CHAPTER IV 

 PHENOMENON AND NOUMENON^ 



SUMMING up the results of the forego- 

 ing discussion, we have seen that neither 

 the test of truth proposed by Hume, nor 

 that proposed by Kant, can be regarded as vaHd, 

 considered by itself; but that, when fused to- 

 gether in the crucible of modern psychologic 

 analysis, the two can be regarded as making up 

 a criterion of truth adequate to all the needs 

 of intelligent beings. It has been proved that, 

 since the series of our conceptions is but the 

 register of our experience, perfect congruity of 

 experience must generate in us beliefs of which 

 the component conceptions can by no mental 

 effort be torn apart. Whence it follows that, if 

 relative truth be defined as the correspondence 

 between the order of our conceptions and the 

 order of phenomena, we have this for our test 

 of truth : When any given order among our 

 conceptions is so coherent that it cannot be 

 sundered except by the temporary annihilation 

 of some one of its terms, there must be a cor- 

 responding order among phenomena. And this 



^ [See Intrcduction, § lo.] 



105 



