of the Evolution Philosophy. 13 



nature of sense-perception. Tluit phenomenon Avliicli our 

 minds recognize as sound, science declares to be objectively 

 cert:.iu vibrations or wavt's produced in the atmospheric 

 medium. IJrtween the two orders of phenomena, the ex- 

 ternal fact and the subjective percejjtion of it, there is no 

 relation of identity — only one of concomitance. One is 

 subjective, Avholly, — the other objective; one is mental, 

 the other material. Without an ear, a recipient brain and 

 a conscious mind, the atmospheric vibration might go on 

 forever, and thei'e would be no phenomena of sound. The 

 same principle holds good also in sight. That which to 

 our minds appears as color, exteriially is the inconceiv- 

 ably rapid vibration of the intangible ether which sur- 

 rounds and penetrates the atmospheric envelope of the 

 globe. Without the eye, the recipient brain, and the subtle 

 synthesis of thought, the ])henomenon of vision were 

 impossible.* And so of the other special senses. But what 

 Ave call matter is inseparable from these sense-perceptions, 

 — it is made up of them. Take away what we. know as 

 form and weight and color and extension, and nothing 

 nuiterial remains. It does not follow, however, that the 

 Unknown Keality which caused in us these sensations has 

 ceased to exist. As firmly as we believe in our own exist- 

 ence, do we believe in that of a Reality external to our- 

 selves, and by precisely the same warrant — the unthink- 

 ableness of the contrary proposition. To beings constituted 

 differently from ourselves, however, this reality might i)re- 

 sent an appearance totally distinct from that which we 

 know as matter. To the simplest form of organism, for 

 example, whose consciousness is limited to a single undif- 

 ferentiated mode of sense percei>tion, those affections of 

 matter which Ave knoAV as color, taste, odor, sound, exten- 

 sion, Avould be Avholly incomprehensible. The limitati(.n 

 of our OAvn senses, both in nund)er and in range, is entirely 

 arbitrary. t It is quite conceivable that there may be beings 



•Maxwell's new inafrnetic theory of light einpliasizes still more strongly the 

 jirinciple here hiid down. 



tThe itresident of the British Association, Professor Flower, indorses Sir 

 .If)hn r.utiliock's idea that there may he " tilty other s^enses as dillVrent Ironi 

 ours as si>i\ihI is Ironi sitrht ; and even within the lidHiularies ol our own 

 senses there may he endless f-onnils whirh we cannot hear, and <'iili>rs as dif- 

 ferent as red from green ol wliieh we liave no eoneejition. 'fhese and a tlion- 

 sand other (juestions remain lor solution. The familntr world which surrounds 

 ns mav lie a totally dillerent pl-.u-e to other animals. To them it may he 

 full of" mnsic whieli we cannot hear, of color which we caunot see, of sensa- 

 tions which we cannot couceive." 



