Viil PREFACE 



Just wliat, then, does Personal Idealism as a philo- 

 sophical theory mean ? I can best reply, I suspect, 

 by anticipating another question, which can hardly 

 fail to be asked: Why should the word "personal" 

 come into the title of the theory at all ? Is not 

 idealism the doctrine that mind is the only pri- 

 mary or absolute reality ? — and so is it not always 

 the assertion that personality is the central source of 

 things ? Why, then, isn't the prefix superfluous ? 

 The answer is, that the actual history of philosophic 

 thought, even after philosophy attains to the view 

 that rational consciousness is the First Principle, 

 exhibits a singular arrest of the movement toward 

 putting complete personality at the centre of things. 

 Historic idealism is, in fact, far from being personal; 

 rather, it is well-nigh overwhelmingly impersonal. 



Philosophy, it is often said, is the search after 

 unity. As a statement of one philosophic aim, this 

 is true enough; and certain it is that in this search 

 after unity philosophy has almost always lost sight 

 of its other interests, some of which are at least as 

 great. The prevailing tendency in the history of 

 thought, if v/e leave rigidly agnostic philosophers out 

 of the account, has been to some form of monism ; 

 and idealistic philosophy, despite its diligent hostility 

 to materialism, has usually been at one with its foe 

 in absorption with the One-and-All. The only vital 

 difference it introduces is to substitute for the one 



