KNOWLEDGE AS IDEALISATION. 383

and for all intelligences. This apparent report is part of the complete psychical fact, but we do not now ask whether it has any right to be, or whether it is an illusion unconsciously superadded to the legitimate content of the fact. Recognis- ing that every psychical fact does have these two aspects, we shall, for the present, confine ourselves to asking the nature, function and origin of the aspect of meaning or significance the content of the idea as opposed to its existence. 1 To develop what is meant let us take Locke's favourite example a perception of gold. If we ask what is psychically present, by way of immediate existence, we shall find that it is only a group of sensuous feelings some strong, some faint. If we inquire further, we find that the stronger ones are due to a direct stimulation of some organ of sense, while the fainter are due to the indirect stimulation of some central organ. If we simply look at the piece of gold, there are the vivid sensations of colour and muscular tension only ; clus- tered about these may be less vivid feelings of contact, per- haps of slight metallic taste and odour. But it is a mistake to call these latter feelings ideal, and the former real. One class is just as real as the other ; the only distinction is one of strength. It is quite true that the weaker feelings may be found upon examination to be due to previous stimula- tions, and to be due to connexions in the brain previously established, so that now a direct peripheral excitation serves to set up a change in some connected part of the brain and awaken sensation. But as existences, there is no difference in the feelings, whether peripherally set up or centrally excited. The stronger one, as existence, does not report that it is due to present direct stimulation ; the weaker one does not report that it is ultimately due to past stimulations. This is a matter of interpretation, and even as interpre- tation it does not enter into the perception of the gold. I repeat, as existence, we have only a clustering of sensuous feelings, stronger and weaker. But what is perceived is not a clustering of feelings of any sort. It has taken centuries of scientific psychological observation even to ascertain that sensations of these kinds are involved at all : so far is their presence from being an element of the content of perception. What is perceived is the thing gold, with its various properties, which the sensa- tions stand for. And in our anxiety to get at meaning, to 1 In thus calling attention to the distinction of the two senses of the term * idea,' I am, of course, but repeating what many others have said among them most clearly Mr. F. H. Bradley, in his Principles of Logic, pp. 5 and 6.