CHAPTER III. 



PHENOMENON AND NOUMENON. THE ATOM AS FIGURED 

 IN IMAGINATION. 



TT is now to be further noted that, as implied in our 

 -I- investigation of particles in their relation to one 

 another in any series, there are present in inseparable 

 union throughout the minutest possible portion of matter 

 both attraction and repulsion, as the necessary comple- 

 mentary phases of that force which constitutes the sub- 

 stance of matter. Neither of these phases can exist 

 anywhere, in however limited a sphere, except through 

 the co-existence of the other phase throughout the same 

 sphere. 



There is latent here, indeed, the long-vexed question 

 of the relation between phenomenon and noumenon, be- 

 tween appearance or manifestation, and reality. Plato 

 would have it that there is a world of ideas or archetypal 

 forms constituting the real, the eternal and unchanging 

 world; while the world of man's experience is the world 

 of appearance, of change, and hence a vanishing world. 

 So, again in modern times, Kant urged that we can only 

 know phenomena, while the noumenon, or thing-in-itself 

 (Ding-an-sicJi) is forever beyond our ken. And again, in 

 quite recent times, it is confidently affirmed that while 

 appearance may be regarded as fairly within the grasp 

 of the finite mind, the reality must forever remain to 

 such mind something wholly unapproachable, absolutely 

 unknowable. 53 



