therefore--real truth, real goodness--is apprehended, at the moment of apprehension, and desired, at the moment of desire, as existing both for us and beyond us. The proviso, "at the moment of apprehension, at the moment of desire," is important, because it strikes at the root of all forms of subjective idealism. They all assume that the only thing directly apprehended is what exists for us; that consequently the supposed existence of any real thing or person beyond us is a mere inference, and an inference the truth of which we have no means of checking, because it is a statement about things of which we have no direct apprehension or knowledge. On this assumption, therefore, the only things man directly apprehends are his own states of consciousness, his own sensations, etc. Are we to call them real or not? If they are not real, his whole life is a dream, his speculations fancies, and his desires illusions. If they are the only reality of which he can be certain, then the only truth is that which man knows, the only good is that which man does, the only world is that which man thinks, the only God is that which man makes, the magnified, non-natural shadow of man projected on to the mists of the Unknowable. It is important, therefore, to insist that the Real--the reality of existence, of knowledge, of goodness--is not an inference, but a matter of direct apprehension. It is certain that goodness or knowledge to be an object of desire must be presented to us in idea; but it is equally certain that the mere idea is not what we desire. The object of desire is directly apprehended as in our consciousness and beyond it. The natural world around us is also directly apprehended as at once in our consciousness and beyond it: it is presented to our minds, but it is presented as real.