CHAP. III.] THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 61 



pretation which equally well corresponds with direct intuition, while 

 it avoids all the difficulties. Common Sense is reminded that the 

 apparent motion of an object may be due either to its actual motion or 

 to the motion of the observer ; and that there ave terrestrial experiences 

 in which the observer thinks an object he looks at is moving, when the 

 motion is in himself. Extending the conception thus given, Reason 

 shows that if the Earth revolves on its axis there will result that appa 

 rent motion of the Sun which Common Sense interpreted into an actual 

 motion of the Sun; and the common-sense observer becomes thereupon 

 able to think of sunrise and sunset as consequent on his position as 

 spectator on a vast revolving globe. Now if the astronomer, setting 

 out by recognizing these celestial appearances, and proceeding to 

 evolve the various anomalies following from the common-sense inter 

 pretation of them, had drawn the conclusion that there externally exist 

 no Sun and no motion at all, he would have done what Idealists do ; 

 and his arguments would have been equally powerless against the 

 intuition of Common Sense. But he does nothing of the kind. He 

 accepts the intuition of Common Sense respecting the reality of the 

 Sun and of the motion ; but replaces the old interpretation of it by a 

 new interpretation reconcilable with all the facts. 



&quot; Just in the same way that here, acceptance of the inexpugnable 

 element in the common-sense judgment by no means involves accept 

 ance of the accompanying judgments; so, in the case of Crude Realism, 

 it does not follow that while against the consciousness of an objective 

 reality the arguments of Anti-Realism are utterly futile, they are 

 therefore futile against the conceptions which Crude Realism forms of 

 the objective reality. If Anti-Realism can show that, granting an 

 objective reality, the interpretation of Crude Realism contains insuper 

 able difficulties, the process is quite legitimate. And, its primordial 

 intuition remaining unshaken, Realism may, on reconsideration, be 

 enabled to frame a new conception which harmonizes all the facts. 



&quot; To show that there is not here the mazy inconsistency alleged, 

 let us take the case of sound as interpreted by Crude Realism, and as 

 re-interpreted by Transfigured Realism. Crude Realism assumes the 

 sound present in consciousness to exist as such beyond consciousness. 

 Anti-Realism proves the inadmissibility of this assumption in sundry 

 ways (all of which, however, set out by talking of sounding bodies 

 beyond consciousness, just as Realism talks of them) ; and then Anti- 

 Realism concludes that we know of no existence save the sound as 

 a mode of consciousness : which conclusion, and all kindred conclu 

 sions, I contend are vicious first, because all the words used connote 

 an objective activity; second, because the arguments are impossible 

 without postulating at the outset an objective activity ; and third, be 

 cause no one of the intuitions out of which the arguments are built is 

 of equal validity with the single intuition of Realism that an objective 

 activity exists. But now the Transfigured Realism which Mr. Sidgwick 



