46 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



name for certain changes in the relations of our visual, 

 tactile, and muscular sensations ; and all that we know 

 about matter is that it is the hypothetical substance 

 of physical phenomena, the assumption of the 

 existence of which is as pure a piece of meta- 

 physical speculation as is that of the existence of the 

 substance of mind. 



Our sensations, our pleasures, our pains, and the 

 relations of these, make up the sum total of the 

 elements of positive, unquestionable knowledge. 

 We call a large section of these sensations and their 

 relations matter and motion ; the rest we term mind 

 and thinking ; and experience shows that there is a 

 certain constant order of succession between some 

 of the former and some of the latter. 



This is all that just metaphysical criticism leaves 

 of the idols set up by the spurious metaphysics of 

 vulgar common sense. It is consistent either with 

 pure Materialism, or with pure Idealism, but it is 

 neither. For the Idealist, not content with declaring 

 the truth that our knowledge is limited to facts of 

 consciousness, affirms the wholly unprovable pro- 

 position that nothing exists beyond these and the 

 substance of mind, And, on the other hand, the 

 Materialist, holding by the truth that, for anything 

 that appears to the contrary, material phenomena 

 are the causes of mental phenomena, asserts his 

 unprovable dogma, that material phenomena and 

 the substance of matter are the sole primary exist- 

 ences. Strike out the propositions about which 

 neither controversialist does or can know anything, 

 and there is nothing left for them to quarrel about. 

 Make a desert of the Unknowable, and the divine 

 Astraea of philosophic peace will commence her 

 blessed reign. 



' ' Magna est veritas et praevalebit! " Truth is great, 

 certainly, but, considering her greatness, it is curious 

 what a long time she is apt to take about prevailing. 



