But these philosophers, though they deny matter as opposed to mind,
nevertheless, in another sense, admit matter. It will be remembered
that we asked two questions; namely, (1) Is there a real table at all?
(2) If so, what sort of object can it be? Now both Berkeley and
Leibniz admit that there is a real table, but Berkeley says it is
certain ideas in the mind of God, and Leibniz says it is a colony of
souls. Thus both of them answer our first question in the
affirmative, and only diverge from the views of ordinary mortals in
their answer to our second question. In fact, almost all philosophers
seem to be agreed that there is a real table: they almost all agree
that, however much our sense-data--colour, shape, smoothness,
etc.--may depend upon us, yet their occurrence is a sign of something
existing independently of us, something differing, perhaps, completely
from our sense-data, and yet to be regarded as causing those
sense-data whenever we are in a suitable relation to the real table.

Now obviously this point in which the philosophers are agreed--the
view that there _is_ a real table, whatever its nature may be--is
vitally important, and it will be worth while to consider what reasons
there are for accepting this view before we go on to the further
question as to the nature of the real table. Our next chapter,
therefore, will be concerned with the reasons for supposing that there
is a real table at all.

Before we go farther it will be well to consider for a moment what it
is that we have discovered so far. It has appeared that, if we take
any common object of the sort that is supposed to be known by the
senses, what the senses _immediately_ tell us is not the truth about
the object as it is apart from us, but only the truth about certain