constitute the meaning and so the substantial essence of the universe.

[Sidenote: The General Tendency of Subjectivism to Transcend Itself.]

Sect. 141. Such then are the various paths which lead from subjectivism
to other types of philosophy, demonstrating the peculiar aptitude of the
former for departing from its first principle. Beginning with the
relativity of all knowable reality to the individual knower, it
undertakes to conceive reality in one or the other of the terms of this
relation, as particular state of knowledge or as individual subject of
knowledge. But these terms develop an intrinsic nature of their own, and
become respectively _empirical datum_, and _logical_ or _ethical
principle_. In either case the subjectivistic principle of knowledge has
been abandoned. Those whose speculative interest in a definable
objective world has been less strong than their attachment to this
principle, have either accepted the imputation of scepticism, or had
recourse to the radical epistemological doctrine of mysticism.

[Sidenote: Ethical Theories. Relativism.]

Sect. 142. Since the essence of subjectivism is epistemological rather
than metaphysical, its practical and religious implications are various.
The ethical theories which are corollary to the tendencies expounded
above, range from extreme egoism to a mystical universalism. The close
connection between the former and relativism is evident, and the form of
egoism most consistent with epistemological relativism is to be found
among those same Sophists who first maintained this latter doctrine. If
we may believe Plato, the Sophists sought to create for their individual
pupils an _appearance_ of good. In the "Theaetetus," Socrates is
represented as speaking thus on behalf of Protagoras:

"And I am far from saying that wisdom and the wise man have no
existence; but I say that the wise man is he who makes the
evils which are and appear to a man, into goods which are and
appear to him. . . . I say that they (the wise men) are the
physicians of the human body, and the husbandmen of
plants--for the husbandmen also take away the evil and
disordered sensations of plants, and infuse into them good and
healthy sensations as well as true ones; and the wise and good
rhetoricians make the good instead of the evil seem just to
states; for whatever appears to be just and fair to a state,
while sanctioned by a state, is j