consists in their being perceived by the individual, and that they are nothing but his ideas, was refuted by Kant, when he showed that the very illusion of seeming knowledge was impossible on that theory.  And this later view, which represents knowledge as merely subjective, on the ground that it is the product of the activity of the thought of mankind, working according to universal laws, is capable of being refuted in the same manner.  The only difference between the Berkeleian and this modern speculative theory is that, on the former view, each individual constructed his own subjective entities or illusions; while, on the latter, all men, by reason of the universality of the laws of thought governing their minds, create the same illusion, the same subjective scheme of ideas.  Instead of each having his own private unreality, as the product of his perceiving activity, they have all the same, or at least a similar, phantom-world of ideas, as the result of their thinking.  But, in both cases alike, the reality of the world without is out of reach, and knowledge is a purely subjective apprehension of a world within.  Thoughts are quite different from things, and no effort of human reason can reveal any community between them.

Now, there are certain difficulties which, so far as I know, those who hold this view have scarcely attempted to meet.  The first of these lies in the obvious fact, that all men at all times consider that this very process of thinking, which the theory condemns as futile, is the only way we have of finding out what the reality of things is.  Why do we reflect and think, except in order to pass beyond the illusions of sensuous appearances to the knowledge of things as they are?  Nay, why do these philosophers themselves reflect, when reflection, instead of leading to truth, which is knowledge of reality, leads only to ideas, which, being universal, cannot represent the realities that are said to be “individual.”

The second is, that the knowledge of “the laws” of things gives to us practical command over them; although, according to this view, laws are not things, nor any part of the reality of things, nor even true representations of things.  Our authority over things seems to grow pari passu with our knowledge.  The natural sciences seem to prove by their practical efficiency, that they are not building up a world of apparitions, like the real world; but gradually getting inside nature, learning more and more to wield her powers, and to make them the instruments of the purposes of man, and the means of his welfare.  To common-sense,—­which frequently “divines” truths that it cannot prove, and, like ballast in a ship, has often given steadiness to human progress although it is only a dead weight,—­the assertion that man knows nothing is as incredible as that he knows all things.  If it is replied, that the “things” which we seem to dominate by the means of knowledge are themselves only phenomena, the question arises, what