THE INTELLECTUALIST CRITERION 121 



against its capacity, but on the basis of its own 

 interior logic. But on the other hand, a strictly 

 logical criterion is deliberately adopted and em 

 ployed as the fundamental and final criterion for 

 the philosophic conception of reality. Long fa 

 miliarity has not dulled my astonishment at finding 

 exactly the same set of considerations which in 

 the earlier&quot;portion of the book are employed to 

 condemn things as experienced by us to the region 

 of Appearance, employed in the latter portion of 

 the book to afford a triumphant demonstration of 

 the existence and character of Absolute Reality. 

 The argument I take up first on its formal side, 

 and then with reference to material considerations. 1 

 The positive conception of Reality is reached 

 by the conception that &quot; ultimate reality must be , 

 such that it does not contradict itself; here is an 

 absolute criterion. And it is proved absolute by 

 the fact that either in endeavoring to deny it or 

 even in attempting to doubt it, we tacitly assume 

 its validity&quot; (ibid., pp. 136-137). That is to 

 say, when one sets out to think one must avoid self- 

 contradiction ; this avoidance, or, put positively, 

 the attainment of consistency, harmony, is the basic 

 law of all thinking. Since in thinking we set out 

 to attain reality, it follows that reality itself 

 must be self-consistent, and that its self-consistency 



1 The crux of the argument is contained in Chapters XIII. 

 and XIV., on the &quot; General Nature of Reality.&quot; 



