300 A Limit to Evolution 



Yet no sensation or group of images, however complex, could 

 give a feeling of being ; because, though there are special 

 groups of feelings corresponding with our self-activity, and 

 special groups of feelings corresponding with our passivity, 

 there neither is nor can be any kind of feeling embracing all 

 feelings ; and yet, if there were any possible feeling of ' being,' 

 it must necessarily be of this universal character, and, never- 

 theless, a distinguishable feeling of some sort. But though 

 w^e have no feeling of being, the idea of being lies at the very 

 root of all our conceptions, and exists at the beginning of our 

 intellectual life. This supreme notion arises spontaneously 

 in the mind of the little child who lisps, ' What is that thing, 

 mother ? ' and may often be clearly perceived to have arisen 

 long before any word whatever can be uttered. 



It is, nevertheless, quite true that we cannot have any of 

 the ideas or notions which perception gives us, without first 

 having sense-impressions to act as their basis and support. 

 This result of our bodily structure is a simple matter of 

 observation. Our minds are first of all aroused to activity 

 by the action of surrounding things on our senses, and after- 

 wards by the play of our imagination ; and throughout life 

 some play of the imagination accompanies and supports all 

 our intellectual action. 



In every perception, then, we may distinguish two distinct 

 elements, one sensuous, the other intellectual. (1) The 

 sensuous element consists of the feelings produced in us by 

 the action of any object on our sensitivity, and it may be 

 called the subjective elemient ; (2) The other is the apprehen- 

 sion of the object as it exists, and it is the intellectiial or 

 objective element. This latter element is twofold : on the 

 one hand it apprehends what kind of thing the object may 

 be, its ' whatness,' so to speak ; and on the other, it appre- 

 hends the existence (or subsistence) of the thing itself. 



Perception, then, is the apprehension of the subsistence of 



