1884] • Hylo-Idealism : a Defence. 705 
The name of the Entity at which we have at last arrived 
is of very little importance, so long as we clearly recognise 
the fafts. Dr. Lewins, the founder of Hylo-Idealism, terms 
it matter, and I adopt his nomenclature as the simplest and 
least misleading. To speak of “ Spirit ” with Hegel, or 
“ Will ” with Schopenhauer, seems to imply the necessary 
possession of mind or volition, and Herbert Spencer’s 
£< Unknowable ” has more than a tinge of mysticism. 
Not only may an animal exist in an unconscious state, 
but we are entitled to decide from analogy that a similar in- 
dependent existence may be ascribed to objects which, so far 
as we know, are always unconscious, as plants and stones. 
The so-called “ external ” world is restored to reality, and, 
in spite of Mr. Billing’s fears, geology and astronomy are 
quite at liberty to enter the service of Hylo-Idealism. 
Every man’s world is produced by the interaction of his 
nervous system with other matter ; but it is the activity of 
the brain that brings the world into consciousness, and 
prescribes the forms of space, time, and causality under 
which it shall appear. It is the material brain that gives 
light and shade, form and colour, extension and solidity to 
the Cosmos ; it is the material brain that procreates the 
beauty which we love and the sublimity which we worship. 
Change the human organism, and you have changed the 
visible and tangible Universe. 
Schopenhauer expresses this with great clearness. “ Suns 
and planets,” he says, “ without an eye that sees them, or 
an understanding that knows them, may indeed be spoken 
of in words ; but for the idea, the words are absolutely 
meaningless The existence of this whole [pheno- 
menal] world remains ever dependent upon the first eye 
that opened, even if it were that of an insedt. For such an 
eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, 
and the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and 
without it is not even thinkable.” 
C. N. 
(Constance Arden.) 
