284: THE METAPHYSICS OF SENSATION 



with a system of nature entirely composed of 

 sounds, and the laws of nature would be the laws 

 of melody and of harmony. It might acquire 

 endless ideas of likeness and unlikeness, of 

 succession, of similarity and dissimilarity, but it 

 could attain to no conception of space, of distance, 

 or of resistance; or of figure, or of motion. 



The piano might then reason thus: All my 

 knowledge consists of sounds and the perception 

 of the relations of sounds; now the being of sound 

 is to be heard; and it is inconceivable that the 

 existence of the sounds I know, should depend 

 upon any other existence than that of the mind of 

 a hearing being. 



This would be quite as good reasoning as 

 Berkeley's, and very sound and useful, so far as it 

 defines the limits of the piano's faculties. But 

 for all that, pianos have an existence quite apart 

 from sounds, and the auditory consciousness of 

 our speculative piano would be dependent, in the 

 first place, on the existence of a " substance " of 

 brass, wood, and iron, and, in the second, on that 

 of a musician. But of neither of these condi- 

 tions of the existence of his consciousness would 

 the phenomena of that consciousness afford him 

 the slightest hint. 



So that while it is the summit of human 

 wisdom to learn the limit of our faculties, it may 

 be wise to recollect that we have no more right 

 to make denials, than to put forth affirmatives, 



