Simply by a more careful comparison, mediately or immediately made. And whatdoes acceptance of the revised conclusion imply? Simply that a deliberateverdict of consciousness is preferable to a rash one; or, to speak more definitely-- that a consciousness of likeness or difference which survives criticalexamination must be accepted in place of one that does not survive -- thevery survival being itself the acceptance.
And here we get to the bottom of the matter. The permanence of a consciousnessof likeness or difference, is our ultimate warrant for asserting the existenceof likeness or difference; and, in fact, we mean by the existence of likenessor difference, nothing more than the permanent consciousness of it. To saythat a given congruity or incongruity exists, is simply our way of sayingthat we invariably have a consciousness of it along with a consciousnessof the compared things. We know nothing more of existence than continuedmanifestation. §42. But Philosophy requires for its datum some substantive proposition.
To recognize as unquestionable a certain fundamental process of thought,is not enough: we must recognize as unquestionable some fundamental productof thought, reached by this process. If Philosophy is completely -- unifiedknowledge -- if the unification of knowledge is to be effected only by showingthat some ultimate proposition includes and consolidates all the resultsof experience; then, clearly, this ultimate proposition which has to be provedcongruous with all others, must express a piece of knowledge, and not thevalidity of an act of knowing. Having assumed the trustworthiness of consciousness,we have also to assume as trustworthy some deliverance of consciousness.
What must this be? Must it not be one affirming the widest and most profounddistinction which things present? An ultimate principle that is to unifyall experience, must be co-extensive with all experience. That which Philosophytakes as its datum, must be an assertion of some likeness and differenceto which all other likenesses and differences are secondary. If knowing isclassifying, or grouping the like and separating the unlike; and if the unificationof knowledge proceeds by arranging the smaller classes of like experienceswithin the larger, and these within the still larger; then, the propositionby which knowledge is unified, must be one specifying the antithesis betweentwo ultimate classes of experiences, in which all others merge.
Let us consider what these classes are. In drawing the distinction betweenthem, we cannot avoid using words which have implications wider than theirmeanings -- we cannot avoid arousing thoughts that imply the very distinctionwhich it is the object of the analysis to establish. Keeping this fact inmind, we can do no more than ignore the connotations of the words, and attendonly to the things they avowedly denote. §43. Setting out from the conclusion lately reached, that all thingsknown to us are manifestations of the Unknowable, and suppressing every hypothesisrespecting that which underlies one or other order of these manifestations;we find that the manifestations, considered simply as such, are divisibleinto two great classes, called by some impressions and ideas, The implicationsof these words are apt to vitiate the reasonings of those who use the words;and it is best to avoid the risk of making unacknowledged assumptions. Theterm sensation, too, commonly used as the equivalent of impression, impliescertain psychological theories -- tacitly, if not openly, postulates a sensitiveorganism and something acting upon it: and can scarcely be employed withoutbringing these postulates into the thoughts and including them in the inferences.
Similarly, the phrase state of consciousness, as signifying either an impressionor an idea, is objectionable. As we cannot think of a state without thinkingof something of which it is a state, and which is capable of different states,there is involved a foregone conclusion -- an undeveloped system of metaphysics.
Here, accepting the inevitable implication that the manifestations implysomething manifested, our aim must be to avoid any further implications.
Though we cannot exclude further implications from our thoughts, and cannotcarry on our argument without tacit recognitions of them, we can at any raterefuse to recognize them in the terms with which we set out. We may do thismost effectually by classing the manifestations as vivid and faint respectively.
Let us consider what are the several distinctions that exist between these.
