[43] Italics are ours. Kant affirms the italicised question.
[44] The problem of “The Origin of the Mind” having been the subject of a
former paper need not be discussed here. See _The Monist_, Vol i, No. 1,
p. 69-86, and _The Soul of Man_, pp. 23-46.
[45] It is scarcely necessary to mention that mediæval Realism is
different from modern Realism.
[46] Aristotle’s idea of matter being potential existence is a fiction.
Fictions of that kind are useful for certain purposes, but we must not
forget that they are fictions. We might just as well introduce any
other system of fictions. For instance we might with certainly not less
propriety look upon the idea in the mind of an artist as potential
reality while its appearance in a material shape is conceived to produce
actual reality.
[47] The term “absolute” is for that reason neither meaningless nor
redundant. It denotes a certain method of viewing things, but is not an
objective quality of things.
[48] See the chapter “Soul Life and the Preservation of Form” in _The
Soul of Man_, p. 418.
[49] The abandonment of the ego as a metaphysical being is not, as it
appears to many, a surrender of the soul or of its immortality. That
the immortality of the soul from the standpoint of modern psychology
is preserved, that it appears in a new light, grander and nobler than
before, and that this conception of immortality is of an enormous
practical importance, have been the main incentives of Mr. E. C. Hegeler
in founding _The Open Court_ and _The Monist_.