IDEALISM AND THE ''EXTERNAL WORLD." 26 ^ 



^m that which does not and can not enter into our 



^^ consciousness in one of these ways is unknowable 



and imperceptible, and therefore nothing. It is thus 



kthe positive converse of the proposition that the 

 unknowable is nothing (ch. ii. § 6), But this fact is 

 - just as unimportant, controversially, as it is scientific- 

 ally irrefragable. Thinkers of all parties, who 

 know what they are about, are agreed that it is 

 undeniable, and that It is impossible to acquiesce in 

 it as final. Idealists and realists alike perceive the 

 necessity of so interpreting it as to render it com- 

 patible with the objective existence of the phe- 

 nomenal world : their only difference is about the 

 means. 



Idealists mostly seek to preserve the verbal state- 

 ment of the primary fact of idealism by saying that 

 all things exist in consciousness, but in a divine 

 consciousness, appear to a divine " I," and hence 

 are subjective to the Absolute, but objective to us, 

 and independent of our thoughts and feelings. 

 But in so doing they forget that they have trans- 

 muted a fact into a theory, if not into a fiction. " My" 

 consciousness assures me that all things appear to 

 me, exist in my consciousness, but it carries with it no 

 such reference to a divine consciousness. There is 

 only a verbal and illusory identity between my own 

 *' I " and that of God. My consciousness tells me 

 nothing directly about, the way in which things 

 appear to God. The transition, therefore, from my 

 consciousness to God's is an extremely hazardous 

 one, and does not of itself imply any similarity 

 between the contents of my consciousness and of 

 God's. Indeed, upon reflection, it will seem pro- 

 bable that things would appear widely different to a 

 divine being, and one would be sorry to think that 



