606 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Whether this method of supporting human egotism will 

 compensate the plain man for the disconcerting inversion of 

 the most " inevitable " of all his beliefs is at least open to 

 question. It would be satisfactory to believe that he is really 

 bigger than the universe which seems to loom so large beside 

 his own tiny self, but it requires a very settled metaphysical 

 habit to rest comfortably in such a manner of thinking. It 

 is pretty certain that Dr. Merz will not convince the plain man 

 till he has both made him a metaphysician and settled him 

 comfortably in the role. But is Dr. Merz's view really meta- 

 physically sound ? We may or may not sympathise with his 

 endeavour to maintain the dignity of man ; but we are not 

 bound, in either case, to admit that a metaphysician must 

 necessarily believe that the universe is merely an item excerpted 

 in a special manner from human consciousness. 



Dr. Merz's theory is, of course, found in the general meta- 

 physical repertoire. It is simply phenomenalism — the belief 

 that the physical world exists only as a modification of con- 

 sciousness. Phenomenalism has obviously one " inevitable " 

 implication. Consciousness is certainly wider than the im- 

 pressions and ideas that denote for us our surroundings of 

 material objects. There are, for example, emotions as well as 

 sensations. The physical universe, then, is an excerpt — a 

 portion of our total consciousness. Phenomenalism is thus 

 bound to reverse the common-sense view that we are in a 

 material universe and represent the physical world as part of 

 us. Now, it is this particular aspect of the phenomenalistic 

 contention (the aspect that brings it most sharply into contrast 

 with common sense and enlightened realism) that attracts 

 Dr. Merz. He is bent on vindicating the dignity of man. 

 Unfortunately, his method of vindication is not so satisfactory 

 as might appear at first sight. The world is the mind's own 

 product or invention ! Allow, for the moment, that it is. 

 We are still cold when it snows, swallowed up by the earth 

 when it quakes, dependent for warmth on the sun's rays. Does 

 Dr. Merz remember the story of Frankenstein ? There may 

 be much honour in our ability to understand, however imper- 

 fectly, a world into which we have been involuntarily intro- 

 duced and much credit in making the little nook where we have 

 been inserted as convenient and beautiful as possible. But 

 to be so subject to a world that we have ourselves created, so 



