 The same is true of dependence, as far as the relation to things in the world is concerned. You are never purely or absolutely dependent on things in the world. If, for example, you were completely paralyzed but still conscious, you would be very dependent, but presumably could still focus your attention or this or that thing on which you were dependent, and to that extent would engage in free activity and have the corresponding feeling. It is another matter, however, if your thought ventures beyond the world. If you think, not of anything in the world, but of the world as a whole (including yourself as part of the world) and then think what is beyond that, then the feeling you have with respect to that absolute Beyond is absolute “dependence,” in the sense of being conscious of having no power with respect to it, being utterly unable to affect it (even by perceiving or thinking it). On this account, the object of the feeling of absolute dependence is what is utterly beyond the world or universe, regarded as everything that exists, and it is the feeling of your own impotence with respect to that “object.”