THE PERCEPTION OF REALITY. 297 



the absolute or the practical point of vieiv, is thus subjective, is 

 ourselves. As bare logical thinkers, without emotional re- 

 action, we give reality to whatever objects we think of, for 

 thej are really phenomena, or objects of our passing 

 thought, if nothing more. But, as thinkers ivith emotional 

 reactio'.i, ive give what seems to us a still higher degree of 

 reality to ivhatever things we select and emphasize and, turn 

 to wiTK A WILL. These are our living realities ; and not 

 only these, but all the other things which are intimately 

 connected with these. Reality, starting from our Ego, 

 thus sheds itself from point to point — first, upon all objects 

 which have an immediate sting of interest for our Ego in 

 them, and next, upon the objects most continuously related 

 with these. It only fails M'hen the connecting thread is 

 lost. A whole system may be real, if it only hang to our 

 Ego by one immediately stinging term. But what contra- 

 dicts any such stinging term, even though it be another 

 stinging term itself, is either not believed, or only believed 

 after settlement of the dispute. 



We reach thus the important conclusion that our own 

 reality, that seiiseof our oivn life luhich we at every moment pos- 

 sess, is the ultitaate of ultimate^ for our belief ' As sure as I 

 exist ! ' — this is our uttermost warrant for the being of all 

 other things. As Descartes made the indubitable reality 

 of the cogito go bail for the reality of all that the cogito in- 

 volved, so we all of us, feeling our own present reality with 

 absolutely coercive force, ascribe an all but equal degree 

 of reality, first to whatever things we lay hold on with a 

 sense of personal need, and second, to whatever farther 

 things continuously belong with these. "Mein Jetzt und 

 Hier," as Prof. Lipps says, " ist der letzte Angelpunkt fiir 

 alle Wirklichkeit, also alle Erkenntniss." 



The world of living realities as contrasted with unreali- 

 ties is thus anchored in the Ego, considered as an active 

 and emotional term.* That is the hook from which the 

 rest dangles, the absolute support. And as from a painted 



* I use the uotiou of the Ego here, as comraon-seuse uses it. Nothing 

 is prejudged as to the results (or absence of results) of ulterior attempts to 

 analyze the notion. 



