Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/96

 84 ARTHUB JAMES BALFOUE. that when we say that a phenomenon is real we mean that it is, just as when we say that it is illusion we mean that it is not, determined by those relations in this uniform system which appear to us to determine it. But this way of look- ing at things, though habitual and, indeed, practically inevitable, is not speculatively necessary. Other views of the " world of experience " might be held without self-con- tradiction. We might suppose, for instance, that there was an objective system of nature (e.g., in Green's language, a system constituted by a world-consciousness of which ours is a limited mode) which should not be uniform, or not uniform in any sense required by science ; and in which all the relations might not only be variable but might vary arbitrarily. Again, we might suppose that there was no objective system of nature at all : that ours was the sole consciousness in existence, and that there was no world other than that which was constituted by the successive phenomena which that consciousness comprehends. These suppositions, if true, would doubtless render science impos- sible. But since, so far as appears, they are neither self- destructive nor, properly speaking, incredible, it cannot be legitimate to build up a speculative system upon the mere assumption of their falsity. Let us grant however that, as there is a world of experience, there must therefore be a world-spirit to which it is relative ; and let us proceed to consider what is, I think, the most difficult part of Green's doctrine I mean his views of the nature of consciousness in general and of the relationship of the universal conscious- ness to our own. His exposition is in some respects obscure, and not always verbally consistent ; but it may I believe be sum- marised without, substantial injustice somewhat as follows. Knowledge, i.e., the " content of a knowing consciousness," is of a " related whole ". The members of this related whole, the elements in other words, which collectively make up the things known, are all " neces- sarily present together "(p. 61), "neither before nor after one another" (p. 61), " without any lapse of time however minute " between them (p. 62), to the self-distinguishing consciousness from whose " action " they " result " (p. 68). This is so, whether what is known be a uniformity of nature or a succession between events. Hence the knowing subject, itself free from time-conditions, is an " agent for the neutralisation " of time (p. 71) ; hence also knowledge, i.e., the content of a knowing consciousness (as, for instance, a proposition of Euclid qud known), cannot be properly described as a phenomenon ; and though its acquisition or its loss may be events, in itself it is not an event. These are characteristics of knowing consciousness in general. But our consciousness has in addition the apparently (p. 72) contradictory attribute of a history in time. " It seems to vary from moment to moment." It apprehends processes of becoming in a manner