Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/379

 THE OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE. 367 system of knowledge, cannot itself be subject to time, cannot be phenomenally evanescent, but must constitute an identi- cally enduring and self-consistent entity. Readers of MIND, who may perhaps have given some at- tention to the Philosophy of Organisation as partly pro- pounded in former articles, will not feel surprised to learn that the present writer fully concurs in this cardinal con- clusion of Transcendentalism. He also, taught by biological research, is quite convinced that the feeling and thinking subject is an identically enduring, indiscerptible unity. But what does Transcendentalism actually teach us con- cerning the true nature of such an experiencing subject, that is not itself in time ? Like us, it concludes from the contrast between our persistent system of knowledge and the evident evanescence of all conscious phenomena, that there must be an identically enduring, self-consistent subject, which thinks and feels. But where does it demonstrate to us the existence of such a subject? In what regions, accessible to human consciousness, does it endeavour to point out the real sub- sistence of such an entity ? It merely declares that, accord- ing to its reasoning, our veritable being must have somehow a timeless existence, and that, therefore, it must subsist somewhere beyond the reach of all natural experience as a something of which we may confidently say that it is subjectively speaking an all-efficient power, neutralising through simultaneous and unitary realisation the lapsing instants of time and the fragmentary nature of their contents. Xow we candidly ask : Is there anything gained are there an' bearings found for the guidance of our striving by calling the persistent and unitary power, utterly unknown to Transcendentalism, spiritual or anything else ? by pro- jecting a bare mystery, by dint of mere words, into the blank nothingness of unfelt existence, where no human thought can pierce ? It would seem that, if the best part of us were really ini- perishably subsistent in a supernatural state, exciting there- from all the power we may actually possess, then the sooner the remaining portion of us all could manage to get withdrawn into that superior existence, the better for every one of us. I will, however, refrain from discussing the pernicious con- sequences of such a doctrine. Appealing to the impartial judgment of open-jninded thinkers, I will rely on purely scientific arguments. The task is to comprehend the true nature of that identi- cally abiding subject which experiences the phenomenal changes. Xow can a Transceudentalist, or any one else, con-