Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/232

 216 HOWARD V. KNOX: distinction (though not an absolute one) between the stream of consciousness and the conditions which antecedently determine any given perception in the sense of determin- ing the sensation or sensations which form the groundwork of the perception. Though this point will probably, in the light of the examples given in part i., be already fairly clear, it may perhaps be as well to illustrate it by a simple example ad hoc ; in which, to avoid giving ourselves any special advantage, the thing to be perceived shall itself be a relatively fixed and permanent object. Let the unperceived object be an uninhabited island in mid-ocean. What train or trains of mental phenomena are necessary to its realisation in sense-perception'? 1 Obviously, none at all. A shipwrecked sailor may be cast on that island after days and nights spent on a raft at the mercy of wind and current, without any means of fixing his position, and without any variation in his perceived sur- roundings of limitless ocean and leaden sky. He may even be cast ashore in a state of unconsciousness, and waking find himself on dry land. Merely, however, to say that he has no means of fixing his position, is to say that so far as his sensible experiences are concerned, he might be anywhere on the surface of the ocean. Therefore his meet- ing with the island does not follow on these experiences by rule, as one member of a routine-series on another. Now though the example that has just been taken, having been selected (within our self-imposed limits) for the sake of brevity and clearness of exposition, represents a some- what extreme case, it will be evident, on a little reflexion, that a parallel case is offered whenever any material object or event comes ' accidentally ' under our notice ; " accident," in this connexion, implying the absence of purpose. From this it follows that even when, e.g., a navigator 1 It might have been thought unnecessary, were it not that this seemingly palpable ignoratio elenchi had actually been committed, to point out that Apologetic Idealism cannot be saved simply by saying that, " If any one were there the island would be perceived ". What meaning is directly conveyed by " There," other than, or more definite than, that of " There where the island is " ? But this is to think and speak of the island as being somewhere, i.e., as ' existing in space ' : and the question which Scientific Idealism undertakes to answer is precisely the question as to the nature of this existence, when the island is not actually perceived. So far as it is thought of as being somewhere in spite of not being per- ceived, it is thought of as a part of the external world ; but Apologetic Idealism, if it has any meaning, is surely intended to get rid of this con- ception of a world in space that continues outside consciousness. In short, the very question at stake is the implication of the word ' there," when used in reference to things which are not actually perceived.