86 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

and also of our body acting by its mere weight as a corpse

or a block of wood might do.

To disregard such positive intuition of two evident entities

thus different in action, in favour of an unthinkable entity,

with no apparent power of exercising activity in either mode,

is, in our humble judgment, little less than a deliberate

abandonment of philosophy gained by experience in favour

of a mere intellectually groundless fancy.

We hope that enough has here been said to justify the

dictates of the human intellect (as recognized by all but

Idealists and Monists) in its declaration that we have the

power of cognizing an external, independent world of things

in themselves, real objects possessing real qualities, apart

from any perception of them by any imaginable mind.

We have maintained, and do maintain, that the existence

of such a world is (in our judgment) an absolutely certain

and self-evident fact, of which the intellect, through the

ministration of the senses, acquires a direct intuition. Yet

we will proffer one more argument for the consideration

of those who may still hesitate as to the final rejection

of Idealism. This consideration springs from a recognition

of the fact that the arguments and objections put forward

by Idealists remain as plausible as ever, even upon the

hypothesis that an external world exists. Let us assume,

for argument's sake, that a real, external, extended world

of " things in themselves " exists on all sides of us, we

remaining the beings we are. Could we possibly know of

the existence of such a world except by some influence it

should exercise upon our organs of sense? Could we get

at it in any way except by means of our faculties conjoined

with its influences? It would, therefore, always be possible

for men of a certain turn of mind to declare they had no

ground to accept the existence of anything save the " in-

fluences" and the "faculties" themselves, and to deny the

existence of anything producing the former or anything

possessing the latter. Nay, let us suppose ourselves

creatures possessing a thousand different kinds of sense-

organs, revealing to us a mass of properties possessed by

objects now quite unimaginable by us ; however great the

number of orders of sensitivity or of properties possessed

by the external objects, the position must ever remain the

same. The external world could never, under any circum-

stance, be known save through some influence exercised by

it on organs capable of in some way responding thereto,

and thus nothing could make evident an external world

(by our hypothesis supposed to exist independently) to

men bent upon regarding the mere means of cognition as

the object of cognition itself.

The systems which different Idealists have put forward

are just those, and nothing more, which men determined to

regard mere signs as everything, and to utterly disregard

their signification (which signification is evident to the good

sense of all men not blinded by such an extraordinary intel-

lectual perversity), are forced to construct.

To those who have so far followed us, then, it will be clear

that the objects of science are in part mental and in part

material.

Its objects are, in part, thoughts and all that concerns our

mental nature, but they also in part consist of material things,

possessing various powers and energies ; and all these things

(a knowledge of which the human mind can attain to), as well

as matters mental, are true and proper objects of science.

But the human mind has never been satisfied with a mere

knowledge of facts. Having ascertained the fact that any

individual thing is (t'.e., exists), its next questions are, w/iaf is

it and why is it? What is its essential nature? In what

relation does that nature stand to the natures of other

existences? What are we to think of the whole whereof

and also of our body acting by its mere weight as a corpse

or a block of wood might do.

To disregard such positive intuition of two evident entities

thus different in action, in favour of an unthinkable entity,

with no apparent power of exercising activity in either mode,

is, in our humble judgment, little less than a deliberate

abandonment of philosophy gained by experience in favour

of a mere intellectually groundless fancy.

We hope that enough has here been said to justify the

dictates of the human intellect (as recognized by all but

Idealists and Monists) in its declaration that we have the

power of cognizing an external, independent world of things

in themselves, real objects possessing real qualities, apart

from any perception of them by any imaginable mind.

We have maintained, and do maintain, that the existence

of such a world is (in our judgment) an absolutely certain

and self-evident fact, of which the intellect, through the

ministration of the senses, acquires a direct intuition. Yet

we will proffer one more argument for the consideration

of those who may still hesitate as to the final rejection

of Idealism. This consideration springs from a recognition

of the fact that the arguments and objections put forward

by Idealists remain as plausible as ever, even upon the

hypothesis that an external world exists. Let us assume,

for argument's sake, that a real, external, extended world

of " things in themselves " exists on all sides of us, we

remaining the beings we are. Could we possibly know of

the existence of such a world except by some influence it

should exercise upon our organs of sense? Could we get

at it in any way except by means of our faculties conjoined

with its influences? It would, therefore, always be possible

for men of a certain turn of mind to declare they had no

ground to accept the existence of anything save the " in-

fluences" and the "faculties" themselves, and to deny the

existence of anything producing the former or anything

possessing the latter. Nay, let us suppose ourselves

creatures possessing a thousand different kinds of sense-

organs, revealing to us a mass of properties possessed by

objects now quite unimaginable by us ; however great the

number of orders of sensitivity or of properties possessed

by the external objects, the position must ever remain the

same. The external world could never, under any circum-

stance, be known save through some influence exercised by

it on organs capable of in some way responding thereto,

and thus nothing could make evident an external world

(by our hypothesis supposed to exist independently) to

men bent upon regarding the mere means of cognition as

the object of cognition itself.

The systems which different Idealists have put forward

are just those, and nothing more, which men determined to

regard mere signs as everything, and to utterly disregard

their signification (which signification is evident to the good

sense of all men not blinded by such an extraordinary intel-

lectual perversity), are forced to construct.

To those who have so far followed us, then, it will be clear

that the objects of science are in part mental and in part

material.

Its objects are, in part, thoughts and all that concerns our

mental nature, but they also in part consist of material things,

possessing various powers and energies ; and all these things

(a knowledge of which the human mind can attain to), as well

as matters mental, are true and proper objects of science.

But the human mind has never been satisfied with a mere

knowledge of facts. Having ascertained the fact that any

individual thing is (t'.e., exists), its next questions are, w/iaf is

it and why is it? What is its essential nature? In what

relation does that nature stand to the natures of other

existences? What are we to think of the whole whereof