Thus the lowest grade of universe would be a world of mere
WITHNESS, of which the parts were only strung together by the
conjunction 'and.' Such a universe is even now the collection of our
several inner lives. The spaces and times of your imagination, the
objects and events of your day-dreams are not only more or less
incoherent inter se, but are wholly out of definite relation with
the similar contents of anyone else's mind. Our various reveries now
as we sit here compenetrate each other idly without influencing or
interfering. They coexist, but in no order and in no receptacle,
being the nearest approach to an absolute 'many' that we can
conceive. We cannot even imagine any reason why they SHOULD be known
all together, and we can imagine even less, if they were known
together, how they could be known as one systematic whole.
But add our sensations and bodily actions, and the union mounts to a
much higher grade. Our audita et visa and our acts fall into those
receptacles of time and space in which each event finds its date and
place. They form 'things' and are of 'kinds' too, and can be
classed. Yet we can imagine a world of things and of kinds in which
the causal interactions with which we are so familiar should not
exist.
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