Herlert Spencer^s Synthetic Pliilosopliy, 95 



the discovery a consistent part of a scientific theory or a 

 philosophical system. 



As regards the intimate nature of the ultimate reality 

 represented in consciousness, Spencer, like Kunt, professes 

 complete ignorance. He holds it to be wholly unknowable. 

 Yet, unlike Kant, who derives his God from the existence 

 of the moral law, he concludes that the noumenal power be- 

 hind phenomena, though unknowable, is an all-efBcient 

 Absolute, a First Cause or Supreme Power, from which all 

 natural jjhenomena proceed, they being manifestations of 

 the same. 



Spencer maintains, with Kant substantially, that external 

 things are known to us only as states of consciousness, alike 

 in their so-called primary and secondary qualities. What 

 things are in themselves can not be represented by feeling. 

 Matter, space, motion, force, all our fundamental ideas are 

 derived from generalizing and abstracting our experiences 

 of resistance — the ultimate material of knowledge — " the 

 primordial, universal, ever-present constituent of conscious- 

 ness." To us, matter is a congeries of qualities — weight, 

 resistance, extension, etc. ; and these are names for different 

 ways in which our consciousness is affected. If we were 

 destitute of sight, touch, smell, taste, and hearing, these 

 qualities would cease to exist, although the external reality 

 which causes these groups of sensations would still exist. 

 To beings organized differently from ourselves — so differ- 

 ently that their mode of being could not be conceived by 

 us — the objective reality might give rise to states of which 

 the word " matter " would to our minds convey no idea. 

 Nevertheless, the fact that we have sensations that come and 

 go independently of our volitions is evidence of something 

 that determines them. The doctrine of the relativity of 

 knowledge necessitates the postulation of an unknowable 

 existence beyond consciousness. 



Aerial vibrations communicated to the acoustic nerve 

 give rise to the sensation known as sound. Without a nerve 

 of hearing there can be no sound ; for sound is a sensible 

 phenomenon and not something external to the hearer. 

 Color is also a subjective affection; and particular colors 

 depend upon the particular velocities of the waves of atten- 

 uated matter gathered together by the optical apparatus of 

 the eye, and which impinge upon the retina, affecting the 

 optic nerve and giving rise to what appear objectively as 

 colors — blue, green, violet, etc. — but which are known to be 



