Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/340

Rh which refer to these objects, just as there are countless cases where my ideas are supposed to have causes, say physiological or psychological causes, of which I myself never become conscious at all, as my objects. Nor is the object the object of a given idea merely because, from the point of view of an external observer, who looks from without upon idea and object, and compares them, the idea resembles the object. For the sort of correspondence to be demanded of the idea is determined by itself, and this correspondence cannot be judged merely from without. Again, my idea of my own past experiences may resemble your past experiences, in case you have felt as I have felt, or have acted in any way as I have acted. Yet when my ideas, in a moment of reminiscence, refer to my own past, and have that for their object, they do not refer to your past, nor to your deeds and sorrows, however like my own these experiences of yours may have been. One who, merely comparing my ideas and your experiences, said that because of the mere likeness I must be thinking of your past as my object, would, therefore, err, if it was my own past of which I was thinking. Neither such a relation as causal connection nor such a relation as mere similarity is, then, sufficient to identify an object as the object of a given idea.

Nor yet can any other relation, so far as it is merely supposed to be seen from without, by an external observer, suffice to identify any object as the object of a given idea. For suppose that any such relation, merely observed from without, were regarded as finally sufficient to constitute an object the object of a given idea. I care not what this relation may be. Call it what you will.