12 PSYCHOLOGY. 



The two leading facts from wliicli the doctrine of uni- 

 versal relativity derives its wide-spread credit are these : 



1) The psychological fact that so much of our actual 

 knowledge is of the relations of things — even our simjjlest 

 sensations in adult life are habitually referred to classes 

 as we take them in ; and 



2) The physiological fact that our senses and brain must 

 have periods of change and repose, else we cease to feel and 

 think. 



Neither of these facts proves anything about the 

 presence or non-presence to our mind of absolute quali- 

 ties with which we become sensibly acquainted. Surely 

 not the psychological fact ; for our inveterate love of 

 relating and comparing things does not alter the intrin- 

 sic qualities or nature of the things compared, or undo 

 their absolute givenness. And surely not the physio- 

 logical fact ; for the length of time during which we can 

 feel or attend to a quality is altogether irrelevant to the 

 intrinsic constitution of the quality felt. The time, more- 

 over, is long enough in many instances, as sufferers from 

 neuralgia know.* And the doctrine of relativity, not proved 

 by these facts, is flatly disproved by other facts even more 

 patent. So far are we from not knowing (in the words of 

 Professor Bain) " an}^ one thing by itself, but only the dif- 

 ference between it and another thing," that if this were true 

 the whole edifice of our knowledge would collapse. If all 

 we felt were the difference between the C and D, or c and d, 

 on the musical scale, that being the same in the two pairs 

 of notes, the pairs themselves would be the same, and lan- 

 guage could get along without substantives. But Professor 

 Bain does not mean seriously what he says, and we need 

 spend no more time on this vague and popular form of the 

 doctrine. t The facts which seem to hover before the minds 



and Bain (Senses and Intellect, p. 331; Emotions and Will, pp. 550, 570-2. 

 Logic, I. p. 2, Body and Mind, p. 81) are subscribers to this doctrine. Cf. 

 also J. Mills Analysis, J. S. Mill's edition, ii, 11, 12. 



* We can steadily hear a note for half an hour. The differences be- 

 tween the senses are marked. Smell and taste seem soon to get fatigued. 



f In the popular mind it is mixed up with that entirely different doc- 

 trine of the ' Relativity of Knowledge ' preached by Hamilton and Spencer, 

 This doctrine says that our knowledge is relative to us, and Is not of the 



