280 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEKOUS ORGANS. 



is that it is the hypothetical substance of physical phe- 

 nomena the assumption of the existence of which is 

 as pure a piece of metaphysical speculation as is that 

 of the existence of the substance of mind. 



Our sensations, our pleasures, our pains, and the re- 

 lations of these, make up the sum total of the elements 

 of positive, unquestionable knowledge. We call a large 

 section of these sensations and their relations matter and 

 motion ; the rest we term mind and thinking ; and expe- 

 rience shows that there is a certain constant order of suc- 

 cession between some of the former and some of the latter. 



This is all that just metaphysical criticism leaves 

 of the idols set up by the spurious metaphysics of 

 vulgar common sense. It is consistent either with pure 

 Materialism, or with pure Idealism, but it is neither. 

 For the Idealist, not content with declaring the truth 

 that our knowledge is limited to facts of consciousness, 

 affirms the wholly unprovable proposition that nothing 

 exists beyond these and the substance of mind. And, 

 on the other hand, the Materialist, holding by the truth 

 that, for anything that appears to the contrary, material 

 phenomena are the causes of mental phenomena, asserts 

 his unprovable dogma, that material phenomena and the 

 substance of matter are the sole primary existences. 



Strike out the propositions about which neither con- 

 troversialist does or can know anything, and there is 

 nothing left for them to quarrel about. Make a desert 

 of the Unknot^able, and the divine Astraea of philo- 

 sophic peace will commence her blessed reign. 



