Page:The Conception of God (1897).djvu/57

20 sensations never reveal to you the external physical realities as they are in themselves,” this argument seems so crushing, this exposure of our human fallibility so impressive?

To this question I answer, that, as a fact, the argument just stated from the physiology of the senses convinces us of our human fallibility and ignorance so persuasively, only because, in the concrete application of this argument, we actually first assume that we have a real knowledge, not, to be sure, of ultimate truth, but of a truth known to us through a higher experience than that of our senses; namely, the experience of that very science of the physiology of the senses which is relied upon to prove our total ignorance. When compared with this assumed higher form of indirect experience, or scientific knowledge, the direct experience of the senses does indeed seem ignorant and fallible enough. For the foregoing argument depends upon the supposition that we do know very well what we mean by the physical states of our organisms, and by the physical events outside of us. And the thesis involved is, in this aspect, simply the doctrine that any given group of sensations, e.g. those of colour, of temperature, or of odour, are inadequate indications of the otherwise known or knowable physical properties of the bodies that affect us when we see or feel or smell in their presence. On this side, then, I insist, the doctrine that our sensory experience is dependent upon the physical states of our organism is a doctrine expressive, not of our ignorance of any Absolute Reality (or Ding an sich), but of our knowledge of a phenomenal