2 66 MAN AND THE WORLD. 



they should appear no better. But the '* objective 

 world " is a world which appears to me, and no 

 appearances to some one else will explain it. For 

 the pantheistic proposition that in appearing to me, 

 the world really appears to God, and that my own 

 " I " is but a section of the divine *' I," is not one 

 capable of being thought out. For the universal " I " 

 either has another consciousness beside mine, or it 

 has not. If it has, the objective reality of things will 

 be things as they appear to that consciousness, and 

 things as they appear to mine will be reduced to a 

 subjective illusion, i.e., we fall back into the subjec- 

 tive idealism from which we are seeking to escape. 

 If it has not, why should the reality of things be 

 constituted by my consciousness, rather than by that 

 of any other self-conscious " I,." which is also a 

 fragment of the divine self-consciousness ? Things 

 appear differently to me and to others, but to whom 

 do they appear as they really are ? It matters not 

 what answer is given to this question, the result will 

 be the same ; the world, as it appears to every con- 

 sciousness but one, will be an illusion. 



§ 14. But if Idealism cannot extricate itself from 

 the toils of tllusio7tism, let us see whether Realism is 

 more successful in getting over the primary subjec- 

 tivity of the world. 



Realism will naturally seek to draw a distinction 

 between existing in consciousness and existing 

 solely in consciousness. It does not follow that 

 because the world exists in my consciousness, it 

 exists only in my consciousness. We may cheerfully 

 admit even that the world cannot exist ozU of my 

 consciousness. For it may be that ultimately the in- 

 dependence, either of the world or of the " I," will 

 be seen to involve the same fallacy of false abstrac- 



