COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



form no conception of matter apart from the 

 conditions imposed upon it by our intelligence, 

 therefore no thing can exist apart from such con- 

 ditions. As Professor Ferrier forcibly states the 

 case, " I defy you to conceive anything existing 

 unperceived. Attempt to imagine the existence 

 of matter when mind is absent. You cannot, for 

 in the very act of imagining it, you include an 

 ideal percipient. The trees and mountains you 

 imagine to exist away from any perceiving mind, 

 what are they but the very ideas oi your mind, 

 which you transport to some place where you 

 are not ? In fact, to separate existence from per- 

 ception is radically impossible. It is God's syn- 

 thesis, and man cannot undo it." All this is 

 equivalent to saying that we cannot " imagine 

 an object apart from the conditions under which 

 we know it. We are forced by the laws of our 

 nature to invest objects with the forms in which 

 we perceive them. We cannot therefore con- 

 ceive anything which has not been subject to 

 the laws of our nature, because in the very act 

 of conception those laws come into play." ^ But 

 when the idealist proceeds to infer that because 

 we cannot conceive objects otherwise, therefore 

 they cannot exist otherwise, he assumes that 

 knowledge is absolute, and thus knocks away 

 the psychological basis upon which his premise 

 was founded. If we would consistently refrain 

 * Lewes, History of Philosophy y vol. ii. p. 302. 

 116 



