80 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. HI. 



He is thus less realist than Mr. Spencer in one respect, 

 while in his assertion that the felt is indeed the real, he 

 approximates to the philosophy here advocated, i.e., to the 

 philosophy of Aristotle. 



It is impossible, in a single chapter, to do more than 

 Recapituia- glance at a few points in the great controversy 

 tion - respecting the validity of our ordinary conceptions 



of external nature. Enough, it is trusted, has however 

 here been said to justify our proceeding henceforth to treat 

 of the external world as an existence known to us in the 

 way, and to the extent, ordinarily supposed. Grounding all 

 our assertions upon the positive dicta of our intellect, we 

 may affirm that we are conscious that in knowing things we 

 really know them, and not an amalgam made up of a mix 

 ture of things with ourselves ; and also that we know other 

 existences to be both real and certain. 



If idealism be true, then to each of us there can be 

 but one existence the certainty of which can be ever con 

 fidently asserted, namely, our own ; and yet our reason asserts 

 unmistakably that there really are many other creatures of 

 various kinds, rational and irrational, about us. Again, if 

 the properties of objects, such as their colour, &c., do not 

 appertain to persisting objects, they must themselves be, as 

 Mr. Lewes says, the persisting objects the things in them 

 selves the true substances. In that case a change in any 

 accidental quality is equivalent to a substantial change in 

 objects themselves, and a substance dyed another colour is 

 no longer the same substance as before a conclusion our 

 reason vehemently rejects. 



In conclusion, our reason affirms to us that we not only 

 conclusion, know our own existence, and that of other beings, 

 securely re a - y but that the qualities we attribute to them are 

 declarations really theirs, not ours ; and that if intelligences, 



of our senses 



as to the ex- equal to or greater than our own, can know such 



istence and - 1 -. c 



propertiesof objects without the aid of sensitive organs, such 



external ob- J 



jects. intelligences would know, apart from sense, that 



things are the very things which our senses declare them to 



