164 SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 



pearance. And the fact that we cannot form even an 

 indefinite notion of the absolutely real, except as the abso- 

 lutely persistent, clearly implies that persistence is our ulti- 

 mate test of the real as present to consciousness. 



Reality then, as we think it, being nothing more than 

 persistence in consciousness, the result must be the same to 

 us whether that which we perceive be the Unknowable 

 itself, or an effect invariably wrought on us by the Un- 

 knowable. If, under constant conditions furnished by our 

 constitutions, some Power of which the nature is beyond 

 conception, always produces some mode of consciousness — 

 if this mode of consciousness is as persistent as would be 

 this Power were it in consciousness; the reality will be to 

 consciousness as complete in the one case as in the other. 

 Were Unconditioned Being itself present in thought, it 

 could but be persistent; and if, instead, there is present 

 Being conditioned by the forms of thought, but no less 

 persistent, it must be to us no less real. 



Hence there may be drawn these conclusions: — First, 

 that we have an indefinite consciousness of an absolute real- 

 ity transcending relations, which is produced by the absolute 

 persistence in us of something which survives all changes of 

 relation. Second, that we have a definite consciousness of 

 relative reality, which unceasingly persists in us under one 

 or other of its forms, and under each form so long as the con- 

 ditions of presentation are fulfilled; and that the relative 

 reality, being thus continuously persistent in us, is as real to 

 us as would be the absolute reality could it be immediately 

 known. Third, that thought being possible only under rela- 

 tion, the relative reality can be conceived as such only in 

 connexion with an absolute reality; and the connexion 

 between the two being absolutely persistent in our con- 

 sciousness, is real in the same sense as the terms it unites are 

 real. 



Thus then we may resume, with entire confidence, those 

 realistic conceptions which philosophy at first sight seems to 



