_. And on the other hand,
if I, who am conscious, am a real being, distinct from the things of
which I am conscious--if the conscious mind has a constitution and laws
of its own by which it acts, and if the mode of its consciousness is in
any degree determined by those laws, the _non-ego_ is so far conditioned
by the _ego_; the thing which I see is not seen absolutely and _per se_,
but in a form partly dependent upon the laws of my vision.

The first step towards the reduction of these two factors to one may
obviously be made in three different ways. Either the _ego_ may be
represented as a mode of the _non-ego_, or the _non-ego_ of the _ego_, or
both of a _tertium quid_, distinct from either. In other words: it may be
maintained, _first_, that matter is the only real existence; mind and all
the phenomena of consciousness being really the result solely of material
laws; the brain, for example, secreting thought as the liver secretes
bile; and the distinct personal existence of which I am apparently
conscious being only the result of some such secretion. This is
_Materialism_, which has then to address itself to the further problem,
to reduce the various phenomena of matter to some one absolutely first
principle on which everything else depends. Or it may be maintained,
_secondly_, that mind is the only real existence; the intercourse which
we apparently have with a material world being really the result solely
of the laws of our mental constitution. This is _Idealism_, which again
has next to attempt to reduce the various phenomena to some one
immaterial principle. Or it may be maintained, _thirdly_, that real
existence is to be sought neither in mind as mind nor in matter as
matter; that both classes of phenomena are but qualities or modes of
operation of something distinct from both, and on which both alike are
dependent. Hence arises a third form of philosophy, which, for want of a
better name, we will call _Indifferentism_, as being a system in which
the characteristic differences of mind and matter are supposed to
disappear, being merged in something higher than both.

In using the two former of these terms, we are not speaking of
Materialism and Idealism as they have always actually manifested
themselves, but only of the distinguishing principle of these systems
when pushed to its extreme result. It is quite possible to be a
materialist or an idealist with respect to the immediate phenomena of
consciousness, with