Perhaps it may be said that if Mill's Psychological Theory of Mind and Matter is not satisfactory, neither is the theory of the direct apprehension of reality wholly consistent with itself. It affirms the direct apprehension of reality, yet on examination the direct apprehension turns out to be an inference. Thus: things must have an existence different from our sensations because they produce their effects, and therefore exist, in our absence.
The reply is simple. Unless we believed the effects, which we do perceive, to be real things, we should not infer the causes, which we do not perceive, to be real either. Common sense believes that things continue to exist when we turn our eyes away: their existence beyond the range of observation is an inference from their existence in our observation. Their inferred permanence is deduced from their observed independence.
INDEX
A
- Abstraction: [193], [198], [199], [203], [242], [255]
- Action: [65], [68], [70]
- Adaptation: [21], [25]-[30], [186], [204], [206], [219], [221], [252] (see Environment)
- Agnosticism: [36], [165]-[76], [202], [218], [237]
- Anthropomorphism: [51], [52], [55]
- Ape and tiger, The: [28], [30], [31], [40], [276]
- Appearance: [67], [266] (see Purpose)
- Apprehension: [57], [58], [63]-[70], [295]
- Approximation to the ideal: [206], [208], [213], [222], [229], [252], [256] (see Ideals, Progress, Purpose)
- Art, Artist: [207], [209], [244]
- Assumption: [164]-[180], [185], [187], [188], [191]-[6], [221], [222]
B
- Becoming: [78]
- Being: [78]
- Belief: [215], [221] (see Will to believe)
- Berkeley, Bp.: [62], [63], [289]-[95]
- Bernard, Claude: [90]
- Biology: [94], [96], [249]-[51]
C