The Absolute Idealists hold that the notion we have of external things is purely subjective, having no external counterpart, no corresponding outward reality.
It is these that afford us the data for a knowledge of self in relation to external things.
It is to be noticed, in addition, that with the exception of the tactual sense, and possibly of sight, these senses give us no direct, immediate knowledge of external things.
Hence, the middle way of justice is discovered by reason from a consideration of external things or acts owed to other persons (the mean of reason and of the thing), and so it does not vary with the circumstances of the subject.
The general likeness between distributive and commutative justice may be summed up as follows: (a) they have the same remote matter, since both alike are concerned with external things, persons or works.
But its execution, which passes out to external things, has an effect in them.
This is because the intellectual operation of the soul has a natural order to external things, as we have said above (Q.
Words do not therefore signify the intelligible species themselves; but that which the intellect forms for itself for the purpose of judging of external things.
Hence it would seem originally to have applied chiefly to external things, which can pass from one person to another, since they remain the same both substantially and in respect of the right of dominion.
I answer that, Even as the object of justice is something equal in external things, so too the object of injustice is something unequal, through more or less being assigned to some person than is due to him.
Hence justice hinders theft of another's property, in so far as stealing is contrary to the equality that should be maintained in external things, while liberality hinders it as resulting from an immoderate desire for wealth.
It lies not so much in external things, golden streets and crowns, as in the quality and disposition of a man's mind.
This leads us to a curious enquiry, whether vegetables have ideas of external things?
They have organs of sense as of touch and smell, and ideas of external things?
The desired proof must therefore demonstrate that we have experience of external things, and not mere fancies.
It assumed that the only immediate experience is internal and that from this we can only infer the existence of external things.
Such a fact, and such elements of the fact, recur in the whole animal kingdom, even among those which only apprehend external things by the sense of touch.
It seems to me that this problem has not yet been solved by scholars; they have stopped short after establishing the primary fact, and are content to affirm that such is human nature, which projects itself on external things.
Their observation of themselves and of external things is psychologically and physiologically the same as that of man, and in both cases there is a subjective animation of the phenomena themselves.
The explanation which St. Thomas gives of the necessity for property also shows how clearly he agreed with the Fathers' teaching on natural communism: 'Two things are competent to man in respect of external things.
Let us remember, then, that though we seldom look within-though our affections may be absorbed in external things-these solitary seasons will come.
The Sûtras at first dispose of the theory of those who acknowledge the real existence of external things.
So far we have set forth the arguments refuting the views of the Vaibhâshikas as well as the Sautrântikas--both which schools maintain the reality of external things.
He describes for us in detail how, out of such sensations and the memories of such sensations, we frame mental images of external things.
To this question I make the following answer: In the first place, I remark that even the plain man distinguishes somehow between his sensations and external things.
When we come to think definitely about the mind, we are all apt to make use of notions which we have derived from our experience of external things.
He seems to be more doubtful concerning the nature of the mind and its knowledge than he is concerning the nature of external things.
It remains therefore that if we have any knowledge at all of external things, it must be by reason inferring their existence from what is immediately perceived by sense.
Again, I ask whether those supposed originals, or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no?
For you should know that it is not easy both to keep your will in a condition conformable to nature and (to secure) external things: but if a man is careful about the one, it is an absolute necessity that he will neglect the other.
When you see a person weeping in sorrow either when a child goes abroad or when he is dead, or when the man has lost his property, take care that the appearance do not hurry you away with it, as if he were suffering in external things.
The above list will hopefully provide you with a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "external things" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this group of words.
