In writing the foregoing I have had in mind chiefly the position of the Lockian. I need not consider at length that taken by the Kantian, for what I have said will, with little change, apply to it also. If I hold to a "noumenon" as corresponding to my "phenomenon," and yet deny to it all qualities whatsoever, I must, to retain any appearance of consistency, represent it in my mind in the very vaguest possible way. Nevertheless, I must represent it, or I am not thinking of it at all, and I must relate the phenomenon and this vague representation in the way described. A true consistency would, of course, make impossible the whole process, for it would make impossible the giving of any quality at all to the representation, and the putting any relation between it and the phenomenon. In so dark a night cats do not merely turn grey, they disappear. On the other hand, if one is too liberal with this "noumenon," it palpably ceases to be a "noumenon," and degenerates into something very like a "phenomenon." The illusion must not be lost. Both these conflicting tendencies may be well illustrated in Mr. Spencer's "Unknowable." If we really refuse to allow to the consciousness of it "any qualitative or quantitative expression whatever,"[19] our vague image wholly disappears and there is nothing left in our consciousness but the "phenomenon." While if we follow the "First Principles" in coaxing it back into existence by allowing it reality,[20] and causality,[21] and a freedom from limits,[22] and printing its name with a capital letter,[23] as though it were even better than other things--if we do all this there is danger of the convalescent's becoming too robust altogether. The problem has its parallel in the practical problem of paying wages:--one must not pay too little, or he loses his laborer; nor too much, or he loses his money. The thing is to find the happy mean which will keep an object of thought before a man's mind and yet not make him lose all appearance of consistency. [19] First Principles. Part I, Chap. 4, § 26. N. Y., 1888, p. 91. [20] _Ibid._ Chap. 4, § 24; Chap. 5, §§ 31, 32, _et passim_. [21] _Ibid._ Chap. 5, § 31, _et passim_. [22] _Ibid._ Chap. 4, § 24. [23] _Ibid._ Chap. 5, § 32, _et passim_.