THE RELATIONS OF MINDS TO OTHER THINGS. 219 



of fact that the mere existence of a thing outside the brain 

 is not a sufficient cause for our knowing it : it must strike 

 the brain in some way, as well as be there, to be known. 

 But the brain being struck, the knowledge is constituted 

 by a new construction that occurs altogether in the mindc 

 The thing remains the same whether known or not* And 

 when once there, the knowledge may remain there, what- 

 ever becomes of the thing. 



By the ancients, and by unreflecting people perhaps to- 

 day, knowledge is explained as the passage of something 

 from without into the mind — the latter, so far, at least, as 

 its sensible affections go, being passive and receptive. 

 But even in mere sense-impression the duplication of the 

 object by an inner construction must take place. Consider, 

 with Professor Bowne, what hajjpens Avhen two people con- 

 verse together and know each other's mind. 



" No thoughts leave the mind of one and cross into the mind of the 

 other. When we speak of an exchange of thought, even tlie crudest 

 mind knows that this is a mere figure of speech. ... To perceive 

 another's thought, we must construct his thought within ourselves; . . . 

 this thought is our own and is strictly original with us. At the same 

 time we owe it to the other ; and if it had not originated with him, it 

 would probably not have originated with us. But what has the other 

 done ? . . . This : by an entirely mysterious world-order, the speaker 

 is enabled to produce a series of signs which are totally unlike [the] 

 thought, but which, by virtue of the same mysterious order, act as a 

 series of incitements upon the hearer, so that he constructs within 

 himself the corresponding mental state. The act of the speaker consists 

 in availing himself of the proper incitements. The act of the hearer is 

 immediately only the reaction of the soul against the incitement. . . . 

 All communion between finite minds is of this sort. . . . Probably no 

 reflecting person would deny this conclusion, but when we say that 

 what is thus true of perception of another's thought is equally true of 

 the perception of the outer world in general, many minds will be 

 disposed to question, and not a few will deny it outright. Yet there is 

 no alternative but to affirm that to perceive the universe we must 

 construct it in thought, and that our knowledge of the universe is but 

 the unfolding of the mind's inner nature. ... By describing the mind 

 as a waxen tablet, and things as impressing themselves upon it, we 

 seem to get great insight until we think to ask where this extended 

 tablet is, and how things stamp themselves on it, and how the percep- 



* I disregard consequences which may later come to the thing from tie 

 fact that it is known. The knowing per se in no wise affects the thing. 



