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Rh theory here presented, I have called it by the name of Personal Idealism; and when, three years ago, I published these essays, I placed this name in their title-page and explained it at length in the Preface; I had also several times used the name, with the same explained meaning, in the volume called The Conception of God, published four years earlier in coöperation with Professors Royce, Le Conte, and Mezes. But some fifteen months after the publication of the present book, a group of Oxford writers issued a joint collection of Essays, on the fundamental problems of philosophy, and chose for it the same title, notwithstanding the fact that, as I have just said, their philosophical view is opposed to mine; indeed, on vital questions, almost diametrically opposed. So there are now going by the name of Personal Idealism two theories, quite divergent upon most of the prime philosophical issues, with little in common but the affirmation of a fundamental pluralism in the world of ultimate reality, and with profoundly different conceptions as to what that pluralism means. Such a confusion in the use of a prominent term is an unfortunate obstacle in the way of the very readers whom we all wish to enlighten and convince. Warning against it would accordingly seem in the highest degree pertinent, and to come with an especial justice from the writer who was first to employ the name, and whose view has there-