THE MECHANICAL SYSTEM AND ITS LIMITS 385 



will and ideas. Hence in this sense the sensations are 

 merely scientific devices, like the ether-particles of the 

 physical scientist. 



We saw that Mechanism has accomplished its task 

 in making the world intelligible to us. Psychology 

 makes a similiar effort to solve its problem, but, being 

 a younger science it has not achieved nearly so much 

 as physical science. We may now ask whether it is 

 not possible to bring together the ultimate concepts of 

 both these worlds, and so attain a perfectly unified and 

 harmonious knowledge. 



We have rejected the opinion of the materialists who 

 hold the psychic processes to be the object of physical 

 science. Can we say the reverse of this ? Does not 

 the corporeal world consist of psychic processes ? 



The reader who has never reflected on problems of 

 this kind will think the very question is an absurd one. 

 We are accustomed to regard the world about us as 

 existing quite independently of us. But that is certainly 

 not the case. 



All our knowledge of the material world comes 

 through our senses. But all that passes through our 

 senses can only give us sensations. The various 

 properties that make up the complete image of a body 

 are merely so many sensations within ourselves. A 

 piece of gold seems to be a body, but this body is 

 made up of the sensations of yellow, hard, heavy, cold, 

 etc. 1 It is the same with all bodies. Hence men in 



1 These sensations, of course, must not be confused with the psychic 

 sensations that make up will and ideas in the sense described above. 



2 B 



