To constitute _this_ science, the doctrine of "identity" is indispensable; the subject and the object of thought, knowledge and being, must be reduced to scientific unity.

Realism and Idealism are thus blended together, or rather identified in the philosophy of the "absolute." The idea of the "absolute," in which _being_ and _thought_ are identical, is the only foundation of science, and the ultimate ground of all certitude.

And Pantheism is inferred from this idea; for the "absolute," in which _being_ and _thought_ are identified, is properly _the sole existence_, which develops and manifests itself in a great variety of finite forms.
We are not disposed to treat the philosophy of the "absolute" either with levity or with scorn.

We feel that it brings us into contact with some of the most profound and most deeply mysterious problems of human thought.

Finite as we are, we are so constituted that we cannot avoid framing the _idea_, although we can never attain to a _comprehension_, of the Infinite.