ON MIND AS UNKNOWABLE 



ness the phenomenon consciousness is imper- 

 manent, as the phenomenon called radium is now 

 known to be impermanent; and while the phys- 

 icist is assured that the reality of which the ra- 

 dium atom is the fleeting manifestation is never- 

 theless permanent and changeless, so I assuredly 

 believe that the unknowable reality of which con- 

 sciousness is the fleeting manifestation is also eter- 

 nal and changeless. 



In the third place, there is the remarkable fact 

 that the most diverse thinkers, whose names 

 would be anathema in one another's ears save 

 in the few cases where the philosopher has the 

 philosophic temper converge to this conclusion. 

 The student of "psychic phenomena," for instance, 

 is assured that there is more in mind than "meets 

 the eye" of consciousness. From such workers, 

 who may loosely be called "spiritualists," let us 

 turn to those who, with equal impropriety, have 

 been called materialists. John Locke, who was 

 accused of atheism, and whose perdurable work 

 was proscribed by his university, clearly showed, 

 though he had never heard of " unconscious cerebra- 

 tion " or the "subliminal mind," that our knowl- 

 edge, even of our own minds, is no more than 

 phenomenal that we know it only as it appears 

 to us, not as it is " in-itself . " * This opinion of 

 Oxford's great glory does not recommend itself 

 to the consideration of those who now prosecute 



1 See Lewes's Biographical History of Philosophy, Routledge's 

 ed., p. 507. 



345 



