202 NATURE AND LIFE. 
tion from cases of true perception; still, we maintain that 
there are, outside of ourselves, distinct causes of our dis- 
tinct sensations. No skepticism has prevailed, nor will 
prevail, against this testimony of the most powerful evi- 
dence which exists in our inmost being. How can we ac- 
count for this apparent contradiction ? In reality, there is 
no contradiction. Observe, indeed, that even if the most 
indifferent causes can effect in us one and the same sensa- 
tion, and thus delude us as to the outer world, our soul is 
never cheated. It knows perfectly well how to refer this 
one sensation to the dissimilar objective causes which have 
effected it; in other words, the causes which are alike, and 
are confused in one in the purely physiological act of sen- 
sation, divide and grow distinct in the psychological act by 
which the soul recognizes them, and conceives them as dif- 
ferent. If we had, to give us knowledge, only the dull and 
ignorant passivity of our senses, there would be no separate 
reality for us; but the wise activity of the soul cannot 
merely assert the reality of outward objects, for a reason 
similar to that which makes it assert ifs own existence— 
it can, still further, argue from its various modes of affection 
to a corresponding variety of external forces. It moves 
in harmony with the world, rather than in harmony with 
the senses. In presence of the latter, it is like a good 
prince, who would be nothing without his subjects, but 
who regulates and civilizes them, by giving them laws, ~ 
and ruling their morals. Thus, and this is the conclusion 
at which we aim, it is in the soul, regarded as the focus of 
all those rays refracted through the senses, as the central 
light outshining all others, that we must set the power and 
the right to discern what the senses do not discern, and to 
pierce to a depth forever beyond their reach. We shall 
never know what relation there is between the outward 
world and those images of it which we perceive, but 
the soul can hold the unshaken belief that the various 
