SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 165 



dissipate. Though reality under the forms of our conscious- 

 ness, is but a conditioned effect of the absolute reality, yet 

 this conditioned effect standing in indissoluble relation with 

 its unconditioned cause, and being equally persistent with 

 it so long as the conditions persist, is, to the consciousness 

 supplying those conditions, equally real. The persistent 

 impressions being the persistent results of a persistent 

 cause, are for practical purposes the same to us as the cause 

 itself; and may be habitually dealt with as its equivalents. 

 Somewhat in the same way that our visual perceptions, 

 though merely symbols found to be the equivalents of tac- 

 tual perceptions, are yet so identified with those tactual 

 perceptions that we actually appear to see the solidity and 

 hardness which we do but infer, and thus conceive as objects 

 what are only the signs of objects; so, on a higher stage, 

 do we deal with these relative realities as though they were 

 absolutes instead of effects of the absolute. And we may 

 legitimately continue so to deal with them as long as the con- 

 clusions to which they help us are understood as relative 

 realities and not absolute ones. 



This general conclusion it now remains to interpret 

 specifically, in its application to each of our ultimate scien- 

 tific ideas. 



§ 47.* We think in relations. This is truly the form of 

 all thought ; and if there are any other forms, they must be 

 derived from this. We have seen (Chap. iii. Part I.) that 

 the several ultimate modes of being cannot be known or con- 

 ceived as they exist in themselves ; that is, out of relation to 

 our consciousness. We have seen, by analyzing the pro- 

 duct of thought, (§ 23,) that it always consists of relations; 

 and cannot include anything beyond the most general of 

 these. On analyzing the process of thought, we found that 



* For the psychological conclusions briefly set forth in this and the three 

 sections following it, the justification will be found in the writer's Principles 

 of Psychology. 



