PHENOMENON AND NOUMENON 



thinkable one. It Is the one Implicitly asserted 

 in the very proposition that feelings are relative 

 to our own natures ; and It Is taken for granted 

 in every step of every argument by which this 

 proposition Is proved." 



" Hence our firm belief In objective reality 

 — a belief which metaphysical criticisms cannot 

 for a moment shake. When we are taught that 

 a piece of matter, regarded by us as existing 

 externally, cannot be really known, but that we 

 can know only certain Impressions produced on 

 us, we are yet, by the relativity of our thought, 

 compelled to think of these In relation to a 

 positive cause — the notion of a real existence 

 which generated these Impressions becomes nas- 

 cent. The momentum of thought inevitably 

 carries us beyond conditioned existence to un- 

 conditioned existence ; and this ever persists in 

 us as the body of a thought to which we can 

 give no shape. ... At the same time that by 

 the laws of thought we are rigorously prevented 

 from forming a conception of absolute exist- 

 ence, we are by the laws of thought equally 

 prevented from ridding ourselves of the con- 

 sciousness of absolute existence; this conscious- 

 ness being, as we here see, the obverse of our 

 self-consciousness. And since the only possible 

 measure of relative validity among our beliefs 

 is the degree of their persistence In opposition 

 to the efforts made to change them, it follows 

 125 



