COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



would cease to exist, and therefore the tree would 

 cease to be tree. But it does not follow that the 

 Unknown Reality which caused in us these 

 groups of sensations has ceased to exist. Our 

 ineradicable belief is that it still exists, and would 

 assume the qualities which constitute tree as 

 soon as our capacity of sensation were restored. 

 And we recognize, as in accordance with the 

 dictates of common sense, the suggestion that 

 if some Being with seventy senses, like the 

 denizen of the planet Saturn in Voltaire's inimi- 

 table satire, were to come into the presence of 

 this same Unknown Reality, there would un- 

 doubtedly arise in this Being the consciousness 

 of a congeries of qualities different from that 

 which constitutes tree. We further recognize 

 that if this Being were endowed with some mode 

 of impressibility so different from ours that the 

 name " intelligence " would not apply to it, this 

 same Unknown Reality might generate in such 

 a Being some state or states wholly different 

 from what we know as the cognition of a mate- 

 rial object. I say, we regard these conclusions 

 as consistent with that extended and systema- 

 tized common sense which is called science. In 

 stating them, we assert, to the fullest extent to 

 which the exigencies of human language will 

 admit of our asserting it, the relativity of all 

 knowledge ; and we admit everything which uhe 

 idealists have established upon the sound basis 

 ii8 



