Page:The World and the Individual, First Series (1899).djvu/370

Rh ment had was precisely duplicated by a thought which at the same instant, and in the same fashion, arose in the other being’s life, — if, I say, you suppose this perfect resemblance in the twin minds, you could still, without inconsistency, suppose these twins separated from infancy, living apart, although of course under perfectly similar physical conditions, and in our human sense what we men call absolute strangers to each other, so that neither of them, viewed merely as this human being, ever consciously thought of the other, or conceived of the other’s existence. In that case, the mere resemblance would not so far constitute the one of these twin minds the object of which the other mind thought, or the being concerning whom the ideas of the other were true.

The resemblance of idea and object, viewed as a mere fact for an external observer, is, therefore, never by itself enough to constitute the truth of the idea. Nor is the absence of any externally predetermined resemblances, such as you from without may choose to demand of the idea, enough to constitute any specific sort of error. Moreover, when you merely assert that in the world of Being there is to be found an object which resembles your idea, you have so far only mentioned two beings, namely, your idea and its object, and have asserted their resemblance. But you have not yet in the least defined wherein the Being of either of these objects consists. This, then, is the outcome so long as you view idea and object as sundered facts agreeing or disagreeing with each other. Neither truth nor Being is thus to be defined. The result so far is conclusive as against the adequacy, not only of Realism, and of Mysticism,