"a society of rational agents, acting under the eye of Providence, concurring in one design to promote the common benefit of the whole, and conforming their actions to the established laws and order of the Divine parental wisdom: wherein each particular agent shall not consider himself apart, but as the member of a great City, whose author and founder is God: in which the civil laws are no other than the rules of virtue and the duties of religion: and where everyone's true interest is combined with his duty."[304:28] But so uncompromising an optimism is not essential to this religion. Its distinction lies rather in its acceptance of the manifest plurality of souls, and its appeal to the faith that is engendered by service.[305:29] As William James has said: "Even God's being is sacred from ours. To coöperate with his creation by the best and rightest response seems all he wants of us. In such coöperation with his purposes, not in any chimerical speculative conquest of him, not in any theoretical drinking of him up, must lie the real meaning of our destiny."[305:30] FOOTNOTES: [267:1] PRELIMINARY NOTE. By _Subjectivism_ is meant that system of philosophy which construes the universe in accordance with the epistemological principle that _all knowledge is of its own states or activities_. In so far as subjectivism reduces reality to _states of knowledge_, such as _perceptions_ or _ideas_, it is _phenomenalism_. In so far as it reduces reality to a more _internal active principle_ such as _spirit_ or _will_, it is _spiritualism_. [268:2] Berkeley: _Complete Works_, Vol. I, p. 352. Fraser's edition. [269:3] Plato: _Theaetetus_, 156. Translation by Jowett. The italics are mine. [270:4] Plato: _Op. cit._, 166. [271:5] ἀληθὲς ὃ ἑκάστῳ ἑκάστοτε δοκεῖ. [273:6] For another issue out of this situation, cf. §§ 185-187. [276:7] Berkeley: _Op. cit._, Vol. I, pp. 380-381. [276:8] _Ibid._, p. 389. [277:9] _Ibid._, p. 397. [278:10] _Ibid._, p. 418. [279:11] _Ibid._, pp. 403-404. [282:12] Cf. Pearson: _Grammar of Science_, Chap. II. See above, § 118. [283:13] See Chap. XI. Cf. also § 140. [283:14] The same may be said of the "permanent possibilities of sensation," proposed by J. S. Mill. Such possibilities outside of actual perception are either nothing or things such as they are known to be _in_ perception. In either case they are not perceptions. In Ernst Mach's _Analysis of Sensations_, the reader will find an interesting transition from sensationalism to realism through the substitution of the term _Bestandtheil_ for _Empfindung_. (See Translation by Williams, pp. 18-20.) See below, § 207. [284:15] Berkeley: _Op. cit._, p. 447. [287:16] Schopenhauer: _The World as Will and Idea_. Translation by Haldane and Kemp, Vol. I, p. 141.