59. Upon the ‘knowledge of the existence of things,’ thus established, it has to be remarked in the first place that, after all, according to Locke’s explicit statement, it is not properly knowledge. It is ‘an assurance that deserves the name of knowledge’ (Book IV. chap. ii. sec. 14, and xi. sec. 3), yet being neither itself an intuition of agreement between ideas, nor resoluble into a series of such intuitions, the definition of knowledge excludes it. Only if existence were itself an ‘idea,’ would the consciousness of the agreement of the idea with it be a case of knowledge; but to make existence an idea is to make the whole question about the agreement of ideas, as such, with existence, as such, unmeaning. To seek escape from this dilemma by calling the consciousness of the agreement in question an ‘assurance’ instead of knowledge is a mere verbal subterfuge. There can be no assurance of agreement between an idea and that which is no object of consciousness at all. If, however, existence is an object of consciousness, it can, according to Locke, be nothing but an idea, and the question as to the _assurance_ of agreement is no less unmeaning than the question as to the _knowledge_ of it. The raising of the question in fact, as Locke puts it, implies the impossibility of answering it. It cannot be raised with any significance, unless existence is external to and other than an idea. It cannot be answered unless existence is, or is given in, an object of consciousness, _i.e._ an idea. Locke’s account of the testimony of sense renders his question as to its veracity superfluous.