LATER GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 171 



nated from within. But the hypothetical potential 

 of sense, the assumed subsensible substatice called 

 matter, we have now seen to be precisely that self- 

 contradiction talked of as the physical thing-in-itself, 

 and it therefore disappears from the real universe 

 along with that illusion. We have, then, a definitive 

 Critique of all Materialism. 



By the path into which Lange has led us we 

 therefore ascend from the agnostic-critical standpoint 

 to the higher and invigorating one of a thorough, 

 all-sided, and affirmative idealism. A few words 

 must suffice to outline its general conception. The 

 result is, in brief : Our normal consciousness has the 

 trait of real universality, — it puts judgments which 

 in the same circumstances every intelligence, and 

 every order of intelligence, would put. The objects 

 it perceives, and seen as it sees them when it sees 

 to its full, are the same that from the same outlook 

 all intelligences would perceive. For such objects 

 are themselves but complexes of its judgments, and 

 the mentioned circumstances and outlook are in 

 fact part of the objects as perceived ; they are not 

 limitations imposed upon consciousness from with- 

 out, but are particularisations of its own jDrimordial 

 processes. Or, to state the case inversely, the 

 potential reach of normal human consciousness is 

 the very thing meant by universality : intelligence as 

 such is simply the fulfilment of human intelligence. 



