No dynamic
currents run between my objects and your
objects. Never can our minds meet in the
_same_.
The incredibility of such a philosophy is
flagrant. It is 'cold, strained, and unnatural'
in a supreme degree; and it may be doubted
whether even Berkeley himself, who took it
so religiously, really believed, when walking
through the streets of London, that his spirit
and the spirits of his fellow wayfarers had
absolutely different towns in view.
To me the decisive reason in favor of our
minds meeting in _some_ common objects at least
is that, unless I make that supposition, I have
no motive for assuming that your mind exists
at all. Why do I postulate your mind? Because
I see your body acting in a certain way.
Its gestures, facial movements, words and conduct
generally, are 'expressive,' so I deem it
actuated as my own is, by an inner life like
mine. This argument from analogy is my _reason_,
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whether an instinctive belief runs before it
or not. But what is 'your body' here but a
percept in _my_ field? It is only as animating
_that_ object, _my_ object, that I have any occasion
to think of you at all. If the body that you
actuate be not the very body that I see there,
but some duplicate body of your own with
which that has nothing to do, we belong to
different universes, you and I, and for me to
speak of you is folly.
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