3. In one sense of the the word, it would no doubt be true to say that
nature is simply and altogether that which we make it to be. Modern
philosophy has discarded the language which represented our knowledge of
things as the result of impressions and the transmission of images.[2]
If we still not only speak but think of ourselves as primarily passive
and in contact with an alien world, this arises simply from the
difficulty of conceiving a pure spontaneous activity. Driven from the
crude imagination which found the primary condition of knowledge in the
reception of "ideas" from without, "common sense" took refuge in the
more refined hypothesis of unknown objects, which cause our sensations,
and through sensations our knowledge.[3] But this standing-ground has
been swept away by the consideration that such a cause may be found
within as well as without, in the laws of the subject's activity as well
as in objects confessedly beyond the reach of cognition. Our ultimate
analysis can find no element in knowledge which is not supplied by
ourselves in conformity to a ruling law, or which exists independently
of the action of human thought.