MINE AND THINE 65 



spiritual trend and marked its self-revelation in self -con- 

 sciousness. Idealists, with a unanimity of assent which is 

 most rarely found in the history of philosophy, aver that 

 " Reality is Experience.." This is a great and permanently 

 valuable achievement. 



Nevertheless, Idealism has adequately grasped only one 

 aspect of reality, and only one moment of the activity of 

 self-conscious spirit. It has demonstrated the Unity of 

 Nature and Spirit, but not their difference. It has proved 

 that the real must be ideal, but it has not shown how the 

 ideal can be veritably real. It has shown how Spirit sub- 

 sumes the world as its own, but it has not reinstated the 

 world as its object and opposite. On the contrary, in 

 relating objects to self-consciousness, it has robbed them 

 of all their characters save those which are directly ideal. 

 In order to demonstrate the unity of Nature with Spirit, 

 it has reduced Nature into a mere shadow of spirit. It 

 has set the unity against the differences ; and, in conse- 

 quence, it is constrained either to represent the unity as 

 less real than the differences, or the differences as less real 

 than the unity. In one word, within Idealism itself, there 

 is a tendency, which in our day is well-nigh universal, either 

 towards an abstract Monism which has no real content, or 

 towards a Dualism (or rather a Pluralism) whose content 

 is unintelligible and chaotic. 



I shall now proceed to substantiate this charge, so far 

 as space permits ; and I shall try to do so by reference to 

 two Idealists to whose trenchant thinking the present age 

 owes a deep debt, and each of whom may, without injustice 

 to others, be regarded as one of the leaders of his school. 



Dr. Ward, like all other Idealists, has learnt the lesson 

 taught by Kant. For him the object is essentially related 



