Or, in other
words, so far as human consciousness is concerned, noumena must be regarded
as absolute. "But now, what do we mean by this affirmation of absolute
reality independent of the conditions of the process of knowing? Do we mean
to ... affirm, in language savouring strongly of scholasticism, that
beneath the phenomena which we call subjective there is an occult
substratum Mind, and beneath the phenomena which we call objective there is
an occult substratum Matter? Our conclusion cannot be stated in any such
form.... Our conclusion is simply this, that no theory of phenomena,
external or internal, can be framed without postulating an Absolute
Existence of which phenomena are the manifestations. And now let us
carefully note what follows. We cannot identify this Absolute Existence
with Mind, since what we know as Mind is a series of phenomenal
manifestations.... Nor can we identify this Absolute Existence with Matter,
since what we know as Matter is a series of phenomenal manifestations....
Absolute Existence, therefore,--the Reality which persists independently of
us, and of which Mind and Matter are the phenomenal manifestations,--cannot
be identified either with Mind or with Matter. Thus is Materialism included
in the same condemnation with Idealism.... See then how far we have
travelled from the scholastic theory of occult substrata underlying each
group of phenomena.
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