May it not be, whether we can explain it or not, that the one set of facts is as directly _presented_, and needs as little to be _proved_, as the other?
2.

The doctrine of "Identity" constitutes a prominent and indispensable part of the theory of Idealism, and is the ground-principle of Philosophical Pantheism.

It amounts, in substance, to the proposition, that Existence and Thought are _one_, that the "subject" and "object" of knowledge are _one_.

"If the doctrine of Identity means anything, it means that Thought and Being are essentially one; that the process of _thinking_ is virtually the same as the process of _creating_; that in constructing the universe by logical deduction, we do virtually the same thing as Deity accomplishes in developing himself in all the forms and regions of creation; that every man's reason, therefore, is really God; in fine, that Deity is the whole sum of consciousness immanent in the world."[137] It is through the medium of this doctrine of Identity that Idealism passes into Pantheism,--not, indeed, the Idealism of Berkeley, which recognized, consistently or otherwise, the existence of the human mind and of the Divine Spirit, while it denied the independent existence of matter,--but the Idealism of Fichte and others, which resolved mind into a mere process of thought, a continuous stream or succession of ideas.

To _such_ a theory the doctrine of Identity was indispensable.