76 COSMIC PEILOSOJ'IIY. [pt. i. 



tions. The question at once arises, what is the cause of 

 these mollifications? Since, consciousness is continually 

 changing its states, and indeed exists only by virtue of a 

 ceaseless change of states, what is it that determines the 

 sequence of states ? If, after the congeries of states of 

 consciousness composing the knowledge that I am putting 

 out my hand in the dark, there supervenes the state of con- 

 sciousness known as the feeling of resistance, what is it that 

 determines the sequence ? According to Berkeley, it is the 

 will of God. God has predetermined for us the sequence 

 of states of consciousness, having so arranged things that 

 whenever we ideally thrust an ideal head against an ideal 

 chimney-piece, the states of consciousness known as the 

 perception of resistance and the sensation of headache, com- 

 plicated with divers unpleasant emotional states, will neces- 

 sarily ensue. Now for two reasons this is an explanation 

 which science cannot recognize. In the first place, it is 

 either a ret tatement, in other words, of the very fact which 

 is to be explained, or else it substitutes a cumbrous explana- 

 tion, involving a complex group of postulates, for the simple 

 ordinary explanation which involves but a single postulate. 

 In the second place, it is a hypothesis which can be neither 

 proved nor disproved ; and, as we shall hereafter see, all such 

 hypotheses must be regarded as illegitimate. But, unless 

 we admit the existence of an external reality, is there any 

 alternative hypothesis ? Must we not accept Berkeley's 

 explanation, in default of any other ? 



There is one alternative hypothesis, and only one. As 

 Berkeley drew his idealism from Locke, so when Kant 

 demonstrated that we cannot know the objective reality, 

 Fichte drew the inference that the objective reality does 

 not exist. Fichte, like Berkeley, held that the only real 

 faxistence is mind with its sequent conscious states. But 

 Fichte differed from Berkeley in his explanation of the 

 sequence of our states of consciousness. Fichte held that 



