Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/704

 a number of distinct rocks; for the botanist it is composed of mineral and vegetable constituents, and of these, the latter, which alone engage his attention, are numerous and various; for the chemist it consists of an infinite multitude of elementary atoms variously combined. Hence unity and multiplicity are mere modes of subjective reflection; not ultimate modes of objective being. And the Unknowable cannot, strictly speaking, be regarded as either one or many, since each alike implies limitation and separation from something else. Rather is it all-comprehending; the Universal Foundation upon which unity and multiplicity alike are built.

Material things, then, are analyzable into modes of consciousness with an unknown cause to which these modes are due. But what is consciousness itself? Like matter, it has its subjective and its objective aspect. The subjective aspect consists of its various phenomenal conditions; the sensations which we ascribe to outward objects as their producing causes, and the emotions, passions, thoughts, and feelings which we conceive as of internal origin. The objective aspect consists of the unknown essence itself which experiences these various states; of the very self which is supposed to persist through all its changes of form; of the actual being which is the ultimate Reality of our mental lives. The existence of this ultimate Ego is known as an immediate fact of consciousness, and cannot be called in question without impugning the direct assurance which every one feels of his own being as apart from his particular and transient feelings. Nobody believes that he is the several sensations and emotions which he experiences in life; he believes that he has them. And if the existence of the Unknowable underlying material manifestations is perceived by a direct, indubitable inference, the existence of the Unknowable underlying mental manifestations is perceived without an inference at all by an intuition from which there is no appeal. For no one can even attempt to reason with me about this conviction without resting his argument upon facts, and inferences from facts, which are in themselves less certain than this primary certainty which he is seeking to overthrow.

Existence, then, is known to us immediately in our own case; mediately in every other—consequently, the only conception we