Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/21

xviii and constitutive principle of real existence; all the other causes, Material, Formal, Efficient, become its derivatives as well as the objects of its systematising control. A philosophy is thus presented in which the Ideal is indeed central and determining, and therefore real, and the measure of all other reality; a philosophy that, for the first time, might with accuracy be named Absolute Idealism, did not the title Personal express its nature still better.

For this metaphysical scheme I am not here arguing, of course. I am simply putting it forward in all its naked dogmatism, with no other object, just now, than to get its points apprehended. For this purpose it may be further helpful to point out its historical affiliations. A natural mistake would be to confound it with the theory of Berkeley; and certainly its first proposition substantially repeats Berkeley’s main assertion, that nothing really exists but “spirits and their ideas,” — taking Berkeley to mean by “ideas,” in every spirit but God, conscious experiences, whether “inner” or “outer.” But with this single proposition, the resemblance of the present theory to Berkeley’s doctrine ends. Its kinship is rather with the system of Kant; and yet there would be a great misapprehension in identifying it