PHENOiMENON AND NOUMENON 



passive recipient of effects wrought by the ob- 

 ject, and, accepting the Leibnitzian view that 

 the subject actively cooperates with the object 

 in each act of cognition, it grounds upon this 

 very fact its doctrine of the relativity of know- 

 ledge. In its criterion of truth also it differs 

 from the experience-philosophy of Locke and 

 Hume as represented to-day by Mr. Mill ; for 

 it finds its criterion of truth in that indissoluble 

 coherence among inner phenomena, which, in 

 accordance with the postulate that all knowledge 

 is the product of experience, must have been 

 generated by an equally indissoluble coherence 

 among outer phenomena. Thus, too, it avoids 

 the empiricism which has in too many ways 

 hampered the Lockian philosophy : for it keeps 

 clear of the misconception that all truths are 

 susceptible of logical demonstration, and recog- 

 nizes the fact that at the bottom of all proof 

 there must be an ultimate datum of conscious- 

 ness which transcends proof. Thus our philo- 

 sophy can be identified neither with that of 

 Kant nor with that of Locke. Again, it dif- 

 fers from the philosophy of Hamilton, both in 

 other points not needful to be mentioned, and 

 in this, that it does not regard the assertion of 

 the doctrine of relativity as compatible with the 

 assertion that we can know the primary quali- 

 ties of matter otherwise than as modifications of 

 our consciousness. But, while refusing to assist 



I.3S 



