122 The Brain Theory of Mind and Matter . [March, 
The standpoint of Hylo-Idealism cannot be wholly un- 
known to readers of this Journal, since from time to time 
letters and articles on the subject, by Dr. Lewins and my- 
self, have appeared in its pages, some of which are reprinted 
in the traClate before me. At the base of the whole philo- 
sophy lies one fad adumbrated by many,* realised by few, 
but contradicted by none ; for those who attempt to disprove 
it invariably mistake the objedt of attack, and manfully hew 
away at the shadow of the tree, while its roots still strike 
deeply into the earth, and its trunk and branches tower and 
wave above these would-be assailants. No one has ever 
been able to deny, though many have fancied that they were 
denying and confuting, the proposition that Man is the 
maker of his own Cosmos, and that all his perceptions — 
even those which seem to represent solid, extended, and ex- 
ternal objedts — have a merely subjective existence, bounded 
by the limits moulded by the character and conditions of his 
sentient being. It is admitted by all whose opinion is of 
any value that colour exists only in relation to the eye, 
sound to the ear, touch to the skin, odour to the nose, and 
taste to the mouth. Nor has anyone yet asserted that (in 
the case of man and of the higher animals, our data not 
enabling us to deal with possibilities of sensation in lower 
forms of life) these elementary feelings can be generated in 
the absence of a percipient brain, which focuses converging 
rays of sense from all parts of the body, and unites them 
into the white light of consciousness. But the most rigorous 
analysis can extract from the “ external ” world nothing 
save colour and form, sound which developes into music or 
degenerates into discord, tastes, and odours, with harmonies 
and dissonances of their own, and impressions of touch, 
whence arise those ideas of solidity and extension which to 
the unrefleCIing seem conclusive proofs that the Universe 
must at least possess tangible objective reality, even though 
its visible, odorous, and sapid complement be but a brain- 
created panorama. In these days of physiological research 
and of popular scientific instruction it should be clear to 
any person who takes the slightest trouble to think about 
the matter that the phenomena of all the senses possess 
* Such adumbration may be remarked even in the writings of so staunch a 
religionist as Cardinal Newman. In a passage from the “ Grammar of Assent,” 
quoted in the current No. of the “ Westminster Review,” he says, “ Everyone 
who reasons is his own centre, and no expedient for attaining a common mea- 
sure of truth can reverse this truth.” Again, “ There is no ultimate test of 
truth besides the testimony borne to truth by the mind itself.” The Reviewer 
well observes that the Cardinal’s theory is indistinguishable from that of Pro* 
tagoras. 
