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of attempting a formal reply in detail to a number of criticisms, I have thought it more likely to assist the reader if I offer first some brief explanations as to the main doctrines of my book, and then follow these by a more particular notice of certain difficulties. My selection of the points discussed is, I fear, to some extent arbitrary, but I will ask my critics not to assume, where they fail to find a recognition of their objections, that I have treated these with disrespect.

I. With regard to the arrangement of my work I offer no defence. It was not in my power to write a systematic treatise, and, that being so, I thought the way I took was as good as any other. The order of the book seemed to myself a matter of no great importance. So far as I can see, whatever way I had taken the result would have been the same, and I must doubt if any other way would have been better for most readers. From whatever point we had begun we should have found ourselves entangled in the same puzzles, and have been led to attempt the same way of escape. The arrangement of the book does not correspond to the order of my thoughts, and the same would have been true of any other arrangement which it was in my power to adopt. I might very well, for instance, have started with the self as a given unity, and have asked how far any other things are real otherwise, and how far again the self satisfies its own demands on reality. Or I might have begun with the fact of knowledge and have enquired what in the end that involves, or I could once more readily have taken my departure from the ground of volition or desire. None of these ways would to myself have been really inconvenient, and they would all have led to the same end. But to satisfy at once the individual preference of each reader was not possible, nor am I sure that in the end the reader really is helped by starting on the road which he prefers. The want of system in my book is however another matter, and this I admit and regret.

II. The actual starting-point and basis of this work is an assumption about truth and reality. I have assumed that the