202 NATURE AND LIFE. 



tion from cases of true perception ; still, we maintain that 

 there are, outside of ourselves, distinct causes of our dis- 

 tinct sensations. No skepticism has prevailed, nor will 

 prevail, against this testimony of the most powerful evi- 

 dence which exists in our inmost being. How can we ac- 

 count for this apparent contradiction ? In reality, there is 

 no contradiction. Observe, indeed, that even if the most 

 indifferent causes can effect in us one and the same sensa- 

 tion, and thus delude us as to the outer world, our soul is 

 never cheated. It knows perfectly well how to refer this 

 one sensation to the dissimilar objective causes which have 

 effected it ; in other words, the causes which are alike, and 

 are confused in one in the purely physiological act of sen- 

 sation, divide and grow distinct in the psychological act by 

 which the soul recognizes them, and conceives them as dif- 

 ferent. If we had, to give us knowledge, only the dull and 

 ignorant passivity of our senses, there would be no separate 

 reality for us ; but the wise activity of the soul cannot 

 merely assert the reality of outward objects, for a reason 

 similar to that which makes it assert its own existence 

 it can, still further, argue from its various modes of affection 

 to a corresponding variety of external forces. It moves 

 in harmony with the world, rather than in harmony with 

 the senses. In presence of the latter, it is like a good 

 prince, who would be nothing without his subjects, but 

 who regulates and civilizes them, by giving them laws, 

 and ruling their morals. Thus, and this is the conclusion 

 at which we aim, it is in the soul, regarded as the focus of 

 all those rays refracted through the senses, as the central 

 light outshining all others, that we must set the power and 

 the right to discern what the senses do not discern, and to 

 pierce to a depth forever beyond their reach. We shall 

 never know what relation there is between the outward 

 world and those images of it which we perceive, but 

 the soul can hold the unshaken belief that the various 



