Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 050.djvu/570

530 be already conceived in inseparable union with it. Therefore, when we say that the object is the cause of our perception, we merely say that that which, when thought, becomes one with our perception, is the cause of our perception. In other words, we are guilty of the glaring petitio principii of maintaining, that our perceptions of objects are the causes of our perceptions of objects.

Another important result of the new philosophy, is the finishing stroke which it gives to the old systems of dogmatic Realism and dogmatic Idealism. The former of these maintains, that an outward world exists, independent of our perceptions of it. The latter maintains, that no such world exists, and that we are cognizant merely of our own perceptions. But this new doctrine shows that these systems are investigating a problem which cannot possibly be answered either in the affirmative or the negative; not on account of the limited nature of the human faculties, but because the question itself is an irrational and unintelligible one. For if we say, with dogmatic Realism, that an outward world does exist independent of our perception of it, this implies that we are able to separate, in thought, external objects and our perceptions of them. But such a separation we have shown to be impossible and inconceivable. And if, on the other hand, we say with dogmatic Idealism, that an outward world does not exist independent of our perceptions of it, and that we are conscious only of these perceptions—this involves us in exactly the same perplexity. Because to think that there is no outward independent world, is nothing more than to think an outward independent world away—but to think an independent world away, we must first of all think it—but to think an outward independent world at all, is to be able to make the distinction which we have shown it is impossible for us to make—the distinction, namely, between objects and our perceptions of them. Therefore this question touching the reality or non-reality of an external world cannot be answered; not because it is unanswerable, but because it is unaskable.

We now take leave of a subject which we not only have not exhausted, but into the body and soul of which we do not pretend to have entered. We have confined our discussion to the settlement of the preliminaries of one great question. We think, however, that we have indicated the true foundations upon which modern philosophy must build—that we have described the vital crisis in which speculative thought is at present labouring, while old things are passing away, and all things are becoming new. This form of the truth is frail and perishable, and will quickly be forgotten; but the truth itself which it embodies is permanent as the soul of man, and will endure for ever. We hope, in conclusion, that some allowance will be made for this sincere, though perhaps feeble, endeavour to catch the dawning rays which are now heralding the sunrise of a new era of science—the era of genuine speculation.