Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/82

68 HOWAED V. KNOX : mark successive stages of the argument in the Prolegomena- is calculated to discourage any attempt to ' comprehend in a single conception ' Green's kaleidoscopic views as to the significance of the distinction between illusion and reality. (The italics are mine throughout.) (a) "The terms 'real' and 'objective,' then, have no meaning except for a consciousness which presents its ex- periences to itself as determined by relations, and at the same time conceives a single and unalterable order of rela- tions determining them, with which its temporary presentation, as each experience occurs, of the relations determining it may be contrasted. For such a consciousness, perpetually altering its views of the relations determining any experience under the necessity of combining them in one system with other recognised relations, and for such a consciousness only, there is significance in the judgment that any experience seems to be so and so, i.e., to be related in a certain way, but really is otherwise related." 1 (b) " From the above considerations thus much at any rate would seem to follow : that a form of consciousness, which we cannot explain as of natural origin," i.e., which is not in time, "is necessary to our conceiving an order of nature, an objective world of fact from which illusion may be distin- guished." 2 (c) " Let us consider now how we stand. We have rejected the question, What is or constitutes the real ? as intrinsically unmeaning, because it could only be answered by a distinction which would, imply that there was something unreal." s (d) " There are difficulties enough, no doubt, in the way of accepting such a form of ' idealism,' but they need not be aggravated by misunderstanding. It is simply misunderstood if it is taken to imply . . . the obliteration of the distinction be- tween illusion and reality." 4 III. In 15 of the Prolegomena, after pointing out that " So far we have only reached the conclusion that a conception, to which understanding is related as faculty to function, is the condition of our ability to distinguish a real from the unreal, matter of fact from illusion " ; Green continues : "It will be said perhaps that so much pains need not have been spent on establishing a proposition which in effect merely tells us that without a conception of an order of nature we could not conceive an order of nature. Is not 1 Op. cit., 13. 8 Op. cit., 19. 3 Op. cit., 26. 4 Op. cit., 37.