COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



nervous action can give us a complete account 

 of mental phenomena. But we have seen that 

 to understand the simplest act of perception, we 

 must take into the account not only the sub- 

 jective and the objective factors, but the relation 

 between the two. It is this relation which con- 

 stitutes the perception. But this relation exists 

 only in consciousness, and we cannot explain 

 it save by direct observation of consciousness. 

 Push our researches in biology as far as we 

 may, the most we can ever ascertain is that cer- 

 tain nerve changes succeed certain other nerve 

 changes or certain external stimuli in a certain 

 definite order. But all this of itself can render 

 no account of the simplest phenomenon of con- 

 sciousness. As Mr. Spencer well says, " such 

 words as ideas, feelings ^ memories y volitions , have 

 acquired their several meanings through self- 

 analysis, and the distinctions we make between 

 sensations and emotions, or between automatic 

 acts and voluntary acts, can be established only 

 by comparisons among, and classifications of, 

 our mental states. The thoughts and feelings 

 which constitute a consciousness, and are abso- 

 lutely inaccessible to any but the possessor of 

 that consciousness, form an existence that has 

 no place among the existences with which the 

 rest of the sciences deal. Though accumulated 

 observations and experiments have led us by a 

 very indirect series of inferences to the belief 

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