Writing as I am, for readers of _The Monist_, I need hardly turn aside to explain what I mean by an object-in-consciousness. And yet perhaps a few words on the subject may not be out of place, and may prevent possible misunderstanding. An object-in-consciousness is not necessarily a tangible, visible object, like an orange. The yellowness, the sweetness, the weight, the bare existence of the orange, may each in turn be an object in consciousness. For the physicist the tangible orange may be represented in terms of swift, infinitesimal motions; and these, not less than the phenomenal orange, are objects in consciousness. A conception of consciousness itself, an imperfect conception, but the best we can frame, may be an object of consciousness, just as a reflected image of the eye may be to the eye an object of vision. It is generally believed by modern psychologists that all objects-in-consciousness are derivable by processes of abstraction, generalisation, and so forth, from the primitive datum of a perceptual object. And it must be remembered that it is only in abstraction that we distinguish between the object-in-consciousness and the consciousness-of-the-object. The two terms of this, for us, inevitable relation are given in inseparable coördination. But in abstract thought we can distinguish the inseparable terms; distinguish in thought, that is to say, what is inseparable in actual experience. To continue the analogy of vision, we can make the one term focal, while the other term remains marginal in the field of view. And we can neglect, for the purposes of our thought and reason, the marginal term. But we cannot get rid of it. We may deal, as in physics, with motion, neglecting the consciousness in and through which it is appreciated; but we cannot get rid of this consciousness. Or we can deal, as in psychology, with the consciousness, neglecting the object-in-consciousness; but we cannot get rid of this object. The object-out-of-consciousness and the consciousness-without-an-object, are alike unknown—or, if the reader prefers it, unknowable, which he may write with as many capital letters as seemeth to him good. The common-sense realist believes in the existence of objects-out-of-consciousness. The analytical psychist believes in the existence of consciousness-without-an-object. Both are, if the views here advocated be sound, attributing independent existence to that which, so far as human knowledge is concerned, has only dependent or relative existence.