Hence our firm belief in objective reality. When we are taught that apiece of matter, regarded by us as existing externally, cannot be reallyknown, but that we can know only certain impressions produced on us, we areyet, by the relativity of thought, compelled to think of these in relationto a cause -- the notion of a real existence which generated these impressionsbecomes nascent. If it be proved that every notion of a real existence whichwe can frame, is inconsistent with itself -- that matter, however conceivedby us, cannot be matter as it actually is, our conception, though transfigured,is not destroyed: there remains the sense of reality, dissociated as faras possible from those special forms under which it was before representedin thought. Though Philosophy condemns successively each attempted conceptionof the Absolute -- though in obedience to it we negative, one after another;each idea as it arises; yet, as we cannot expel the entire contents of consciousness,there ever remains behind an element which passes into new shapes. The continualnegation of each particular form and limit, simply results in the more orless complete abstraction of all forms and limits; and so ends in an indefiniteconsciousness of the unformed and unlimited.
And here we come face to face with the ultimate difficulty -- How canthere be constituted a consciousness of the unformed and unlimited, when,by its very nature, consciousness is possible only under forms and limits?
Though not directly withdrawn by the withdrawal of its conditions, must notthe raw material of consciousness be withdrawn by implication? Must it notvanish when the conditions of its existence vanish? That there must be asolution of this difficulty is manifest; since even those who would put itdo, as already shown, admit that we have some such consciousness; and thesolution appears to be that above shadowed forth. Such consciousness is not,and cannot be, constituted by any single act, but is the product of manymental acts. In each concept there is an element which persists. It is impossiblefor this element to be absent from consciousness, or for it to be presentin consciousness alone. Either alternative involves unconsciousness -- theone from want of the substance; the other from want of the form. But thepersistence of this element under successive conditions, necessitates a senseof it as distinguished from the conditions, and independent of them. Thesense of a something that is conditioned in every thought cannot be got ridof, because the something cannot be got rid of. How then must the sense ofthis something be constituted? Evidently by combining successive conceptsdeprived of their limits and conditions. We form this indefinite thought,as we form many of our definite thoughts, by the coalescence of a seriesof thoughts. Let me illustrate this. A large complex object, having attributestoo numerous to be represented at once, is yet tolerably well conceived bythe union of several representations, each standing for part of its attributes.
