REPLIES TO CRITICISMS. 405 



the belief that the non-ego is per se extended, solid, even colored (if not reso- 

 nant and odorous). This is what common language implies; and the argument 

 by which Mr. Spencer proves the relativity of feelings and relations, still more 

 the subtile and complicated analysis by which he resolves our notion of exten- 

 sion into an aggregate of feelings and transitions of feeling, leads us away from 

 our original simple belief— that, e. g., the green grass we see exists out of con- 

 sciousness as we see it — just as much as the reasonings of Idealism, Skepticism, 

 or Kantism." 



On the face of it the anomaly seems great ; but I should have 

 thought that, after reading the chapter on " Transfigured Realism," a 

 critic of Mr. Sidgwick's accuteness would have seen the solution of 

 it. He has overlooked an essential distinction. All which my argu- 

 ment implies is that the direct intuition of Realism must be held of 

 superior authority to the arguments of Anti-Realism, where their 

 deliverances cannot be reconciled. The one point on which their deliv- 

 erances cannot be reconciled is, the existence of an objective reality. 

 But, while, against this intuition of Realism, I hold the arguments of 

 Anti-Realism to be powerless, because they cannot be carried on 

 without postulating that which they end by denying, yet, having 

 admitted objective existence as a necessary postulate, it is possible to 

 make valid criticisms upon all those judgments which Crude Realism 

 joins with this primordial judgment : it is possible to show that a 

 transfigured interpretation of properties and relations is more tenable 

 than the original interpretation. 



To elucidate the matter, let us take the most familiar case in which 

 the indirect judgments of Reason correct the direct judgments of 

 Common-Sense. The direct judgment of Common-Sense is that the 

 Sun moves round the Earth. In course of time, Reason finds certain 

 difficulties in accepting this dictum as true. Eventually, Reason hits 

 upon an hypothesis which explains the anomalies, but which denies 

 this apparently certain dictum of Common-Sense. What is the 

 reconciliation? It consists in showing to Common-Sense a mode of 

 interpretation which equally well corresponds with direct intuition, 

 while it avoids all the difficulties. Common-Sense is reminded that the 

 apparent motion of an object may be due either to its actual motion 

 or to the motion of the observer ; and that there are terrestrial expe- 

 riences in which the observer thinks an object he looks at is moving, 

 when the motion is in himself. Extending the conception thus given, 

 Reason shows that, if the Earth revolves on its axis, there will result 

 that apparent motion of the Sun which Common-Sense interpreted 

 into an actual motion of the Sun ; and the common-sense observer 

 becomes thereupon able to think of sunrise and sunset as consequent 

 on his position as a spectator on a vast revolving globe. Now, if the 

 astronomer, setting out by recognizing these celestial appearances, 

 and proceeding to evolve the various anomalies following from the 

 common-sense interpretation of them, had drawn the conclusion that 



