THEORY OF KNOWING.
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PROP. XIII.————
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.
This prop. Speaks only of what can be conceived, no of what exists.1. This proposition, like all the others in this section of the science, abstains from affirming anything as to existence. It does not state what independent universe can alone exist, but merely what independent universe can alone be thought of. Whatever controversies may still continue to prevail as to the kind of independent universe which may exist, it is submitted that this institute settles, once and for ever, and beyond the possibility of a dispute, what the only kind of independent universe is which can be conceived to exist.
It answers the question—what independent universe can be thought of?2. It answers a question which the reader, who is interested in speculation, may perhaps by this time be disposed to ask, after finding himself apparently debarred from the conception of any independent universe—What universe, then, do the laws of thought permit us to cogitate as absolutely independent of ourselves? The answer is this proposition, which declares that the only universe independent of each of us, which each of us can think of is the universe in union with some other subject than himself. Each of us can unyoke the universe (so to speak) from himself; but he can do this only by yoking it on, in thought, to some other self. The laws of all thought, and of all reason, prevent us most stringently from construing to our minds any other