On the other hand, apart from the difficulty of actually giving any interpretation on these lines, which will meet the requirements, the great objection to it seems to me to be this. It is obvious that, on this view, though we shall still be allowed to say that the coins _existed_ before I saw them, are _circular_ etc., all these expressions, if they are to be true, will have to be understood in a Pickwickian sense. When I know that the coins existed before I saw them, what I know will not be that anything whatever existed at that time, in the sense in which those elliptical patches of colour exist now. _All_ that I know will be simply that, since the elliptical patches exist now, it is true, that, _if_ certain unrealised conditions had been realised, I should have had certain sensations that I have not had; or, _if_ certain conditions, which may or may not be realised in the future, were to be so, I _should_ have certain experiences. Something like this will actually be the _only true_ thing that can be meant by saying that the coins existed before I saw them. In other words, to say of a _physical object_ that it _existed_ at a given time will always consist merely in saying of some sensible, _not_ that _it_ existed at the time in question, but something quite different and immensely complicated. And thus, though, when I know that the coins exist, what I know will be merely some proposition about these sensibles which I am directly apprehending, yet this view will not contradict principle (_a_) by _identifying_ the coins with the sensibles. For it will say that to assert a given thing of the _coins_ is not equivalent to asserting the _same thing_ of the sensibles, but only to asserting of them something quite different.