20 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. I. 



taught that the soul could be known by us in its essence or 

 otherwise than by its acts. 



But if by the passage quoted he would deny that we have 

 direct consciousness of an enduring and persistent self, 

 known to us by its acts as the author of our volitions and 

 the subject of our feelings and cognitions, then we might 

 equally deny that Mr. Spencer has, or ever can have, any 

 knowledge of any friend as, e.g., Professor Tyndall. 



If by Professor Tyndall is to be understood a plexus of 

 AU iiiustra- sensible accidents an entity &quot; qualitatively differ 

 entiated in each portion that is separable by 

 thought&quot; then Mr. Spencer may &quot;know something&quot; about 

 Professor Tyndall, &quot; and may eventually know more.&quot; But 

 if the name is taken to mean the underlying something 

 which is now speaking, now silent, now in the Alps, now at 

 the Royal Institution, at one time a boy, at another a man, 

 which has a certain expression of face, a certain habit of 

 dress, a certain mode of carriage, a certain cast of thought 

 then Mr. Spencer knows &quot;nothing about it, and never can 

 know anything about it :&quot; since he can never know his friend 

 but by and through some act, were it only by action on the 

 retina of Mr. Spencer, or by some active impressions on his 

 auditory nerves. 



But we have said Mr. Spencer is hardly clear in this 

 Anor^w- matter, and we may add, he is hardly consistent. 

 hominem. He is not consistent ; because if there is one promi 

 nent feature of his teaching, it is the supreme certainty 

 borne in on us of the existence of what he calls the absolute 

 and unmodified &quot; unknowable.&quot; 



Yet all that Mr. Spencer brings against our consciousness 

 of the Ego may be brought against his unknowable. If 

 everything that we know is a form of the unknowable, then 

 the unknowable is modified, and the absolute or unmodified 

 unknowable is an absurdity. 



Similarly, that we cannot know the Ego except as quali 

 tatively differentiated is most true, but it is true for the very 

 simple reason that it never exists except in some state. A 



