of the Ego, since it exhibits the contradictory conception of a thing with many and changing characteristics (conditions, powers, faculties, &c.) We are reminded by Herbart’s “_reals_” of the atomic theory of the atomists (_cf._ § IX. 2), of the Eleatic theory of the one being (_cf._ § VI.), and of Leibnitz’s monadology. His reals however are distinguished from the atoms by not possessing impenetrability. The monads of Herbart may be just as well represented in the same space as a mathematical point may be conceived as accurately coexisting with another in the same place. In this respect the “real” of Herbart has a far greater similarity to the “one” of the Eleatics. Both are simple, and to be conceived in intellectual spaces, but the essential difference is, that Herbart’s substances exist in numbers distinct from one another, and even from opposites among themselves. Herbart’s simple quantities have already been compared to the monads of Leibnitz, but these latter have essentially a power of representation; they are essences with inner circumstances, while, according to Herbart, representation, just as little as every other circumstance, belongs to the essence itself. 5. PSYCHOLOGY is connected with metaphysics. The Ego is primarily a metaphysical problem, and comes in this respect under the category of the thing with its characteristics. It is a real with many properties changing circumstances, powers, faculties, activities, &c., and thus is not without contradictions. But then the Ego is a psychological principle, and here those contradictions may be considered which lie in the ideality of subject and object. The subject posits itself and is therefore itself object. But this posited object is nothing other than the positing subject. Thus the Ego is, as Fichte says, subject-object, and, as such, full of the hardest contradictions, for subject and object will never be affirmed as one and the same without contradiction. But now if the Ego is given it cannot be thrown away, but must be purified from its contradictions. This occurs whenever the Ego is conceived as that which represents, and the different sensations, thoughts, &c. are embraced under the common conception of changing appearance. The solution of this problem is similar to that of inherence. As in the latter problem the thing was apprehended as a complex of as many reals as it has characteristics, just so here the Ego; but with the Ego inner circumstances and representations correspond to the characteristics. Thus that which we are accustomed to name Ego is nothing other than the soul. The soul as a monad, as absolutely being, is therefore simple, eternal, indissoluble, from which we may conclude its eternal existence. From this standpoint Herbart combats the ordinary course of psychology which ascribes certain powers and faculties to the soul. That which stands out in the soul is nothing other than self-preservation, which