"Something you can prod." This last piece of crudity came from the young man Arthur, and attracted no attention.
Now, when several persons shout simultaneously a profound and intuitive judgment apiece, each naturally pauses to hear what effect his own has had upon the Universe. An opening for speech is then given to anyone who has the presence of mind to abstain from wasting time over the detection of a stray meaning anywhere. In this case, Mr. Ramsey Tomes saw his opportunity, and seized it.
"Am I mistaken," said he, "in supposing that at least one suggestion has been made that the Universe, as at present formulated, has but two constituents—namely, the subject under discussion, Matter, on the one hand; and on the other what has been variously called Mind or Spirit. Shall I presume too far on the attention the Philosophical Mind is prepared to vouchsafe to the voice of a mere sciolist in Metaphysical profundity if I indicate the existence of yet a third constituent of what has been not inaptly called the Universal Whole? I refer to what I may term the Unknown."
The speaker felt that this was so admirably expressed that he rashly paused to lick his lips over it. This gave Challis, who was in a malicious or impish mood, time to interject a remark. Its effect was that, for the purpose of discussing the Existence of Matter, no definition of it would be of any use to us, unless we provided ourselves also with an accurate definition of Existence. Agreement on these two points would enable us to approfondir the question of the entity or nonentity of the appreciable Universe.
There seemed to be no serious difficulty, unless it were the selection of the required definitions from an embarras de richesses. Among those which survived the tumult of many confident voices, Challis distinguished the following:
"The relation a thing has to itself."
"The condition precedent of the concept 'nothing,' which is itself a fundamental condition of thought."
"A quality thought imputes to the external cause of every phenomenon."
"The recognition by the Ego of the reality of its environments."
"When you've nothing particular to do." This one was Arthur, who, however, was heard a moment after to say, "All right; I'll come!" in response to a summons, and thereafter went, carrying away his unfinished cigar. Challis heard his voice afar very soon, probably in the garden in the moonlight, where chits and counterchits were in council on the lawn. He wanted to go out in that garden himself, but—he supposed—he recognized the reality of his environments, like the Ego, and felt that such conduct would be rude. Besides, he was rather amused, too. What was that Mr. Brownrigg was saying?