1 84 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



within which connections are likewise supposed to exist. The 

 present sensation is never identified by us with the real; or if 

 for a moment we are tempted to make the identification we are 

 forced, like the ancient atomist, to turn upon ourselves with 

 the admission, that the not-real is just as real as the real. We 

 must, then, radically reinterpret Mill s explanation of the general 

 conviction, that the permanent possibilities of sensation are more 

 real than the sensations we actually experience. What he re 

 gards as a psychological account of the sources of the conviction 

 must be construed as a partial logical analysis of the meaning of 

 reality, as implying on the one hand the series of given sensations, 

 and on the other hand the connections between sensations, given 

 or not given. That objects are relatively permanent, generally 

 verifiable, and subject to universal laws, makes them more real 

 (i. e., more concrete) than the momentarily given sensation- 

 complex, just as truly as the givenness of the sensation-complex 

 makes it more real than other merely possible complexes. If the 

 object with its inexhaustible possibilities is ideal in comparison 

 with the conscious presence of the perception, the perception is 

 subjective in comparison with the permanence and universality 

 of the object. 



Whether or not Mill is right in holding that the phenomenon of 

 memory cannot be explained in terms of association, we do not 

 stop to inquire. Our thesis is the more general one, that real 

 connections are as essential to the realities of experience as are 

 the elements connected. Possible sensations are merely possible, 

 to be sure. But possibilities of sensation, in the sense of more or 

 less permanent connections of antecedence and consequence, in 

 which the series of our actual sensations has its place, are not 

 merely possible but real or, if they be not real, our experience 

 is a dream within a dream. 



If our criticism is well-founded, Mill, in his theory of permanent 

 possibilities of sensation has accomplished far more than he 

 dreamed of attempting. His refutation of Berkeley appears to 

 us to be definitive. But, more than that, he has given to empiri- 



