ch. in.] THE TEST OF TRUTH. 69 



the subjective order of our conceptions, — it is passing strange 

 that we should ever have been called upon to correct such 

 a misinterpretation. All that Mr. Spencer or his followers 

 have ever maintained is this: that although we have no 

 experience of the objective order in itself, we have 

 experience of the manner in which the objective order 

 affects us. Though we have no experience of noumena, 

 we have experience of phenomena. And when experience 

 generates in us a subjective order of conceptions that cannot 

 be altered, we have the strongest possible warrant that the 

 order of our conceptions corresponds to the order of 

 phenomena. Expressed in this abstract terminology, the 

 precise shade of my meaning may be difficult to catch and 

 fix ; but a concrete illustration will, I trust, do away with 

 the difficulty. If the subjective order of my conceptions is 

 such that the concept of a solid lump of iron and the concept 

 of a body floating in water will destroy each other rather 

 than be joined together, and I therefore say that a solid lump 

 of iron will not float in water, what do I mean by it ? Do I 

 intend any statement concerning the unknown external thing, 

 or tilings, which when acting upon my consciousness causes 

 in me the perceptions of iron, and water, and floating or 

 sinking ? By no means. I do not even imply that such 

 modes of existence as iron or water, or such modes of activity 

 as floating or sinking, pertain to the unknown external reality 

 at all. It is impossible for us to realize, but it is nevertheless 

 imaginable, that to some form of impressibility quite different 

 from what we know as conscious intelligence, the same un- 

 known reality might be manifested as something quite 

 different from iron or water, sinking or floating. By my 

 statement I only imply that whenever that same unknown 

 thing, or things, acts upon my consciousness, or upon the 

 consciousness of any being of whom intelligence can be 

 properly predicated, there will always ensue the perception of 

 iron sinking in water, and never the perception of iron 



