29. The two considerations here mentioned, of ‘ideas as actually in our minds,’ of ‘things as actually without us,’ are meant severally to represent the two ways of reflection and sensation, by which the idea of existence is supposed to be suggested. But sensation, according to Locke, is an organ of ‘ideas,’ just as much as reflection. Taking his doctrine strictly, there are no ‘objects’ but ‘ideas’ to suggest the idea of existence, whether by the way of sensation or by that of reflection, and no ideas that are not ‘in the mind.’ (Book II. chap. ix. sec. 3, &c.) Existence as the mere presence of a feeling. 30. The designation of the idea of existence, then, as ‘suggested by every idea within,’ covers every possible suggestion. It can mean nothing else than that it is given in every act and mode of consciousness; that it is inseparable from feeling as such, being itself at the same time a distinct simple idea. This, we may remark by the way, involves the conclusion that every idea is composite, made up of whatever distinguishes it from other ideas together with the idea of existence. Of this idea of existence itself, however, it will be impossible to say anything distinctive; for, as it accompanies all possible objects of consciousness, there will be no cases where it is absent to be distinguished from those where it is present. Not merely will it be undefinable, as every simple idea is; it will be impossible ‘to send a man to his senses’ (according to Locke’s favourite subterfuge) in order to know what it is, since it is neither given in one sense as distinct from another, nor in all senses as distinct from any other modification of consciousness. Thus regarded, to treat it as a simple idea alongside of other simple ideas is a palpable contradiction. It is the mere ‘It is felt,’ the abstraction of consciousness, no more to be reckoned as one among other ideas than colour in general is to be co-ordinated with red, white, and blue. Whether I smell a rose in the summer or recall the smell in winter; whether I see a horse or a ghost, or imagine a centaur or think of gravitation or the philosopher’s stone--in every case alike the idea or ‘immediate object of the mind’ _exists_. Yet we find Locke distinguishing between real ideas, as those that ‘have a conformity with the existence of things,’ and fantastic ideas, as those which have no such conformity (Book II. chap. xxx. sec. 1); and again in the fourth book (chap. i. sec. 7, chap. iii. sec. 21, &c.) he makes the perception of the agreement of an idea with existence a special kind of knowledge, different from that of agreement of idea with idea; and having done so, raises the question whether we have such a knowledge of existence at all, and decides that our knowledge of it is very narrow. Existence as reality.