xliv PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 



have necessary cognitions in the sense of tendencies 

 "implanted" in us "from elsewhere," necessitated 

 tendencies to judgment, which we merely follow as 

 they coerce us, and if we can only " guess " or " have 

 faith " that we are real and in real relation to others, 

 then we are not free, and no genuinely idealistic sys- 

 tem exists at all. The reader who cares enough to 

 look as he should, will see that the scheme of proof 

 for all my cardinal propositions consists in my recon- 

 sidering the whole question of a priori knowing, and 

 vindicating its affirmative, in the hght of all the objec- 

 tions really made to it since the enduring argument 

 of Kant in its favour. 



It is possible that this charge of omitting essential 

 proofs was suggested by a somewhat incautious sen- 

 tence in the original Preface, which I have now taken 

 care to correct by a needed addition.^ This read, 

 " Proofs of this or that part of it [the new pluralistic 

 theory of ultimate reality] are attempted in each 

 paper, but no establishment of the system as such." 

 From this it was an easy, if inaccurate and unwar- 

 rantable inference, that only certain principles in the 

 system were brought to scrutiny in the essays, while 

 the rest were merely asserted for the sake of orient- 

 ing the reader as to where he would find himself in 

 the world of metaphysics if he once took Personal 

 Idealism for granted. But such was far from being 



1 See p. xxvii. 



