PHENOMENON AND NOUMENON 



reasoning which shows that we cannot directly 

 know anything save modifications of ourselves. 

 We have to examine the theory concerning ob- 

 jective reality which, along with more or less 

 important qualifications, is held in common by 

 Idealism, by Scepticism, and by Positivism, as 

 represented respectively by Berkeley, Hume, 

 and Mill. And by characterizing, with the aid 

 of the principles now at our command, the fun- 

 damental error of that theory, we shall be ena- 

 bled properly to define the very different posi- 

 tion held by Mr. Spencer and adopted in the 

 present work. 



Our argument must concern itself chiefly 

 with Berkeley, since the conclusion reached in 

 dealing with his doctrine will apply directly to 

 the doctrine of Hume, and will point the way to 

 the criticism needful to be made upon the doc- 

 trine of Mr. Mill. Indeed, as Mr. Mill has 

 well remarked, there is a sense in which all mod- 

 ern philosophy may be said to date from Berke- 

 ley. To say nothing of his discovery of the 

 true theory of vision, the first truth ever dis- 

 covered in psychology which stands upon the 

 same footing as the demonstrated truths of phy- 

 sical science ; to say nothing of the magnificent 

 arguments by which he brought to a close the 

 seven hundred years' war between the Realists 

 and the Nominalists ; his docrine of Idealism, 

 the psychologic basis of which has never been 

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