PHENOMENON AND NOUMENON 



demonstrate the relativity of knowledge set out 

 by assuming objective existence, he goes on to 

 say : " Not a step can be taken towards the 

 truth that our states of consciousness are the 

 only things we can know, without tacitly or 

 avowedly postulating an unknown Something 

 beyond consciousness. The proposition that 

 whatever we feel has an existence which is rela- 

 tive to ourselves only cannot be proved, nay, 

 cannot even be intelligibly expressed without 

 asserting, directly or by implication, an exter- 

 nal existence which is not relative to ourselves. 

 When it is argued that what we are conscious 

 of as sound has no objective reality as such, 

 since its antecedent is also the antecedent to 

 what we are conscious of as jar, and that the 

 two consequents, being unlike one another, can- 

 not be respectively like their common antece- 

 dent; the validity of the argument depends 

 wholly on the existence of the common ante- 

 cedent as something that has remained un- 

 changed while consciousness has been changing. 

 If, after finding that the same tepid water may 

 feel warm to one hand and cold to the other, it 

 is inferred that warmth is relative to our own 

 nature and our own state, the inference is valid 

 only supposing the activity to which these dif- 

 ferent sensations are referred, is an activity out 

 of ourselves which has not been modified by 

 our own activities. 



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