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And as he affirms the inconceivability of motion he admits the existence of this contradiction against his will and therefore admits that it constitutes an objective contradiction in actual facts and events, and is moreover an actual fact.
Heredity and the origin of life must be taken into account; the "inconceivability" of the process has some weight; and the apparent infringement of the law of Conservation of Energy is a serious objection. Further, it may be urged, what evidence have we that consciousness can exist apart from brain-functioning?
It is on the perfection of God that Malebranche bases his argument that 'Dieu n'agit pas par des volontes particulieres. Yet every prayer affects to interfere with the divine purposes. It may here be urged that the divine purposes are beyond our comprehension. God's purposes may, in spite of the inconceivability, admit the efficacy of prayer as a link in the chain of causation; or, as Dr.
The mystery of existence and the inconceivability of matter thinking are their common data.
And it is wholly inconceivable that what we call extension should exist independently of such consciousness as our own. Whether, notwithstanding this inconceivability, it does so exist, or not, is a point on which I offer no opinion. Thus, whatever our marble may be in itself, all that we can know of it is under the shape of a bundle of our own consciousnesses.
Now, for the sake of distinction, I shall call the first of these usages the test of absolute inconceivability, and the second the test of relative inconceivability.
For, as the test of absolute inconceivability is equally annihilative in whichever direction it is applied, the test of relative inconceivability is the only one that remains; and as the formal conditions of a metaphysical teleology are undoubtedly present on the one hand, and the formal conditions of a physical explanation of cosmic harmony are no less undoubtedly present on the other hand, it follows that a theist and an atheist have an equal right to employ this test of relative inconceivability.
In the first place, I may observe that this argument differs in several instructive particulars from the anti-materialistic argument of Locke, which we have already had occasion to consider. For while Locke erroneously imagined that the test of inconceivability is of equivalent value wherever it is applied, save only where it conflicts with preconceived ideas on the subject of Theism (see Appendix A.), Spencer, of course, is much too careful a thinker to fall into so obvious a fallacy. But again, it is curious to observe that in the anti-materialistic argument of Spencer the test of inconceivability is used in a manner the precise opposite of that in which it is used in the anti-materialistic argument of Locke. For while the ground of Locke's argument is that Materialism must be untrue because it is inconceivable that Matter (and Force) should be of a psychical nature; the ground of Spencer's argument is that what we know as Force (and Matter) may not inconceivably be of a psychical nature. For my own part, I think that Spencer's argument is, psychologically speaking, the more valid of the two; but nevertheless I think that, logically speaking, it is likewise invalid to a perceptibly great, and to a further indefinite, degree. For the argument sets out with the reflection that we can only know Matter and Force as symbols of consciousness, while we know consciousness directly, and therefore that we can go further in conceivably translating Matter and Force into terms of Mind than vice versa. And this is true, but it does not therefore follow that the truth is more likely to lie in the direction that thought can most easily travel. For although I am at one with Mr. Spencer, whom Mr. Fiske follows, in regarding his test of truth viz., inconceivability of a negation as the most ultimate test within our reach, I cannot agree with him that in this particular case it is the most trustworthy test within our reach. I cannot do so because the reflection is forced upon me that, "as the terms which are contemplated in this particular case are respectively the highest abstractions of objective and of subjective existence, the test of truth in question is neutralised by directly encountering the inconceivable relation that exists between subject and object." Or, in other words, as before stated, "whatever the cause of Mind may be, we can clearly perceive it to be a subjective necessity of the case that, in ultimate analysis, we should find it more easy to conceive of this cause as resembling Mind the only entity of which we are directly conscious than to conceive of it as any other entity of which we are only indirectly conscious." When, therefore, Mr. Spencer argues that "it is impossible to interpret inner existence in terms of outer existence," while it is not so impossible to interpret outer existence in terms of inner existence, the fact is merely what we should in any case expect
We may defend our hypothesis as passionately as we like, but when we strive coolly to realize it in thought we find ourselves baulked at every step. See my Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. I. pp. 64-67. But now we have to ask, How much does this inconceivability signify?
The criterion of truth is the inconceivability of the negation. Tried by this test, as by all others, realism is superior to idealism, though in that "transfigured" form which implies objective existence without implying the possibility of any further knowledge concerning it, hence in a form entirely congruous with the conclusion reached by many other routes.
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