THE CRITERION OF MIND. 23 



mind other than that of the individual objector. This is 

 obvious, because, as I have already observed, the only evi- 

 dence we can have of objective mind is that which is 

 furnished by objective activities ; and, as the subjective mind 

 can never become assimilated with the objective so as to learn 

 by direct feeling the mental processes which there accompany 

 the objective activities, it is clearly impossible to satisfy any 

 one who may choose to doubt the validity of inference, that 

 in any case, other than his own, mental processes ever do 

 accompany objective activities. 



" Thus it is that philosophy can supply no demonstrative 

 refutation of idealism, even of the most extravagant form. 

 Common-sense, however, universally feels that analogy is 

 here a safer guide to truth than the sceptical demand for 

 impossible evidence; so that if the objective existence of 

 other organisms and their activities is granted — without 

 which postulate comparative psychology, like all the other 

 sciences, would be an unsubstantial dream — common sense 

 will always and without question conclude that the activities 

 of organisms other than our own, when analogous to those 

 activities of our own which we know to be accompanied by 

 certain mental states, are in them accompanied by analogous 

 mental states." 



