52 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

would there be found. Friends assembled to see the

prediction verified, and it was verified.

The late Sir Richard Owen ventured to affirm that a huge

extinct animal of South America (which had been furnished

with very powerful limbs and tail) had been in the habit of

obtaining its nourishment by uprooting trees and then feeding

on their leaves. It was objected to this hypothesis that had

animals of that kind really been in the habit of so procuring

their nourishment they would have now and again had their

heads broken by falling trees. Owen thereupon re-examined

the head of the beast which had been the subject of his

investigations and conjectures, and found that its head had

been broken. But he also found that the skull of the animal

was so constructed as to enable it to endure such fracture

with very little inconvenience.

How can these facts be adequately expressed in terms

of Idealism ? Is it possible to regard the matters thus

perceived as but groups of feelings or ideas in any mind,

human or non-human ? If we do not recognize the relation

of an actually " falling tree " as a cause of an independently

existing " fractured skull," the whole point and meaning

of the venerable naturalist's sagacious inference would be

lost.

Similarly with respect to the planets Uranus and Neptune.

The philosophy of Idealism puts before us nothing but groups

of feelings or ideas in the idealistic sense of the word which

co-exist and. succeed arbitrarily without any rational order or

any evident reason why they should so co-exist or succeed.

The Idealist cannot say why the group of feelings he calls "the

movements of Uranus" should be related to another set of

feelings, distinguished as " the influence of an external body,"

or why the feelings known as " looking through a telescope "

should be succeeded by those called "seeing the planet

Neptune."

would there be found. Friends assembled to see the

prediction verified, and it was verified.

The late Sir Richard Owen ventured to affirm that a huge

extinct animal of South America (which had been furnished

with very powerful limbs and tail) had been in the habit of

obtaining its nourishment by uprooting trees and then feeding

on their leaves. It was objected to this hypothesis that had

animals of that kind really been in the habit of so procuring

their nourishment they would have now and again had their

heads broken by falling trees. Owen thereupon re-examined

the head of the beast which had been the subject of his

investigations and conjectures, and found that its head had

been broken. But he also found that the skull of the animal

was so constructed as to enable it to endure such fracture

with very little inconvenience.

How can these facts be adequately expressed in terms

of Idealism ? Is it possible to regard the matters thus

perceived as but groups of feelings or ideas in any mind,

human or non-human ? If we do not recognize the relation

of an actually " falling tree " as a cause of an independently

existing " fractured skull," the whole point and meaning

of the venerable naturalist's sagacious inference would be

lost.

Similarly with respect to the planets Uranus and Neptune.

The philosophy of Idealism puts before us nothing but groups

of feelings or ideas in the idealistic sense of the word which

co-exist and. succeed arbitrarily without any rational order or

any evident reason why they should so co-exist or succeed.

The Idealist cannot say why the group of feelings he calls "the

movements of Uranus" should be related to another set of

feelings, distinguished as " the influence of an external body,"

or why the feelings known as " looking through a telescope "

should be succeeded by those called "seeing the planet

Neptune."