REASON AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 195 



Such men are enabled, by assuming the snowy fleece 

 of an Ovine philosophy, to ravage the student flock 

 very much at their own sweet will. It is easy for some 

 materialists to profess Idealism. Let us assume, for 

 argument's sake, that consciousness really is nothing 

 more than the temporary accompaniment of a certain 

 kind of matter under certain conditions. A man fully 

 persuaded of the truth of such a system could none the 

 less afiirm : " Consciousness must be more certain about 

 itself than anything else, can only know other things 

 through itself, and may therefore regard itself as the 

 most real of realities, or as the only reality." He may 

 really hold and, by insinuations, inculcate materialism, 

 while thus making a profession of Idealism all the time.* 

 In his profession of Idealistic faith Mr. Romanes 



* In our work " On Truth " (p. 135) we have called attention to 

 this double-dealing, and the whole second section of the book 

 (pp. 71-141) is devoted to a consideration of IdeaHsm. Some 

 reviews of this section have afforded curious examples of the 

 effects of prejudice and one-sidedness. We have been reproached 

 for ignoring Green, Caird, Wallace, Bradley, and others, as if our 

 contention had not been directed to a question much more funda- 

 mental than any with which the various schools of existing Ideal- 

 ists respectively deal. A man who saws through the trunk of a tree 

 just above the root, may be dispensed from the task of lopping its 

 individual branches. We have been absurdly accused of asserting 

 that modern science cannot be accepted by sincere IdeaHsts. What 

 we have contended is that the ultimate analysis and interpretation of 

 the facts of consciousness — our conscious experience— so indubit- 

 ably affirms the action of efficient causation between bodies which 

 exist independently of all human thought, as to render the funda- 

 mental position of every form of Idealism logically untenable. The 

 carelessness or dishonesty of one reviewer has actually gone so far 

 as to represent our definition of true or intellectual perception 

 (given at p. 223) as being that which we have given (at p. 201) as 

 our definition of mere sense perception. 



