and houses and the like, I would say, Yes; we know a great many such things, of course. We may not know all that is to be known about them; we may be very ignorant of them, indeed, in some respects; but still we know them, and know them not as mere phenomena, or modes of the conscious self, but as something else and different. It is fashionable with some, no doubt, to say that by the very conditions of intelligence we can know only phenomena, by which they mean, as they tell us themselves, "the effects produced upon our consciousness by unknown external agencies." 1 But they cannot even say so much without implying that they know a good deal more. For if we can know only phenomena or modifications of our consciousness, how could we ever come to think of external agencies affecting us? How could we ever come to think of phenomena as phenomena? And especially, how could we possibly come to know them as phenomena? How could we even come to recognize modes of consciousness as such, except as in contrast with things which are known as not modes of consciousness? We can know things only as they are related to our intelligence, or are brought in some way under the conditions of cognition, be it granted; but we can think of things or imagine their possibility only under the same conditions. And so, with that understanding, everything of which we can predicate existence must be a phenomenon; that is to say, in thinking of it, in affirming its existence, we think of it, we affirm its existence, and thus inevitably relate it to ourselves. Not only all knowledge, but all being must thus be phenomenal and relative. And when we say so, so far from denying the relativity of knowledge, or doing

1 Fiske's Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i., part i., c. 1.

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violence to it, we conceive that we give our adhesion to the only consistent, thorough-going doctrine of relativity which can be held-viz., that the possibility of thought is to us the measure of the possibility of things. For we thus bring everything which can be supposed to exist into relation, and so make it thinkable, knowable. There may be things, we have no doubt there are many things, which we as individuals cannot think of now from want of experience or contact with them, but if they can be thought of at all—if they are ever to be thought of by any intelligence anywhere, they come within the possibilities of thought, and are essentially cognizable; and if we exclude them from the possibilities of thought—but we cannot even suppose it without having already included them in thought. In the very act of affirming that they are, or in calling them by their name, in speaking of them as they, we assert their cognoscibility. They are in our thoughts of them. And only those who talk of things-in-themselves, of the Absolute as "that which exists out of all relations," of the Infinitely Unknowable, and so forth, can be said to be guilty of absurdly and tacitly assuming that knowledge is not essentially relative. While speaking of the doctrine of relativity as if it were something peculiar to themselves, they at the same time deny it in the most positive and persistent fashion by asserting tacitly, if not in so many words, that that which exists out of all relation is that of whose existence alone we can be absolutely sure. -the Infinitely Unknowable, the infinite and absolute Power, the Unconditioned, the Noumenon, or by whatever other name it may be called, is not known at all, it would seem, and cannot by the very conditions of

It

intelligence be ever known to anyone, creature or Creator, and yet from all accounts, and strange to say, it is manifested in all phenomena, and so must be related to them all, and is that which, as we must perceive, gives being and persistence to the cosmos. It is spoken of as the Reality of Realities, and yet, it would seem, it is-Nothing; for we cannot think or speak of it strictly as either one or many, they tell us, either as conscious or unconscious, intelligent or unintelligent, as active or passive-we cannot, in short, ascribe to it any determinate qualities, for that would be to relate it to thought, which we cannot do, and must be careful not to do; and yet we know that it is and that it is not a phenomenon; we know that it is and what it is, and yet we know nothing about it. It is a Humpty-Dumpty of an Abracadabra and unreason throughout; let it go.

It is unnecessary to prolong discussion on the point. No valid argument, so far as we can judge, can be urged against the external reality of the beauty we perceive from any tenable doctrine of the relativity of knowledge. If by saying that our knowledge is relative you mean that we can know only states of consciousness or modifications of the percipient subject, we not only cannot know anything of a beauty really inherent in things without, we cannot know anything of things without us at all-we cannot even know that there are such things. But if you mean that we can know things only as they are in some way related to us and as we have powers of apprehending them, we say, that of course; but that in no way invalidates the supposition that what we do apprehend is real and as it seems to be. That with different constitutions we might have different perceptions of external things is what

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might naturally be expected; but it does not necessarily follow from that that our perceptions now are in any way illusive or give us illusive forms and knowledge. It may be that there is a fulness in the universe of which we can have now but a faint conception and which requires a corresponding fulness and diversity of constitution for its apprehension. Our present perceptions, we may be sure, are not co-extensive with the infinitude of things without us; and if with other powers and organs of perception, I should see things which I cannot see constituted as I am now, I would believe in their reality then as I now believe in the reality of the cosmos which I see. And if I should bear with me the remembrance of the present life, I would believe in the existence of both worlds as seen. Our knowledge though relative need not be phenomenal; relativity in no way excludes reality, but rather embraces and presupposes it.

CHAPTER XI.

THE NATURE OF THE BEAUTIFUL, AND ITS RELATIONS TO SOME ALLIED FORMS OF PERCEPTION AND THOUGHT.

HAVING found that beauty cannot reasonably be regarded as a creature simply of association, or a mere projection of the mind's sensibility, or of memories' pleasures, upon objects of perception and thought, but that it must, in a very large measure at least, be regarded as constitutive of the objects perceived, we have already determined one of the most important questions as to its nature. It is objective as well as subjective; real as well as ideal; a quality of things material as well as of things mental-of trees, and fields, and flowers as well as of thoughts, and fancies, and memories suffused with pleasure; and it has a permanence, too, as we shall see by and by, as lasting as matter with its forces and laws, or the relations of thought in the life divine, for these all imply it and contain it. And these, as it seems to us, and after what has been said upon the subject by so many Scottish metaphysicians in particular, are the most important features of the whole inquiry as to beauty.

But what is it? it will still be asked by the people and by philosophers; and the question lies, we have been told, on the very threshold of all aesthetic inquiries. It may be so. But let it lie where it may,

the question is, speculatively and practically, of no