“Hence perceptions and conceptions, the will, the feelings--in brief, the entire inner and outer world--are made up of a limited number of homogeneous elements now in volatile, now in rigid combination. These elements are usually called sensations; since, however, this name already implies a one-sided theory, we prefer to speak simply of elements.”[40] Again: “It is not the bodies that beget sensation but the complex of sensations (complex of elements) that fashion the bodies. If to the physicist, bodies appear to be that which is permanent, real, and sensations, on the contrary, their fleeting, transitory appearance, he forgets that all bodies are only mental symbols for complexes of sensation.... Thus the world for us does not consist of so many problematic beings, which through action and reaction with another equally problematic being, the _I_, beget the sensations alone accessible to us. Colours, sounds, spaces, times ... for us are the ultimate elements whose given connection we have to investigate.”[41] This I call supplying a world-theory from the entire, completed play of world-events. The only question is, “From a mental starting-point such as this, how stands it with the fact of all facts--_I_?” Well, it goes badly, very badly indeed, with the poor fellow! Like a lump of sugar in a big tub of water it melts away incontinent into the all. On this point one should read pages eight and nine of the _Analyse der Sinnesempfindungen_. To cite them here in full would take up too much space. The train of thought there developed concludes with the words: “Accordingly the _I_ may be so extended as finally to cover and embrace the whole world.” It may be asked, “How out of this cosmic _I_-solution does the yet actually existing _I_-deposit come about?” The answer is, “Through accommodation.” The _I_-concept is a convention adapted to a certain end, a procedure pertaining to the economy of thought. “The gathering together of the elements being connected with pleasure and pain, into an ideal unit of the economy of thought, the _I_, is of the utmost significance to the intellect standing at the service of the pain-shunning, pleasure-seeking will.”[42] What attitude shall one adopt towards a structure of thought which is nothing but an ingenious description, a picture of the fact “life,” whose wealth of ingenuity, however, is purchased at the cost of a downright, deadly indifference in respect of this same fact, _i.e._ in respect of actuality? Epistemologically the world is as free as a bird. Any one who chooses may exercise his intellectual faculties upon it. The above view, moreover, is expressly put forward as a theory, a reading. But after all there is one requirement every theory must fulfil, and that is that it shall not contradict itself. And that this theory does in the most flagrant fashion.