314 Animal Life and Intelligence. 



simply of the object. The object is a thing I construct. 

 That it is real may be proved by submitting it to the test 

 of all the senses that I have. 



And what do I mean by '* real " ? I mean that what it is 

 for me it is also for you and any other normally constituted 

 human being. This is, in truth, the only common-sense 

 criterion of objective reality. Some people are colour-blind, 

 and tell us that a rose is not red, but green. We reply 

 that it is really red, but that, through a defect of sight, 

 they cannot distinguish its redness. Here we take the 

 normal human being as a standard for objective reality. 

 For him the rose is red. And this is the only practical 

 criterion that we have. This, however, does not satisfy 

 some people, who think that the objects around them have 

 the same reality, independent of man, that they have for 

 us human-folk. Annihilate, they say, every human being 

 — nay, all life — and the objects will remain as they are, 

 and retain the same reality. Yes, the same reality ; which 

 means that if just one fortunate fellow escaped annihilation, 

 he would find them all just as they were. And this nobody 

 doubts. Nevertheless, it is (to me, at least) inconceivable 

 that things independently of us are what they appear to 

 us. Think of what we learnt about the sensations. They 

 all arose in stimulations of the end-organs of special sense. 

 Thence the explosive waves of change passed inwards to 

 the brain, and somewhere therein gave rise to mental pro- 

 ducts. These mental products, the accompaniments of 

 nerve-changes, can in no sense be like the outside some- 

 thing which gave rise to them. They are symbols of that 

 outside something. And it is these symbols that we build 

 up into objects. Hence I said that it is not only more 

 satisfactory and convenient, but more correct, to speak 

 directly of the object as constructed, and not our idea of 

 the object. The mental product is the object for us, not 

 only for me, but for you and all normal human beings, 

 since the object is the same for all of us. And hence, also, 

 I said that the analogy of gateways, through which pictures 

 of objects gain access to the mind, was false and misleading. 



