=The Argument for Realism.= This inherent contradiction in human conceptions had been a matter of observation by philosophers for many centuries, but it had led to many divergent conclusions. The Greek Skeptics had long ago observed it, and had concluded therefore that there is no such thing as reality. To them thought is discredited because the contradictions of thought are insoluble. Truth does not exist. On the other hand Hegel developed his great dialectic system upon the basis of these contradictions. Is thought self-contradictory? Yes. But is thought discredited because it is self-contradictory? By no means. It is the nature of thought to be self-contradictory, and the highest truth is the knowledge of this. So Hegel, instead of rejecting the conception of reality because thought is contradictory, incorporated contradictions into his conception of the Being of the universe. Indeed, he made contradictions the “head of the corner” of his system. Contradiction to Hegel is cosmic law. However, in such a conception Hegel had to give up entirely the principle upon which formal logic was founded. This was the principle that a thing cannot be different from itself. To Hegel the highest truth was exactly the opposite――everything is self-contradictory. While Herbart agreed with the Skeptics and with Hegel that experience is self-contradictory, he differed from them in the inference which he drew from such contradictions. In acknowledging the contradictions of experience Herbart did not find himself driven to either one of these alternatives. Philosophy did not mean for him skepticism. On the other hand he was repelled by the turn that Hegel had given to logic, and he refused to accept reasoning as a self-contradictory process. He returned to the demands of formal logic and restored the principle of contradiction[70] to the place which it had occupied during the Enlightenment. Herbart took as his _fundamental philosophical principle that experiences are not actual when they are self-contradictory_. The self-contradictoriness of experiences shows that they are phenomena and not actualities. It also shows that they have reality as their ground. Seeming things imply realities as the ground of their qualities; seeming occurrences imply actual relations between the reals. Seeming is just so much an indication of Being. Consistency lies behind phenomena. The existence of appearances must be admitted, but appearances are appearances of something. If nothing existed, nothing would appear to exist; and yet things are not in reality what they appear to be.