posed, but whether it is demonstrably true, and alone so demonstrable.
With this last statement every mind sufficiently disciplined in philosophy to appreciate its true nature will of course agree. The philosophical conception of anything is the conception of it that thought attains when it takes utter counsel of its own utmost deep. For philosophy, accordingly, utter ideality and utter reality are reciprocal conceptions; complete and final agreement with thought, as thought sees itself whole, is the only test of reality, and reciprocally, that alone is sanely and soundly ideal which can be proved, — that is, to the total insight turns real. But in another and still more important reference, the definitive question is still to come; in fact, arises directly out of that great first question about every conception. That first, controlling question undoubtedly is: Can we prove the conception real, and thus alone show it is the right conception? But the all-important question beyond will be: Are we now at length certain that we take the ideal view of the conception — that the light in which we see it is indeed the light of the whole, the final unit-vision under which alone our ideal can turn real? Not until we are able to aver securely that this is so, have we a right to assert the conception as philosophic, and the only philosophic conception. Above all must they who have come to the insight that philosophy means Idealism — that mind is the measure of all things, and complete ideality the only sure sign of reality — hold themselves rigorously to this criterion.
