162 SPACE, TIME, MATTER, MOTION, AND FORCE. 



tactual perceptions. Good pictures show us that the aspects 

 of things may be very nearly simulated by colours on can- 

 vas. The looking-glass still more distinctly proves how de- 

 ceptive is sight when unverified by touch. And the fre- 

 quent cases in which we misinterpret the impressions made 

 on our eyes, and think we see something which we do not 

 see, further shake our faith in vision. So that the implica- 

 tion of uncertainty has infected the very word appearance* 

 Hence, Philosophy, by giving it an extended meaning, 

 leads us to think of all our senses as deceiving us in the 

 same way that the eyes do; and so makes us feel ourselves 

 floating in a world of phantasms. Had phenomenon and ap- 

 pearance no such misleading associations, little, if any, of 

 this mental confusion would result. Or did we in place of 

 them use the term effect, which is equally applicable to all 

 impressions produced on consciousness through any of the 

 senses, and which carries with it in thought the necessary 

 correlative cause, with which it is equally real, we should 

 be in little danger of falling into the insanities of idealism. 

 Such danger as there might still remain, would disap- 

 pear on making a further verbal correction. At present, the 

 confusion resulting from the above misinterpretation, is 

 made greater by an antithetical misinterpretation. We 

 increase the seeming unreality of that phenomenal existence 

 which we can alone know, by contrasting it with a noumenal 

 existence which we imagine would, if we could know it, 

 be more truly real to us. But we delude ourselves with a 

 verbal fiction. What is the meaning of the word 



real? This is the question which underlies every metaphys- 

 ical inquiry; and the neglect of it is the remaining cause 

 of the chronic antagonisms of metaphysicians. In the in- 

 terpretation put on the word real, the discussions of philoso- 

 phy retain one element of the vulgar conception of things, 

 while they reject all its other elements; and create confu- 

 sion by the inconsistency. The peasant, on contemplat- 

 ing an object, does not regard that which he contemplates 



