We may, in fact, conveniently define the Absolute as that structure of the world-system which any and every internally consistent purpose must recognise as the condition of its own fulfilment To deny the existence of an Absolute, thus defined, is in principle to reduce the world and life to a mere chaos. It is important, however, to bear in mind that in Metaphysics, though we are certainly concerned with the ultimate or absolute Reality, we are concerned with it from a special point of view. Our special purpose is to _know_, or to think coherently, about the conditions which all intelligent purpose has to recognise. Now this attitude of scientific investigation is clearly not the only one which we can take up towards the ultimately real. We may, for instance, seek to gain emotional harmony and peace of mind by yielding up the conduct of our practical life to the unquestioned guidance of what we directly feel to be the deepest and most abiding elements in the structure of the universe. This is the well-known attitude of practical religion. _Primâ facie_, while it seems to be just as permissible as the purely scientific attitude of the seeker after truth, the perennial “conflict of religion and science” is sufficient to show that the two are not identical. How they are related is a problem which we shall have, in outline, to consider towards the end of our inquiry; at present it is enough for our purpose to recognise them as divergent but _primâ facie_ equally justified attitudes towards what must in the end be thought of as the same ultimate reality. As Mr. Bradley well says, there is no sin which is metaphysically less justifiable than the metaphysician’s own besetting sin of treating his special way of regarding the “Absolute” as the only legitimate one.