BELIEFS AND EXISTENCES 191 



and dissatisfied being, must of course be only &quot; phe 

 nomenal &quot; in import. 



This aversion is the more suggestive when the 

 professed idealist appears as the special champion 

 of the virginity of pure knowledge. The idealist, 

 so content with the notion that consciousness de 

 termines reality, provided it be done once for all, 

 at a jump and in lump, is so uneasy in presence 

 of the idea that empirical conscious beings genu 

 inely determine existences now and here! One is 

 reminded of the story told, I think, by Spencer. 

 Some committee had organized and contended, 

 through a long series of parliaments, for the 

 passage of a measure. At last one of their meet 

 ings was interrupted with news of success. Con 

 sternation was the result. What was to become 

 of the occupation of the committee? So, one asks, 

 what is to become of idealism at large, of the 

 wholesale unspecifiable determination of &quot; reality &quot; 

 by or in &quot; consciousness,&quot; if specific conscious be 

 ings, John Smiths, and Susan Smiths (to say noth 

 ing of their animal relations), beings with bowels 

 and brains, are found to exercise influence upon 

 the character and existence of reals? 



One would be almost justified in construing 

 idealism as a Pickwickian scheme, so willing is it to 

 idealize the principle of intelligence at the expense 

 of its specific undertakings, were it not that this 

 reluctance is the necessary outcome of the Stoic 



