1903.] STONEY—UNIVERSE OF REAL EXISTENCES. 137 
existences. If we confine our view to Nature, the facts as to what 
occurs can be observed ; the circumstances under which they occur 
can be investigated ; similar cases can be compared ; and the laws 
to which the simultaneous or successive events conform can be 
brought to light. But here the knowledge conveyed to us by the 
great Objective Hypothesis ends: Physical Science has said its 
utmost. 
Now all this is changed when we turn to the only field of obser- 
vation accessible to us in which we are dealing directly with auta. 
The thoughts of which I consist, the thoughts that are my mind, 
are auta: no doubt a very small group of auta in the stupendous 
totality of all auta, but still a actual sample, although a very special 
and perhaps one-sided sample, of what auta are. In the operations 
that go on in my mind I do find instances, some few instances, of 
causes producing effects. The familiar case of a geometrical demon- 
stration producing in a man’s mind a belief in the truth of the 
conclusion is a case in point. Here the understanding of the proof 
is the efficient cause of the belief in the conclusion which accom- 
panies that understanding. A wish to accomplish something, and 
a knowledge of how to go about it, are part of the autic universe 
since they are thoughts, and they are a part of the efficient cause 
of subsequent events in the autic universe, unless counteracted by 
other causes. A few other examples can be obtained from the 
same small field of investigation: and this is all that man, in his 
isolated position, has any right to expect; for the bulk of his 
thoughts are due, at least in large part, to autic causes which lie 
outside his mind, either in the synergos or beyond it in the sense- 
compelling part of the universe; and it is there also that those 
of his thoughts that are known to be causes usually exhibit their 
effects. When perceptions or when memories arise in my mind, 
the effect is indeed within my mind, but the cause lies beyond it ; 
and when ‘I move my muscles,’ the cause is within my mind, but 
it is outside my mind, upon the antitheta of those muscles, that it 
operates. The instances are indeed few where the causes and the 
effects are doth within my tiny group of auta, and it is only in 
these few cases that I can have the process of causes producing 
effects under my inspection. 
But since cases can be cited, however few, they suffice Zo estaéb- 
lish the fact that the relation of cause and effect in its full sense 
PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XLII. 173. J. PRINTED JUNE 11, 1903. 
