PHENOMENON AND NOUMENON 



ance, what is it that determines the sequence ? 

 According to Berkeley, it is the will of God. 

 God has predetermined for us the sequence 

 of states of consciousness, having so arranged 

 things that whenever we ideally thrust an ideal 

 head against an ideal chimney-piece, the states 

 of consciousness known as the perception of 

 resistance and the sensation of headache, com- 

 plicated with divers unpleasant emotional states, 

 will necessarily ensue. Now for two reasons 

 this is an explanation which science cannot re- 

 cognize. In the first place, it is either a restate- 

 ment, in other words, of the very fact which is 

 to be explained, or else it substitutes a cum- 

 brous explanation, involving a complex group 

 of postulates, for the simple ordinary explana- 

 tion which involves but a single postulate. In 

 the second place, it is a hypothesis which can 

 be neither proved nor disproved ; and, as we 

 shall hereafter see, all such hypotheses must be 

 regarded as illegitimate. But, unless we admit 

 the existence of an external reality, is there any 

 alternative hypothesis ? Must we not accept 

 Berkeley's explanation, in default of any other? 

 There is one alternative hypothesis, and 

 only one. As Berkeley drew his idealism from 

 Locke, so when Kant demonstrated that we 

 cannot know the objective reality, Fichte drew 

 the inference that the objective reality does not 

 exist. Fichte, like Berkeley, held that the only 

 III 



