COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



but it also Nmeans much more than this. It 

 means that the Universe in itself is likewise 

 inscrutable ; that the vast synthesis of forces 

 without uSj which in manifold contact with us 

 is from infancy till the close of life continually 

 arousing us to perceptive activity, can never be 

 known by us as it exists objectively, but only 

 as it affects our consciousness. It means, in 

 short, that we cannot transcend the organically 

 imposed limits of our own intelligence. We do 

 not know matter, but we know a group of co- 

 existent states of consciousness which we call the 

 perceptions of resistance, extension and colour, 

 sound or odour. We do not know motion, but 

 we know the group of sequent states of con- 

 sciousness produced by minute alterations in the 

 muscles of the eyes, or perhaps of the tactual 

 organs, in the act of attending to the moving 

 object. Nor do we know force, but we know 

 continual modifications of our consciousness 

 which we are compelled to regard as the mani- 

 festations of force. Nor do we even know con- 

 sciousness absolutely and in itself: we know 

 only states of consciousness in their relations of 

 coexistence and sequence, likeness and unlike- 

 ness. 



Although this is one of the best-established 

 conclusions of modern psychology,^ it is still a 



1 [Fiske, like Spencer, and like a considerable number 

 of the other English thinkers of the date when the Cosmic 



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