essentially connected with
reality. There is no _mauvais pas_ from thought to things. We do not
need to leap out of ourselves in order to get into the world. We are in
it from the first, both as physical and moral agents, and as thinking
beings. Our thoughts are expressions of the real nature of things, so
far as they go. They may be and are imperfect; they may be and are
confused and inadequate, and express only the superficial aspects and
not "the inmost fibres"; still, they are what they are, in virtue of
"the reality," which finds itself interpreted in them. Severed from that
reality, they would be nothing.

Thus, the distinction between thought and reality is a distinction
within a deeper unity. And that unity must not be regarded as something
additional to both, or as a third something. It _is_ their unity. It is
both reality and thought: it is existing thought, or reality knowing
itself and existing through its knowledge of self; it is
self-consciousness. The distinguished elements have no existence or
meaning except in their unity. Like the actual and ideal, they have
significance and being, only in their reference to each other.

There is one more difficulty connected with this matter which I must
touch upon, although the discussion may already be regarded as prolix.
It is acknowledged by every one that the knowledge of the individual,
and his apparent world of realities, grow _pari passu_. Beyond his
sphere of knowledge there is no reality _for him_, not even apparent
reality. But, on the other hand, the real world of existing things
exists all the same whether he knows it or not. It did not begin to be
with any knowledge he may have of it, it does not cease to be with his
extinction, and it is not in any way affected by his valid, or invalid,
reconstruction of it in thought. The world which depends on his thought
is his world, and not the world of really existing things. And this is
true alike of every individual. The world is independent of all human
minds. It existed before them, and will, very possibly, exist after
them. Can we not, therefore, conclude that the real world is independent
of thought, and that it exists without relation to it?

A short reference to the moral consciousness may suggest the answer to
this difficulty. In morality (as also is the case in knowledge) the
moral ideal, or the objective law of goodness, grows in richness and
fulness of content with the individual who apprehends it.