illing to admit that the table in the next room, of which he is
merely thinking, is known at one remove, so to speak. But this desk
here before him: is it not known directly? Not the mental image, the
mere representative, but the desk itself, a something that is physical
and not mental?

And the psychologist, whatever his theory of the relation between the
mind and the world, seems to support him, at least, in so far as to
maintain that in sensation the external world is known as directly as
it is possible for the external world to be known, and that one can get
no more of it than is presented in sensation. If a sense is lacking,
an aspect of the world as given is also lacking; if a sense is
defective, as in the color-blind, the defect is reflected in the world
upon which one gazes.

Such considerations, especially when taken together with what has been
said at the close of the last section about the futility of looking for
a reality behind our sensations, may easily suggest rather a startling
possibility. May it not be, if we really are shut up to the circle of
our experiences, that the physical things, which we have been
accustomed to look upon as non-mental, are nothing more than complexes
of sensations? Granted that there seems to be presented in our
experience a material world as well as a mind, may it not be that this
material world is a mental thing of a certain kind--a mental thing
contrasted with other mental things, such as imaginary things?

This question has always been answered in the affirmative by the
idealists, who claim that all existence must be regarded as psychical
existence. Their doctrine we shall consider later (sections 49 and
53). It will be noticed that we seem to be back again with Professor
Pearson in the last chapter.

To this question I make the following answer: In the first place, I
remark that even the plain man distinguishes somehow between his
sensations and external things. He thinks that he has reason to
believe that things do not cease to exist when he no longer has
sensations. Moreover, he believes that things do not always appear to
his senses as they really are. If we tell him that his sensations
_are_ the things, it shocks his common sense. He answers: Do you mean
to tell me that complexes of sensation can be on a shelf or in a
drawer? can be cut with a knife or broken with the hands? He feels
that there must be some real distinction between sensations and the
t