56 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

A philosophy with such a result hardly commends itself

to the inquirer after the ultimate tests and grounds of

truth.

We therefore do not hesitate to affirm that the existence

of " the extended " that is, of real, independent, external

and extended bodies is an intuition. It is a revelation

concerning the world about us directly apprehended by our

intellect through the medium of our sense-perceptions. It

is a fact certainly true, and shown so to be by its own

evidence. " Why" extended things exist and "Aow" they

exist we know not, and may never be able to know ; but

that they do exist is a truth intuitively perceived, and this

it is which gives to our perception of the external world that

character of " inevitableness " which has been recognized as

pertaining to it. The possession of this direct intellectual

apprehension, together with the need for us of the due action

of our organs of sense to call it forth, well explains both

our power of directly perceiving what Idealists are unable

to understand our perceiving, and also the obscurity and

confusion into which Idealists themselves have fallen.

It is no doubt a wonderful thing that such apparently

imperfect means as our organs of sense and general bodily

organization supply, should enable us to know so much

concerning the world about us the extension of bodies and

their relations as to size, shape, solidity, motion, and number

yet it is not more wonderful, essentially, than is the rest

of our knowledge and, in fact, the whole of our mental

powers. How we get any knowledge at all, how we see

objects, how we feel anything is most mysterious, and all

our knowledge, deeply considered, is very wonderful. On

the occurrence of certain changes in our bodies, induced by

surrounding agencies, we experience " sensations." Through

such sensations (actual and remembered) sense-perceptions

are aroused, and by the aid of mental abstraction ideas are

A philosophy with such a result hardly commends itself

to the inquirer after the ultimate tests and grounds of

truth.

We therefore do not hesitate to affirm that the existence

of " the extended " that is, of real, independent, external

and extended bodies is an intuition. It is a revelation

concerning the world about us directly apprehended by our

intellect through the medium of our sense-perceptions. It

is a fact certainly true, and shown so to be by its own

evidence. " Why" extended things exist and "Aow" they

exist we know not, and may never be able to know ; but

that they do exist is a truth intuitively perceived, and this

it is which gives to our perception of the external world that

character of " inevitableness " which has been recognized as

pertaining to it. The possession of this direct intellectual

apprehension, together with the need for us of the due action

of our organs of sense to call it forth, well explains both

our power of directly perceiving what Idealists are unable

to understand our perceiving, and also the obscurity and

confusion into which Idealists themselves have fallen.

It is no doubt a wonderful thing that such apparently

imperfect means as our organs of sense and general bodily

organization supply, should enable us to know so much

concerning the world about us the extension of bodies and

their relations as to size, shape, solidity, motion, and number

yet it is not more wonderful, essentially, than is the rest

of our knowledge and, in fact, the whole of our mental

powers. How we get any knowledge at all, how we see

objects, how we feel anything is most mysterious, and all

our knowledge, deeply considered, is very wonderful. On

the occurrence of certain changes in our bodies, induced by

surrounding agencies, we experience " sensations." Through

such sensations (actual and remembered) sense-perceptions

are aroused, and by the aid of mental abstraction ideas are