APPENDIX. 597 



From this sample of critical truthfulness let us pass now 

 to a sample of critical acumen. 



In arguing against Hamilton and Mansell in § 26, I have 

 said " It is rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowl- 

 edge is a knowledge of appearances only, without at the same 

 time conceiving a Eeality of which they are appearances; for 

 appearance without reality is unthinkable." On page 121 

 of his work, Prof. Birks, quoting the last five words of this 

 sentence, continues — " This is true, when once the conception 

 of distance has been gained by actual experience." And he 

 then proceeds to comment upon visual impressions, illusive 

 and other. Again on page 135, when criticizing my argument 

 concerning the indestructibility of matter, Prof. Birks says: — 



" Matter, as knowable, is declared to be not the unseen reality, but the 

 sensible appearances, or phenomenal matter alone. Phenomenal matter, 

 it appears from daily and hourly experience, appears and disappears, 

 perishes and is new-created continually .... The cloud vanishes, the 

 star sets, or a mist blots it out, the drop evaporates, the ship melts into 

 the yeast of waves, the candle is burnt away and comes to an end. The 

 substance may last in another form, but the phenomenon or appearance 

 is gone .... Thus, by the theory, of Matter, the Noumenon, we know 

 nothing, and therefore cannot know that it is indestructible. Of Mat- 

 ter, the Phenomenon, we may know much. And one main thing we 

 know of it, proved by hourly experience, is that it both may be and con- 

 tinually is destroyed. For an appearance is destroyed and perishes, when 

 it ceases to appear." 



In which sentences, as in all accompanying sentences covering 

 several pages, the implication is that Prof. Birks identifies 

 appearance in the philosophical sense with appearance in the 

 popular sense! Everywhere his expressions and arguments 

 make manifest the fact that Prof. Birks thinks the meaning 

 of phenomenon in metaphysical discussion, is no wider than 

 that implied by its derivation — something visible! Sounds, 

 smells, tastes, are in his view not phenomena; nor are touches, 

 pressures, tensions. And hence it results that since when a 

 pound of salt is dissolved in water it ceases to be visible, its 

 existence, phenomenally considered, ends: its continued power 

 of affecting our senses by its weight, to the same extent as 

 before the solution, not being considered as a phenomenal 

 manifestation of its existence! 



In § 46, when commenting on the mental confusion which 

 metaphysical discussions often produce, I have ascribed this 

 in part to the misleading connotations of the words " appear- 

 ance " and " phenomenon; " and after illustrating this have 

 said: — 



