PHENOMENON AND NOUMENON 



ance, colour, etc. Absolute Existence, there- 

 fore, — the Reality which persists independ- 

 ently of us, and of which Mind and Matter 

 are the phenomenal manifestations, — cannot be 

 identified either with Mind or with Matter. 

 Thus is Materialism included in the same con- 

 demnation with Idealism. 



See then how far we have travelled from the 

 scholastic theory of occult substrata underlying 

 each group of phenomena. These substrata 

 were mere ghosts of the phenomena themselves ; 

 behind the tree or the mountain a sort of phan- 

 tom tree or mountain which persists after the 

 body of the perception has gone away with the 

 departure of the percipient mind. Clearly this 

 is no scientific interpretation of the facts, but 

 is rather a specimen of naive barbaric thought 

 surviving in metaphysics. The tree or the 

 mountain being groups of phenomena, what 

 we assert as persisting independently of the per- 

 cipient mind is a Something which we are unable 

 to condition either as tree or as mountain. 



And now we come down to the very bottom 

 of the problem. Since we do postulate Absolute 

 Existence, and do not postulate a particular 

 occult substance underlying each group of phe- 

 nomena, are we to be understood as implying 

 that there is a single Being of which all phe- 

 nomena, internal and external to consciousness, 

 are manifestations? Such must seem to be the 

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