PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xxxi 



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 Concep- 

 tion of God, published four years earlier in coopera- 

 tion with Professors Royce, Le Conte, and Mezes. 

 But some fifteen months after the pubhcation 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, not- 

 withstanding 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 Ideal- 

 ism 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 promi- 

 nent 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- 



