THE CONCEPTUAL WORLD 45 



restricted to this idealistic view of the universe. When 

 we come across it for the first time when we are young 

 it appeals to us with all the force of exact reasoning, 

 and yet it has all the charm of paradox. There is no 

 part of our intuitive knowledge which appears to us 

 to be more certain than this distinction between 

 ourselves and an outer environment : we know that our 

 conscious Ego is something different from our body— 

 and we know that outside our body there is something 

 else. Yet the idealistic view so appeals to the intellect 

 that we cannot think speculatively about it without, 

 at times, almost convincing ourselves of the unreality 

 and shadowiness of all that at other times seems most 

 real and tangible ; and we indulge in these speculations 

 all the more readily because we know that whenever 

 we begin to act, the intuitively felt body and outer 

 world will return to us with all their original conviction 

 of reality. 



Some such system of idealism must generally 

 characterise a system of philosophy founded on pure 

 reasoning. We cannot but feel that the universe that 

 we construct is one that depends on our perceptions : 

 it is our perceptions. The essence of a thing is that 

 it is perceived. If there were no mind to perceive it, 

 would it exist ? The universe is our thought, and we, 

 that is our thought, exist only in the Thought of an 

 absolute Mind which we call God. Such is the meta- 

 physics to which the study of sensation led Berkeley. 



The metaphysics of science has taken another turn. 

 It is true that men and women see something outside 

 themselves which differs slightly in different individuals 

 — these differences are due to what w^e call the "personal 

 equation." The image of the universe seen by some 

 individuals may differ profoundly from the image 

 seen by some others, or most others ; but a well- 



