AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. 193 



sensation, are alike modes of vibratory motion and noth- 

 ing more. 



In truth, what we commonly call "light" and 

 "sound" are subjective creations of our own, which we 

 spontaneously attribute to the physical world as if they 

 pertained to that world and were among its inherent 

 properties. 



It is necessary to reflect quite deliberately upon the 

 subject before one is able to form to himself a clear and 

 even approximately adequate conception of the extent 

 to which he is himself the creator of the world in the 

 midst of which he lives. He must first become thor- 

 oughly conscious of the infinite variety that is given 

 to the "external" world by color and sound, taste and 

 smell. He must then dwell upon, until he realizes the 

 full force of, the proofs that these have absolutely no 

 existence save in sensation. Then, and only then, can 

 he adequately appreciate the barrenness and utter pov- 

 erty of the merely physical world. Then, and only 

 then, can he rightly appreciate the fact that the world 

 in space, apart from those "attributes" which in no 

 wise belong to it, but which are literally given it by the 

 contemplating mind, is in reality nothing more than the 

 balancing of complementary phases of energy developing 

 into "material," but constantly changing forms, char- 

 acterized chiefly by their mutual exclusion their pure 

 externality. 



That, in truth, is all that is real of the " outer world." 

 Elasticity the interfusion of attraction and repulsion in 

 varying degrees, resulting in perpetual vibration, in per- 

 petually recurring condensations and rarefactions here, 

 indeed, is the essence of the external conditions of sensa- 



