DECEMBER 15, 1899.] 
is expressed in the following passages: ‘‘ For 
in our view, the one fundamental reality, the 
actual Being whose characteristics are recog- 
nized by the categories, whose work is both 
nature considered as the system of material 
things and also all the spirits of men considered 
in their historical development, is the Absolute 
Self. And the innermost essence of such an 
Absolute Selfis Spirit. From Spirit, then, come 
nature and all spirits; and in dependence on 
this Spirit they live and develop. And the 
proof of this view liesin the fact that to rely on 
nature as a unifying principle it is necessary to 
include in our conception of nature the char- 
acteristics of a spiritual life.’ (Pp. 458 and 
459.) Again, ‘‘ The different spheres of reality 
as known by man are distinguished by the 
amounts of essential selfhood which they pos- 
sess.”? (P. 401.) Again, ‘‘for every knower 
there are only two possible kinds of objects, 
which can claim for their reality the immediacy 
of an incontestable knowledge ; these are the 
Self,and Things. As the knowledge of the self 
changes and develops the more external and 
less central factors of this object—the members 
of the body as viewed from the outside and 
even the brain as imagined or thought—be- 
come, for the Self, other things than itself. 
Always the primary evidence for the existence 
and the activity of all other selves is the 
knowledge of things ; for each Self, every other 
being—other men included-——is known as ‘a 
Thing.’’’ (Pp. 348 and 349.) ‘‘ Psychologically 
considered, then, all actual measurement of real 
quantities consists in the self-appreciation of 
the varying amounts of the own-life of the 
Self.’ (P. 301.) These quotations will indi- 
cate the author’s metaphysical point of view. 
Readers of SCIENCE will be more interested 
in the attempts of the author to define the 
various forms in which the mind conceives real 
things, which are the subject matters of science. 
It is the founding of a metaphysical theory of 
reality upon knowledge of particular, concrete 
things that distinguishes this treatise from what 
may be called purely metaphysical books. The 
author states that, ‘‘ Whatever the human mind 
may know, or conjecture, about the Unity of 
Reality, about the One, the Absolute, the World- 
Ground—or any other term philosophers have 
SCIENCE. 
891 
chosen for this unitary conception—man’s first- 
hand, verifiable, and common knowledge is the 
knowledge of particular existence. For every 
human mind knowledge is, and remains, knowl- 
edge of the self and of other concrete beings— 
their qualities, relations, and transactions. 
From this knowledge of particulars all theory 
of reality must set out; to this knowledge all 
theory must be ready to return, for its correc- 
tion and its testing, again and yet again.’’ (P. 
133.) 
The scope of the book, as a theory of reality, 
is concisely described by the author at the close 
of Chapter IV., as follows: ‘‘The detailed 
exposition of such a theory * * * involves 
the discussion and illustration of the following 
fundamental truths. Each of them is a truth 
which has its roots in the primitive facts and in 
the maturer growths of knowledge, but which 
is also ontological in its nature and application. 
First: All the categories are forms, both of 
knowledge and of being, that are actually and 
indubitably realized in all our cognitive experi- 
ence with the Self. Iam a Being whose ex- 
istence and whose self-knowledge is constituted 
a Unity, because I am a self-conscious Self. 
Second: All the real beings which are known as 
Things, together with their attributes, changes, 
relations, laws, etc., are made actual in our 
cognitive experience only as there is projected 
into them, so to speak, the same forms of Being 
which I know the Selfto have. The categories, 
so far as they can get any recognizable meaning 
in their application to actual things, are the 
same categories as those under which we know 
the Being of the Self. Third: The Unity ina 
world of reality which all things and all minds 
have is known in terms of an all-inclusive and 
Absolute Self. Only the conception of ‘Self- 
hood’ can bring into actual and cognizable 
Unity that complex of concrete realities which 
both the work-a-day and the scientific experi- 
ence of the race contains. And this unifying 
conception is properly held by the mind, not as 
a mere conception, but as the ultimate form 
given by reflective thinking to our knowledge 
of Reality.’’ (Pp. 109 and 110.) 
The discussion of the conceptions of ‘ force 
and causation,’ ‘ forms and laws,’ ‘ matter,’ and 
the distinction between ‘nature and spirit,’ are 
