40. We are told that it is “impossible to imagine Matter thinking,” which is very true; only by a gross _confusion_ of terms can Thought be called a property of cerebral tissue, or of Matter at all. We may, indeed, penetrate beneath the terms which relate to aspects, and recognize in the underlying reality not two existences, but one. Our conceptions of this reality, however, are expressed in symbols representing different classes of feelings, objective and subjective; and to employ the terms of one class to designate the conceptions of the other is to frustrate the very purposes of language. Matter and Mind, Object and Subject, are abstractions from sentient experiences. We know them as abstractions, and know the concrete experiences from which they are abstracted. Philosophers, indeed, repeatedly assure us that we neither know what Matter is nor what Mind is, we only know the _phenomenal products_ of the action and reaction of these two unknown noumena. Were this so, all discussion would be idle; we could not say whether Matter was or was not capable of thinking, whether Mind was or was not the same as Matter, we could only abstain from saying anything whatever on the topic. What should we reply to one who asked us to name the product of two unknown quantities? So long as _x_ and _y_ are without values their product must be without value. If the value of _x_ be known, and that of _y_ unknown, then the product still remains unknown: _x_ + _y_ = _x_ + 0 = _x_. Therefore, unless the Objective aspect were the _equivalent_ of the Subjective aspect, it could never be subjectively present. Feeling is but another aspect of the Felt. 41. It is because we do know what Matter is, that we know it is _not_ Mind: they are symbols of two different modes of Feeling. If we separate the conception of citizenship from the conception of fatherhood, although the same man is both citizen and father, how much more decisively must we separate the conception of Matter, which represents one group of feelings, from the conception of Mind, which represents another? One element in the former is common to the whole group, namely, the reference to a Not-Self, induced by the sensation of Resistance, which always ideally or sensibly accompanies the material class. The axiom, I feel, _ergo_ I exist, has its correlative:--I act, _ergo_ there are other existents on which I act; and these are not wholly Me, for they resist, oppose, exclude me; yet they are also one with Me, since they are felt by me. In my Feeling, that which is not Me is Matter, the objective aspect of the Felt, as Mind is the subjective aspect.