290 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY -OF THE ORGANISM 



perceptions of things or conceptions of any kind whatever 

 for myself, that is to say for subject A, are movements 

 or changes of energy and potentials in the mechanical or 

 physico-chemical system called the brain for subjects B, 

 C, D, and so on. 



Strict idealistic criticism must object to this doctrine, 

 that nothing about the real and absolute existence of 

 the subjects B, C, D and so on is known or even 

 knowable. Thus the theory fails as an " idealistic " one. 



Besides that there is one very remarkable difficulty 



in this doctrine, which may best be formulated shortly 



in the following way. A sees a lamp, B sees the 



corresponding movements in the brain of A which are 



supposed to be parallel to A's seeing ; but B's act of 



seeing must have a corresponding parallel itself in the 



brain of B\ this movement in the brain of B may be 



seen by A again ; then this new act of A's seeing must 



have a cerebral correspondence which only " is ' as far 



as it is seen, say by B ; and so on, ad infinitum. In 



short, pseudo-idealistic parallelism, granting that reality 



is throughout phenomenological, but at the same time 



maintaining the " existence " of different subjects, is driven 



into absurdities. A new " psychical " parallel is always 



found to be wanted on going to the bottom of the matter, 



and this want of a new parallel never ends. 



In this respect the plain metaphysical parallelism is 

 clearer, operating as it does with the Physical and the 

 Psychical as two types of manifestations of the Real. 



