«* cosmic pniwsoriL r. [ PT . i. 



philosophy clean of such a rubbish of scholastic terminology. 

 Our conclusion is simply this, that no theory of phenomena, 

 external or internal, can he framed without postulating an 

 Absolute Existence of which phenomena are the manifesta- 

 tions. And now let us carefully note what follows. We 

 cannot identify this Absolute Existence with Mind, since 

 what we know as Mind is a series of phenomenal manifesta- 

 tions : it was the irrefragable part of Hume's argument that, 

 in the eye of science as in the eye of common-sense, Mind 

 means not the occult reality but the group of phenomena 

 which we know as thoughts and feelings. Nor can we 

 identify this Absolute Existence with Matter, since what we 

 know as Matter is a series of phenomenal manifestations; it 

 was the irrefragable part of Berkeley's argument that, in 

 the eye of science as in the eye of common-sense, Matter 

 means not the occult reality but the group of phenomena 

 which we know as extension, resistance, colour, etc. Abso- 

 lute Existence, therefore, — the Eeality which persists inde- 

 pendently of us, and of which Mind and Matter are the 

 phenomenal manifestations, — cannot be identified either with 

 Mind or with Matter. Thus is Materialism included in the 

 same condemnation with Idealism. 



See then how far we have travelled from the scholastic 

 theory of occult substrata underlying each group of pheno- 

 mena. These substrata were mere ghosts of the phenomena 

 themselves ; behind the tree or the mountain a sort of phan- 

 tom tree or mountain which persists after the body of the 

 perception has gone away with the departure of the percipient 

 mind. Clearly this is no scientific interpretation of the facts, 

 but is rather a specimen of naive barbaric thought surviving 

 in metaphysics. The tree or the mountain being groups of 

 phenomena, what we assert as persisting independently of 

 the percipient mind is a Something which we are una bin 

 to condition either as tree or as mountain. 



And now we come down to the very bottom of *hz pro- 



