Page:Journal of Speculative Philosophy Volume 17.djvu/71

62 not be that we know there is a Non-relative because we know that our feelings are relative, for the latter point is just the one in question, and cannot be proved, as Mr. Spencer himself shows, without assumption of the former. The knowledge of the existence of the Relative cannot be made to depend upon the assumption of a Non-relative, and knowledge of the existence of the Non-relative upon that of the Relative, at one and the same time. But it is only by this most illogical procedure that Mr. Spencer gets the Absolute, which, as he recognizes, is necessary to the proof of the relativity hypothesis.

We conclude, then, that we are justified in reasserting our original statement. To know that our sensations are relative, we must know that there is an Absolute, To know that there is an Absolute is, on the sensationalist hypothesis, to assert the contradictio in adjecto of an absolute feeling, or else to reason in the wholly illegitimate manner just examined. Hence, the two positions of Sensationalism and Relativity of sensations are wholly irreconcilable.

So far we have confined ourselves to the simplest assumption of these theories as conjoined — the assumption that there is an absolute object or objects. We have not concerned ourselves with the question. What is this absolute object? This, however, can no longer be kept in the background. Even admitting what we have seen it impossible to admit on the hypothesis that we have knowledge of the existence of a Non-relative, we have yet to decide whether the relativity of feeling can be proved without knowing what this Non-relative is. The sensationalist must hold, of course, that it can be. To hold that sensations can tell us what an absolute existence is, is a contradiction even greater (if there be degrees in contradiction) than the one we have just seen the theory involved in. And so we find that the absolute object is for Mr. Spencer beyond consciousness, independent of consciousness, unknowable. In fact, Absolute and non-relativeness to consciousness are synonymous terms with him and the Sensationalists generally. 'Our question, therefore, is : Can we prove the relativity of feelings on the hypothesis that they are relative to an unknown something by reference of them to something out of and independent of consciousness?

In reply, we ask the following questions: 1. Is it possible to