rehand that in explaining the main principles of the
said doctrine, I am going to use, as far as it is convenient to do so,
the phraseology adopted by English psychologists of the Idealistic
school of thought. In dealing with the phenomena of our present plane
of existence John Stuart Mill ultimately came to the conclusion that
matter, or the so-called external phenomena, are but the creation of our
mind; they are the mere appearances of a particular phase of our
subjective self, and of our thoughts, volitions, sensations and emotions
which in their totality constitute the basis of that Ego. Matter then
is the permanent possibility of sensations, and the so-called Laws of
matter are, properly speaking, the Laws which govern the succession and
coexistence of our states of consciousness. Mill further holds that
properly speaking there is no noumenal Ego. The very idea of a mind
existing separately as an entity, distinct from the states of
consciousness which are supposed to inhere in it, is in his opinion
illusory, as the idea of an external object, which is supposed to be
perceived by our senses.

Thus the ideas of mind and matter, of subject and object, of the Ego and
external world, are really evolved from the aggregation of our mental
states which are the only realities so far as we are concerned.

The chain of our mental states or states of consciousness is "a
double-headed monster," according to Professor Bain, which has two
distinct aspects, one objective and the other subjective. Mr. Mill has
paused here, confessing that psychological analysis did not go any
further; the mysterious link which connects together the train of our
states of consciousness and gives rise to our Ahankaram in this
condition of existence, still remains an incomprehensible mystery to
Western psychologists, though its existence is but dimly perceived in
the subjective phenomena of memory and expectation.

On the other hand, the great physicists of Europe are gradually coming
to the conclusion* that mind is the product of matter, or that it is one
of the attributes of matter in some of its conditions. It would appear,
therefore, from the speculations of Western psychologists that matter is
evolved from mind and that mind is evolved from matter. These two
propositions are apparently irreconcilable.

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* See Tyndall's Belfast Address.--S.R.
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Mill and Tyndall have admitted that Western science is yet unable to go
de