Thus, the distinction between thought and reality is a distinction within a deeper unity.  And that unity must not be regarded as something additional to both, or as a third something.  It is their unity.  It is both reality and thought:  it is existing thought, or reality knowing itself and existing through its knowledge of self; it is self-consciousness.  The distinguished elements have no existence or meaning except in their unity.  Like the actual and ideal, they have significance and being, only in their reference to each other.

There is one more difficulty connected with this matter which I must touch upon, although the discussion may already be regarded as prolix.  It is acknowledged by every one that the knowledge of the individual, and his apparent world of realities, grow pari passu.  Beyond his sphere of knowledge there is no reality for him, not even apparent reality.  But, on the other hand, the real world of existing things exists all the same whether he knows it or not.  It did not begin to be with any knowledge he may have of it, it does not cease to be with his extinction, and it is not in any way affected by his valid, or invalid, reconstruction of it in thought.  The world which depends on his thought is his world, and not the world of really existing things.  And this is true alike of every individual.  The world is independent of all human minds.  It existed before them, and will, very possibly, exist after them.  Can we not, therefore, conclude that the real world is independent of thought, and that it exists without relation to it?

A short reference to the moral consciousness may suggest the answer to this difficulty.  In morality (as also is the case in knowledge) the moral ideal, or the objective law of goodness, grows in richness and fulness of content with the individual who apprehends it. His moral world is the counterpart of his moral growth as a character.  Goodness for him directly depends upon his recognition of it.  Animals, presumably, have no moral ideal, because they have not the power to constitute it.  In morals, as in knowledge, the mind of man constructs its own world.  And yet, in both alike, the world of truth or of goodness exists all the same whether the individual knows it or not.  He does not call the moral law into being, but finds it without, and then realizes it in his own life.  The moral law does not vanish and reappear with its recognition by mankind.  It is not subject to the chances and changes of its life, but a good in itself that is eternal.

Is it therefore independent of all intelligence?  Can goodness be anything but the law of a self-conscious being?  Is it the quality or motive or ideal of a mere thing?  Manifestly not.  Its relation to self-consciousness is essential.  With the extinction of self-consciousness all moral goodness is extinguished.