creating its phenomenal
knowledge, or the apparent world. For, having separated mind from
reality, it is evident that they cannot avail themselves of any doctrine
of sensations or impressions as a medium between them, or postulate any
other form of connection or means of communication. Connection of any
kind must, in the end, imply some community of nature, and must put the
unity of thought and being--here denied--beneath their difference.
Hence, the world of phenomena which we know, and which as known, does
not seem to consist of realities, must be the product of the unaided
human mind. The intellect, isolated from all real being, has
manufactured the apparent universe, in all its endless wealth. It is a
creative intellect, although it can only create illusions. It evolves
all its products from itself.

But thought, set to revolve upon its own axis in an empty region, can
produce nothing, not even illusions. And, indeed, those who deny that it
is possible for thought and reality to meet in a unity, have,
notwithstanding, to bring over "something" to the aid of thought. There
must be some effluence from the world of reality, some manifestations of
the thing (though they are not the reality of the thing, nor any part of
the reality, nor connected with the reality!) to assist the mind and
supply it with data. The "phenomenal world" is a hybrid, generated by
thought and "something"--which yet is not reality; for the real world is
a world of things in themselves, altogether beyond thought. By bringing
in these data, it is virtually admitted that the human mind reaches down
into itself in vain for a world, even for a phenomenal one.

Thought apart from things is quite empty, just as things apart from
thought are blind. Such thought and such reality are mere abstractions,
hypostasized by false metaphysics; they are elements of truth rent
asunder, and destroyed in the rending. The dependence of the
intelligence of man upon reality is direct and complete. The foolishest
dream, that ever played out its panorama beneath a night-cap, came
through the gates of the senses from the actual world. Man is limited to
his material in all that he knows, just as he is ruled by the laws of
thought. He cannot go one step beyond it. To transcend "experience" is
impossible. We have no wings to sustain us in an empty region, and no
need of any. It is as impossible for man to create new ideas, as it is
for him to create new atoms. Our thought is