Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/379

No. 3.] incoherence appears to prevail between the different series of motions. If this is true on the physical, much more is it true on the psychic, plane. The psychic life offers the most striking contradictions between that which one might consider as the numbers of states of consciousness of two men during the same time, these numbers not appearing in any way proportional to each other. But the inferior phenomena which are most intimately connected with the corporeal life, present certain divisions of a remarkable uniformity. Sleep and wakefulness divide our existence into periods singularly alike. From facts like this we are led to form groups of these states which are nearly regular, and to call them equal. Then the motions of the sun, which preside over these fundamental phenomena of our existence, furnish us with a means of making a division into equal parts as small as we please. This affirmation does not in any way depend upon the relative or absolute character of time. L.'s theory of the measure of time may be adopted independently of his hypothesis as to its true nature.

As different accounts of a matter of fact have given rise to contradictory theories (or, as the author terms them, "Reflections"), so have contradictory theories in science given rise to problems whose solution is the aim of “philosophic reflection” or theory of knowledge. The title of the article indicates one of these problems, which arises from ascribing contradictory spatial qualities to the same event or sum of events. On One side, the events which make up sense-perceptions are represented as belonging to a world outside of me; on the other side, they are called ideas within me. There are three ways of reconciling the contradiction: 1st. By duplicating the qualities of the events; this way may be termed the material standpoint. 2d. by making the two spatial qualities coincide, or by setting one aside altogether; the formal standpoint. 3d. The meaning on the qualities can be so interpreted that the contraction, which exists merely for the spatial difference of the same matter of fact, disappears; this is the critical standpoint. Of the material standpoint there are five aspects, varying from the attribution to the ego of mere form, — indefinite and empty, — through the vulgar aspect, where along with qualitative identity of the inner and outer worlds there is mere numerical differences, up to the view which regards the outer world as only the indefinite "Ding an sich," while to the ego belongs all that is qualitative in sense-perception. The material standpoint is a logical solution of the problem, but the numerous forms it has assumed arouses doubt of its truth. More especially it is to be