GEORGE STUART FULLERTON, A System of Metaphysics. 239 they take their place as one field of consciousness ; as a part of the world of my thought's reach ; that world is always larger than they. It is one thing to discover within that world that we have no reason to attribute existence in the ultimate, irresoluble sense to anything but fields of consciousness ; that the material order is but a legitimate construction of the mind; it is another to swallow the material order and all minds into the consciousness now knowing. In such a criticism, carried so far, Prof. Fullerton will perhaps see perversity. Has he not examined the idea of representation and shown that it is impossible by putting together consciousness- elements to construct something truly representative of a world which is not a part of our experience ? Does not then the whole world of our ken and fancy become synonymous with our experi- ence ? Has he not shown that we know even external things" "immediately"? Let us retort with a question. In " conscious- ness in the broad sense," or what we should call the world, there appear many individual minds. These minds in varying measure know each other ; have true beliefs about each other. That is, in varying measure they represent each other. But this, a know- ledge we recognise in others, cannot be an immediate knowledge ; two minds, as the author says, are mutually exclusive. It must be a representation in absence. And when I think of my own mind as one amongst the minds of the world I must think of its representation of other minds, and of past and future, in just this light. These are knowledges that I know ; they are in one sense of the word objects ; knowledges that appear as facts amongst other facts in the total that the author calls consciousness. Now is it not true that whenever in reflexion we have reached the point of calling the whole sweep of the appearing world consciousness, we have turned upon ourselves and made of our conssiousness an object ; a discriminated fact amongst possible other facts ? The very thought that stamps the world as " consciousness " opens up a possible world beyond it. Such a thought puts this " conscious- ness" on just the same footing as any fellow-mind. If so, " consciousness " in the largest sense we can attach to it may be conceived as capable of representation in absence. If we insist upon surveying a more inclusive whole we must take " the world ". Thus by the very conditions of thinking one is debarred from iden- tifying the expanse of reality with one's field of consciousness. Representative knowledge is then, on any system, an inex- pugnable fact in the world. The question how to reconcile this conclusion with the author's arguments in the chapter on the Psychological Standpoint, which are in the main coercive and final, is too large to be answered here. It may be suggested that the answer will be found by accurately distinguishing the psycho- logy, the metaphysics and the logic of knowledge. The laws of thought exclude) any plausible argument for a doubt of the world beyond one's consciousness. But metaphysics knows nothing of
