this is, or how good or poor a representative of the first object it seems to be.
Next let us define the relation of the idea of o to its object o, the other member of the pair, — the relation, namely, which unmodified Realism regards as essential. The definition in question is now, as a mere abstract statement, easy. Simply suppose the idea of o to change, in any way, becoming a good idea where it was formerly bad, or dim where it formerly was clear, or altering in the reverse of these ways, or in any other way. Let the idea of o be first one man’s idea, and then another man’s idea of o, or finally, let the idea of o, for the time, vanish altogether from the scene. Having tried all such changes in the idea of o, then arbitrarily define o as such an object that, as far as the nature of o and that of the idea of o are alone considered, there is no logical necessity that any change in o, or in the whole Being of o so far as o is real, need correspond to or follow from any of these variations of the idea of o. In other words, if o is later to be viewed as causally linked to the idea, some third and wholly external power, say somebody’s will, must be also real, and must be supposed, if that be still possible, to cooperate with the idea and to induce such changes in the knowing object. This definition of o as such an object that by the definition of o itself no change in o logically need correspond to any variation in the idea of o, or even to the total vanishing of that idea, — this definition, I say, will hereupon be the more fully developed statement of the proposition that the object o is independent of the idea or opinion of knowledge
