1903.] STONEY—UNIVERSE OF REAL EXISTENCES. igo 
may be temporarily in existence, viz.: so long as the sense-com- 
pelling auto which is the source of the perceptions happens to be 
acting on me through my senses. During this time some of the 
perceptions that go to make up the phenomenal object are tz actual 
existence, but only as a part of my group of thoughts. None are 
in existence independently of the mind, nor are any of the rest of 
the perceptions that go to make up the phenomenal object in exist- 
ence at that time either in or out of the mind. That the whole 
phenomenal object is supposed to be in existence and to be distinct 
from the mind is therefore a hypothesis ; most useful, but not to be 
thought of as ¢he ¢rue theory. On the other hand, the phenomenon, 
7.é., my thought about the phenomenal object, while it has the 
advantage of being an auto, is transitory, imperfect, very variable, and 
almost always erroneous in some respects; depending as it does on the 
extent of my information and the amount of attention I give to it: 
while the phenomenal object, though a hypotheton, has in it nothing 
in the least shifting or arbitrary. J¢ zs perfectly definite : including 
as it must a// the tekmeria which its antitheton, the sense-compel- 
ling auto, does actually or can legitimately create in human minds 
through human organs of sense. It is intended by the word /egi#- 
mately to exclude cases of illusion, or defects that arise through 
imperfection of the senses. Legitimately is to be understood as 
meaning when every part of the line of communication is working 
normally and satisfactorily. 
CHAPTER 16. OF THE PHENOMENAL OBJECT, WITH WHICH NAt- 
URAL SCIENCE DEALS. 
It is in accordance with the signification we have given to the 
word [real ]’, when written with a dash, that motion in the phe- 
nomenal world shall be deemed real when it is a syntheton of the 
actual perceptions which an onto-motion does or of the potential 
perceptions which it could produce by acting on human minds 
through human senses. But Science, in its progress, has found this 
definition too cramped. The definition would limit the stamp of 
being vea/ to those cases in which man’s senses are competent to 
act as channels of communication between the sense-compelling 
universe and him. Now, scientific investigation has penetrated 
much farther than this—even the flimsy appreciation of what goes 
on in nature which is necessarv for man’s everyday work, renders 
