who, while conscious of an outward thing through its approximation to his senses, affirms that he is conscious of no outward thing, and that no such thing exists, any more than we listen to a man who while he is eating and experiencing the feeling of satisfaction avers that he does not eat and does not feel satisfied?—­If the Bauddha should reply that he does not affirm that he is conscious of no object but only that he is conscious of no object apart from the act of consciousness, we answer that he may indeed make any arbitrary statement he likes, but that he has no arguments to prove what he says.  That the outward thing exists apart from consciousness, has necessarily to be accepted on the ground of the nature of consciousness itself.  Nobody when perceiving a post or a wall is conscious of his perception only, but all men are conscious of posts and walls and the like as objects of their perceptions.  That such is the consciousness of all men, appears also from the fact that even those who contest the existence of external things bear witness to their existence when they say that what is an internal object of cognition appears like something external.  For they practically accept the general consciousness, which testifies to the existence of an external world, and being at the same time anxious to refute it they speak of the external things as ’like something external.’  If they did not themselves at the bottom acknowledge the existence of the external world, how could they use the expression ’like something external?’ No one says, ’Vish/n/umitra appears like the son of a barren mother.’  If we accept the truth as it is given to us in our consciousness, we must admit that the object of perception appears to us as something external, not like something external.—­But—­the Bauddha may reply—­we conclude that the object of perception is only like something external because external things are impossible.—­This conclusion we rejoin is improper, since the possibility or impossibility of things is to be determined only on the ground of the operation or non-operation of the means of right knowledge; while on the other hand, the operation and non-operation of the means of right knowledge are not to be made dependent on preconceived possibilities or impossibilities.  Possible is whatever is apprehended by perception or some other means of proof; impossible is what is not so apprehended.  Now the external things are, according to their nature, apprehended by all the instruments of knowledge; how then can you maintain that they are not possible, on the ground of such idle dilemmas as that about their difference or non-difference from atoms?—­Nor, again, does the non-existence of objects follow from the fact of the ideas having the same form as the objects; for if there were no objects the ideas could not have the forms of the objects, and the objects are actually apprehended as external.—­For the same reason (i.e. because the distinction of thing and idea is given in consciousness) the invariable