CH. iv.] MATTER AND SPIRIT. 447 



wise. Eventually he is obliged to admit that his ideas of 

 Matter and Motion, merely symbolic of unknowable realities, 

 are complex states of consciousness built out of units of 

 feeling. But if, after admitting this, he persists in asking 

 whether units of feeling are of the same nature as the units 

 of force distinguished as external, or whether the units of 

 force distinguished as external are of the same nature as units 

 of feeling; then the reply, still substantially the same, is 

 that we may go farther towards conceiving units of external 

 force to be identical with units of feeling, than we can to 

 wards conceiving units of feeling to be identical with units 

 of external force. Clearly, if units of external force are 

 regarded as absolutely unknown and unknowable, then to 

 translate units of feeling into them is to translate the known 

 into the unknown, which is absurd. And if they are what 

 they are supposed to be by those who identify them with 

 their symbols, then the difficulty of translating units of 

 feeling into them is insurmountable : if Force as it objec 

 tively exists is absolutely alien in nature from that which 

 exists subjectively as Feeling, then the transformation of 

 Force into Feeling is unthinkable. Either way, therefore, it 

 is impossible to interpret inner existence in terms of outer 

 existence. But if, on the other hand, units of Force as they 

 exist objectively, are essentially the same in nature with 

 those manifested subjectively as units of Feeling ; then a 

 concrivable hypothesis remains open. Every element of 

 that aggregate of activities constituting a consciousness, is 

 known as belonging to consciousness only by its cohesion 

 with the rest. Beyond the limits of this coherent aggregate 

 of activities, exist activities quite independent of it, and 

 vhich cannot be brought into it. We may imagine, then, 

 that by their exclusion from the circumscribed activities 

 constituting consciousness, these outer activities, though of 

 the same intrinsic nature, become antithetically opposed in 

 aspect. Being disconnected from consciousness, or cut off 



