Now I think I am not mistaken in asserting that the reason why Idealists suppose that everything which _is_ must be an inseparable aspect of some experience, is that they suppose some things, at least, to be inseparable aspects of _their_ experience. And there is certainly nothing which they are so firmly convinced to be an inseparable aspect of their experience as what they call the _content_ of their ideas and sensations. If, therefore, _this_ turns out in every case, whether it be also the content or not, to be at least _not_ an inseparable aspect of the experience of it, it will be readily admitted that nothing else which _we_ experience ever is such an inseparable aspect. But if we never experience anything but what is _not_ an inseparable aspect of _that_ experience, how can we infer that anything whatever, let alone _everything,_ is an inseparable aspect of _any_ experience? How utterly unfounded is the assumption that "_esse_ is _percipi"_ appears in the clearest light.
But further I think it may be seen that if the object of an Idealist's sensation were, as he supposes, _not_ the object but merely the content of that sensation, if, that is to say, it really were an inseparable aspect of his experience, each Idealist could never be aware either of himself or of any other real thing. For the relation of a sensation to its object is certainly the same as that of any other instance of experience to its object; and this, I think, is generally admitted even by Idealists: they state as readily that _what_ is judged or thought or perceived is the _content_ of that judgment or thought or perception, as that blue Is the content of the sensation of blue. But, if so, then when any Idealist thinks he is _aware_ of himself or of any one else, this cannot really be the case. The fact Is, on his own theory, that himself and that other person are in reality mere _contents_ of an awareness, which is aware _of_ nothing whatever. All that can be said is that there is an awareness in him, _with_ a certain content: it can never be true that there is in him a consciousness _of_ anything. And similarly he is never aware either of the fact that he exists or that reality is spiritual. The real fact, which he describes in those terms, is that his existence and the spirituality of reality are _contents_ of an awareness, which is aware of nothing--certainly not, then, of it own content.