As a convenient way of entering into the study of their differences,
I may refer to a recent article by Professor Jacks of Manchester
College. Professor Jacks, in some brilliant pages in the 'Hibbert
Journal' for last October, studies the relation between the universe
and the philosopher who describes and defines it for us. You may
assume two cases, he says. Either what the philosopher tells us is
extraneous to the universe he is accounting for, an indifferent
parasitic outgrowth, so to speak; or the fact of his philosophizing
is itself one of the things taken account of in the philosophy, and
self-included in the description. In the former case the philosopher
means by the universe everything _except_ what his own presence
brings; in the latter case his philosophy is itself an intimate
part of the universe, and may be a part momentous enough to give a
different turn to what the other parts signify. It may be a
supreme reaction of the universe upon itself by which it rises to
self-comprehension. It may handle itself differently in consequence of
this event.

Now both empiricism and absolutism bring the philosopher inside
and make man intimate, but the one being pluralistic and the other
monistic, they do so in differing ways that need much explanation. Let
me then contrast the one with the other way of representing the status
of the human thinker.

For monism the world is no collection, but one great all-inclusive
fact outside of which is nothing--nothing is its only alternative.
When the monism is idealistic, this all-enveloping fact is represented
as an absolute mind that makes the partial facts by thinking them,
just as we make objects in a dream by dreaming them, or personages in
a story by imagining them. To _be_, on this scheme, is, on the part of