220 PSYGHOLOOY. 



tive act would be explained even if they did. . . . The imiiHHliate 

 antecedents of sensation and perception are a series of nervous changes 

 in the brain. Whatever we know of the outer world is revealed only 

 in and through these nervous changes. But these are totally unlike 

 the objects assumed to exist as their causes. If we might conceive the 

 mind as in the light, and in direct contact with its objects, the 

 imagination at'least would be comforted ; but when we conceive the 

 mind as coming in contact with the outer world only in the dark 

 chamber of the skull, and then not in contact with the objects per- 

 ceived, but only with a series of nerve-changes of which, moreover, it 

 knows nothing, it is plain that the object is a long way off. All talk 

 of pictures, impressions, etc., ceases because of the lack of all the 

 conditions to give such figures any meaning. It is not even clear tliat 

 we shall ever find our way out of the darkness into the world of light 

 and reality again. We begin with complete trust in physics and the 

 senses, and are forthwith led away from the object into a nervous 

 labyrinth, where the object is entirely displaced by a set of nervous 

 changes which are totally unlike anything but themselves. Finally, 

 we land in the dark chamber of the skull. The object has gone com- 

 pletely, and knowledge has not yet appeared. Nervous signs are the 

 raw material of all knowledge of the outer world according to the most 

 decided realism. But in order to pass beyond these signs into a 

 knowledge of the outer world, we must posit an interpreter who shall 

 read back these signs into their objective meaning. But that inter- 

 preter, again, must implicitly contain the meaning of the universe 

 within itself; and these signs are really but excitations which cause the 

 soul to unfold what is within itself. Inasmuch as by common consent 

 the soul communicates with the outer world only through these signs, 

 and never comes nearer to the object than such signs can bring it, it 

 follows that the principles of interpretation must be in the mind itself, 

 and that the resulting construction is primarily only an expression of the 

 mind's own nature. All reaction is of this sort; it expresses the nature 

 of the reacting agent, and knowledge comes under the same head, 

 this fact makes it necessary for us either to admit a pre-established 

 harmony between the laws and nature of thought and the laws and 

 nature of things, or else to allow that the objects of perception, the 

 universe as it appears, are purely phenomenal, being but the way in 

 which the mind reacts against the ground of its sensations.'' * 



The dualism of Object and Subject and their pre-estab- 

 lished harmony are what the psychologist as such must 

 assume, whatever ulterior monistic philosophy he may, as 

 an individual who has the right also to be a metaphysician, 

 have in reserve. I hope that this general point is now 



* B. P. Bowne: Metaphysics, pp. 407-10. Cf. also Lotze: Logik, 

 308, 32&-7. 



