concerned, is love in the deep, elementary sense.