REPLIES TO CRITICISMS. 305 



stands for this mental faculty as contained. Now, suppose the dog 

 loses his tail. Can the faculty as containing and the faculty as con- 

 tained be separated in the same way ? Does the mental form when 

 deprived of all content, even itself (granting that it can be its own 

 content), continue to exist in the same way that a dog continues to 

 exist when he has lost his tail ? Even had this illustration been 

 applicable, I should have scarcely expected Dr. Hodgson to remain 

 satisfied with it. I should have thought he would prefer to meet my 

 argument directly, rather than indirectly. Why has he not shown 

 the invalidity of the reasoning used in the "Principles of Psychology " 

 (§ 399, second edition) ? Having there quoted the statement of Kant, 

 that " Space and Time are not merely forms of sensuous intuition, but 

 intuitions themselves," I have written : 



"If we inquire more closely, this irreconcilability becomes still clearer." 

 Kant says : ' That which in the piienomenon corresponds to the sensation, I 

 term its matter ; but that which effects that the content of the phenomenon 

 can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form. 1 Carrying with us 

 this definition of form, as 'that which effects that the content .... can be 

 arranged under certain relations,' let us return to the case in which the intu- 

 ition of Space is the intuition which occupies consciousness. Can the content 

 of this intuition ' be arranged under certain relations ' or not ? It can be so 

 arranged, or rather, it is so arranged. Space cannot be thought of save as hav- 

 ing parts, near and remote, in this direction or the other. Hence, if that is the 

 form of a thing ' which effects that the content .... can be arranged under 

 certain relations,' it follows that when the content of consciousness is the 

 intuition of Space, which has parts ' that can be arranged uuder certain rela- 

 tions,' there must be a form of that intuition. What is it ? Kant does not tell 

 us — does not appear to perceive that there must be such a form ; and could not 

 have perceived this without abandoning his hypothesis that the space-intuition 

 is primordial." 



Now, when Dr. Hodgson has shown me how that " which effects 

 that the content .... can be arranged under certain relations " 

 may also be that which effects its own arrangement under the same 

 relations, I shall be ready to surrender my position ; but, until then, 

 no analogy drawn from the ability of a dog to bite himself will weigh 

 much with me. 



Having, as he considers, disposed of the reasons given by me for 

 concluding that, considered in themselves, " Space and Time are 

 wholly incomprehensible " (he continually uses on my behalf the word 

 "inconceivable," which, by its unfit connotations, gives a wrong aspect 

 to my position), Dr. Hodgson goes on to say : 



" Yet Mr. Spencer proceeds to use these inconceivable ideas as the basis of 

 his philosophy. For mark, it is Space and Time as we know them, the actual 

 and phenomenal Space and Time, to which all these inconceivabilities attach. 

 Mr. Spencer's result ought, therefore, logically to be — Skepticism. What is his 

 actual result? Ontology. And how so? Why, instead of rejecting Space and 

 Time as tho inconceivable things he has tried to demonstrate them to be, be 

 vol. iv. — 20 



