2 
1903. ] STONEY—UNIVERSE OF REAL EXISTENCES. iZt 
A synthesis does not mean merely the act of collecting materials 
together. It means that and much more, viz.: the building up of 
a definite structure (cvyr/@jue includes the meaning of the Latin 
verb construere as well as of colligere). The completed structure 
may be conveniently called the sywtheton (obvOetov, the structure 
resulting from synthesis). 
It is to be noted that these syntheta, my perceptions, while they 
last are auta, real existences: they are thoughts, parts of my mind. 
In fact, up to the present we have been dealing exclusively with 
auta, things that really exist, some of them non-egoistic, others of 
them parts of my own little group of auta. But in the next step 
which the mind takes—a very important step—it transcends these 
limits. 
CHAPTER 11. Or HyYportHeETa. 
Hitherto we have treated of auta, z.e., real existences, with as 
little reference to hypotheta, or supposed existences, as was found 
practicable. It is impossible for a student of ontology commencing 
his inquiry from the mental attitude in which we, men, must start, 
wholly to disentangle auta and hypotheta from one another in the 
earlier stages of his inquiry; but this becomes more and more 
feasible as he proceeds, until, in the end, there need be no out- 
standing confusion at all. 
In the present chapter we direct our attention to what is probably 
the most important hypothesis that the human mind makes, a 
hypothesis of which we all make daily use, and which confers upon 
me and upon my fellow-men and upon other animals—in fact, upon 
pheasant. This most astonishing work of art produced, by nature, is effected by 
six or seven different colors or shades of color disposed in the same way in which 
a human artist would lay them on with his brush to produce the same effect. 
Darwin, in his Descent of Man, has shown how Variation with the codpera- 
tion of Thoughts in the minds of the cock and hen pheasants, can account for 
the development of these wonderful artistic productions. The thought on the 
part of the ccck is a desire or impulse to please the hen by an exhibition of his 
plumage, and the thought on the part of the hen is an appreciation of different 
degrees of excellence in the artistic effect achieved in the pictures submitted to 
her judgment. This implies that the hen bird possesses the same wonderful 
power that we possess of translating coloring and shading into form; which 
therefore was attained by our ancestors before birds were differentiated from 
other vertebrates, unless (which is less probable) it has been separately devel- 
oped along the two lines of descent since that time. 
PROC. AMER. PHILOS. 80C. XLII. 178. I. PRINTED JUNE 6, 1908. 
