On thinking of a piano, there first rises in imagination its outer appearance,to which are instantly added (though by separate mental acts) the ideas ofits remote side and of its solid substance. A complete conception, however,involves the strings, the hammers, the dampers, the pedals; and while successivelyadding these, the attributes first thought of lapse partially or wholly outof consciousness. Nevertheless, the whole group constitutes a representationof the piano. Now as in this case we form a definite concept of a specialexistence, by imposing limits and conditions in successive acts; so, in theconverse case, by taking away limits and conditions in successive acts, weform an indefinite notion of general existence. By fusing a series of statesof consciousness, from each of which, as it arises, the limitations and conditionsare abolished, there is produced a consciousness of something unconditioned.
To speak more rigorously: -- this consciousness is not the abstract of anyone group of thoughts, ideas, or conceptions; but it is the abstract of allthoughts, ideas, or conceptions. That which is common to them all we predicateby the word existence. Dissociated as this becomes from each of its modesby the perpetual change of those modes, it remains as an indefinite consciousnessof something constant under all modes -- of being apart from its appearances.
The distinction we feel between specialized existences and general existence,is the distinction between that which is changeable in us and that whichis unchangeable. The contrast between the Absolute and the Relative in ourminds, is really the contrast between that mental element which exists absolutely,and those which exist relatively.
So that this ultimate mental element is at once necessarily indefiniteand necessarily indestructible. Our consciousness of the unconditioned beingliterally the unconditioned consciousness, or raw material of thought towhich in thinking we give definite forms, it follows that an ever-presentsense of real existence is the basis of our intelligence. As we can in successivemental acts get rid of all particular conditions and replace them by others,but cannot get rid of that undifferentiated substance of consciousness whichis conditioned anew in every thought, there ever remains with us a senseof that which exists persistently and independently of conditions. Whileby the laws of thought we are prevented from forming a conception of absoluteexistence; we are by the laws of thought prevented from excluding the consciousnessof absolute existence: this consciousness being, as we here see, the obverseof self-consciousness. And since the measure of relative validity among ourbeliefs, is the degree of their persistence in opposition to the effortsmade to change them, it follows that this which persists at all times, underall circumstances, has the highest validity of any.
The points in this somewhat too elaborate argument are these: In the veryassertion that all knowledge, properly so called, is Relative, there is involvedthe assertion that there exists a Non-relative. In each step of the argumentby which this doctrine is established, the same assumption is made. Fromthe necessity of thinking in relations, it follows that the Relative is itselfinconceivable, except as related to a real Non-relative. Unless a real Non-relativeor Absolute be postulated, the Relative itself becomes absolute, and so bringsthe argument to a contradiction. And on watching our thoughts we have seenhow impossible it is to get rid of the consciousness of an Actuality lyingbehind Appearances; and how from this impossibility, results our indestructiblebelief in that Actuality.
