08 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CiiAi&amp;gt;. III. 



terms of sensation, but nevertheless not apprehended as 



sensations. 



He goes on to declare* the harmony of nervous physiology 

 with his view, saying that when the structures of nerve- 

 threads are considered, it becomes inconceivable that any 

 resemblance exists between the subjective effect and that 

 objective cause which arouses it through the intermediation 

 of changes resembling neither. That it becomes inconceiv 

 able how sucli a resemblance can be produced, coneedo ; that 

 it is inconceivable that it is produced, nego. Moreover, by the 

 term &quot;effect&quot; is here properly meant, not the sensation 

 merely, but the intellectual conceptions made known in sen 

 sation. Comparatively few persons will be ready to concede 

 that as regards the extension, number, and shape of objects, 

 &quot; there is no likeness either in kind or degree &quot; | between 

 such qualities as they exist objectively, and as they are known 

 to us subjectively by the agency of our bodily organs. 



He nextj turns to what he calls &quot;an all-important im 

 plication,&quot; namely, the existence of an external world to 

 our conviction &quot;that the active antecedent of each primary 

 feeling exists independently of consciousness.&quot; But how 

 then can Mr. Spencer dare to affirm dogmatically that 

 there is no likeness between that antecedent as objectively 

 existing and that antecedent as known by us? We, on 

 the contrary, may quite logically on other grounds arrive 

 at an independent conclusion that there is such a likeness. 

 &quot;Likeness&quot; I assert; &quot;identity&quot; I, of course, deny. Pro 

 bably the material universe is clothed in a splendour of 

 multitudinous kinds, some few of which are partly and feebly 

 revealed to us with varying degrees of incompleteness by 

 our senses, though revealed with ample sufficiency for our 

 needs. Probably it everywhere throbs with objective har 

 monies, appreciated fully by pure spirits, and made known 

 to us in a rudimentary and fragmentary way through vibra- 



* Psychology, vol. i. p. 207, 87. f Op. cit. p. 194. 



I Op. cit. 88. 



