en. iv.] PHENOMENON AND NOUMENON. 80 



an activity out of ourselves which has not been modified by 

 our own activities. 



" One of two things must be asserted : — either the ante- 

 cedents of each feeling, or state of consciousness, exist only 

 as previous feelings or states of consciousness ; or else they, 

 or some of them, exist apart from, or independently of, con- 

 ciousness. If the first is asserted, then the proof that what- 

 ever we feel exists re]atively to ourselves only, becomes 

 doubly meaningless. To say that a sensation of sound and 

 a sensation of jar cannot be respectively like their common 

 antecedent because they are not like one another, is an empty 

 proposition ; since the two feelings of sound and jar never 

 have a common antecedent in consciousness. The combina- 

 tion of feelings that is followed by the feeling of jar, is 

 never the same as the combination of feelings that is fol- 

 lowed by the feeling of sound; and hence not having a 

 common antecedent, it cannot be argued that they are unlike 

 it. Moreover, if by antecedent is meant constant or uniform 

 antecedent (and any other meaning is suicidal) then the 

 proposition that the antecedent of sound exists only in con- 

 sciousness, is absolutely irreconcilable with the fact that the 

 feeling of sound often abruptly breaks in upon the series of 

 feelings otherwise determined, where no antecedent of the 

 specified kind has occurred. The other alternative, therefore, 

 that the active antecedent of each primary feeling exists 

 independently of consciousness, is the only thinkable one. 

 It is the one implicitly asserted in the very proposition that 

 feeiiugs are relative to our own natures ; and it is taken for 

 granted in every step of every argument by which this 

 proposition is proved.'' 



" Hence our firm belief in objective reality — a belief which 

 metaphysical criticisms cannot for a moment shake. When 

 we are taught that a piece of matter, regarded by us as exist- 

 ing externally, cannot be really known, but that we can know 

 only certain impressions produced on us, we are yet, by the 



