Thought, Thinkers, Things--realities with their qualities or attributes.
These are all connected. If the first and second are present the others
are not far away. We only think when we perceive, and only perceive
realities. Nonentities are not perceivable, and therefore not thinkable.
Thoughts may be, and are, transferable from one to another by words, or
signs equivalent to words, yet we are only able to impart to another
ideas already in our possession.
We have no thoughts of our own but those which are the result of our
perceiving. We have no thought of color without the eye, nor of sound
without the ear, etc. Now, if we have in our possession thoughts of
persons or things beyond the reach of our powers of observation, _i.e._,
beyond the reach of the five senses--seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting
and smelling--then those thoughts can not be ours; we could not be the
first to think them; they were too high for us; they were out of our
reach. Who, then, could and did reach them and give them to us? This
ought to be the question of questions with us. Thoughts of foreign
countries have been given to us by the men who have seen those
countries. But they could only give us ideas of what they had seen or
others had told them. A man visiting England only could give us no
thought of Russia, unless instructed by some one who has seen that land;
then, and not till then, could he give us thoughts of Russia. I am now
ready for the statement of this proposition, viz: The following trio of
thoughts are beyond our reach. They are not our thoughts; we did not
think them, but we have them; then, some being who could see higher and
look farther than we must have given them to us. Those thoughts are the
following: First, the existence of God; second, the use of words; third,
the origin of religion. These I will examine in the order given above.