In spite of the elucidations of contemporary realists, a number of
idealists continue to adduce in behalf of idealism certain facts
having an obvious physical nature and explanation. The visible
convergence of the railway tracks, for example, is cited as evidence
that what is seen is a mental "content." Yet this convergence follows
from the physical properties of light and a lens, and is physically
demonstrated in a camera. Is the photograph, then, to be conceived as
a psychical somewhat? That the time of the visibility of a light does
not coincide with the time at which a distant body emitted the light
is employed to support a similar idealistic conclusion, in spite of
the fact that the exact difference in time may be deduced from a
physical property of light--its rate. The dislocation in space of the
light seen and the astronomical star is used as evidence of the mental
nature of the former, though the exact angular difference is a matter
of simple computation from purely physical data. The doubling of
images of, say, the finger when the eyeball is pressed, is frequently
proffered as a clincher. Yet it is a simple matter to take any body
that reflects light, and by a suitable arrangement of lenses to
produce not only two but many images, projected into space. If the
fact that under definite _physical_ conditions (misplacement of
lenses), a finger yields two images proves the psychical character of
the latter, then the fact that under certain conditions a sounding
body yields one or more echoes is, by parity of reasoning, proof that
the echo is made of mental stuff.[59]
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