98 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



lyre struck by the plectrum of the Spirit ; to admit that 

 the revelation was not only through the prophet but to the 

 prophet, and so had to be intelligently apprehended by 

 him before it could be given forth to others this is not 

 enough unless we carefully observe how much of real 

 personal activity such an intelligent apprehension in 

 volves. For many who claim to have risen above a mere 

 mechanical theory of prophecy yet seem to think that 

 what the Spirit presented to the prophet was a ready- 

 made thought or a complete visionary picture of a purely 

 objective kind which he was then able to lay hold of, 

 embody in words, and utter. 



Now this view seems to me not so much false as 

 meaningless. For whatever difference of view exists as 

 to the objective per se (Noumenon or Ding-an-sich) , there 

 is no difference of opinion among competent psychologists 

 as to the fact that what appears to us as objective is 

 really a product of personal activity acting on certain 

 subjective elements, that the objective is never appre 

 hended except through the subjective. If, for example, 

 a picture stands before me, I do not perceive the colour, 

 figure, etc., as noumenon, I receive from the picture only a 

 series of subjective impressions which an exercise of my 

 own personality builds up into the picture I really see. 

 And since all that I really get from without is a series of 

 impressions which an act of mental activity combines 

 into a whole, the only guarantee that this whole the 

 picture as seen by me will not contain certain other 

 elements (that the recollection of colours and forms 

 previously seen, for example, will not mingle with the 

 sensations I am now receiving, and modify my appre 

 hension of the picture), are the superior vividness of the 

 sensation over the recollection, and the power I have of 

 correcting my false impression by constantly renewed con 

 templation of the object. These guarantees are clearly 

 not perfect, and in fact no two men ever carry away the 

 same image of an object. On the contrary, if the painter 



