SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 1G3 



as something in himself, but believes the thing of which he 

 is conscious to be the external object — imagines that his 

 consciousness extends to the very place where the object 

 lies: to him the appearance and the reality are one and the 

 same thing. The metaphysician, however, is convinced 

 that consciousness cannot embrace the reality, but only 

 the appearance of it; and so he transfers the appearance 

 into consciousness and leaves the reality outside. This real- 

 ity left outside of consciousness, he continues to think of 

 much in the same way as the ignorant man thinks of the 

 appearance. Though the reality is asserted to be out of con- 

 sciousness, yet the realness ascribed to it is constantly spoken 

 of as though it were a knowledge possessed apart from con- 

 sciousness. It seems to be forgotten that the conception of 

 reality can be nothing more than some mode of conscious- 

 ness ; and that the question to be considered is — What is the 

 relation between this mode and other modes? 



By reality we mean persistence in consciousness : a per- 

 sistence that is either unconditional, as our consciousness of 

 space, or that is conditional, as our consciousness of a body 

 while grasping it. The real, as we conceive it, is distin- 

 guished solely by the test of persistence ; for by this test we 

 separate it from what we call the unreal. Between a person 

 standing before us, and the idea of such a person, we dis- 

 criminate by our ability to expel the idea from conscious- 

 ness, and our inability, while looking at him, to expel the 

 person from consciousness. And when in doubt as to the va- 

 lidity or illusiveness of some impression made upon us in the 

 dusk, we settle the matter by observing whether the impres- 

 sion persists on closer observation; and we predicate reality 

 if the persistence is complete. How truly persistence 



is what we mean by reality, is shown in the fact that when, 

 after criticism has proved that the real as we are conscious 

 of.it is not the objectively real, the indefinite notion which 

 we form of the objectively real, is of something which per- 

 sists absolutely, under all changes of mode, form, or ap- 



