342 A. K. ROGRES : into God's knowledge, they have, like other things, an eternal value. The general difficulty in the way of the conception I am criticising is, I think, sufficiently plain. And it will be unnecessary to do more than allude, again, to the further objection that it leaves no way at all for conceiving a real evolution, distinct from human development, such as science believes in. Scientific truth can only mean that certain formulae are practically useful to us as guides to action ; and .any attempt to make Hegel's philosophy of nature go be- yond this, and cover an actual fact of existence conceived as extending back in time before the appearance of man, will involve us in hopeless confusion. But the difficulties are not yet exhausted. Suppose we assume, for the moment, that the universe is a thinking process, which only comes to consciousness of itself in finite selves : how are we to conceive of the connexion which holds between these various selves ? And my contention is, that in falling back upon experience, the Hegelian simply utilises the conception which he derives from a single human life his own ; and, therefore, that he is left with no expedient whatever for uniting different selves. And first as to the facts. It is hardly worth while to collect passages in which everything is reduced to distinc- tions, or factors, within experience, or consciousness, or knowledge, but I will subscribe a few of these : " The objects we know are real because they exist for us in consciousness, and are yet distinguished from the mere sequence of our re- presentations." l "Call it if you like the experience of the race, but remember that this connotes neither more nor less than normal, ideal, universal, infinite, absolute experience. This is the unconditioned which is the basis and the builder of all conditions ; the Absolute, which is the home and the parent of all relations. Experience is no doubt yours and mine, but it is also much more than either yours or mine. He who builds on and in Experience, builds on and in the Absolute, in the System a system which is not merely his." " All that is for not the self which is a particular object in space and time, nor yet any transcendent self, but know- ledge." 3 " A method for the investigation of the content of consciousness. Outside that consciousness we cannot and need not get." 4 " If the nature of all objects of philosophical inquiry is to be determined from fixing their place within 1 Watson, Kant, p. 52. - Wallace, Lo<ti<- nf Jli-</i I, p. 109.
- Haldane, MIND, vol. xiii., p. 586. ' Aid, p. 588.
