en. iv.] PHENOMENON AND NOUMENON. 77 



this sequence is determined by itself — that it depends upon 

 the internal constitution of the mind. Or, in other words, 

 he maintained that the subject creates the object. From 

 this doctrine have lineally descended all the vagaries of 

 modern German idealism — vagaries of method as well as 

 vagaries of doctrine, as anyone may see who, af,er some 

 familiarity with scientific methods, looks over the so-called 

 " Nature-philosophy " of Schelling and Oken. Its extreme 

 corollaries have been stated by Hegel, who, if I do not 

 misinterpret him, regards the universe as nothing but the 

 self-determined sequence of states of consciousness of an 

 Absolute Intelligence, of which our individual intelligences 

 are partial manifestations. Manifestly we have here arrived 

 at logical suicide. We begin, with Kant, by saying that we 

 have no knowledge of the objective order of things ; we con- 

 tinue, with Fichto, by saying that there is no objective order, 

 save that which tlie mind creates for itself; and we end, with 

 Hegel, by identifying the objective order with the subjective, 

 and maintaining that whatever is true of the latter is true 

 also of the former. In saying this, we virtually maintain 

 that the possibilities of thought are not only coextensive but 

 identical with the possibilities of things ; and thus destroy 

 the doctrine of relativity with which we started. The post- 

 Kantian idealism may therefore be described as a linear 

 series of corollaries, the last of which destroys the axiom 

 upon which the first of the series rests. 



A similar suicide must be the fate of any doctrine of 

 idealism. We often hear it said that Berkeley's clear 

 scientific reasoning has never been, and can never be, re- 

 futed. This is to a certain extent true. What never has 

 been, and never can be, refuted, is the clear scientific 

 reasoning by which Berkeley proves that we cannot know 

 the objective reality. What can be, and has already been, 

 refuted, is the unphilosophic inference that there is no 

 objective reality. Eeid, with his so called " Common-Sense 



