MINE AND THINE 63 



internalises so completely that it finds its self in every part 

 of it. 



This is a very great truth. The discovery of it may 

 be regarded as the one significant result of the long labour 

 of Idealism from the days of Kant to our own. I have 

 already indicated, though only by reference to a single 

 example, how this truth affects social theory. It closes the 

 idle discussion, and puts an end to the confusion which 

 springs from taking character and environment as two 

 independent things acting externally on one another. It 

 does much more. It furnishes the only intelligible ground 

 of the possibility of any rational life, whether individual 

 or social. It contains the refutation of the Materialism 

 which paralyses morality and religion, and also of Dualism 

 and all its Agnostic offspring. For it makes the relation 

 to_self-consciousness a constitutive principle of reality. It 

 spiritualises the world. Hence, man can no longer be 

 deemed to have been placed in a purely natural or alien 

 setting. Nor does the world repel reason : it invites and 

 informs it. It is not an obstacle to the moral life, as 

 Huxley thought, nor indifferent to it, as Arnold believed. 

 On the contrary, it is the means whereby man acquires 

 knowledge and learns goodness ; it is his partner in the 

 great enterprise of morality and truth. In short, Idealism 

 shows us that spirit, even when dealing with facts in the 

 material world, is still moving under its own sky and 

 breathing its own atmosphere. 



It is not possible to exaggerate the value of this principle 

 of the spiritual nature of reality which Idealism has, I 

 believe, rendered secure. Nevertheless, the task of Ideal- 

 ism is only begun. Nay, I must try to show in this article 

 that, as held by many of its exponents, a radical imper- 



