too THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

of " perceptions, ideas, and inferences " with the world of

" external existences."

In our last chapter we endeavoured to point out how

impossible it is to express the facts, processes, and con-

clusions of physical science in terms of Idealism ; and we

find that the most devoted Idealists who also follow some

branch of physical science are absolutely forced by their

science to use language essentially inconsistent with their

philosophy, of which fact it would be as easy as it seems

superfluous (and perhaps invidious) to give instances.

But the fact that the pursuit of science cannot be carried

on without a real and true apprehension of things objective,

and that we possess a special faculty which certainly reveals

to us objective truths, are truths contained (however little it

may be noticed) in every observation or experiment we may

make, and in every conclusion we may draw.

That special faculty of ours, the wonderful office of which

it is to reveal to us objectivity with absolute certainty, is

our faculty of memory.

Now, as we need hardly say, everything which is objective

is external to the self to the self which is feeling or think-

ing. Thus all existences, even states of the "self" or the

" Ego," which are anterior to the time of any actual thinking

are also objective : they are objects of thought.

It is memory which enables us to get, intellectually, out-

side our present selves and our present feelings, in a way

the truth of which no sane man can question. For memory

informs us with absolute certainty about some events of our

past lives. There is probably no one who reads these pages

who is not absolutely sure that he was doing some other

thing before he began to read them.

And since it is thus actually demonstrated to us through

our memory that we can know with absolute certainty things

which are objective as regards time, it is the less disputable

of " perceptions, ideas, and inferences " with the world of

" external existences."

In our last chapter we endeavoured to point out how

impossible it is to express the facts, processes, and con-

clusions of physical science in terms of Idealism ; and we

find that the most devoted Idealists who also follow some

branch of physical science are absolutely forced by their

science to use language essentially inconsistent with their

philosophy, of which fact it would be as easy as it seems

superfluous (and perhaps invidious) to give instances.

But the fact that the pursuit of science cannot be carried

on without a real and true apprehension of things objective,

and that we possess a special faculty which certainly reveals

to us objective truths, are truths contained (however little it

may be noticed) in every observation or experiment we may

make, and in every conclusion we may draw.

That special faculty of ours, the wonderful office of which

it is to reveal to us objectivity with absolute certainty, is

our faculty of memory.

Now, as we need hardly say, everything which is objective

is external to the self to the self which is feeling or think-

ing. Thus all existences, even states of the "self" or the

" Ego," which are anterior to the time of any actual thinking

are also objective : they are objects of thought.

It is memory which enables us to get, intellectually, out-

side our present selves and our present feelings, in a way

the truth of which no sane man can question. For memory

informs us with absolute certainty about some events of our

past lives. There is probably no one who reads these pages

who is not absolutely sure that he was doing some other

thing before he began to read them.

And since it is thus actually demonstrated to us through

our memory that we can know with absolute certainty things

which are objective as regards time, it is the less disputable