AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 39 



exclusively ' subjective ' method, as if one could exhaust the 

 possibilities of thought by a mere examination of his own 

 inner consciousness; nor by an exclusively ' objective' 

 method, as if one could possess himself of the whole or 

 even the highest phase of truth by a mere examination of 

 that outer world of appearances occupying space, and 

 which is commonly called ' nature.' On the contrary, the 

 truth, in its vital reality, is to be attained only through 

 a complete blending of these two methods; that is, 

 through a constant recognition of the true relation 

 between the outer and the inner, between the objective 

 and the subjective, as the mutually complementary modes 

 of existence in its ultimate reality and perennial vigor as 

 the ever-living truth/' 



Such would be the appeal of our third idealist, who, as 

 insisting upon this: that the absolute fusion of the sub- 

 jective and the objective is the truth alike of things and 

 of the method of inquiry concerning things, proves to 

 be the representative of absolute idealism. 



And because this mode of viewing the world appears 

 to bring us to, or at least to point us toward, the ultimate 

 equilibrium of thought, it is the mode of view which we 

 would hope to maintain in all our further investigations. 



What follows in the present volume is an attempt to 

 develop dialectically the fundamental characteristics of 

 nature. This logical process of thought in the investiga- 

 tion of nature leads up to a conclusion in which there is 

 found to be represented the logical presupposition of 

 nature. Our final discovery is the primal Fact. 



