CHAP. III.] THE EXTERNAL WORLD. 69 



tion in our ears. And so with sight, smell, touch, and taste. 

 &quot; Touch &quot; is but a minute acquaintance with surface as ex 

 tended and figured; and even &quot;taste,&quot; though to us known 

 so poorly and so rarely as to seem unworthy for spiritual en 

 joyment, may be conceived, though not imagined, to be a 

 perennial source of spiritual enjoyment, not of course as 

 tasted by an organ, but as intellectually known and 

 apprehended. 



The absence of light subjectively is darkness, and most of 

 Mr. Spencer s school would deem the objective Th 

 universe to be dark and also silent. But these 



,. ,, i i &amp;gt;, i ,, -i j) 11 ing tlie objec- 



conceptions, darkness and a silence, are really tive validity 



T i ^ i mi i ofourpercep- 



as &quot;subi! j ctive as light and sound. Ine absence tionsasto 

 , . i i even tlie se ~ 



or liirht as &quot;sensed by us is not objectively condary 



, . , qualities of 



&quot;darkness,&quot; but something which we cannot con- objects. 

 ceive. To think of the unseen universe as dark is to express 

 objectivity in terms of the subjective, and is just as much to 

 attribute objectivity to mere subjective sentiency as would 

 be to adopt the most vulgar notion of the reality in the 

 external world of our own very feelings of different kinds. 

 Mr. Spencer s denial of likeness between the subjective and 

 objective is indeed most unreasonable. He may say that 

 from his point of view he sees no evidence, actual or possible, 

 of such likeness, but he cannot affirm, without irrational 

 arrogance, that our senses cannot have been organised so as, 

 most mysteriously, to make us truly acquainted with objec 

 tive existences, together with a variety of the powers and 

 properties which such existences possess. 



XVhen treating of the relativity of relations between feel 

 ings, he observes:* &quot;When we see that what is, Mr Spencer 

 objectively considered, the same connection between tTJity^frcfa- 

 things may, as a space-relation in consciousness, be twwn b fe~ei- 

 single or double; when we remember that, accord- mgs 

 ing as we are near or far off, it may be too large to be 

 simultaneously perceived, or too small to be perceived at 



* Op. cit. pp. 214, 215. 



