bined with the immediate knowledge of the facts of mind a representative knowledge of real extra-mental objects.

1

There is also a certain truth in such idealistic declarations of mental productivity as this: "As the depth and intensity of the intellect increases, the limits of the external world extend also. . . . The mind of the savage is exactly measured by the world he has around him. . . . In the course of history we can see the intellect growing deeper and broader, and the limits of the world recede simultaneously with the advance of the mind." The external world not only expands or grows for us with the growth of our intellect, but even exists for us by means of our intellect. It exists for us by our intellect, certainly not because it is created by, but because it is known to us only by, our intellect. The knowledge of the external world is entirely in the representations made of it for us by our intellect. Therefore, though the external world exists altogether independently of us and our faculty, yet it exists for us by our faculty, on the principle that only that really exists for us which is known to us. The external world grows for us with the growth of our intellect. The world of the man is vastly larger and richer than that of the child; that of the savant, than that of the savage; and that of the modern intellect, than that of the an

1 Wallace, Proleg. to Hegel's Logic, 2nd ed., pp. 269, 270. The following are examples of the strongest utterances:

"It is just in the effort to understand the world that the intelligence grows and comes into possession of itself; and, conversely, its understanding of the world is conditioned by its own growth. The world cannot answer unless the mind question it, and the nature of the questions is at every step determined by the stage of development which the mind has attained." (E. Caird, Evolution of Religion, I. p. 11.)

"The external world is the means by which our own nature ('or the divine nature') is progressively communicated to us."

"Intelligence creates and sustains our real world."

cient. But this is so, not because the growing intellect creates the growth of the external world; but because it produces the growth of our knowledge of the external world. Our intellect does not progressively create external nature, but progressively cognizes it. Nature, in its externality and independence of the human mind, is precisely the same however little the savage, and however much the philosopher, may know of it; but the extent of it for each yet depends upon the development of his intellect, because the extent of his knowledge of it so depends. Further, the remarkable variety in elements and associations and structures of the inner world of the intellect corresponds, as it gradually develops, to the remarkable variety, in extensions, motions, and connections, of things in the outer world; but may never, in the most advanced, multifarious and extensive knowledge, be fully equal to the latter. It may then be said finally, that there is an implicit universality in our mind, because of its capability of forming representative notions of a limitless multitude of external objects and of their sequences, coexistences and interactions.1

Dualistic realism has made some progress, we trust, since the time of Locke, and has got beyond the conception of mind as a tabula rasa, or "white paper void of all characters," or a "dark room"; and, in general, beyond the "window" or scribbler theory of knowledge -the theory which, as was observed before, maintains that external objects communicate all knowledge of themselves to the mind, and that the mind in the reception of the knowledge is as passive as an empty room

1 "Psychical causality is an inexhaustible process ever bringing forth new psychical products."

in receiving light or as a sheet of paper in receiving marks.

It has become evident that the mind is not only passive in perception, but is also active; that its activity is far too important to be ignored or questioned; that it receives no knowledge of external things from them, but produces its knowledge of them by its own action; that it supplies from its own internal sources alone all the materials of percepts, and constructs percepts by its own unifying efficiency. But in the recognition of the generative and constructive activity of mind in the formation of percepts or the cognitive modes, there should be the most decided shunning of the prime aberration of the idealists in their postulation that the activity of the mind in perception is wholly uninfluenced by outside objects, as there are no outside objects to influence it; that the only objects are the internal percepts or subject-objects, which have no possible relation with real external things and can in no degree or manner represent them. Realism contends, on the contrary, that though the mind is to so considerable an extent active in perception, it is also to a very real extent dependent and passive; that while percepts, or representations of external realities, are entirely constructed by the mind from materials furnished by the mind itself, yet the construction is initiated and controlled by the influence of the realities; that percepts represent objects of particular shapes, sizes, times, motions, forces, not of its own arbitrary purpose and perfectly self-originated and independent activity, but because real outer objects possessing these particular qualities influence the mind by them in the formation of the percepts. Thus it is

held that while the mind is so largely active in knowing external objects, the objects also are active upon the mind in being known.

Again, realism has come to see itself under the necessity of admitting that it is not a satisfactory and sufficient theory and proof of the existence of extramental objects, to claim a belief in the existence of such objects that is natural and necessary, that will not permit the negation of itself, that cannot be expelled. This proof is conceived to be in itself inadequate, and has been abandoned by many. But certainly an irresistible belief in external objects universally exists, and is a very remarkable fact. Idealists are compelled to consider it; but their attempts to account for it have been ignominious failures. The belief always demands capabilities and processes of knowledge which they do not recognize. Realists however feel that they cannot stop with an appeal to this belief, certain and potent as it is; but are under obligation to go on and give some account of the rise, development and worth of the belief; or to show, in the character and processes of our senses and the ordinary operations of our intellect, the possibility of apprehending, or forming true and binding inferences and representations of, external realities.

CHAPTER III

THE NATURE AND OUR PERCEPTION OF MATTER

In the preceding chapter we have given some consideration to Object-Objects in general; now we come to treat of a particular Object-Object, that is, Matter. According to the more common understanding, matter is an extended, inanimate, inert and permanent reality entirely independent of our mind or thought.

The scientific discussions of the nature of matter have long had particular regard to the questions of the divisibility of matter and the character and relation of its ultimate elements. Metaphysicians have ardently debated whether matter is infinitely divisible or whether there is a limit to division. They have agreed that though both alternatives are inconceivable, yet one of them must be true.

We are perfectly familiar with the divisibility of the tangible material objects that we constantly encounter, as pieces of wood, lumps of earth, stone. We may break a stone into pieces, and then break any one of these pieces into smaller, and so on, until we can divide no farther or not into perceivable fragments. When partition ceases to be practicable, we may carry it on many stages mentally and by aid of mathematical symbols. The ideal division of matter is related to what is called the "theoretical construction" of matter. It is common to postulate the ideal division as continued down to very minute particles called atoms.

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