These distinctions in his experience of things remain even after he has come to believe in atoms and molecules.
Thus, the touch object, the tree as he feels it under his hand, may come to be regarded as the sign of the presence of those entities that science seems, at present, to regard as ultimate.

Does this prevent it from being the object which has stood as the interpreter of all those diverse visual sensations that we have called different views of the tree?
They are still the appearances, and it, relatively to them, is the reality.

Now we find that it, in its turn, can be used as a sign of something else, can be regarded as an appearance of a reality more ultimate.

It is clear, then, that the same thing may be regarded both as appearance and as reality--appearance as contrasted with one thing, and reality as contrasted with another.
But suppose one says: _I do not want to know what the real external world is to this man or to that man; I want to know what the real external world is_.

What shall we say to such a demand?
There is a sense in which such a demand is not purely meaningless, though it may not be a very sensible demand to make.