The 'stepping outside' of it is the establishment either of immediate practical relations between it and ourselves, or of relations between it and other objects with which we have immediate practical relations. Relations of this sort, which are as yet not transcended or superseded by others, are _ipso facto_ real relations, and confer reality upon their objective term. _The fons et origo of all reality, whether from_ _the absolute or the practical point of view, is thus subjective, is ourselves._ As bare logical thinkers, without emotional reaction, we give reality to whatever objects we think of, for they are really phenomena, or objects of our passing thought, if nothing more. But, _as thinkers with emotional reaction, we give what seems to us a still higher degree of reality to whatever things we select and emphasize and turn to_ WITH A WILL. These are our _living_ realities; and not only these, but all the other things which are intimately connected with these. Reality, starting from our Ego, thus sheds itself from point to point--first, upon all objects which have an immediate sting of interest for our Ego in them, and next, upon the objects most continuously related with these. It only fails when the connecting thread is lost. A whole system may be real, if it only hang to our Ego by one immediately _stinging_ term. But what contradicts any such stinging term, even though it be another stinging term itself, is either not believed, or only believed after settlement of the dispute. * * * * * We reach thus the important conclusion that _our own reality, that sense of our own life which we at every moment possess, is the ultimate of ultimates for our belief._ 'As sure as I exist!'--this is our uttermost warrant for the being of all other things. As Descartes made the indubitable reality of the _cogito_ go bail for the reality of all that the _cogito_ involved, so we all of us, feeling our own present reality with absolutely coercive force, ascribe an all but equal degree of reality, first to whatever things we lay hold on with a sense of personal need, and second, to whatever farther things continuously belong with these. "Mein Jetzt und Hier," as Prof. Lipps says, "ist der letzte Angelpunkt für alle Wirklichkeit, also alle Erkenntniss." The world of living realities as contrasted with unrealities is thus anchored in the Ego, considered as an active and emotional term.[302] That is the hook from which the rest dangles, the absolute support. And as from a painted hook it has been said that one can only hang a painted chain, so conversely, from a real hook only a real chain can properly be hung. _Whatever things have intimate and continuous connection with my life are things of whose reality I cannot doubt._ Whatever things fail to establish this connection are things which are practically no better for me than if they existed not at all.