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 EXPLORATIO PHILOSOPHIC!: 
 
 BOUGH NOTES 
 
 ON 
 
 MODERN INTELLECTUAL SCIENCE. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 By JOHN GROTE, B.D. 
 
 FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, AND PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY 
 I.\ THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO. 
 
 LONDON: BELL AND DALDY. 
 
 1865.
 
 ► 
 
 3 
 
 3 i> 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PA8S 
 
 Introduction vii 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Phenomenalism 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Philosophy and Consciousness .....»• 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Sensation, Intelligence, and Will 3-4 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Ferrier's Institutes of Metaphysio S3 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Shi "William Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics ... 8 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Scale of Sensation or Knowledge 106 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Sir William Hamilton— Consciousness ok Matter . . .125 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Logic — Mr Mill , . . , UG 
 
 1267709
 
 Vi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Mill's Logic— continued 176 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Dr "Whewell's Philosophy of Science 203 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 The Fundamental Antithesis of Philosophy .... 226 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 The Interpretation of Nature 242 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 « * 
 
 Substance and Medium . . . 246 
 
 1 « 9 * •
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I will first give an account of the circumstances 
 of the publication of these ' rough notes', and then of 
 the system of philosophy, if so it is to be called, con- 
 tained in them. 
 
 They represent a continued general thinking on the 
 subjects to which they relate, though they are rather 
 hastily put together as regards their particular form. 
 But there is nothing hasty or extemporaneous in such 
 thought as they may contain. 
 
 A not inconsiderable portion of them was written 
 two years since, on the following occasion. 
 
 After the publication of Mr Mill's small book on 
 Utilitarianism, I had the intention of writing some- 
 thing in answer to him on that subject, and had actu- 
 ally begun the printing of the result of this intention. 
 I was led, in connexion with this, to put together the 
 intellectual views on which the moral view rested, or 
 which had something of the character of ' prolegomena ' 
 to it, and had meant if they should come within reason- 
 able limits, to publish them in an Appendix. 
 
 Being of a nature hesitating and irresolute, I 
 altered my mind as to this : and though at first sti- 
 mulated to controversy, which of itself I do not think 
 I should have shrunk from, I thought that what, 
 in r<"_-;inl of the subject, was likely to be most useful 
 was another course, and accordingly determined rather
 
 Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to put together, in an uncontroversial form, what 
 seemed to me the truth, in opposition to what I 
 thought error. 
 
 This, if it please God, is in the way of being accom- 
 plished, subject to all the delays which interest in 
 other employments, uncertain health, and some not, I 
 think, uncalled for scrupulousness and anxiety as to 
 what one writes on a subject so important, may throw 
 in the way of it. But in the meantime, I have thought 
 it might be as well to return upon the intellectual 
 views with which the moral view connects itself, and to 
 re-examine them and test them. 
 
 The result is the publication of these pages: to 
 which, for reasons which will appear, I have not 
 attempted to give any very regular form or artistic 
 completeness. This explanation is almost necessary for 
 the understanding of the beginning of them, which is 
 abrupt, and refers, it will be seen, to something as 
 going before, and which I thought it was as well to 
 leave so referring. But I have carefully avoided in 
 the following pages all reference to Morals or Ethics, 
 and (except most incidentally) all approbation or dis- 
 approbation of anything in a moral view or as to moral 
 tendency. I have endeavoured to bring together, for 
 comparison, views, the respective holders of which 
 would probably thank me very little for my trouble : 
 but philosophical controversy is a worse confusion than 
 a battle without generals or discipline, and as we come 
 more to morals and ethics the dust and smoke become 
 tenfold worse. I have wished therefore to examine 
 some things in the earlier and clearer atmosphere. I 
 have nothing to do here with any results to which opi- 
 nions may lead, or with any supposed opinions held by 
 any one beyond what the books which I notice contain.
 
 INTRODUCTION. IX. 
 
 I have now to give a short account of the na- 
 ture of the philosophy which these 'rough notes' 
 exhibit or involve. 
 
 It perhaps may be said, that there are three main 
 heads or kinds of philosophy in England at present, 
 each of which it seems to me has appendant error : and 
 it is against these errors that a great deal of what I say 
 is directed. 
 
 Of these three kinds of philosophy, as I call them, 
 the first which I will mention is ' the Philosophy of 
 the Human Mind' or Psychology, and there appears to 
 me to attach itself to a great deal of that a very mis- 
 taken view, which I have called generally the wrong 
 psychology or mis-psychology. 
 
 For the particular nature of this error I must refer 
 to what follows, and will only briefly now say about it, 
 that it consists, substantially, in the attempt to analyze 
 our consciousness while nevertheless we suppose our- 
 selves, who have the consciousness, to be particular 
 local beings in the midst of an universe of things or 
 objects similar to what we ourselves are. My feeling 
 about the whole 'Philosophy of the Human Mind' 
 is this : that at present it is attacked, and with reason, 
 from two opposite sides; that its philosophy will not 
 satisfy philosophers, nor its physiology physiologists ; 
 and that it will have to divide itself, for utility and 
 productiveness, into two lines of thought, very different, 
 rarely likely to be pursued by the same people, each 
 very likely to be despised by those who sympathize 
 with the other, but quite consistent the one with the 
 other, and really of such a nature, that the more purely 
 and independently each takes its own way, the better is 
 it likely to be not only for itself, but also for the other. 
 
 I am myself very much of opinion that the old
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 vein of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, or nod- 
 psychology, is worked out, and that whatever there 
 was to be got from it (not much, I think, ever) is 
 got already. 
 
 But it seems to me that the way is singularly open 
 and inviting now for a good physio-psychology, as I 
 should call it, by which however I mean something 
 possibly very different from w T hat several who have 
 already treated that subject would mean. 
 
 Such a study is a mental and moral human ana- 
 tomy, and a mental and moral comparative anatomy: 
 but I do not believe that these, or either of them, can 
 ever be pursued with good result unless the pursuers of 
 them dismiss from their minds what I should call 
 philosophy — either looking upon it as a different line of 
 thought, or else ignoring it — in any case not thinking that 
 it is their science which will answer the higher questions 
 of the human mind, or tell us what we ought to do. 
 
 I have always had a very strong oj)inion that the 
 later psychology, or Philosophy of the Human Mind, 
 has neglected a large province of consideration which 
 really belonged to it, in its failing to take notice 
 of, and to try to bring into relation with human in- 
 telligence, the various intelligence of our humbler 
 fellow-creatures in the universe, the lower animals: 
 mind belongs to them as well as to us. Mental human 
 anatomy, which is of two kinds, the anatomy of the 
 body pursued as far as it can be in the direction of 
 the mind, and the observation of the results of the 
 action of mind in connexion with this — such psychology 
 always has considered in its province, though lately 
 it has been pursued with special fruit: we want now 
 more of mental comparative anatomy, or the study of 
 the varieties of animal intelligence, above alluded to.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 But for all this we must disengage psychology from 
 the philosophy which it has mingled with itself, and 
 which in all probability it will try still to mingle with 
 itself. Hitherto the result of its doing so has been 
 in the main that confusion of thought on which I have 
 dwelt at length in the following pages. Now probably 
 its effort will be to furnish a philosophy (less con- 
 fused indeed) from itself better understood than before, 
 and it will tell us that we must be satisfied with that 
 philosophy. In my view, this course will effectually 
 ruin itself. 
 
 Philosophy, by which I mean the study of thought 
 and feeling not as we see them variously associated 
 with corporeal organization, and producing various 
 results in the universe, but as we understand, think, 
 feel them of ourselves and from within, is something 
 to me of an entirely different nature, and leads to 
 entirely different fields of speculation from the physio- 
 psychology which I have been speaking of. I think 
 that those who have the truest view of the one will also 
 have the truest of the other. It does not seem to 
 me that anything, for instance, as to our moral action 
 waits for a better physio-psychology, except in that 
 subordinate degree in which such action is likely to 
 be altered and benefited by any increase of our know- 
 ledge of any kind. In my view, the question of the 
 relation of our mind to our corporeal organization, and 
 the question of the distribution of mind more or less 
 like ours through various organizations, are the two 
 questions of physics far the most interesting: but they 
 are physics after all. Whatever may be found out 
 about them seems to me to have quite a subordinate 
 bearing upon the great questions of the nature of know- 
 ledge and of moral sentiments and obligations. These
 
 Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 belong to what I have called philosophy, which rises 
 high above the other, or if we prefer the language, 
 underlies it as its foundation : how, I shall discuss in 
 the following pages. 
 
 I think then that the ' Philosophy of the Human 
 Mind' is now in the way to divide itself into different 
 branches, all, it seems to me, hopeful and promising 
 result : the manner in which its method has hitherto 
 been faulty is one of the matters of my discussion. 
 
 The second kind of philosophy which we have among 
 us is the true and real philosophy, this which I have 
 described as one line of those into which the Philosophy 
 of the Human Mind is likely to divide itself: but it 
 seems to have an appendant error of great import- 
 ance, which I have described in the ensuing pages 
 as 'notionalism' and 'relativism', terms in a great 
 measure, though perhaps not quite, equivalent. 
 
 I will only briefly describe this here as the realizing 
 (and any realizing must be mis-realizing, wrongly 
 realizing) our logical terms. We get from this what 
 we may call a philosophy of 'notions', and knowledge, 
 instead of bringing us into real contact with the thing 
 we know, appears as something between us and it, 
 either altering its real reality to accommodate it to us, 
 or forming some screen or barrier between us and it, 
 or some way disguising it— but on this I shall have 
 to speak in abundance. 
 
 I shall have to consider, against a good deal of the 
 third kind of philosophy which I have yet to speak 
 of, that the mind is really active, and that its proper 
 creations, so to call them, are realities; but, also, against 
 such views as I have just mentioned, that its logical 
 creations are for a temporary purpose only, and that 
 the greatest care must be taken not to realize them :
 
 INTRODUCTION. Xlll 
 
 that a merely logical philosophy is worse than none, and 
 much worse than that which I am now going to mention. 
 The third kind of philosophy, though it is not 
 properly philosophy, and is only good in its own place 
 when it does not claim to be so, is that manner of 
 looking at the universe to which belongs the physio- 
 psychology of which I lately spoke : and what I said 
 about that applies to the many other sciences into which 
 this study of the universe divides itself. The error 
 belonging to it consists in its claiming to be philo- 
 sophy, or claiming to be all that need be considered. 
 This error I have called ultra-phenomenalism or mis- 
 phenomenalism, and I have given the reasons for my 
 language : it is the same manner of thought as is very 
 frequently called ' positivism'. 
 
 A real philosophy without notionalism, and a real, 
 honest, thorough, study of nature without the feeling 
 that we are to find our philosophy and morality, more 
 than very subordinate!}', there — these are the two things 
 which I should like to see co-existing, and which I 
 should think not only might co-exist, but would each 
 be the better for the existence of the other: and for 
 both alike is needed a good logic, in which we are 
 neither on the one side afraid of logical suppositions 
 and abstractions, nor on the other hand disposed to 
 rest in them as if the right dealing with them was the 
 knowledge, and they all the furniture our mind needed : 
 and with all these a good history of advance of human 
 thought and feeling, upon which depends what I have 
 in these pages called 'Real' Logic: all these things 
 seem to me to belong the one to the other : the war- 
 fare constantly carried on between the partizans of 
 one and another seems quite uncalled for, and un- 
 reasonable. Of them all, the 'philosophy' which I
 
 XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 have named the first is in my view the most important, 
 as that on which all the rest depend, and in which 
 they all find their application. It is what all begins 
 with for us, for all that we call existence is for us a 
 thought of ours, which it belongs to that philosophy to 
 discuss the nature, meaning, validity of. It is what on 
 the other side, is concerned with that which we must 
 know and have settled for ourselves before we can, with 
 reason, apply our knowledge of experience to action : 
 namely, what we want : what we mean to do with 
 ourselves, what ends we wish to gain, what it is well 
 we should do, what we are called upon to do : this 
 is the region of ideals, of freedom, and of choice, where 
 no positive knowledge or knowledge of experience can 
 help us except in those subordinate manners to which 
 I have alluded, as to judge what is attainable, or by 
 what means we may best gain our end. 
 
 The purpose then of what I have here written is to 
 clear the ground, or to do what I could to help clear 
 thought, both in respect of philosophy and of physical 
 view of nature : the one is quite as interesting to me 
 as the other, and they seem to me, rightly pursued, to 
 be mutually helpful, not antagonistic. A great deal of 
 the Philosophy of the Human Mind damages both, 
 especially philosophy proper, by its confusion of view — 
 this I have endeavoured to exhibit: ' notionalism' or 
 'relativism' damages both, philosophy by cutting off 
 from it all life, and fruit, and prospect, the view of 
 nature by making us think and talk of abstractions 
 where they are out of place, and where we want to be 
 in the fresh and open air of good or rightly applied 
 phenomenalism (as I have called it), looking at things 
 as they are before our eyes without perplexing our- 
 selves by thought as to how we know them or what
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 they may be besides. Mis-phenomenalism or positiv- 
 ism damages the study of nature and of fact in this 
 way, that by the expecting from it, and the trying to 
 effect by it, what does not belong to it, it raises sus- 
 picion against it, and what is worse, tends sometimes 
 to make its cultivators pursue it with a sort of mis- 
 giving, as if this suspicion really attached to it, and as 
 if fidelity to it really required that at whatever sacrifice, 
 we should abnegate, at its apparent bidding, everything 
 which I should call our higher nature, and all our 
 worthier beliefs and aspirations. "What I have called 
 philosophy is of course to such positivism of the nature 
 of a dream, and that a foolish and pernicious one. 
 
 The manner in which I have tried to help clear 
 thought I must leave the following pages to show for 
 themselves — I will only mention one thing here. 
 
 It is in reference to what I may call the co- 
 ordinating facts of mind and matter, as what go to- 
 gether to make up the universe. This I have variously 
 commented on. I think the purpose of what I have 
 said may be better understood through a few words 
 here to the following effect. 
 
 One of the branches of science in which perhaps at 
 this moment (in company probably with many others) 
 I feel special interest on account of the manner in 
 which it seems to promise fruit, is the study of what we 
 may call 'the facts of mind' as we may see, observe, 
 experiment, upon them in the universe, both in various 
 human individuals with corporeal organizations indi- 
 mlually different, and in various animals (so far as 
 we can thus study them) with such organizations dif- 
 fering rjenericaV '//. 
 
 Facts of mind of this character are facts of the 
 universe, and may legitimately be co-ordinated with
 
 XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 facts of matter, and knowledge about them must be pur- 
 sued in the same manner in which the study of the facts 
 of matter is — by observation, experiment, induction. 
 
 But there are facts of mind, and what are more pro- 
 perly described as 'facts of mind' than these are, which 
 are not at all of this character, but are of such a 
 nature, that so far from being in any way what can be 
 co-ordinated with facts of matter to make up the uni- 
 verse, the whole universe is itself one such fact of mind 
 to us — when we say it is, we mean that we believe in it 
 — it is the way in which we think, something which 
 our thought sets before us — and there are other such 
 facts of mind besides this. The great fact of the kind 
 is human freedom, liberty, choice. Mind, as we study 
 it for instance in various animal organizations following 
 various laws, is something different from mind as we 
 feel it, or ourselves, thinking and choosing what we will 
 do : and the generic mind in such organizations, with 
 its future, so to speak, marked out for it by nature, is 
 something different from our mind as we feel it, which 
 is more even than humanly generic or generically hu- 
 man — for we have a free view around us — we may see 
 what is good to be done, and choose what we will act 
 for, not (in this case) as men, but as moral beings, who 
 can see even beyond their manhood or proper kind, and 
 can aspire to raise themselves and that kind — when we 
 have chosen indeed, it is as men that we shall have to 
 act: we have but human powers, though we have a 
 choice going beyond known or proper humanity: and 
 thus, in a subordinate way, the facts of mind which may 
 be 'physically studied are of vast consequence : but the 
 real and great facts of mind are the others. And the 
 treatment of these, in both an intellectual and moral 
 view, is what I have called philosophy: the examina-
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV11 
 
 tion what knowledge is, how we know, and what we 
 mean by certainty and truth : the examination what 
 liberty or choice is, what is the meaning of a purpose 
 or ideal of action, what purposes or ideals present them- 
 selves to us, what we are to think about them. 
 
 Unless we have philosophy of this kind, whatever 
 we can make of it, as a companion or pendant, it 
 seems to me that we cannot follow either of the two 
 lines of thought which at this moment are of special 
 interest, without getting into a hopeless perplexity as 
 to the application of them to our action. By these two 
 lines of thought I mean, the one, the physio-psychology 
 of which I have spoken : the other, the past history of 
 the human race, both intellectual and moral or civil. 
 If we wait to know what we ouodit to think about our- 
 selves and what we are to do (more than subordinately) 
 upon these studies, not only shall we be in an unnatural 
 suspense, but we can hardly fail to get more and more 
 into a logical perplexity, and we shall injure these studies 
 themselves. Already it is evident that the study of 
 human progress, or human developement, or civiliza- 
 tion, is in a confusion most difficult to disentangle, on 
 account of people's having failed to present to them- 
 selves as two different notions, the progressive improve- 
 ment, on the one side, of beings with liberty, enterprize, 
 aspiringness, and desire to do the best and the right and 
 to elevate their nature, and, on the other, such a pro- 
 gressive developement as we may conceive to take place 
 in any kind of beings (or zoocosm as I have later called 
 it, i.e. system of kinds) in consequence of any natural 
 tendencies in them or circumstances about them, inde- 
 pendent of such free choice and aspiringness. In respect 
 of the great and important science of the philosophy of 
 history, as we call it, it seems to me that the prospect is 
 
 b
 
 XV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 bad for the very reason which makes some think it good: 
 namely, that we are now looking to it for our morality : 
 we want to find out from it what I am sure we cannot 
 find out from it without perverting it, namely, what 
 we ought to do : we shall lose our power of moral 
 judgment in criticizing what man has done, and after 
 all we shall never be able to say why what man has 
 done (whatever it may be) is, as such, the thing which 
 we ought to do now. 
 
 The world is in some respects getting old, and its 
 value for the history of the past, whether the intellec- 
 tual history of man's successive discovery of things, or 
 the moral history of his advance in civilization, may be 
 taken as one sicm of this : at the same time the world 
 is in some respects as young as, or, if one might ven- 
 ture the expression, more young than, ever, and never 
 I suppose were hopefulness and enterprize more abund- 
 ant. No one can feel more interest in history of all 
 kinds than I do : almost, perhaps too much. But the 
 tendency of questions and subjects of all kinds at this 
 time to run to liistovy, if I may so express it, amounts, 
 in many cases, to a blinking the great and real ques- 
 tions, which ought not to be encouraged. This histo- 
 rical tendency is a part of the character of mind which 
 may be called ' positivism', though it spreads widely 
 beyond the circle of those who would accept the name. 
 But roughly, the principle of this tendency is the fol- 
 lowing: To understand things, you must understand 
 their history : or perhaps, we cannot understand things : 
 all that we can understand is their history. For things 
 we might put 'men': the study of the history of man 
 is now put before us as that by means of which we are 
 to understand man himself, and know what we ought 
 to do.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XIX 
 
 I will not say that the truth lies in the exact oppo- 
 site of this, but I will say that it lies a good deal nearer 
 to that extremity than to the other. In speaking, in 
 what follows, of Mr Mill's Logic, I have commented on 
 the manner in which he gives attention (as I have 
 expressed it) to what goes on in the universe, which we 
 come to believe upon evidence as we come to believe 
 any ordinary fact, rather than to what is in the uni- 
 verse, which, in whatever way, we come to know, con- 
 ceive, perceive. And yet what goes on, as the fact, in 
 the universe, is that the beings and things in the 
 universe do this and that, change in this or that 
 manner : the beings and things are of prior conside- 
 ration really to the fact: we cannot understand the 
 fact without understanding them. We want, in mathe- 
 matical metaphor, a sort of integration. But if we 
 ask Mr Mill what a thing is, we shall get, I think, but 
 an uncertain answer : it is something which is, or has 
 been, or may be named : it is an unknowable substra- 
 tum with knowable attributes: it is a co-existence of 
 attributes, in virtue of what nexus or principle we can- 
 not tell. But it is this, what the universe is made up 
 of, what is in it, what makes things things, which we 
 really want to know before we can properly appreciate 
 what the things do, their changes, what is going on : 
 no doubt the study of this latter helps us towards the 
 former: it is its main interest: but without the former, 
 so far as we can attain to that, it is what can be but 
 imperfectly entered into and what the mind will not . 
 rest in. 
 
 It is the same in regard of man and his history : 
 we ask what man is and what man should do, and we 
 are answered with what man has done and does. Here 
 again, we can make nothing of this latter, we cannot 
 
 b 2
 
 XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 realize or appreciate it, except in virtue of our know- 
 ledge of the former. It is the knowledge which we 
 have already of the former which gives interest to our 
 study of the latter. No doubt when we can rightly ap- 
 preciate and understand what man has done and does, it 
 will mightily add to and deepen our knowledge of what 
 he is : still, as the general fact, the basis of history is the 
 more or less knowledge of the nature of that which it is 
 history of. But we, 'men', are by our thought and 
 feeling- in a manner much more intimate and real than 
 we are as members of the human race on earth, in such 
 a manner that history can take account of us. And 
 therefore the consideration of what we are by our 
 thought and feeling, which is what I call ' philosophy ', 
 is something which no history of any kind can make 
 up for the want of or supply to us, and something with- 
 out which that history itself loses very much of its im- 
 portance and its interest. 
 
 But I now proceed to describe the method — so far 
 as there is any method — upon which the following 
 pages go. 
 
 The first three chapters contain a sketch of my own 
 view as to the double manner of proceeding necessary 
 in mental philosophy or the discussion of the nature of 
 knowledge. 
 
 I then proceed to review, if it may be called so, 
 various books on the subject and on cognate subjects : 
 more correctly however, to compare my views with the 
 views of the authors of the books wdiich I speak of. 
 To some extent I give an account of the purpose and 
 manner of proceeding of the books, not however to a 
 very great extent. 
 
 I will first mention what books I notice, and then say 
 why I notice any books, and why these in particular.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXI 
 
 The first which I speak of is Professor Ferrier's 
 Institutes of Metaphysic. The second, Sir William 
 Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics. The third, Mr 
 Mill's Lome. The fourth, Dr Whewell's series of 
 works, representing his former ' Philosophy of the In- 
 ductive Sciences'. The fifth and sixth, which however 
 I fear will not occur to be noticed, or at least but very 
 slightly, in what I publish now — I will give the reasons 
 at the close of this Introduction — are Mr Morell's Ele- 
 ments of Psychology and Mr Herbert Spencer's Prin- 
 ciples of Psychology. The last is Professor Bain's book 
 upon the Senses and the Intellect, with possible refer- 
 ence to his later book upon the Emotions and the Will. 
 
 First then, why do I notice any books at all ? 
 
 The disposition to comment is one with which, ex- 
 cept in certain particular cases, I do not sympathize at 
 all, and the disposition to criticise is not one with which 
 I sympathize greatly. This latter k a disposition which 
 in an age like ours flourishes much : I am disposed to 
 think that the degree to which it does so is due in 
 some decree rather to readers than to writers : I think 
 that what we may call first-hand thought in philosophy 
 is more ready to spring up and appear than it is valued, 
 at first, when it does appear, and that the manner 
 in which the public ear, at any time, is open only to a 
 few or to something said about them has a tendency to 
 make thought more parasitic (so to call it) than of itself 
 it would naturally be. This however is by the way. 
 But I have to explain how it is that, if not fond of the 
 spirit of criticism, I apparently so much criticise. 
 
 Philosophy lias been from the first SiaXeKTao], dis- 
 cussion, argument — even when delivered in a gnomic 
 and authoritative, or in a poetical form, it must rest, in 
 tli'- mind <>f the philosopher, upon this imagined — and
 
 XX11 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 it never can be otherwise. Lord Bacon, by most vi- 
 gorous controversy and criticism, we may say, on bis 
 own part, endeavoured to call men away from contro- 
 verting each other to the study of the book of nature 
 open before them : but in mental or intellectual philo- 
 sophy, not only must we have the vigorous controversy 
 at the beginning, but even in the carrying out of the 
 philosophy we cannot get free from it. The reason is 
 this : the important thing in intellectual philosophy is 
 to be sure that we are saying something. As soon as a 
 philosopher has in any way made an impression, he 
 will very likely have some, it may be many, to admire 
 and adopt what he says : but these are very imperfect 
 judges as to its substantialness. The test of what he 
 says being not only words, but something, is first his 
 own inward sight : but this is something for himself 
 alone, and even he cannot entirely trust it : we cannot 
 allow that an idea is, by mere virtue of its clearness, 
 certain and true. Hence mind must be brought into 
 contact with mind — no man can know even his own 
 mind without this. And thus the conversational and 
 discussional form of much early philosophy is not an 
 artistic accident of it, but belongs to its being : the 
 philosopher is the man who can SiSdvat and U^oOai \6yov 
 — who uses effort to think clearly himself and give a 
 clear account of what he thinks, and who besides thinks 
 it worth while to be patient in trying to enter into the 
 views of others. Intelligent philosophic criticism is 
 really what I may call substantial, though not literary 
 and artistic, philosophic dialogue : it is the meeting of 
 mind with mind where truth is supposed to be the 
 object of both, and where truth is of such a nature that 
 discussion is likely not to confuse, but to clear it. 
 
 It is in this spirit that I have noticed the books
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXlll 
 
 which I have noticed — not with the slightest idea of 
 appraising their literary value, or judging them from a 
 superior point of view. So far from this being so, I 
 might mention among the reasons why I have chosen 
 these books out of the books on the subject, this, that 
 these, it so happens, are the books from which I have 
 learnt. "When I say 'learnt', I mean that they are 
 books with which my thought on these subjects has 
 been a good deal associated, and which has suggested 
 much of it : not at all that they are books which I 
 particularly follow, in which case such heterogeneous 
 teaching must produce rather singular results. But it 
 is my nature at least to learn as much from what I 
 differ with as from what I agree with. The philosophi- 
 cal thought is always best which is generated in the 
 mind, and sometimes the thought which is caused by 
 opposition is likely to be the more native, sometimes 
 that caused by acquiescence ; not of course mere acqui- 
 escence, but such as is intelligent and suggestive. As 
 to this, the case is different with different individuals. 
 
 It will be seen in my notices of the books, that I 
 never criticise any views of the writers without giving 
 in the fullest manner my own, in fact not unfrequently 
 making their views only a suggestive of what I say 
 myself. I mention this, lest it should appear that what 
 1 have called criticism was my object, which it is not. 
 I care not the least to dispute what any one says, ex- 
 cept with a view of clearing my own thoughts and those 
 of others. I have noticed what seem to me various 
 bad arguments, but I dare say I have used some my- 
 self: every philosopher ought to make up his mind, 
 that if he does serve the cause of truth, one way in 
 which li. : will do so will be by his error being the cause 
 of truth in others. I have seen already so much reason,
 
 XXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in anything which. I have thought about these subjects, 
 to correct previous thought by later, that though, 
 without a reasonable feeling that what I write now is 
 the truth, so far as I can see it, I should not write at 
 all — yet still, when the process of self-correction and 
 growth of thought ceases, I shall consider the cessation 
 a mental senescence which I shall be sorry, not glad, to 
 feel in myself: and of course, what one would correct 
 for one's self, one must not be indignant at having cor- 
 rected by others. 
 
 But in one respect the notice which I have taken 
 of the books which I mention may be considered cri- 
 ticism — that it is taken with an earnest desire to help 
 the understanding and the study of the books: if I 
 had not thought them eminently worthy to be under- 
 stood and studied, I should have been as little disposed 
 to give so much time to them myself as to take up the 
 time of readers with thought about them. There is no 
 doubt in England at present a want of philosophy — 
 that this is not a character of our minds as Enoiish- 
 men, I think the literary history of England at other 
 times proves : but at this time it seems to me that 
 the want is rather of general philosophic interest than, 
 so to call it, of philosophic leading, or of minds dis- 
 posed to philosophic speculation, or of philosophic 
 writers. So far as my own observation goes, there 
 seems to be commencement of germination of the phi- 
 losophic seed, and there seem to be good philosophical 
 books, which, from the nature of them, can never in 
 any age be numerous : but for what reason I know not, 
 the seed seems scarcely to go on from germination to 
 fruit, and the philosophical books are more admired 
 than entered into : what I have called want of philo- 
 sophic interest seems to me deserving possibly of a
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXV 
 
 harder name : but there have been certainly periods, 
 and those possibly periods when men's thoughts were 
 much taken up with civil and political excitements, in 
 which men nevertheless found time to think with in- 
 terest of philosophic problems to which now they are 
 quite indifferent, and to find pleasure in effort of mind 
 about things worth it, where now it seems to them only 
 waste of force. 
 
 What however I have mentioned this for, is, that 
 it does not seem to me that there is want of good 
 books of our day on philosophy, and I have chosen for 
 criticism such books as I have with the notion that the 
 philosophic problems which they treat of are treated 
 of by them with an ability which leaves no reason that 
 we should go for the discussion of them beyond our 
 own time and country. I give this of course as a 
 partial reason only for my having selected such books. 
 I leave the philosophy of other countries and the an- 
 cient fountains of all our philosophy to others more com- 
 petent and more acquainted with them than I : but I 
 do say, and that though I fear that those whom I 
 speak of would each one, were they all alive to do so, 
 only in a very limited degree concur with me — that 
 the books which I speak of — and more might be added 
 to the list, for as I have said and shall say more fully, 
 my selection of these is in part accidental — form as 
 good a philosophic literature for one period as we shall 
 iind at many periods which we much more distinctly 
 should call philosophical. It is not to fill any void, or 
 make good any deficiency that I write, according to 
 \vh;r prefaces usually say: it is to help readers to un- 
 derstand and use what they have got: but then by 
 understanding and using a philosophical book I do not 
 in' an simply taking in what it says, and thinking, so
 
 XXVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 far as tliis is thinking, accordingly: I mean studying 
 it. entering into the view, following the arguments 
 (and matching them also) seeing the difficulties and 
 seeing whether they are met — and much besides of 
 this kind. It will be said, There cannot be many 
 readers like this: perhaps not. What is really the 
 truth as to the philosophy of different periods and 
 generations, we really cannot tell: we should perhaps 
 consider Bishop Butler's generation a philosophical one 
 in comparison with ours: but as to the readers, his 
 impatience at their supposed sluggishness of thought 
 is almost amusing : and as to the writers, it does not 
 seem to me that we are at all inferior. 
 
 I will now mention why I have selected for notice 
 the particular books which are selected. Some of the 
 reasons have been anticipated, but there are others 1 . 
 
 The books form, it will be readily observed, a sort 
 of scale, spectrum, or gamut, of which Professor 
 Ferrier represents the extreme philosophical end, and 
 Professor Bain the extreme physiological or physical. 
 Towards the centre of the scale, as is natural, there is 
 not much principle of succession. I have put Mr Mill 
 
 1 I take the books as representative — as exhibiting, more or less, parti- 
 cular schools of thought. I am not quite certain of the extent to which 
 they are so, and perhaps, in what I hope may follow these pages at a later 
 time, shall remark upon this. Supposing this however to be so, it is evi- 
 dent that in each school of thought there are books to which I make no 
 reference, in regard of which I have not the least wish to pronounce that 
 those which I notice are superior to them. No one for instance could think 
 that I should undervalue what has been written on these subjects by 
 Professor Mansel — but I have considered that what needed saying on his 
 manner of thought would be said sufficiently for my purpose in speaking of 
 Sir William Hamilton — and the same as to Professor Fraser. It so happens 
 that of those whom I notice some are alive and some are dead — it cannot 
 therefore be said that I care to criticise only those who can feel the criticism, 
 or only those who cannot answer. And Sir William Hamilton still lives — 
 a philosopher's best life — in discijtles.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXV11 
 
 nearer the philosophical end of the scale, and Dr Whe- 
 well nearer the other for reasons which further on I 
 have mentioned, and which refer to the method of each : 
 that of Mr Mill being derived in some degree from 
 the Formal Loo-ic, and having rather a logical and 
 scholastic character throuo'hout: that of Dr Whewell 
 resting very much upon physics and physical histor}-, 
 with much less use of logical manner and language. 
 If I had looked at the substance more than at the 
 method the arrangement might possibly have been 
 different, Dr Whewell joining with his definite physics 
 much more of what I call the philosophical view. 
 
 Of these books, those at the extremes will be found 
 probably the most suggestive of any thought which 
 these pages contain, so far as any of them have sug- 
 gested it, though those in the middle (I may mention 
 especially that of Dr Whewell) on account of the wider 
 range of view, may be those in which I have taken 
 the more interest, and may perhaps think the more 
 instructive. But there is much less, in the books at 
 the extremes, of that confusion of thought, as it seems 
 to me, which one purpose of the following pages is to 
 call attention to. And also — what may excite some 
 surprise, but I think it strongly — I think that the 
 books at each extreme, so far as they do touch any 
 matter belonging to the opposite extreme, are likely, 
 from their less confusion of view, to surest truer 
 thoughts about it than perhaps the others would. This 
 is the same thing as what I have meant when I have 
 
 O 
 
 said that though philosophy on the one side, and phy- 
 siology and physical science on the other, are very 
 different things and may perhaps require different 
 mind- for the (l<v<lopemcnt of them, yet they are not 
 hostile to each other, and in reality the better and purer
 
 XXV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the one is in its way ; the better and purer the other is 
 likely to .be. The mixture of considerations how we 
 know with the study of what we hnoiv, the supposition 
 that we not only perhaps do not, but cannot, know 
 reality, that we do not know existence, but only modes 
 and modifications of it, that our knowledge makes 
 some sort of alteration in the thing that we know — 
 and other similar suppositions, which belong to the 
 sort of philosophy which I have called 'notionalism' — 
 all these sorts of things seem to me not only to be bad 
 philosophy, but so far as they are attended to, to 
 make bad physics. While on the other hand, in stu- 
 dying how we have learnt, or come to the knowledge 
 of what we know, the refusal to look at human mental 
 activity, at the 'how we know', as well as at the fact 
 that there are things which we know and that we 
 know them, is as destructive of any philosophy or 
 true logic of advancing thought as the other is of 
 physics. 
 
 But I must not anticipate, or give what will not 
 now be understood: I will merely, in this Introduc- 
 tion, say a word or two on each of the books in suc- 
 cession. 
 
 I have never known anything of Mr Ferrier except 
 his book which I notice, but I judge that his premature 
 death has been as great a loss to the philosophy of our 
 country as it could suffer. His book seems to me to 
 be eminently suggestive, perhaps the more so on ac- 
 count of much in it which I shall notice as to me very 
 unsatisfactory: it suggests more strongly than any 
 book which I happen to know that which appears to 
 me the great need of our philosophy at the present 
 time, namely, a reconsideration of our Philosophy of 
 the Human Mind, on which we have so many books
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXIX 
 
 of so much value, as to its principle and as to the 
 legitimacy of its method: and it takes a genuinely 
 philosophical point of view from which it seems to 
 me thought has with us got too much turned aside. 
 
 In what follows, I have said so much upon Sir 
 William Hamilton's Lectures that I will say little of 
 them here. I have had occasion to criticise Sir Wil- 
 liam Hamilton rather strongly: but, recurring to what 
 I said a short time since about all the books, I think 
 we shall have to go a long way back in English philo- 
 sophic history (if indeed we are successful then) before 
 we find philosophic power of a certain kind united with 
 learning and philosophic knowledge as they are in 
 him. I say 'of a certain kind' because — non omnia 
 possumus omnes — I have had to ciiticise Irs reasoning, 
 and altogether I desiderate something which a philo- 
 sopher needs as much as learning, though perhaps, if 
 lie has Sir William Hamilton's learning, it may be 
 difficult for him to have it — something which may be 
 called flexibility, life, growingness of thought : but when 
 we owe much to a great man it is idle to blame him 
 for not being everything which one could have wished, 
 and thouo-h I do not think Sir William Hamilton's 
 philosophy promises much for progress in the future, 
 I have but little doubt that his books, for one purpose 
 or another, will long be read and referred to. 
 
 To Mr Mill I have already slightly referred. 
 There are several things which he has published, and 
 republished, in regard of which I disagree with him 
 far more strongly and deeply than I do probably witli 
 any of the other writers here noticed: but they do not 
 at all come into consideration here, and it is, amongsl 
 other things, to avoid anything of the kind doing so, 
 that I put together what there is here upon matters
 
 XXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of intellectual philosophy alone, just indicating, in 
 speaking of Mr Mill, where we pass on to morals, with- 
 out at all following that road. 
 
 Since the following pages have been in course of 
 printing, I have become aware of a book which Mr Mill 
 is publishing, or has published, on the subject of his 
 philosophical differences with Sir William Hamilton. 
 I speak in this doubtful manner only because I have 
 purposely avoided learning further. Perhaps this will 
 be understood. To have waited, and referred to what 
 Mr Mill may thus say, would have involved a wider 
 controversy. If criticism of Mr Mill had been in any 
 degree my main purpose, I should have been bound 
 to do this: but, as I have said, I have only used 
 Mr Mill's published views (and so for the other books 
 which I have noticed) to compare my own with: I 
 have said as little as may be of approving and dis- 
 approving, and spoken only of agreement and disagree- 
 ment : let us suppose Mr Mill, as he has written 
 hitherto, to be A, a character in rather a lengthened 
 philosophical discussion, and if the actual Mr Mill 
 has changed his views, or, which is exceedingly likely, 
 I have misunderstood him, then let it not be supposed 
 that it is Mr Mill that I am discussing with at all. For 
 myself, I am curious to see, when these pages are 
 published, what Mr Mill may have said on any subject 
 of which I may have spoken, and I think that such 
 involuntary controversy may possibly not be the worst 
 form of it. And after all, since what I have said about 
 Mr Mill and Sir William Hamilton in conjunction is 
 not much, it is possible that what Mr Mill says of the 
 philosophy of the latter may not refer to it, and may 
 concern some other subject, as, for instance, the Philo- 
 sophy of the Unconditioned.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXI 
 
 With Dr Whewell, my predecessor in the chair 
 which I occupy, and to whom all those interested in 
 Mental and Moral Philosophy in the University must 
 feel themselves much indebted, I have long had the 
 advantage of friendly intercourse. He has set an ex- 
 ample in the University (not followed, I am ashamed 
 to say for myself at least, as diligently as it might have 
 been) of energetic and large-minded cultivation of the 
 subjects to which these pages relate, which I should be 
 sorry not to acknowledge. On his books however I 
 think there is nothing which I need say in this Intro- 
 duction. 
 
 Of the remaining writers whom I have mentioned, 
 Mr Bain is the only one whom I know otherwise than 
 by his books. It had been my wish to make the follow- 
 ing pages complete as regards these writers : but cir- 
 cumstances have supervened which have determined 
 me to stop at present, in general, with what I have said 
 about Dr Whewell, in the hope that in a month or 
 two, the rest may follow. I have wished, for various 
 reasons, to bring this book out within the present 
 month: one reason being, that ill health has prevented 
 my doing as much in the way of my Professorship 
 during the past academical year as I could have wished, 
 and I wish to do what I can. The preparing for the 
 press what I here publish (concurring with other em- 
 ployments), has taken longer than I had anticipated: 
 and therefore, though much of what I hope to say 
 a month or two hence wants but little of completion, I 
 have thought it best for the present to stop where I 
 have. 
 
 After .-ill I have called the following pages 'rough 
 notes' with a real feeling bow much the title expresses 
 the incoherence of them, an incoherence which [ partly
 
 XXX11 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 regret and apologize for, and which I partly think is 
 not altogether a disadvantage. 
 
 Reading and speculating, and even to a certain ex- 
 tent writing, on the subjects which the following pages 
 concern is something which is so much a pleasure to 
 me, whereas preparing for the press and publication is 
 so exceedingly otherwise, that the hesitation and irreso- 
 lution which I have hitherto felt have a strong tendency 
 to continue. But I have arrived at an agre at which a 
 man begins to feel, that if he thinks he has anything to 
 say, he must say it, without being too particular how : 
 if it shall please God to give the opportunity, it is pos- 
 sible that some things said here confusedly may here- 
 after be put in a clearer form, but in the interim, as 
 time is passing, it is possible that some things which I 
 say may suggest thought in others, and what I see but 
 indistinctly may be seen by them more clearly, and put 
 in a better and truer li^ht. For the best thinof that I 
 can hope, and the thing which I most wish, for any- 
 thing which I may say, is that it may be improved 
 upon : the present generation seem to have more than 
 one most bright field of speculation open before them, 
 and what I want more than anything is to prevent 
 their enterprize being damped by their being told, 
 whether on the ground of notionalism or positivism, 
 that to know about God, to form a notion of an ideal 
 of what should be done or what they and the human 
 race should aim at — that this and much like it is 
 visionary and beyond the reach of human faculties : 
 nor do I less wish to prevent the truth of their look at 
 nature, and the sincerity of their investigation of it, 
 being vitiated by the suspicion and fear that they will 
 be brought to conclusions inconsistent with all this, and 
 which will force them to renounce their best birthright.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXX111 
 
 I am not however altogether of opinion that such 
 incoherence as there is in these pages is a disadvan- 
 tage. For the reputation of the philosophical writer 
 himself, it is best that what he has to say should appear 
 well and artistically rounded : but I am not sure it is 
 best for his readers, if what they want is to know the 
 truth. A large part of the following pages represent 
 the first jet in which such philosophy as is contained in 
 them has cast itself in my mind, after a doubtfulness 
 and effort in which it seemed doubtful whether it would 
 cast itself in any : I am not sure whether, for the real 
 appreciation of that which I say, which is what I want, 
 it is not better it should be left in this state rather than 
 more carefully elaborated. But I know that my view 
 in the course of the writing, while in the main more 
 thoroughly commending itself, has in some particulars 
 changed — I think cleared itself: I am aware therefore 
 of weak and confused places, or what seem to me so : 
 while I am also aware that most probably, many places 
 which do not seem to me so are so, just as, possibly, the 
 others are not, 
 
 I think I have said nearly all that seemed required 
 to be said in this Introduction : there is one thing which 
 is not required to be said, but which I should like to 
 say. 
 
 I mentioned that one reason for which I noticed 
 the particular books which I do notice was that they 
 were books from which I had learnt: I do not of 
 course mean the only books, because, though on these 
 subjects I have not cared to read more than my mind 
 could test, examine and enter into, yet I have taken 
 pleasure, so far as I could, in gaining my knowledge 
 about them from various sources, and have endeavoured 
 mentally to harmonize the knowledge as I best might.
 
 XXXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Whatever in these pages is right, and seems to have 
 been said by others, I beg may be referred to them, for 
 whether I am aware of it or not, it may very likely 
 have come from them, and if I have not taken it from 
 them, I have missed reading something which I very 
 likely should be the better for having read. But I speak 
 here about what I have learnt for the following reason. 
 I have great interest in philosophy and speculation, 
 no dislike to argument and discussion, and very much 
 pleasure in imaginative suppositions, sometimes perhaps 
 of what may seem a wild kind — holding as I do most 
 strongly, that there is no fruitful reasoning where there 
 has not been much activity of imagination preceding. 
 But everything of this kind seems to me circumstance 
 or accident about philosophy, in comparison with the 
 one essential consideration in regard of it, What is the 
 truth ? It seems trivial to say this — I shall be answer- 
 ed, Who says otherwise ? But when one listens, and 
 reads, one seems to find philosophical questions put 
 really upon all sorts of other grounds : one finds a care- 
 lessness in the examination of argument which seems to 
 show very little value for what it professes to make out : 
 one seems to find, that mental and moral questions are 
 scarcely considered worth patience and thought, while 
 so much is given to others, interesting indeed, but 
 surely of less importance — and if so, how can it be said 
 the truth about them is valued ? One seems to find, 
 that things are talked and written about with sincerity 
 no doubt, but with little appearance of what I will call 
 mental conscientiousness on the part of the talkers or 
 writers, that is, with little care or effort to get, so far as 
 they can, to the bottom of them, to see what they talk 
 or write about — and if so, can we say that truth is really 
 valued %
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXV 
 
 Myself, not owing much I think to any philosophi- 
 cal teaching, (a thing which I do not think altogether 
 to have been an advantage), I owe almost all such in- 
 terest as I take in philosophy to what is next best to 
 teaching, if it is not better, to companionship : the com- 
 panionship of one who did not leave much behind him 
 himself, except a memory with others I think as well 
 as me not likely soon to be obliterated, the late Robert 
 Leslie Ellis. My companionship with him I think was 
 intellectually the most valuable portion of my life, for 
 one single reason, namely, that I learnt from it (I say 
 from it rather than from him, for I think it was from 
 the concurrence and conflict of our minds, which were 
 very different) a something not easy to describe, but 
 which has been the soul of all my notions about philo- 
 sophy since : one might call it a belief in thought : a 
 feeling that things were worth thinking about, that 
 thought was worth effort, that half-thought or loose 
 thought was something to be despised, that the getting 
 to the bottom of a thing was what would repay the 
 trouble of it : a sort of shame at not beinsr serious and 
 in earnest about matters worth seriousness : without 
 indeed too great a readiness to think things this latter. 
 It is perhaps a part of my disposition rather than of 
 his, that, in too great a measure, probably, many of the 
 things which seem to people in general worth trouble 
 and thought do not seem to me so : that this feelinof is 
 not still stronger in me I certainly owe in part to my com- 
 panionship with him. But in a time of civilization like 
 ours, when things are talked about, and written about, 
 and read about, so easily and with so little expenditure 
 of attention, one might be tempted to think that our 
 intelligence was really given us only as a means to- 
 wards material utility or as a something to amuse our- 
 
 C'2
 
 XXXVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 
 
 selves and others with. Without bringing intellect into 
 any comparison with moral feeling and duty, my own 
 feeling seems to me to be ever stronger and stronger, 
 that as rational beings, at once our great duty and our 
 highest pleasure is something which people do not 
 in general seem to trouble themselves much about, 
 whether in life or for education : the seeing things for 
 ourselves and having an opinion of our own, with care 
 and any amount of effort that it should be, to the ut- 
 most of our power, the true and the right one : a faith 
 in our intelligence, or, which seems to me the same 
 thing, a faith in the entire state of things in which God 
 has placed us, and in the moral universe of which we 
 are a part, that our intelligence, rightly used, will not 
 lead us astray, and that the right use of it is something 
 which is well worth our while. 
 
 Robert Leslie Ellis, it is probable, as is the case 
 with men of abundance of character and richness of 
 endowment, seemed different to different people, ac- 
 cording to what they most sympathized with, but to 
 me what was most interesting about him was his in- 
 tellectual conscientiousness : which was marked by the 
 distinctness and clearness with which, when he ex- 
 pressed an opinion, it always was expressed, and not 
 less by the readiness to listen to anything which might 
 appear to throw difficulty or doubt in the way of any- 
 thing which he might be disposed to think. It is the 
 o-oinsf of these two things together which makes the 
 philosophic readiness to meet the mind of others fairly 
 with one's own mind, the mingled candour and desire of 
 truth which I have spoken of : there are abundance of 
 people with well rounded and neatly expressed opinions, 
 but they can bear no disturbance of them : there are 
 abundance who are ready to admit doubts and difficulties,
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXV11 
 
 so ready that they think it hopeless to form any opinion 
 at all. I understand by intellectual conscientiousness 
 the feeling of restlessness and dissatisfaction at any- 
 thing being confusedly seen or not worked out, and of 
 dislike at seeing it incorrectly put or fallaciously argued, 
 which arises from the feeling that truth is worth effort 
 and patience : this is likely to be encouraged by a 
 mathematical training, or to exist in concert with a 
 mathematical habit of mind, provided (a most im- 
 portant provision) there exists also what I should call 
 a wideness of view, and a feeling of the importance, 
 the higher importance, of other truth besides mathe- 
 matical. Otherwise the comparison of the directness 
 of mathematical result with the complication and diffi- 
 culties of philosophy will only produce despair of the 
 best truth. The philosopher, as I understand, is a man 
 who means a great deal by believing — means something 
 very different from the easy process which many call by 
 that name : a man in whom desire to believe and desire 
 to believe nothing that is not the truth are equally 
 balanced. There is no real intellectual faith therefore 
 without much of thought, anxiety, and doubt. The 
 philosopher in his search can hardly, I presume, avoid 
 much repulse and even defeat. The true philosopher, 
 in my view, is the man who under* all ' non desperavit 
 de veritate': who believes in truth enough to be willing 
 mentally to labour for it, and to forego any substitutes 
 for it. 
 
 To me this character of mind seems the reverse of 
 the sceptical, and to be that which gives the proper 
 foundation for religion : it seems to me to be from 
 minds of this conscientiousness and deepfelt seriousness 
 that we learn (and I am sure it is my own experience) 
 very much of what gives religion its claim to be the
 
 XXXV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 one great tiling which we ought to think of. It is true 
 that I have views on this subject which are not per- 
 haps those of every one : I look upon philosophy not 
 simply as a branch of literature and science, but in its 
 practical character, as intimately connected with human 
 action and the direction of that, and since religion 
 takes that province also, I do not think they can act 
 independently, or refuse to notice each other. As a 
 man thinketh in his heart, so is he : and to the ' thought' 
 which thus makes the man, I am disposed to give 
 a wide application. It is of course sadly familiar 
 to us how many neglect and cast away their moral 
 selves, their soul : but I am disposed to think, that as 
 regards their intellectual selves, few people value them- 
 selves as they might and should : and that if they 
 cared more what they thought, not in view of shining 
 and appearing, but for its own sake, they would be 
 happier and better. Thought is not a professional 
 matter — not something for so-called philosophers 
 only or professed thinkers. The best philosopher 
 is the man who can think most simply. Education 
 and learning are wanted for thought just in the same 
 degree to which, on the other hand, fresh view and 
 hunger after truth are wanted : and if the ignorant 
 envies the learned, the latter has some reason to retort 
 the feeling, and to envy the other the intellectual ap- 
 petite which he ought to have. But, like the country- 
 men in Virgil, the ignorant are insensible of their 
 advantages. I say this seriously so far, that I think 
 if in those who learn, the interest or value of what 
 they are doing as a process of thought could be to a 
 certain degree in mind, the value of what is done 
 would be many times multiplied : how knowledge in- 
 creases for us is not a thin or of near so much conse-
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXXIX 
 
 quence as how thought changes. We want and ought 
 if possible to use our minds in thought all along : for 
 each stage in the change of thought has its own special 
 value : and it is as we think at each time, according to 
 what I said just now, that we are. 
 
 But I must not dwell on this: I would only wish 
 people to consider that thought — and philosophy is no 
 more than o-ood and methodical thought — is a matter in- 
 timate to them, a portion of their real selves: when they 
 think this, they will be to a certain extent good philo- 
 sophers already, for they will value what they think, 
 be interested in it, and take pains about it: there are 
 some perhaps, good but mistaken, intercourse with 
 whom might lead them to consider that what they 
 (such as they are) think themselves is of very little 
 consequence, and that they have nothing to do but 
 to accept something on authority : and there are others, 
 as mistaken but very far from so good, intercourse 
 with whom might lead them to consider in the same 
 way that what they think themselves is of very little 
 consequence : because there is nothing worth thinking 
 about : because neither their thought nor that of others 
 is what will lead them to any result worth speaking 
 of: because we think according to our place in the 
 scale of nature and the history of man, and according 
 to the history of our father and mother, and whatever 
 else may have determined our physical organization, and 
 because elevation of our moral selves and of our race is 
 a chimera, and man is simply a dreamy and imagina- 
 tive animal, and a grown man of sense will quit such 
 imaginations, and if I may so express it, let himself 
 be — do what he must or will do — consider thouyht 
 for him as what the animal's instinct is for it, his ca- 
 pital or instrument for material life, and the utmost
 
 xl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 thing worth thinking of, if he goes so far, that he may- 
 use it for the material benefit of others. Fcenum 
 habet in cornu, longe fuge — ultra Sauromatas, or any- 
 where further still — let us go anywhere to avoid 
 teaching which like this damps as well mental specula- 
 tion as moral energy — damps all worthy enterprize and 
 aspirin gness : teaching which, now occurring as an ap- 
 parent result of human progress, would have prevented 
 that progress if in earlier times it had been, not only 
 what it always has more or less been, the habit of mind 
 of the less thinking among the human race, but the 
 creed and belief of the more thinking. Human pro- 
 gress has been what it is, under God's Providence, 
 because there have not been wanting in the human 
 race men who have felt themselves free, and who have 
 believed in their intelligence, and who have felt that 
 their race was capable of elevation, and who have seen 
 or seemed to themselves to see, with effort indeed per- 
 haps and obscurely, something of the way in which it 
 could be done. If complaint is to be made at present of 
 the absence of philosophical spirit in our country, it ap- 
 pears to me — perhaps mistakenly — that many men are 
 in a sort of doubt as to what is before them: that they 
 have a kind of fear that religion and the old ways are 
 dying out, and yet are not satisfied with a prospect only 
 of continual multiplication of fresh inventions and new 
 markets, while they do not know what to look to in- 
 stead. I have but to say on this, let us believe in 
 ourselves, which in this application is not the revolting 
 against, but the believing- in God, whose Providence 
 has made men to advance as he has. If we wish, as 
 men, to be wiser, better, happier, let us believe that to 
 some degree at least we can make ourselves so, and let 
 us try. The following pages are a very humble attempt,
 
 INTRODUCTION. xli 
 
 or beginning of an attempt, towards advance in the 
 intellectual direction : if they are at all a* successful at- 
 tempt, it will be through others taking up anything 
 which may happen to be right in them, and pursuing 
 it : I hope it may be so. 
 
 I mentioned a short time since, that it is in the 
 books of the writers at the two extremities of the scale 
 which I have given, that will be found opinions most 
 resembling those given in the following pages : and in 
 fact, the main thread, so to speak, of all that follows, 
 is effort to ascertain the relation which the manner of 
 thought at one of these extremes bears to that at the 
 other. I am not going in what is now published, for 
 reasons which I have given, to speak of the writers 
 towards one of the extremes: but to show the line of 
 thought which I shall try to follow, I will anticipate 
 for a moment, and say a word of the one at the ex- 
 treme, Professor Bain. 
 
 Some of the leading notions which I have given 
 will be found given in Mr Bain's book more distinctly 
 than in any other, as for instance in his chapter on the 
 Perception and Belief of the Material World. For 
 example " Belief in external reality is the anticipation 
 " of a given effect to a given antecedent"..." Between 
 "the world and mind there is no comparison, the things 
 "are not homogeneous 1 ...." — and so in other cases. 
 
 But perhaps I had better quote a passage at length, 
 which expresses more clearly than 1 could express it, 
 in all the first portion of it, what I think myself, and 
 shows in the second what it is that I want to under- 
 stand and what I desiderate. 
 
 " When we come to communicate with other beings, and 
 "ascertain by the signs of communication that they pass through 
 
 1 Pa^'e 370.
 
 xlii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " the same experience as ourselves, this enhances still more the 
 " constancy of tke association between our sensations and the 
 " corresponding active energies. We ascertain that at times 
 " when we ourselves are not affected by a particular sensation, 
 " as of light, other persons are affected by it. This leads us to 
 " generalize sensation still more, and to conceive to ourselves an 
 "abstraction that comprehends all our experience, past and 
 " present, and all the experience of others, which abstraction is 
 " the utmost that our minds can attain to respecting an external 
 " and material world. So often as I open my eyes I have the 
 " sensation of light (the exceptions are not material to the illus- 
 " tration). I thereupon associate 1^his sensation with this action, 
 " and I expect in all future time that the action will lead to 
 "the sensation. Other persons tell me the same thing. I 
 " thereupon affirm as a general fact that an optical feeling will 
 " always follow a certain muscular feeling, to me and to other 
 " sentient beings ; and I can affirm nothing more, nor can I 
 "have any possible interest or concern with anything more. 
 "The assertion that light and the sun have a permanent and 
 " independent existence has, for its basis and for its import, that 
 " I, and all other beings with whom I have had any communi- 
 " cation, have had a certain optical feeling in conjunction with 
 " certain activities of which we have been conscious, and firmly 
 " anticipate the same coincidence in the future. The external 
 " existence of a stone wall means the association between certain 
 " optical impressions and a particular locomotive effort, and a 
 "further and still more decided association between touch and 
 " another effort, that, namely, which we call the sense of resist- 
 " ance. Finding the same sequence to exist with reference to 
 " beings in general, we generalize the fact to the very farthest 
 " limits, and affirm that it has always been so in the past, and 
 " will always be so in the future. Our language is apt to go 
 "beyond this; out of all the particular experiences (which 
 " alone constitute the real evidence for the proposition) we con- 
 " struct an experience in the abstract, a most anomalous fiction, 
 " that goes the length of affirming that the sensation is not only 
 " sure to occur along with the appropriate actions, but that it 
 " exists whether these actions take place or not. We seem to 
 " have no better way of assuring ourselves and all mankind that
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xliii 
 
 " with the conscious movement of opening the eyes there will 
 "always be a consciousness of light, than by saying that the 
 " light exists as independent fact, with or without any eyes to 
 " see it. But if we consider the case fairly, we shall see that 
 " this assertion errs not simply in being beyond any evidence 
 " that we can have, but also in being a self-contradiction. We 
 "are affirming: that to have an existence out of our minds 
 "which we cannot know but as in our minds. In words we 
 " assert independent existence, while in the very act of doing 
 " so we contradict ourselves. Even a possible world implies a 
 " possible mind to perceive it, just as much as an actual world 
 " implies an actual mind. The mistake of the common modes 
 " of expression in this matter, is the mistake of supposing the 
 " abstractions of the mind to have a separate and independent 
 "existence. This is the doctrine of the Platonic 'ideas', or 
 "'forms', which are understood to impart all that is common 
 " to the particular facts or realities, instead of being derived 
 "from them by an operation of the mind. Thus the actual 
 " circles of nature derive their mathematical properties from the 
 "pre-existing 'idea', or circle in the abstract; the actual men 
 " owe their sameness to the ideal man. So instead of looking 
 " upon the doctrine of an external and independent world as a 
 "generalization or abstraction grounded on our particular expe- 
 " riences, summing up the past, and predicting the future, we 
 "have got into the way of maintaining the abstraction to be an 
 " independent reality, the foundation, or cause, or origin of all 
 " tip peril w - 
 
 Mr Bain's book is a book founded upon elaborate 
 anatomical detail, expressing then, or trying to express, 
 the facts of mind in language most concretely (so to 
 call it) physiological, and proceeding on very rapidly (I 
 mean with very little of an intermediation or process) 
 to tip; more complicated or as we might say abstract 
 facts of mind; giving, or attempting to give, an ac- 
 count of them in tlx: Bame manner. With all this there 
 is united what 1 should call a better philosophy, that is 
 a more true and faithful account of the activity of
 
 xllV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the mind, than occurs in many books where the philo- 
 sophy is pursued as the important object, and in the 
 view of which books, Mr Bain's physiology would be 
 looked upon as materialism. I want to understand, 
 how the philosophy and physiology are related to each 
 other. With Mr Bain, what exists ? In the middle of 
 a book of physiology, we come upon something, upon 
 thought, which, like an enchanter's wand, makes every- 
 thing vanish — makes all explode without even remain- 
 ing itself — we come upon a universal solvent — for it is 
 not simply the external world, but we, corporeally, that 
 vanish — and yet all this occurs in the middle of a sys- 
 tem giving an occount of our bodies, our organs, our 
 senses, &c. I will not dwell upon this : so far from 
 mentioning it as any discredit to Mr Bain I mention it 
 rather as an example of what I have said, that where 
 there is the clearest view of the physiology on the one 
 side there will be the clearest view of the philosophy on 
 the other: only that I am not at all sure that we any 
 of us understand how the philosophy and the physiology 
 go together, or what relation they bear the one to the 
 other. 
 
 In the same way I want to understand the value of 
 the language (not at all peculiar to Mr Bain) that " we 
 "have got into the way of maintaining the abstraction" 
 (i.e. the universe of things about us, the phenomenal uni- 
 verse, as I have called it) " to be an independent reality ". 
 (Could we have done otherwise ?) And in the same 
 way, that the general experience which we construct 
 from particular experiences is " a most anomalous fic- 
 tion". This is the language it is to be observed of a 
 physiologist or physical philosopher, who has taken 
 this supposed independent reality and general expe- 
 rience for his basis all along. The question with me
 
 INTRODUCTION. xlv 
 
 about all this is, What ought we to think ? Is the way 
 of thinking into which we have got as to the reality of 
 the universe a bad way of thinking, or not ? If it is, 
 how did we fall into it, and how may we get into a 
 better? And similarly as to the experience — are we 
 right in constructing this most anomalous fiction ? 
 
 So much as this I just mention in order that the 
 nature of the points to come under consideration in 
 what I hope will shortly follow that which is given here 
 may be a little anticipated. 
 
 I send out these pages with much misgiving, not as 
 to the substance of them — all that I can say about this 
 is that they represent real thought, and of what value 
 the thought is can onlv be seen when it comes to be 
 compared with the thought of others — but as to the 
 way in which the manner or method (if it is to be 
 called method) of them may be taken. They are full 
 of egotism. I can only say that in reading what others 
 have written it is a matter continually occurring to me, 
 how much better it w T ould have been if they had been 
 more egotistic ; how much better we should understand 
 what they meant if they had described the manner in 
 which the thing had come to present itself to their 
 mind, and let us a little see their thought in the form- 
 ing : and also how many pages of literary history, end- 
 ing at last in unsatisfactory result, would have been 
 also saved if this had been the case. What is to me of 
 interest before all other things, is thought: it is because 
 God, the Beginner of all reality, thought as he did that 
 things are what they are, and we at once, in finding 
 out what things arc, or what is reality, are following 
 and tracing, so far as our faculties go, his thought, and 
 also, in thinking rightly or working out our own intel-
 
 xlvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 licence, which is derived from his, are finding out what 
 reality is. Everything about our intelligence is in my 
 view interesting and useful : its results, so far as we 
 can trust them, which are what we call fact or truth : 
 its mistakes, which are the road to this : the conflict 
 of intelligences, or discussion (or this same going on 
 imaginatively within the mind) which ordinarily forms 
 the way by which from manifold mistake there is struck 
 out truth. Humanum est errare : it is a prerogative 
 of man to mistake : what of nature or of fact is to im- 
 press itself upon each kind of the lower animals does 
 so almost infallibly : man may learn anything, but to 
 balance this, he has got to learn each thing by specula- 
 tion and trial, at the hazard of much mistake. If the 
 human race were too afraid of mistake it would learn 
 nothing. 
 
 If from my saying so much about what I think my- 
 self or what seems to me, it is concluded that I set too 
 high a value upon my thinking, and that this also is 
 the meaning of my saying, that human intellect or in- 
 telligence is what we ousfht to have confidence in, I 
 would answer as follows : Had I more confidence in my 
 own thought, much of what here appears would pro- 
 bably have appeared long ago. I think, and am sorry 
 for it, that I have had my full share of a state of mind 
 too common, I am able to see now that I look upon 
 a good many younger than myself, which is made up I 
 think of diffidence, fastidiousness, and an indisposition to 
 follow thought out, and which there seems something in 
 our literary atmosphere strangely, in respect of philoso- 
 phy, to encourage. I say unfeignedly, both that my 
 most earnest wish as to what I have done myself is that 
 it may stimulate thought in others, and also that to lead 
 the thought of others is a thing to which I feel very
 
 INTRODUCTION. xlvii 
 
 little disposition — it is a cardinal maxim of mine tbat 
 every one's thought should be his own — I should wish 
 to think rightly myself, and to help, if I can, others to 
 do so in their own way. I should like to make them 
 value their own thinking, and feel, that if it is genuine 
 and their own, it has some value for others, and if they 
 are at all in circumstances to follow it out, may very 
 likely have much. And when I speak of belief or con- 
 fidence in human intellect or intelligence, I use the ex- 
 pression more to make people enlarge and heighten 
 their view of intelligence than for any other purpose. 
 Intellect is not something opposed to imagination, not 
 even something opposed to feeling : intellect is what 
 I am persuaded there are very few who have not much 
 more of than they think they have, or than they ever 
 bring out or make any use of. By the philosophical 
 spirit, which is the same thing as being true to our 
 own intelligence, all I should understand is the getting 
 the notion of using intelligence, not merely for advance- 
 ment in life, not merely for the learning what others 
 have thought, but for individual just and correct 
 thought, and the application of knowledge to the aid 
 of this. But I have said enough. 
 
 I may mention lien-, about the spelling of two words which 
 occur very frequently, that I write 'phenomenon', 'phenomenal' 
 when I use the words in their present English application or in 
 a sense of my own derived from it, and ' pluenomenon', 'pheno- 
 menal' when 1 use them in an etymological reference, or am 
 commenting Oil philosophers who spell them in this latter 
 
 manii'T. 
 
 M<i
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 PHENOMENALISM. 
 
 I AM about to try to explain a manner of thought which, 
 in various applications, or perhaps misapplications, of it, I have 
 been in the habit of mentally characterizing, and perhaps of 
 speaking of, as ' positivism.' 
 
 I shall now however not use this term, but the term 'phe- 
 nomenalism.' I understand the two terms to express in sub- 
 stance the same thing, and what the thing is, will appear in 
 what follows. The reason for the change is, because in the 
 purely intellectual application which I shall now make of the 
 term, 'phenomenalism' may perhaps carry with it less danger 
 of extraneous associations being joined with it, and may ex- 
 press what I mean more generally : for the present purpose, I 
 will remount from M. Comte to the times of Plato. I think 
 that if the course of man's study of nature had been more 
 fortunate, and the great onward movement of it which began 
 four hundred years ago had begun in the century following 
 that of Plato, as in many respects it very well might : if 
 then the great bifurcation in philosophy which showed itself 
 in full conspicuousness in that century had been more widely 
 viewed, and not so preponderatingly in reference to Ethics : if 
 Bacon and Galileo had followed Aristotle in the next genera- 
 tion, instead of at the distance of near two thousand years, and 
 if we were to Imagine a Greek M. Comte, some time afterwards, 
 descanting on the manner in which science had advanced so as 
 to be fruitful, and denouncing, as in fact many of the Epicu- 
 reans did, Hi" hindrances offered to it by superstition and fan- 
 ciful metaphysics: philosophers of his way of thinking would 
 probably have called themselves and been called 'phaBnomenics 1 
 or by Bome term of similar import, The notion of unreality 
 
 1
 
 2 PHENOMENALISM. [CHAP. 
 
 involved etymologically in the term 'phenomenon' would not 
 probably have hindered its use in this application more than 
 the idea of 'arbitrariness' involved in that of 'positive' and 
 'positivist' has hindered the application of this : 'phenomenon' 
 since the time of its first use has been the term most simply 
 expressing the (so-called) facts of nature considered in contrast 
 with any (so-called) metaphysical theories as to the origin of 
 these facts, their causes, or their purposes. 
 
 I shall call then by the name of 'phenomenalism' that notion 
 of the various objects of knowledge which go to make up the 
 universe which belongs to the point of view of physical science : 
 and what I shall endeavour to show is that this phenomenalism, 
 thoroughly true in its own province, and such, that if alien 
 elements be mingled with it false science is the result, is yet 
 not the whole of what the human mind, either intellectually 
 or morally, calls for and should have : that in the view of phi- 
 losophy or the examination of the nature of knowledge, phe- 
 nomenalism is an abstraction (so to call it) from something 
 wider than itself, with the truth, real but partial, which belongs 
 to the notion of an abstraction: that the progress, an undoubted 
 historical fact, made by both the individual mind and the mind 
 of the race in clearness of phenomenal view is not an absolute 
 correction of what has gone before, not simply a substitution of 
 something better for this, but a correction of it in one par- 
 ticular direction, leaving what thus purports to be corrected 
 still important and of force in other directions. 
 
 If, beyond and before this phenomenalism we at all enter 
 upon the consideration how we, feeling and thinking beings, 
 come to the knowledge of the facts that it embodies : or if, 
 beyond and after it, we enter upon the consideration how we 
 are to act, for what purpose we are to employ our phenomenal 
 knowledge : we come into an entirely different region : the 
 region, as to the method of our thought, not of physical science 
 but of philosophy or the higher logic : the region, if we are 
 to employ a term antithetic to phenomenalism, of what I have 
 called idealism. But the word idea belongs in rather a different 
 manner to the consideration of the manner in which we arrive 
 at our knowledge and the consideration of the purpose for 
 which we should act.
 
 I.] PHENOMENALISM. 3 
 
 On this difference I will say just now only so much as this : 
 that we gain our knowledge by a succession of mental efforts 
 which are perpetually self-correcting, the correction however 
 being of that kind which I just described, so that while our 
 actual knowledge turns out something different in nature from 
 what we expected, the expectation and previous view of know- 
 ledge still remains with its value in its own place. This, I am 
 afraid, is not as yet intelligible, but I shall try to explain how 
 ideas lead us to phenomenal knowledge : how they lead us, 
 in rather a different application of the term, to action, is 
 matter for another discussion. Phenomenalism may be called, 
 if we like it, a step of thought or knowledge between two 
 regions of idealism. The phenomenal world is the fit and 
 as it were intended filling up of the vast, but yet in many 
 respects definite, particular or qualitied, fixedly shaped, capacity 
 for knowledge, which constitutes our ideal or imaginative 
 nature. In this respect the ideal is the subjective, the phe- 
 nomenal the objective. But the consideration of the relation 
 of this which thus fills our mind to the mind which it fills 
 carries us, as I hope we shall see, to a higher objectiveness or 
 higher idea of exist once. I shall consider a little what meaning 
 there is in the notion of the ideal being the true existence, the 
 phenomenal a subjective, and what is more, illusory one. 
 
 But there is much to be done first : and what I wish to say 
 now is, that it is impossible to write satisfactorily on a subject 
 such as this without having clearly before our minds the dis- 
 tinction between what, on the one side, is physical, or (in respect 
 of scientific treatment; phenomenal, and on the other what is 
 philosophical or logical I think both Dr Whewell and Mi- 
 Mill err in this respect, I shall try to show how. I think it 
 mosi likely I shall err myself, for the matter is abstract and 
 difficult, but I hope that our errors will help forward the truth 
 in others. Tin- besi way towards avoidance of error seems to 
 
 to he to try to exhibit so far as it is possible, independently 
 of each other, in each case as if, so far as we can admit the 
 supposition, the other did not exist, the physical or phenomenal 
 
 .. of the matter or object of knowledge on the one side, and 
 the philosophical Logical or epistemological) view of the (net 
 or process of knowledge, on the other. When we see the two 
 
 ]- _'
 
 4 PHENOMENALISM. [CHAP. 
 
 things, so far as they can be separated, separate, we shall put 
 together such parts of each as have to be put together with 
 less likelihood of error. 
 
 The phenomenal verb is 'is' in the sense of 'exist', with 
 immediate application of it to certain objects of our thought: 
 the thought itself, the nature of the existence, the grounds of 
 our supposition of it, not entering into consideration. 
 
 The verb of philosophy, or when our point of departure is 
 consciousness or our own personality, is one which has scarcely 
 existence in popular language : we might consider it to be 
 ' feel' used neutrally, or 'feel ourselves' (the Greek e^w) with an 
 adverb. In this consciousness, in the philosopher's view, is the 
 root of all certainty or knowledge. The problem of philosophy 
 is the finding the relation between existence and this. 
 
 Speaking generally, that is with certain qualifications which 
 I may have to allude to, we must understand which view we are 
 taking, and in the philosophical view must talk with great care 
 of 'is', in the phenomenal must talk with great care of 'I', or 
 'we', 'perceive,' 'feel', &c. this or that. Consciousness or feeling 
 is only a phenomenal fact in certain particular ways which I 
 shall speak of. The phenomenal assumption is that the world 
 of reality exists quite independently of being known by any 
 knowing beings in it : just the same as it would exist, if there 
 were no knowledge or feeling in any members of it : it is only 
 results of such feeling that it is concerned with. The Berkeleian 
 idealism is little more than the easy demonstration that this 
 view, from a philosophical standing-point, is untenable : that the 
 notion of existence, as distinguished from perceivedness, is, 
 nakedly and rudely stated, as abhorrent to the philosopher as 
 that of perceivingness and will in any part of the matter the 
 laws of which he is seeking is to the phenomenalist. 
 
 In spite of this, the language of philosophers constantly 
 betokens the notion, held in a manner which seems to me 
 confused, of a double point of departure or source of reality : 
 of the notion, in face of each other, of an independently exist- 
 ing phenomenal world and a perceiving mind, without any pre- 
 liminary consideration what each of these notions requires, the 
 language indicating sometimes the one point of departure, 
 sometimes the other. What I mean will, as' we go on, appear.
 
 I.] PHENOMENALISM. 5 
 
 Let us for a moment, taking for granted the existence on 
 the one side of our thinking self, and on the other, of an uni- 
 verse the object of knowledge, examine what we mean by 
 ' sensation '. 
 
 What we call sensation is something intervening, on this 
 supposition, between us the subject and the universe the object, 
 of knowledge, and supplying the means by which they are 
 brought together. We perceive things : the first and the last 
 word express the supposedly independent realities : the middle 
 word describes a process of communication between them. The 
 point of meeting is a corporeal or physical communication be- 
 tween the various portions of matter which we know and one 
 particular portion of matter which we call our body, which 
 particular portion is constituted or organized in such a manner 
 that according to the nature of the communication there shall 
 accompany or follow it, in the supposed self, or what we call 
 the mind, this or that feeling of pleasure or pain, or this or that 
 felt exertion of will. The sensation is not the communication, 
 but is this which I have described as accompanying it : is in 
 fact a part, and the foundation, of our consciousness. On the 
 one side of the communication, or within it, we may say, stands 
 this sensation : on the other side, the outside of it, stand the 
 various circumstances of body which make the sensation 
 various, and to be of one kind or of another : which we call 
 for instance, qualities. While still further within and with- 
 out stands something more again: namely on the one side, 
 within, the concentration of om* consciousness which makes us 
 use ili" terms 'I', 'we'; on the other side, without, the under- 
 stood reality or substantiality which makes us use the term 
 'things'; which makes us consider that body or matter is 
 something more than its qualities as we are something more 
 than our sensations : which gives to our pursuit of knowledge 
 something of the character, always, of limiting after something 
 which elude; our grasp, of endeavouring, in a way, to under- 
 Btand the meaning of our own knowledge, ;i ud to find out why 
 we think iii the manner in which we inevitably do think: and, 
 as we shall see, the character of perpetual self-correction and 
 disappointmenl as well as attainment. 
 
 The communication between subject and object or between
 
 PHENOMENALISM. [CHAP. 
 
 ' us ' and ' things', which is the proper knowledge and the discus- 
 sion of which is philosophy, may be said to include in the middle 
 of it, as the means of it, the communication between our organs 
 of sense and the qualities of the world beyond ourselves. But 
 this latter communication again requires further analysis. The 
 central part of it is a material or corporeal movement (I use the 
 word movement in a wide and loose sense, to include possible 
 chemical modification or change which perhaps may not be 
 movement proper) of parts of our organs of sensation, as e.g. 
 what we call affections of the brain, optic nerve, &c. ; and this is 
 the real phenomenal fact upon which our consciousness and our 
 knowledge of the universe depend. What I have called pheno- 
 menalism is such a view of the universe as will embrace as 
 a part of it this movement, simply considered as a material and 
 corporeal movement, harmonize with it, and, if we may use the 
 expression, fit on to it. That, in a sphere of thought in which 
 the term ' movement ' is without meaning, this movement is 
 accompanied or followed by what we call consciousness, by feel- 
 ings of pleasure and pain, exertion of will, &c. is nothing in 
 itself, to phenomenalism, which has no means of dealing with, 
 or language to express, facts, (if we may call them so) such as 
 this. It can so far, and so far only, deal with consciousness as 
 that it may recognize or discover the existence of what it may 
 so term, by phenomenal effects which it produces : but it can do 
 no more. We are conscious of what we feel ourselves, but be- 
 yond ourselves we cannot perceive feeling, except so far as we 
 judge from effects which it produces, or conclude, doubtfully, 
 from analogy : feeling is the secret, the incommunicable pro- 
 perty, of whatever being possesses it : there might be an endless 
 variety of feeling, for all that we know, in different portions of 
 the universe, and it would be all the same to us. 
 
 The word ' sensation ', in any proper application of the term, 
 expresses a particular variety of feeling, and as such belongs not 
 to the world of phenomenalism but to that of philosophy or the 
 science of knowledge. It is from want of attention to this, that 
 much philosophical confusion has arisen. Movements or changes 
 take place in the subtle matter of our brain or nerves : these 
 may be closely accompanied by feelings, or states of conscious- 
 ness, however we may like to call them : it is to these latter
 
 I.] PHENOMENALISM. 7 
 
 that the term ' sensation ' properly belongs : but these, as we 
 have seen, are of no phenomenal consideration. The phenome- 
 non, or fact describable and demonstrable to the common expe- 
 rience of all, which takes place as to knowledge, is simply this : 
 as to the eye, e.g. : light strikes it according to its own laws, 
 changes, mechanical and chemical, take place in the eye, the 
 optic nerve, and the brain, and a change perhaps takes place in 
 the movements (such as they were previously) of the whole 
 body, so that (to put the language shortly) the man who was 
 walking right up against a tree now walks by the side of it. 
 Physiology here tries, as it can, to make the chain of consecu- 
 tion, or of cause and effect, continuous. It can follow the im- 
 pression, and trace back the volitional action, to a certain degree 
 inwards, and it is conceivable that it might be able to complete 
 the chain, or follow the phenomenal process from the affection 
 of the nerves of sense and motion which leads to an ordinary 
 perception round to the action or changes in the nerves of 
 motiuii which lead to our walking one way rather than another: 
 but however it may do this, it cannot explain sensation, or take 
 one step towards it. The physiologist may tell the man what 
 takes place in his nerves and brain, but the man, and he only, 
 knows what his feeling is, and he cannot even communicate it. 
 The physiologist may deny that there is any meaning in the 
 term 'feeling' as distinguished from the phenomenal process 
 which he exhibits: if he does so, he only brings out into 
 
 nger relief the fundamental difference between the phe- 
 nomenal and philosophical domains of thought, so that on the 
 principles of the one, the other is in the firs! instance not even 
 conceivable, and the simplest facts of the one may be denied 
 by the other without any appeal which can settle the question. 
 
 The phenomenal fact then or the fundamental fad with 
 which phenomenalism must harmonize is not sensation, which 
 eling, but the communication between natural agents or 
 portions of outward nature and the matter of our organs of 
 sense, that is, in fact, our body. For our body is in fact one 
 single sense to us with various sub-si osi j or special organizations 
 ation, in the same way as, in the point of view of action, 
 it i- one ingle n i .- 1 ' ■ 1 1 i 1 1 < • with various sub-machines to obey our 
 will. Phenomenally, our body is ourselves, and instead of
 
 8 PHENOMENALISM. [CHAP. 
 
 sensation we should, in propriety, speak of what I have called 
 communication, just as in propriety, instead of action, we should 
 speak of motion. Of course we may speak of sensation and 
 action, if we attend to what we mean : if we mean sensation in 
 the same sort of way as we speak of the sensibility of plants, as 
 a something, that is, which we judge of by effects, but the 
 nature of which in itself, as felt independently of effects, (or 
 whether it has such nature), we say nothing of. With the same 
 caution of course we may also speak of action. But the term 
 sensation is very constantly spoken of as a phenomenal fact 
 without this caution being borne in mind. 
 
 The word ' impression,' used often in a similar way to ' sen- 
 sation,' is not in the same manner objectionable, but is so in 
 another, viz. that it suggests the notion (in ordinary philoso- 
 phical language) of sensation or perception being only passive 
 on our part, or of the communication being only withinwards 
 from without, and not, in a large portion of it, withoutwards 
 from within. In reality, the sensation or feeling is in part an 
 accompaniment of movements or changes in our nerves which 
 the natural agents produce, and in part an accompaniment of 
 movements or changes in them, which, in ordinary and philoso- 
 phical language, we ourselves make : and which, in phenomenal 
 language, are mechanical sequels of the other changes, to be 
 accounted for as may be. We say a tree in front of us makes 
 an impression on our eye or sense: but in reality what takes 
 place is that the colour of the tree (so to speak) makes such an 
 impression, but that correspondingly with this there are all sorts 
 of movements of the eye by us, by which we measure its magni- 
 tude, and (associating our present sensation with many past 
 ones) its distance and other particulars about it: and all this 
 goes to make up that which is loosely described as ' impression'. 
 I shall therefore, to avoid misunderstanding, use the word 
 ' communication'. 
 
 The phenomenal world is then that of which we, meaning 
 here by we our animated bodies, form a part, or, more properly, 
 since a world, or universe, a whole of things, is something which 
 phenomenalism does not suggest to us, it is an extension, loosely 
 speaking we may say a generalization, of that matter of which 
 our body is to us the type. I must here again repeat, that the
 
 1.1 PHENOMENALISM. 9 
 
 ■j 
 
 1 we', or the 'I' spoken of here, is not the 'we' or 'I' of con- 
 sciousness. ' I ', phenomenally, represents one individual of 
 humanity. To find phenomenal reality, we must find that 
 which can be known, so far as it is known, in common by all. 
 Whereas consciousness, as we have seen, is peculiar to each. 
 So far as phenomenal considerations go, each man, by con- 
 sciousness, may have his own world 1 . At this moment, with 
 the distinctest phenomenal conceptions, no one can tell but 
 that what he sees as green may be seen by another as blue 
 (provided the difference of inward view, so to call it, is con- 
 sistent), and no increase of our physical knowledge about blue 
 and green will help us in the least to know this. But phe- 
 nomenal reality, so far as it exists, is what it is quite inde- 
 pendently of the manner in which any one knows it, and even 
 independently of its being known at all by anybody, or of 
 there being any such thing as consciousness, or as mind, to know 
 it, except so far, as I have said, as this ' mind ' may produce 
 phenomenal effects. Since we cannot talk except of something 
 which we think and can know about, our talking about matter 
 implies its knownness to us (so far as it is said to exist), without 
 which we could not talk of its existence; this is what I meant 
 when I said some time since, that the phenomenal view is an 
 abstraction from the more general philosophical one: the full 
 fact is, that matter (or however we describe it) is known to us, 
 and we give our attention to it as existing, leaving out of 
 account, for phenomenalism, what is contained in the other part 
 of the fact, viz. it being understood, or felt as existing, by a 
 conscious being or mind. The thing perhaps may be best 
 understood by some by being put in this way: the phenomenal 
 
 1 Hence it is that physical facts are after all phenomena only, for we say 
 they exist because we conceive them or think about them, and how deep in us 
 goe3 the conceiving and thinking of them by each one of us in the same way, is 
 what we cannot tell. Hence too the effort of philosophy from the first to find fact 
 or reality not subject to this difficulty, but in regard of which mind might trust 
 mind to the bottom, ami be sure of identity of thought. The escape from the 
 difficulty of phenomena htiinj phenomena, is, in the direction of what I have called 
 phenomenalism, t>y a comparison of experiences, and the putting together what 
 will stand such ■ on, as a something supposedly existing, in the manner 
 
 which I have de i ribed, independently of being known. The escape in the di- 
 rection of the higher philosophy, which I do not dwell on now, is, in my view, 
 the communication, \<y means of phenomena, with mind above them.
 
 10 PHENOMENALISM. [CHAP. 
 
 view of the universe is that view according to which its being 
 known to any body, (or any part of it being known), is an ines- 
 sential accident of it: existence is the fact, knowledge the 
 possibility which may supervene. When, taking the wider or 
 philosophical view, we begin with consciousness, feeling or 
 knowledge is the first fact, involving existence only as a further 
 one : but of this afterwards. 
 
 We have nothing then, phenomenally, to do with the way 
 in which the universe is known to us, but we have of course to do 
 with the way in which the different parts of it communicate, as 
 I have said, with our bodily frame. This is so far the centre or 
 type of the phenomenal universe to us, that nothing phenome- 
 nally exists so far as we are concerned, that is, can be in any 
 way described by us, unless it stands in some relation to it. 
 
 This possibility of communication with our body is our 
 criterion of phenomenalism. But in reality, it is not the 
 centre, but the starting point, for our description of the 
 phenomenal universe, that our bodily frame furnishes to us. 
 Sensation, as I have said, comes into no phenomenal notice 
 except as a property of the human frame, (in the same way 
 as some sort of sensibility may be of plants) quite independ- 
 ently of the consideration whether any extra-phenomenal and 
 incommunicable accompaniments, which we may call in general 
 feeling, may go with it. The standpoint of the phenomenalist 
 is free and the same for any one, and we might call it ' cosmo- 
 ceiitric' except in so far as acquaintance with the phenomenal 
 universe being as we shall see an aggregation, or advance from 
 part to part, does not properly admit the notion of such a 
 centre. 
 
 To describe summarily the universe as viewed phenome- 
 nally, or on the principles here mentioned : space, to begin 
 with that, is what matter (our body for instance), is contained 
 in and moves in, the continent, if we might so use the word, 
 of matter : the moving and changing of matter is the result of 
 something which we describe as force, and time stands in the 
 same relation to movement and change, or to force its cause, 
 as space stands in to matter unmoved and unchanging; it is its 
 continent: space always suggests to us the possible filling of 
 it with matter, and time the possible filling of it with change :
 
 I.] PHENOMENALISM. 11 
 
 they are the vanishing points or ghosts of these. Space and 
 time are phenomenal realities in virtue of this their relation to 
 matter and movement, not otherwise. And what space and 
 time are filled with, phenomenally, is not tilings, (an expression 
 •which really belongs to popular philosophy in the same way as 
 'qualities,' 'objects,' &c. belong to philosophy more refined) but 
 all sorts of what I have loosely called 'natural agents,' our 
 notions of which, with the advance of ph}-sical science, are con- 
 tinually changing and improving. In phenomenal or physical 
 view, it is possible that a hundred years hence what we call 
 matter may be looked on as the result simply of the action of 
 various forces : I want now to enter into no details as to the 
 physical constitution of the universe, which I am incompetent 
 to do, but only to disentangle physical notions from (popular 
 or refined) philosophical ones. By the 'natural agents' in the 
 universe which communicate with the nerves of our body I 
 mean the forces (or whatever they may be) in what we call 
 matter which make it produce or resist ] pressure, which cause 
 it to have what we call weight, I mean light, air as conveying 
 
 ud, chemical qualities as producing those movements or 
 changes in the nerves of our palate (e.g.) which are attended 
 by the sensation of taste, and much 1 : but I think I have 
 
 Baid enough to suggest the sort of thing that I mean. 
 
 The phenomenal universe is a complicated play and mutual 
 ■ various natural agents, one portion of their play 
 and action being that which goes on from without to within, 
 and from within to without, between the bodily frame of each 
 of us and the n •' of the universe, whether the physiologist, 
 as I have said, can complete the circle within our bodily frame 
 or 1. 
 
 Things, phenomenally, are units of phenomenal reality, de- 
 
 ding upon m ment according to the kind of measure- 
 
 ment which the particular kind of phenomenal reality (or the 
 particular natural aj capable of. A stone is a piece of 
 
 matter of Buch a weight and magnitude: gravity is a force of 
 such a direction and intensity. Proper unity is no1 pheno- 
 menal : phenomenal unity is always a supposition. Supposing 
 matter to be rally composed of atoms, these atoms musl nave 
 ph( nomenal magnitude, and a microscope is conceivable which
 
 12 PHENOMENALISM. [CHAP. 
 
 would give them such to our sense : they are therefore units 
 only by supposition and for reckoning, the considering them as 
 units being suggested by our inability mechanically to divide 
 them. 
 
 Kinds of things result, phenomenally, from the manner of 
 the arrangement of the elements of matter or from the laws of 
 action of natural agents, the special hind, i. e. genus, species, 
 &c. in organized beings, being I suppose more or less a pheno- 
 menal puzzle. An organized being is, phenomenally, a sort of 
 focus or centre, where, according to the height (or riches) of the 
 organization, more or less of natural agency converges or diverges. 
 Life is the name which we give to this, and it is probable that 
 physiological research will more and more enable us to under- 
 stand what life, phenomenally, is : while, according to what I 
 have said before, life, as it is felt, is something which we know, 
 so far as we know it, each one for himself, and no phenomenal 
 research can give us in the least degree more knowledge as to 
 this. It is a physiological or phenomenal fact that, in the case 
 of life, there is reproduction, and like produces like, and this is 
 the most special and marked fact as to what we call kind. And 
 life, as I have said, suggests an idea of unity which, pheno- 
 menally, is a puzzle. 
 
 Bat I do not want to go into detail as to the phenomenal 
 world or view, and will leave it, to proceed to a similar sketch 
 of the philosophical world or view : after I have said a word 
 first, on the phenomenal test of truth, and then on the pheno- 
 menalist mind or spirit. 
 
 I conceive that of truth, phenomenally considered, there are 
 two great tests : the one, its answering to our action, the other, 
 its harmonizing all our sensive powers and all the different 
 experience of different men : or, in other words, that we say, 
 phenomenally, a thing is, if we are fully persuaded that, if we 
 act in reference to it, such and such results will follow, and also 
 that we say it is, if we are persuaded that, though perhaps we 
 only see it, yet if we could get to it, we could handle it, and 
 though perhaps nobody sees it but we, yet if another person 
 were present, he would see it as well as we. It is probable 
 that our phenomenal notion of existence rests upon these two 
 persuasions. I call them two : we might, if we pleased, call
 
 I.] PHENOMENALISM. 13 
 
 them one, by speaking of the harmonizing together of our 
 active powers, our sensive powers, and our various individual 
 experience. Or, no doubt, on the other hand, Ave might further 
 analyze and divide them. 
 
 Lord Bacon's view as to the relation of physical knowledge 
 to utility has been variously discussed, and Lord Macaulay has 
 described him as in a great measure valuing physical know- 
 ledge on account of its utility. On this Mr Ellis has drawn 
 attention to the high degree in which, on the other hand, what 
 Bacon considered was that applicability to practice and use 
 was a test of the reality of the knowledge, and a security 
 against its being merely verbal and visionary. In that ruling 
 thought of his mind, that knowledge ought not to be sterile, 
 but fruitful, Bacon had, as much that he says and his whole 
 temper show, most deeply at heart the utility of which it might 
 be to man, but also strongly the thought, that unless knowledge 
 was tested by being acted upon we could have but little cer- 
 tainty of its life and reality. 
 
 I will not dwell upon these tests: but having said so much 
 of the one, will just say this of the other. By illusion as dis- 
 tinguished from reality we mean what, given us as apparent 
 fact by one sensive power, will not stand the test of others. 
 Phenomenal reality is the resultant arising from the comparison 
 together of the information (so to speak) of our various senses, 
 or, (so to speak again), our various means of communication with 
 the external world. "What is not true for all of these, so far as 
 they can be brought into comparison, is not phenomenally true 
 at all. So far as what any one sensive power presents to us as 
 true cannot, in any of its circu instances, accompaniments, or 
 be tested by another such power, we cannot be cer- 
 tain that it is not illusion. And we only suppose it, even 
 fur the moment, to be reality, on account of our experience 
 that what thai Bense has presented to us has hitherto been in 
 harmony with the others 1 . 
 
 ' If anything '«■' tfilienom enally) it belongs somehow to all the body. Want 
 of notice, however, will not make it illusion— there mtiBt be contradiction. And 
 ■o far as there w any communication, there is reality of some sort. F>ut \\lnr- 
 there is communication only of one kind there cannot be description of, or 
 racket in, the reality— there ii then no U st whether there is illusion <>r n I
 
 14 PHENOMENALISM. [CHAP. 
 
 Having spoken of the phenomenal test of truth, I will 
 speak a word on the phenomenalist mind or spirit. I am going, 
 after this, to do the best I can to show the actual way in which 
 we come to know what we do know, and to examine knowledge 
 itself instead of the (supposed) matter of knowledge, which is 
 one part of the whole abstracted from the rest. By the pheno- 
 menalist mind or spirit I mean a manner of knowing or thinking 
 which we never have originally, but which, in the advance of 
 knowledge and growth of our mind, we are very likely to have, 
 sometimes holding it with that due qualification and regard for 
 other possible (extra-phenomenal) knowledge which, in my view, 
 is the right state of our mind, sometimes holding it as what we 
 ought to hold exclusively, and to the destruction of all possi- 
 bilities of truth beyond it or outside of it (this is what, in the 
 physical application of the term, I should mean by 'positivism'), 
 sometimes feeling ourselves disposed to fall into it without con- 
 sidering, nevertheless, that we ought to hold it (at least exclu- 
 sively), in fact being in difficulty of mind about it. 
 
 I think the best way of our conceiving this phenomenalist 
 spirit, carefully avoiding, in our intellectual conception of it, 
 any moral approbation or disapprobation, is to conceive what 
 exists existing without being known (I can hardly say con- 
 ceived when we are ourselves supposed conceiving it, so entirely 
 is what we are supposing now what I have called an abstrac- 
 tion) by any one : without any mind, or anything like mind, 
 having originated it or having been concerned with its origina- 
 tion or arrangement, so that when we find in it anything which 
 we should describe as order, or form, or composition, it is not 
 that kind of order, or anything like it, which we mean when 
 we speak of putting together anything ourselves with a meaning 
 and a reason. The phenomenalist maxim must be, to put 
 nothing (mentally) in the universe beyond what we find there; 
 and what we find there, phenomenally, is that, and nothing 
 more, which communicates with the various natural elements, 
 nervous matter, &c. of which our bodies are composed. We 
 really, phenomenally, have no right to speak of order, ar- 
 rangement, composition, &c. in the universe, all which are 
 ideas belonging to our own consciousness of active and con- 
 structive powers. The great rule of phenomenalism is to be
 
 I.] PHENOMENALISM. 15 
 
 sure that we do not do that which, as we shall see, we always 
 naturally do do, humanize the universe, recognize intelligence 
 in it, have any preliminary faith, persuasion, suppositions about 
 it, find ourselves, if I may so speak, at all at home in it, think 
 it has any concern with us. 
 
 To me there is something in the simply phenomenalist spirit, 
 so far as one has a tendency to sink (as I should say) into it, 
 inexpressibly depressing and desolate. "We are supposed to wake, 
 not into a world (for even a world or universe is something for 
 the imagination to lay hold of, a unity, a something added to 
 what we wake into from ourselves) but into circumstances to 
 which we ourselves are accidental, and our knowino- which or 
 knowing anything as to which, is quite an accident in regard 
 to them : as if we were thrown on an uninhabited island where 
 everything, in a manner which to our actual human experience 
 is impossible, was strange and out of relation to us. And as wo 
 go on in our island, in this view, the state of things does not 
 alter. Without the links to bind them together which our 
 mind must supply, one thing is as strange to another as each 
 tiling is to us — though here I am using wrong language, as it is 
 impossible to avoid doing, for unless our mind proceeded other- 
 wise than phenomenally at first there would not be even things 
 to us; we should separate and distinguish nothing. The pro- 
 's of knowledge, so far as we can be true to this manner 
 of thought, is the passing on unmeaningly, Ave might almost say 
 the falling helplessly, from one view to a fresh one in a course 
 which is nut advance towards an end but the getting further 
 and further into a hopeless infinity. 
 
 I am aware that it will be said that this is not at all the 
 phenomenalist or even the positivist view, but that wli.it we 
 do is to mount up from particular fact- to general laws, ami 
 brace again tin' working of the general laws in the particular 
 facts, and that in all this then' is or may be (as i- most true) 
 both intense intellectual pleasure and high moral elevation. 
 But what do v..- mean by 'laws'? Why do we thus take 
 plea and find our mind ted, in the .- i hag in the 
 
 universe these uniformities, and recurrences, and order \ \\ is 
 
 rase we recognize a lik< o what we should do ourselv< 
 
 and do do, that i>, we trace mind, and here we are going quite
 
 16 PHENOMENALISM. [dlAP. I. 
 
 beyond the phenomena. When we view things in this way, 
 knowledge is not accidental to the universe, or to fact, but so 
 far as either is to be postponed to the other, the universe is 
 accidental to knowledge, and one out of various possible results 
 or expressions of it. And so far therefore as we come to know 
 fact or the universe, we are brought into relation with the 
 knowledge of which it is a result and an example. This is 
 what I meant by our feeling ourselves, as to knowledge, at 
 home in the universe. And this is something quite beside 
 phenomenalism.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 But I must not dwell longer on this, and must proceed, as 
 well as I can, to exhibit the philosophical or more general 
 view. In using the term philosophical, I am speaking quite 
 without reference to any comparative superiority : I mean 
 simply the view which belongs, not to physical research but to 
 philosophy or the higher logic, and which in some respects, 
 as we shall see, resembles, in its distinction from phenomenal- 
 ism, the popular or ordinary view which appears in language. 
 
 I am not quite certain whether, when I say 'the philo- 
 sophical or more general view', the language is correct. If we 
 consider simply the process of knowing, or ask ourselves what 
 knowledge is, without any reference to any thing being known, 
 we have again what, in respect of the whole fact, is an abs- 
 traction, in the same way in which, on its side, phenomenalism 
 is so. If we consider that we have general faculties of knowing 
 (which are the subject of our investigation), with which, so far 
 
 we can tell, we might know any thing, and that what we hap- 
 pen to come to know is the facts of the universe, we have the 
 counterpart abstraction to phenomenalism ; in which latter we as- 
 sume the existence, as matter of fact, of the several parts of the 
 universe, which happen to become the objects of intelligence 
 perceiving and knowing them. To keep this consideration of 
 knowledge quite in its character of an abstraction, I think will 
 ooi Lead to useful result. Nor are the two counterpart abstrac- 
 tions alt* »g< t lier similarly circumstanced. After we have learn • •• I . 
 to forget all about the manner and meaning of our learning 
 and lose ourselves in whai we have learned, which is in sub- 
 stance phenomenalism, is, whatever may be wrong in it, a
 
 18 PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. [CHAP. 
 
 more interesting and promising course than to study exclusively 
 the nature of our instrument or power without reference to its 
 application or the results which it has produced. If I mistake 
 not, the suggesting or ground thought of Kant's Critique of 
 the Pure Reason is, bearing in mind the analogy with Pure and 
 Applied Mathematics, to disengage the action of intelligence 
 from all application and actual use of it, and to see what it is 
 in itself, previously to its being applied in such a way as to 
 generate particular knowledge. I rather question myself whether 
 we can abstract to such an extent as to make investigation 
 of this kind really fruitful, or exhibit the primary and most 
 important acts of the mind in this way as a kind of calculus, 
 from the application of which to the unknown, or to the un- 
 informed, unmeasured, chaotic matter of knowledge, knowledge 
 will proceed. 
 
 In place of any process so abstract as this, I shall simply 
 start from our consciousness, and endeavour to follow it as we 
 advance in knowledge : I shall dismiss from my thoughts all 
 previous supposition of there being anything to be known, or of 
 there being a phenomenal world to make itself known to us — 
 that is a thing which, so far as we are concerned with it at the 
 outset of this investigation, may turn out to be so, or may not : 
 just as, in what I have said about phenomenalism, the pheno- 
 menal world is what it is, whether we or anybody else know it 
 and perceive it, or whether we do not. In speaking about phe- 
 nomenalism, I described the extent to which sensation was a 
 phenomenon, or fact of the phenomenal world, which could be 
 physically reasoned about, and I described the application of the 
 term in which it was not so — namely, in so far as it is feeling; for 
 feeling is incommunicable ; it cannot be brought into the common 
 stock of knowledge and thought, or reasoned about phenomenally 
 according to any logic which we know of. This feeling or con- 
 sciousness, excluded from phenomenalism, I now assume as the 
 one thing which we do know or are certain of. It is evident 
 that this is a higher and a more intimate certainty to us than 
 any phenomenal certainty. Whether anything beyond ourselves 
 exists or not, we are at least certain that we feel, i. e. that feel- 
 ing, pleasure and pain, are realities, and individual to what, in 
 virtue of this feeling or consciousness, we call ourselves : and
 
 II.] PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 19 
 
 that so far as consciousness is a proof or a fit suggestive of exist- 
 ence, ' cogito ' of ' sum/ we ourselves exist. 
 
 The ' we ' or ' I ' of consciousness is something quite different 
 from the 'we', 'I', 'man' of phenomenalism, which, as I said, 
 is a portion of matter organised and variously endowed, with 
 phenomenal sensation (i. e. liability to affection of certain por- 
 tions of it in a particular manner by natural agents, which af- 
 fection produces various results) for one of its properties. 
 
 I described some time since the entire process of sensation 
 on the hypothesis of the existence of ourselves on the one side, 
 and on the other objective reality or an objective universe 
 (phenomenally, an independent external world). If the reader 
 will turn back to that, he will see that the middle point of the 
 process is what I called a communication between certain na- 
 tural agents and certain constituents of our body, and pheno- 
 menalism is a recognition and following out of this central por- 
 tion without attention to the extremes. We have now on the 
 other hand to dismiss from our thoughts this central portion, 
 and give our attention to the communication which, by the 
 means of it, takes place between the extremes. Except that we 
 do not, as in phenomenalism, start with the meeting of two 
 things of the same nature. ' We perceive things.' But 'we' and 
 ' things ' are something different. 
 
 Let us imagine to ourselves the successive changes of our 
 feeling as our consciousness developes itself. 
 
 Still however I will make one preliminary observation. The 
 reader may have observed that I have generally used the 
 expression 'sensive powers' where most writers would have 
 spoken of 'senses'. An instance of what appears to me the con- 
 fusion between philosophy or logic on the one side, and physio- 
 
 . or phenomenalism on the other, appears in the manner in 
 which the whole question of sensation has constantly been 
 treated. 'Sensation', meaning by the term an affection or modi- 
 Bcation (however we may style it) of our senses (to use that mis- 
 leading expression), nerves, and brain, is a phenomenon belong- 
 ing to the domain of physiology. It is what I have above called 
 'communication'. 'Sensation', meaning by the term a feeling 
 "n our part, or a portion or instance of consciousness, which, in 
 whatever manner r < to knowledge, is a fact, so far as we
 
 20 PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. [CHAP. 
 
 call it one, belonging to a different order of thought, and it is 
 philosophy or logic which must deal with it so far as it can be 
 dealt with. 
 
 Our whole body is a sense to, or, if we prefer the expres- 
 sion, the sense of, our intelligent self, which latter is the ' We ' 
 or 'I' of consciousness, and the subject of knowledge. Every 
 communication of our body with the remainder of the phe- 
 nomenal world, whether it be towards the body inwards or 
 from the body outwards, i. e. whether it be the result of im- 
 pression from without or of exertion of what we call our will 
 from within, is, I conclude, as the rule, attended with feeling 
 on our part, and this feeling is sensation as feeling. By 'as 
 the rule' I mean this: that latency of the feeling in conse- 
 quence of rapid passage of it and want of attention to it must 
 of course be allowed to some extent, and may perhaps be so to 
 a very considerable extent — this is a question which I cannot 
 discuss now. This sensation or feeling is of course a very main 
 part of consciousness : some might say it is the whole of it : 
 and that, as every bodily affection is accompanied with feeling, 
 so every feeling is accompanied with some bodily or organic 
 modification corresponding with it. The important thing is 
 to keep in mind that even if this latter is the case, feeling is 
 not the less feeling, something essentially unbodily and imma- 
 terial. The only real iminaterialism seems to me to reside in 
 the view of consciousness as, in the idea of it, necessarily dis- 
 tinct from any bodily or phenomenal modification, and those 
 who think, with regard of consciousness, that any possible phy- 
 siological acuteness or discovery can ever bring consciousness 
 or feeling under what we call now the laws of matter, or even 
 perhaps any laws at all resembling them, seem to me to be 
 materialists already, subtle perhaps, but really so. 
 
 Keeping on the surface of physics, into which I do not wish 
 to go deep, we may say that the different affections of our body, 
 (which are -phenomenal sensation) are of two kinds, chemical 
 and mechanical: the question whether the chemical ones are 
 only mechanical of a more refined kind, I do not discuss. The 
 chemical constitution of bodies affects, under certain circum- 
 stances, any part of our body to which they can be applied, 
 and where there can be communication : but there is more par-
 
 II.] PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 21 
 
 ticular communication between certain portions of that consti- 
 tution and certain particular parts of our body, as the palate 
 and nostrils. I suppose too that it is the chemical constitution 
 of bodies which determines how they shall be affected by light, 
 so as to have what we call this or that colour, and the light 
 then transmitted from them affects in a manner which we may 
 for convenience call chemical, our optic nerve. But besides this, 
 bodies applied to our body (or to which parts of our body are 
 applied) affect it mechanically or displace portions of it, and 
 here there comes into play our active nature, or will : our body 
 is 'a sense' to our conscious self in a double manner, first in so 
 far as it is affected in the manner which I have described, and 
 next in so far as it is not only a frame, vessel, focus, for recep- 
 tion, but also a machine for action, its different portions move- 
 able at our will, and this movement of them, as movement by 
 us, being of course accompanied with our being aware of the 
 movement, and of the amount of it ; by our, in feeling, mea- 
 suring it. Hence we move our limbs, aware, as we do so, how 
 much pressure we exert and how much of force producing 
 change of position : hence we move the muscles of our eyes 
 with more or less motion, and measure, as well as chemically 
 feel, what is (phenomenally) before them. 
 
 To the philosopher, then, as I have said, the body is all one 
 sense ; it is the glass through which the intelligence looks out 
 into the phenomenal world. To the physiologist, it is sensive 
 or possessed of sensation (his sensation) altogether, but pos- 
 ing withal what he would call various special organs of sen- 
 sation for particular purposes and adapted to particular natural 
 agents, of which perhaps the chief is the eye. But the attempt 
 to particularize and enumerate our senses, as things or unities, 
 when under the term are included notions so incommensurable 
 as that of the eye and what is commonly called the touch, 
 mi- unprofitable. 
 
 As J have alluded here to the eye and the touch, I will 
 make one more observation preliminary to the philosophical view 
 of knowledge which I am going to try to give. One most fruit- 
 ful source of the confusion between philosophy and phenome- 
 nalism is the treatment of tin.' eye us the main sense, without 
 though! <>f the complicated!!' iss of the information which it gives
 
 22 PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. [CHAP. 
 
 to us. In reality, philosophers who have treated about our 
 notion of space seem universally to me to have in their minds 
 lighted space, which really, whenever we look towards it with- 
 out a distinct object terminating it, is something which we 
 imagine we see (not see through), i.e. is matter to us. In the 
 reasoning about geometrical figures, it seems to me, and I hope 
 to show it, that this error has largely entered in. And it has 
 worked far more deeply than this. Few philosophers seem to 
 have guarded themselves sufficiently against the danger of error 
 which lies in words involving so much metaphor as ' intuition ' 
 and other words suggested by light and sight. 
 
 But to return. 
 
 Let us examine our consciousness or sensation as feeling 
 without any thought, at the present, that it is other than feel- 
 ing. Let us try to follow back as well as we can, the stream of 
 our knowledge. Let us try to examine knowledge as it is in 
 the subject, abstracting and separating this, to a certain extent, 
 as I have said, but only to a certain extent, from consideration of 
 the object. This is the companion-process to what we did in 
 regard of phenomenalism, when we endeavoured to attend to 
 the matter or object of knowledge without thought of its being 
 known. 
 
 I do not think that it can be doubted that the first and 
 original consciousness (to keep that word still for a moment) is 
 double: that is, that we no more, and no sooner, feel ourselves to 
 exist than we feel something to exist besides ourselves. When 
 we virtually say in our minds, 'Cogito, ergo sum', whatever 
 force there may be in the ' ergo ' — that is, when we look at con- 
 sciousness as, what it undoubtedly is, an assertion to ourselves 
 of our own existence, it being really the only assertion we ever 
 do make of that, the only meaning, at bottom, of our belief in 
 it — the one thing which distinguishes the notion (if we may 
 speak of notions in this very seminal and embryotic state of 
 consciousness) ' be ' from that of ' feel ' is that by ' be ' we 
 mean something which something else may share with us, by 
 ' feel ' we mean something which something else can have like 
 us, but cannot share with us. In this way the separation of the 
 notion of personality or individuality from that of being is 
 coeval with the first consciousness. The matter may be best
 
 II.] PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 23 
 
 understood thus : if we, any of us, were the solitary existence, 
 the simple monad, of the universe, though the notion of feeling 
 or individuality would exist in us, I do not think that of exist- 
 ence would — we feel for ourselves, but we are not for and by 
 ourselves, Ave are something; that is, in other words, in the 
 notion be there is something quasi-generic, and it implies al- 
 ready a state of things, an universe. 
 
 I do not however mean to dwell on anything so abstract 
 as this — it is more important to think, whether the words 
 'consciousness', 'to feel', are rightly applied to this initiatory 
 knowledge of the non ego, or something besides ourselves. (We 
 must keep in mind of course that the object of the verb 'feel' 
 here is to be understood after the analogy of ' I feel pleasure, 
 pain, &c.', not 'I feel this table or this chair', which belongs to 
 another order of ideas.) Is it then correct to say, we are con- 
 scious of, we feel, what is not ourselves ? Does it, or does it 
 not, violate the idea of consciousness, which is certainly re- 
 flective, and the idea of feeling, which is certainly indi- 
 vidual ? 
 
 I shall have to discuss at some length the manner in which 
 philosophers have applied the term 'consciousness' to our notion 
 of something beyond ourselves, and the manner in which some 
 of them, especially Sir William Hamilton, have, in my view, mis- 
 applied it in doing so. I shall have to compare it with ' common 
 sense', 'original beliefs', and other expressions which have been 
 used in a similar application. The important fact is that even our 
 rudimentary consciousn far as it is intellectual, i.e. a seed 
 
 of intellectual development, is a distinguishing ourselves from 
 something : even this earliest of notions is not single, but has 
 its counter-notion. We are born, intellectually, into a state of 
 things, an universe: and here it is, at the very root, that lies 
 the difference between the philosophical and the simply phe- 
 nomenalist view. It is not really correct to say, as an ultimate 
 which cannol and need riot be accounted for, that we 
 r our first feelings of pleasure and pain (or some of them) 
 to a cause independent of us, for the distinction begins earlier 
 than this, and as early a£ we have the consciousness which 
 to the Lang tage 'our feelings' we have the idea of an 
 universe, largo or small, of which we are a part.
 
 24 PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. [cnAP. 
 
 All our after knowledge is contained seminally in this first 
 particular of it, and our progress in knowledge consists in the 
 gradual making acquaintance with that which is thus revealed 
 to us. 
 
 And not only this, but our after knowledge still preserves 
 in one step after another the same character of distinction: and 
 the great mass of notions are not distinct to us or properly 
 held unless so far as we give attention also to their counter- 
 notion or ground, that from which they are a distinction. 
 
 A progress of knowledge of this description has of necessity 
 various other particular characters. 
 
 One is, that it is perpetual self-correction : it proceeds a8 
 it were by hitches, and every step in it together with truth 
 contains error, which the next or an after step corrects. 
 
 Another is, that every step in it suggests to the mind 
 a fresh crop of possibilities, with which the imagination em- 
 ploys itself: its employment in this manner is the means by 
 which the notion involved in the last step is familiarized to the 
 mind : and the next or an after step determines among these 
 possibilities which is the truth. 
 
 In various ways like these it is that the dim universe 
 which is the ground or counter-notion of primitive conscious- 
 ness, the reality or state of things in which, so soon as we 
 understand anything, we understand ourselves as existing, takes 
 form and fulness and particularity : I will trace some of the 
 particulars. 
 
 The consciousness or feeling from the first is various in 
 kind. Certain forms of it, not many, have been particularized 
 and named in language. All consciousness however is, loosely 
 speaking, pleasurable or painful : it is feeling of pleasure or 
 feeling of pain. Of its more complicated forms, the principal 
 is desire : and this forms the link between our sensive nature 
 and another part of our entire nature closely joined with it, 
 our volitional or active nature. Our feelings of pleasure and 
 pain, and the consequent various exertion of our will, with the 
 accompanying feeling that we are so exerting it, run closely 
 together. 
 
 There is one element or particular, and one only, entirely 
 common to the world of feeling and the world of phenomenal
 
 II.] PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 25 
 
 fact, and that is, duration or time, with its circumstance, repeti- 
 tion, which it always involves to some extent. Our feelings have 
 nothing else entirely in common with the parts of the phe- 
 nomenal world, except that they last for a certain length of 
 time. If we like so to express it, the duration of our feelings 
 reveals to us or gives to us time : or what we call time is some- 
 thing, otherwise unknown to us, which is testified of to us by 
 the duration of our feelings. 
 
 Perhaps it is as well to take the occasion of this first of 
 our notions to explain what seems to me to be the proper 
 relation to each other of the expressions 'sensation' (meaning 
 the feeling) and 'idea.' 
 
 We feel time, or are conscious of its passage, in the manner 
 which I have just described. That is, we have a sensation 
 of it, in the way in which we are now using that word : and 
 if we did not have such a sensation of it, it would be to us 
 and we should be as though it were not. I said however also, 
 it is otherwise unknown to us : that is, though we really can get 
 no further than the sensation, yet still we do not rest in the 
 sensation : we consider, believe, understand, that there is some- 
 thing more in the case than that we feel : we ask, what is this 
 which belongs to all our feelings? and answer, it is time: we 
 have made a step in knowledge, such a step as I have above 
 described : we have the idea of time : we grasp by sensation 
 the end of something which \vc then mark by a name and 
 set ourselves to think about, and as our knowledge grows, we 
 find out about it more and more. 
 
 It will be best however to speak further of this when wo 
 havejnore sensations and ideas to illustrate it by. 
 
 Time, I said, is entirely common to the world of feeling and 
 the world of phenomena : space is partially so, and the reason 
 of this partial community is our possession of a body or bodily 
 organization. That is, not only do we, considered philosophi- 
 cally ami widely, feel and think, but we, considered phenome- 
 nally, occupy a portion of space, or, in a certain way, our feeling 
 diffused over space, is local, having of course then this being 
 local in common with phenomenal existences. Only thai this 
 localized feeling, or feeling phenomenally viewed, is not what 
 we analyse in consciousness.
 
 26 PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. [CHAP. 
 
 By saying here 'in a certain way' I mean to express a good 
 deal of possible qualification, because I do not want to enter 
 into the question of the real relation of feeling, as local, to 
 parts of our body. It is sufficient that our corporeal organiza- 
 tion introduces our feeling into phenomenal space (which I 
 defined as the continent of matter), not indeed thereby making 
 it, as feeling, a phenomenal fact, which it cannot be, but bring- 
 ing it into a relation with phenomenalism, which, as we go on, 
 we shall do our best (it is questionable whether much can any- 
 how be done) to make clearer. 
 
 Phenomenalism, though feeling is thus introduced to it and 
 brought into relation with it, can never, from the nature of the 
 two things, absorb it : nor can any extension of physiology 
 make feeling a phenomenal fact, so as to give us an account of 
 it in terms of matter, force, and the other elements which make 
 phenomenalism. When we make phenomenalism our basis of 
 reality, feeling, though we may know it to exist, must exist as 
 something alien, unique, and insoluble, so that we are driven 
 then to a dualism, or to the admission of a second basis of a 
 reality of a different kind from the first which we supposed. 
 So far as we make feeling or consciousness our basis of reality, 
 which is what we are doing now, the way in which this fact, 
 which we should phenomenally describe as that our feeling is 
 diffused, through our being corporeal, over a portion of space, 
 presents itself, is the following. We feel as what, so far as we 
 feel it, is entirely individual to us and what nothing else is 
 concerned with, the duration of our feelings, or time. We feel 
 also the amount of effort which we make in the exertion of our 
 will : but with regard to a portion of this effort, we feel that 
 though we make it, we are not all that is concerned with it, 
 that there is resistance, that we move something, that our effort 
 shows something beyond itself answering and measuring it. 
 What we thus feel we call 'space' and 'matter', 'space', so far 
 as our effort meets with no other resistance than such as is in- 
 volved in its being effort at all (I mean, than such as I suppose 
 would be mechanically described as the inertia of the parts of 
 our own body), 'matter', so far as it does meet with resistance 
 beyond this : in the former case, the amount of motion mea- 
 sures and feels to us or is feJt by us as space, in the latter case
 
 II.] PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 27 
 
 the amount of resistance measures, feels to us, is felt by us as, 
 the solidity of matter. 
 
 I must apologize to those who have clearer mechanical ideas 
 than I have for any mechanical misdescription which there may 
 be in this : here, as in former cases, I want to avoid going into 
 detail to which I am incompetent, and I think that the sub- 
 stantial truth of what I say is independent of any, not unlikely, 
 mistake as to that. The important point is, that we feel space, 
 or have a sensation of space, as much as we can be said to have 
 a sensation of anything : or in other words, that the definition 
 of space, in our present line of consideration, is that which we 
 feel when we move, or are moving portions of our body without 
 meeting any resistance. (I say when we 'are moving' in dis- 
 tinction from when 'we begin to move', in which latter case it 
 may be said that the definition would apply properly to the 
 inertia of our body.) Still without entering into detail, though 
 a portion of what we feel may be said to be the inertia of the 
 parts of our body, or resistance in this view, a portion is the 
 distance moved through, or space. 
 
 Time we feel without going be}^ond our feeling, conscious 
 or necessary selves : space we feel without going beyond our 
 phenomenal or corporeal selves, our bodies. Our feeling of 
 space indeed involves to us matter (which time does not), the 
 matter which makes our bodies. But it does not involve, or 
 suggest to us, any matter beyond our corporeal selves (though 
 the notion of these latter may itself do so). 
 
 As of time, so of space, we have a sensation, and form an 
 idea : that is, we do not rest in our sensation, but instantly ima- 
 gine that what we have thus some slight hold of is a great deal 
 more than what we feel; and what we thus imagine behind the 
 sensation is the supposed thing, the idea of the thing. On this 
 I will speak again in a moment. What gives time and space 
 the prerogative over all our other and later sensations and 
 id<as, is that which I mentioned in the last paragraph, the fact 
 that we feel them without going beyond ourselves. 
 
 I do qo1 know thai it is more than a difference of expres- 
 sion, whether we say that we feel {i.e. have a sensation of) 
 time and space, or whether w< that it is in time thai we 
 
 feel our conscious selves, and in space that we feel (so far as we
 
 28 PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. [CHAP. 
 
 feel) our corporeal selves. I have used the former way of ex- 
 pression for two reasons : one, because I do not see how the 
 manner of our sensation of space and time, in so far as it is 
 sensation in the sense of feeling, differs from the manner of our 
 sensation of anything else : the other, because there is some 
 danger of our language misleading us when we speak of 'in 
 time', and 'in space'. When we call time and space conditions 
 or forms of our sensation (perception, or intelligence), all that 
 this seems to me to mean is, that the sensations which we have 
 of them stand, in a logical view, in a relation to the others (as 
 we usually reckon them) of being primary and fundamental ; 
 they enter into all the others, our sensation, as it goes on, be- 
 coming highly complicated. But then these others enter one 
 into other, and some of them are more fundamental and, we 
 may say, primary than others : and though the sensations of 
 space and time have the prerogative, above other sensations, 
 which I have mentioned, still there is a passage through them 
 to other sensations, and it is graduated — there is a sort of 
 scale. The sensation of space is lower, if we like to call it 
 so, than that of time, for we go beyond our simply conscious 
 selves : the sensation of hardness or solidity, that is, of matter, 
 (which we feel by the way of pressure and resistance, and of 
 which I have already spoken slightly), is lower than that of 
 space, for here we go, at least it is probable that we go, be- 
 yond ourselves altogether: but still it is only, in a manner, 
 partly beyond ourselves, for we may feel one part of our body 
 by another : our body is, contemporaneously, external to us, 
 and yet ourselves. And our sense of solidity or of matter 
 (meaning of course along the whole scale from the closest con- 
 sistency to the most extreme tenuity) is almost as fundamental 
 to our sensation as those of time and space themselves. 
 
 I have already alluded to the mistakes which, to me, philo- 
 sophers seem to have made, in speaking constantly of space in 
 its association with the complicated sense of sight. To be seen 
 through is what we may call an accident of space, for it is only 
 in consequence of the existence of the particular material agent, 
 light, and the corresponding existence in us of the complicated 
 instrument adapted to it, the eye, that this is possible. But to 
 be moved through is not an accident of space; it is what, re-
 
 II.] PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 29 
 
 moved, space would not be space, that is, it is a part of what we 
 call our idea of space. Is it not better therefore, for clearness 
 and accuracy, so far as possible, to speak of space as moved 
 through, rather than as seen ? 
 
 "Without entering at all into the discussions as to the nature 
 and real basis of geometrical truth, I would say that we shall 
 better appreciate them, at the bottom, by abstracting our mind 
 as much as possible from the figures which are only intended to 
 help our eye. A geometer's straight line, as I understand it, is 
 an attempt to represent to the eye distance, if we understand 
 the line as terminated (according to the Euclidic definition), or 
 direction, if we understand it as indefinite. These are the 
 things I presume, which he means. And distance is, in our 
 most simple and earliest understanding, space, as we feel and 
 measure this in moving our hand to an object, or from one ob- 
 ject to another: while direction is the same so far as we suppose 
 the object aimed at, but not attained. It is very likely that we 
 do not move our hand what is afterwards called straight, but 
 what is of consequence is that we mean to do it, wish to do it, 
 think probably we do do it : in such a way as this it is that 
 comes in the idea as distinct from the sensation : we may be 
 said already to know what 'straight' means, since we are aiming 
 at moving our hand straight, i. e. the shortest way to the thing 
 we want, or across the intervening distance. I have described 
 the way in which we have the sensation of space, and have 
 said that, concurrently with this sensation, we form an idea of 
 in other words, we know already about space much more 
 than is involved in our sensation : we know that there is a 
 spatial way or distance to the thing we want along which we 
 shall get at it with least effort, we know, that is, already in an 
 action what straightness is, or have an idea of straightness as a 
 part of the idea of space. 
 
 We should not take the trouble, in our after science, to define 
 _ ometrically) what we in the definition call a straight line 
 unless the definition were fruitful in consequences applicable to 
 reality, and this it would no1 be unless it either represented a truth 
 of reality itself, orwere very closely connected with one. Th< re 
 i- then fore no meaning in Bpeaking <>f a Bcience of importance 
 ac merely based on definitions. Supposing the definition of a
 
 30 PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. [CHAP. 
 
 straight line to represent a reality, is the fact, that two such 
 lines cannot inclose a space, that is, that between us and 
 something, or between two things, the distance or spatial in- 
 terval is one, a thing understood by us as a necessary truth, 
 or a thing found out by us in the course of experience ? 
 
 I put this question here without any particular intention of 
 trying to answer it, but only on account of the distinction, real or 
 supposed, between necessary truth and truth of experience which 
 it illustrates, and which distinction, in what I am writinsr, will 
 recur to us under various aspects. 
 
 Whether we begin with knowing nothing, or begin with 
 knowing, confusedly and implicitly, everything, is in my view a 
 question much more of description and of the notions which we 
 start with about knowledge, than of fact which can be made out 
 by observation or argument. We may describe knowledge with 
 equal propriety as the writing characters on the e/c/iayelov (tabula 
 rasa), or as a sort of chemical process like fermentation, crystal- 
 lization, or any in fact in which something previously confused 
 takes new form and arrangement so that there is produced from 
 it what is clear and definite. . The description of knowledge as 
 a course of experience and the description of it as a course of 
 analytic and self-correcting judgments — as what many would 
 call sensation, or as reflection in this view of reflection — are 
 both what I call abstractions : that is, the historical advance of 
 knowledge is the continued exercise of the mind in judgment 
 in conjunction with the continued communication, by the senses, 
 with phenomenal fact ; this latter being the continued conscious- 
 ness of what we call such communication, or judgment that 
 there is such : knowledge does not advanqp, as a fact, simply by 
 the succession of our experiences : in regard of these we are 
 passive ; it advances by the continual exercise of our will and 
 judgment, not loosely and vaguely, but in conjunction with 
 the consciousnesses which we describe as such experiences. 
 Not that the judgment and the experience can be separated, 
 except, as I have described, by abstraction : they are not two 
 parts of knowledge, but two incomplete views: in judgment, for 
 it to be knowledge, there must be something to judge or be 
 judged; in experience, for it to be knowledge, there must be 
 notice or exercise of will. I hold therefore that there is no real
 
 II.] PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 31 
 
 difference between truth as necessarily known and truth as 
 known by experience : all truth is found out : the question 
 is, what is it that is found out, and what the manner of the 
 finding? 
 
 We go on continually finding out, we may say, two things, 
 though really they are but one, namely the bearing of the 
 knowledge which we have already, and the circumstances of our 
 environment, or what we consider such: and constantly, as a 
 matter of fact, one thing may come to our knowledge either 
 way,, or both, one confirming the other, so far as either is the 
 better for confirmation. The thinker, evolving all knowledge 
 from his consciousness, is the exact pendant, on the one side 
 of our knowledge, to the inattentive wanderer on the other, 
 brought into contact with, and to such experience of, innume- 
 rable phenomena, and noticing nothing. Consciousness, abs- 
 tracted from attention to the occasions of our sensation, is 
 sterile on the one side, as unnoticed communication is sterile on 
 the other: neither is knowledge. But each interpretation of an 
 occasion of sensation is full of bearing in all possible directions, 
 if we prefer rather to follow out these bearings than to proceed 
 to interpret a new occasion of sensation. The difference between 
 necessary and experimental truth is a difference, and very likely 
 an accidental difference, in our manner of arriving at truth, and 
 not a difference in truth itself. And the urging it on either side 
 as if anything of importance depended on it seems to me to 
 ari.su from a misapprehension. The experiential is not really, 
 or i:i Itself, fragmentary and desultory, though the effort to 
 make its bound-; appear as wide as possible seems generally ac- 
 companied with a perverse pleasure in the considering it such, 
 and though the same notion of it is entertained on the other 
 side with opposite feelings. Its appearing so is an accident, not 
 of anything that can be properly called our intelligence or our 
 faculties of knowledge, but of certain circumstances of these, 
 nami ly oursensive powers and our corporeal frame. Onrreason 
 is reason of all intelligence, but oursensive communication with 
 tin- univei that of the animal man, or rather we might say 
 
 more . Uy, of typical terre trial animalhood, for eyes, for 
 
 instance, or communication with distant bodies by means of light, 
 belong to all animals, whereas there is in none a special Ben ive
 
 32 PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. [CHAP. 
 
 instrument to communicate with bodies by means of magnetism, 
 or various other agencies as real as light. Our knowledge there- 
 fore gained by experience or sense is, as such, incoherent, not on 
 account of anything in the nature of the things known, but be- 
 cause our powers of sensive communication do not constitute a 
 consistent and universal physiometer, so to call it : they put us 
 into communication with some things, leaving what we under- 
 stand to be gaps and can partially, but partially only, fill up, 
 with the important provision however that we have from the 
 first an intelligence or reason which presents to us the universe 
 as a whole, a frame to be filled up, so that we never rest satisfied 
 with the incoherence. 
 
 Our sensive power for space is all the variety of our motor 
 nerves, or in fact we may say our whole body, and consequently 
 our sensation of it is full and intimate to a degree to which 
 some of our sensive powers offer no sort of parallel. And in 
 proportion to this fullness and intimateness is the less doubt 
 about its particular informations, and the less need of repeated 
 experience for the testing of them. I find it hard to under- 
 stand the controversy, whether a geometrical axiom (as that 
 two straight lines cannot enclose a space) is a truth necessary 
 or experiential, in this way : those who hold the latter I sup- 
 pose do not mean that it is an accident of space : those who 
 hold the former do not I suppose mean that we could have 
 known it without ever having moved our body, or had space 
 suggested to us : the questions on the point are really two : 
 is space itself suggested to us by experience 1 and can space 
 be suggested to us without distance and the singleness of dis- 
 tance, being so? I think the latter must be answered in the 
 negative : the question then is as to the general nature of 
 space. The answer which I give, a little anticipating what 
 is to follow, is this : that meaning or purpose in a thing 
 (which is really mind or intelligence invested or deposited in 
 phenomena) time, space, force, light, oxygen, are all equally 
 real with the different meanings which reality must take in 
 application to them, all equally matters of experience because 
 they are what we successively find out, but all parts of one 
 universe of which if we have got hold of any portion we have 
 got some hold (little or much) upon the whole, a piece of preg-
 
 II.] PHILOSOPHY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 33 
 
 nant and developable knowledge already, from which will come 
 truth (such as it may be) without fresh experience. One sen- 
 sation of space, so full and intimate, is almost indefinitely de- 
 velopable — one sensation of light, communicating only with tho 
 optic nerve and retina, may carry us but a very little way along 
 the road of knowledge there. 
 
 But enough of this : I proceed in the next chapter, in con- 
 tinuing the subject of sensation, to the sensation of power.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. 
 
 As I have begun to speak of resistance it is fit that I should 
 notice the corresponding and companion feeling to the sensation 
 of it, which feeling may be called the sensation of power. 
 
 It is not altogether correct to say, that, in its nature, desire, 
 at least so far as we conceive desire to be the result of expe- 
 rienced pleasure or pain, is the necessary foundation, parent, 
 antecedent of volition, and in this way to subordinate our active 
 nature to our susceptible. Impulse to action or rudimentary 
 irritability is, I should think we may consider, something as 
 original to us as susceptibility to pleasure and pain, and the 
 disposition to exert will exists not as a principle, so to speak, 
 intimate and necessary to us in the second degree only — that 
 is, as a remedy owing to our being subject to pain, and an 
 aid owing to our being capable of pleasure — but as something 
 as intimate and necessary to us as our susceptibility or proper 
 sensibility. I do not know but that we can conceive as easily 
 individualities which in the first instance can act only, and feel 
 nothing but such pleasure as is taken in the action, as indi- 
 vidualities which can feel only, without ability to act. With 
 us, the two things from the first go together. 
 
 This seems to me an important thing to bear in mind. Of 
 its application to Ethics this is not the place to speak. But it is 
 of importance also in regard of the distinction which I am at 
 present endeavouring to elucidate, between the phenomenalist 
 view and the philosophical, whether this latter be regarded as 
 a wider view or as a companion abstraction. The phenomenalist 
 view considers us as beings (or rather as something) susceptible 
 of knowledge, considers knowledge as coming to us (which gives 
 the point to the term 'sensation' as used by Locke and after- 
 wards by most philosophers in the last century), considers such
 
 CHAP. III.] SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. 35 
 
 activity as there is, or the spring of movement, to reside in the 
 supposed object of knowledge, so that, before we can form ideas 
 (supposing us to do so) we must have received impressions, we 
 must have been somehow affected : there must therefore be sup- 
 posed in the object of knowledge, in matter (for instance) some 
 power, or activity in this way to impress and affect us, and it 
 is on that side that the process begins. Hence while the whole 
 run of language, evincing the human natural understanding, is 
 we see, we hear, we perceive, we think, the language of the 
 portion of philosophy which I am now speaking of is, that ob- 
 jects begin and impress themselves upon our sense, and that 
 their impressions, transformed or modified in whatever way, 
 constitute knowledge : in ruder or rougher philosophy of the 
 same kind they have been supposed to send forth actual ema- 
 nations or physical images which did this : this was because a 
 thing could not act where it was not, and it was supposed that 
 it was matter, not we, that acted in perception. 
 
 The phenomenalist view rests on a supposition, one way of 
 putting which is that we are thus jwssive in knowledge (though 
 of course we must be careful about the language). As good an 
 idea perhaps as can be gained of the phenomenalist scheme of 
 knowledge may be gained in this way: the one physical fact 
 which we know to take place in knowledge is that there is, as I 
 have said, communication between particular natural agents 
 and particular parts of our body, i.e. that there is, in such a 
 place and body, sensation, so far as physics can conceive sen- 
 sation. At this communication we are present, as it were, or 
 in tli'; French use, 'assist': the communication between the 
 matter on the one side and the matter on the other is accom- 
 panied by a feeling on our part, and that is knowledge. Fur- 
 ther, in this way, than there is communication, there is no 
 knowledge. The knowledge and the communication arc coex- 
 tensive. The communication, which in re-pect of the particular 
 portions of it is called 'sensation', is often in respect of the 
 whole of it eall.il 'experience'. The extension of knowledge, 
 in this view, is the extension of this communication. There 
 
 all kinds of abbreviations and summarizations by (he help 
 of 1. : i the means of which we may multiply our 
 
 communication in a manner otherwise quite impossible; and 
 
 3 2
 
 36 SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. [CHAP. 
 
 there is a world, so to call it, of conditional communication, 
 which is what we express, in this view, by what we call laws 
 of nature : the facts or particulars of the communication have 
 their regular concomitances and sequences, and much perhaps 
 besides : and we as it were stand by (in virtue of the accom- 
 panying feeling) and see all this. There is a process going on 
 which we call 'nature', and there is a wonderful, extra-pheno- 
 menal power of contemplating this process: the whole is know- 
 ledge. 
 
 In reality, as I have said, what we do is not to assist pas- 
 sively at a process independent of our real selves, but to look 
 through it at something beyond : and it is upon the amount, 
 and the right application of this activity that depend the amount 
 and value of our knowledge. 
 
 The roots however of the phenomenalist (that is, the wrongly 
 phenomenalist) view lie deep, going even to the original suppo- 
 sition, that it is feeling (or susceptibility) that makes our being, 
 and not feeling and acting (or willing) as well, or if we like it, 
 something deeper still, of which feeling and willing both, and 
 perhaps other things besides, are equally early attributes. We 
 are sometimes inadvertently led to this view by our language, 
 when we say that it is consciousness which shows to us our per- 
 sonality : by this we should mean not only consciousness as plea- 
 surable or painful feeling, but consciousness of willing or acting. 
 
 Our consciousness of willing or acting is undoubtedly more 
 difficult to be conceived by us than the other. On account of 
 the very intimateness of it to our being, we may say that we 
 only know that we do will and do so far as we measure our 
 action by feeling the amount of it, i. e. the amount of effect 
 produced by it, and this is going beyond ourselves, and more 
 thoroughly suggesting, or even making us feel, something be- 
 yond ourselves than any merely passive feeling can suggest 
 this. This is true : and though, as I have said, we wake, even 
 so far as feeling is concerned, not to ourselves alone, but into 
 a world of things or an universe, it is our commencements of 
 willing or of action which first begin to distinctify this universe 
 to us, and make us understand it in particular. We feel time 
 without (necessarily) feeling our activity if we were beings 
 without will, and with only sentience or susceptibility of plea-
 
 III.] SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. 37 
 
 sure and pain, we might feel and measure the comparative 
 duration of our feelings : but with the feeling of space awakes 
 to distinctness the feeling of ourselves as active and as doing 
 something. 
 
 I have said here ' awakes to distinctness ': and I am desir- 
 ous that what I have said in the former part of the paragraph 
 should be carefully attended to. That we do not need space 
 for our activity, becomes abundantly evident in the advance of 
 our consciousness, for effort may be, and is, expended on feeling 
 alone, with no other circumstance therefore but time belonging 
 to it. But space, which makes us feel not only that there is 
 something besides ourselves, but that it is something which we 
 can and do act upon, is what at once first brings us into com- 
 munication with this ' besides', and reveals to us distinctly our 
 own active nature. 
 
 In saying however that it is space, or the feeling of space, 
 which does this, I am probably not speaking correctly, though, 
 as I said a short time since, I must refer to those with clearer 
 mechanical ideas for strict expression on this subject. 
 
 Force and matter, I suppose, go together : and so soon as we 
 feel that we exercise not only will, but force, we feel also that 
 what, as thus felt, we afterwards call matter resists our force. 
 So far as this is so, the sensation of matter is as early and as 
 intimate to us as that of space. I have said that we feel space 
 without going beyond ourselves: that is, our material selves: 
 to the extent to which we fuel ourselves as occupying space, 
 we feel ourselves (to describe a simple thing in necessarily 
 periphrastic language) resisting, more or less, the occupation of 
 it by anything else. I will not attempt to follow out here 
 the relations of space and matter. I have said that while 
 allowing to the idea of space, with that of time, a certain prero- 
 gative, I <1" ii"t look upon it to be fitly described as, in contra- 
 distinction to other ideas, a condition of our perceptions. 
 
 But our - asatioD of <>ur activity and of the resistance of 
 matter to it Lb a lb p which lands us upon quite a new field of 
 knowledge. 
 
 The sketch which I am now giving of the course of know- 
 ledge does ii"' aim al being really chronological We '1" ao1 
 have sensations al all in the simple, separate, and marked
 
 38 SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. [CHAP. 
 
 manner, which what I have said, were it intended to be histor- 
 ical, would imply. "We are always, as the rule, feeling some- 
 thing, and feelings rapidly succeed one another, and become 
 entangled and compounded together. And thus, though I have 
 hitherto been speaking of one sort of sensations only that we 
 have, there is another sort (I call them different sorts rather 
 loosely, for it is not of consequence) which we have quite as 
 early, perhaps earlier, and which must now be spoken of. 
 
 Sensation proper, as a feeling, (I mean by proper to distin- 
 guish it from the sensation of our activity) is all, in a manner, 
 as I have said, pleasurable or painful. In a manner : for the 
 sensation of time is rather as containing our feeling of pleasure 
 and pain, and so far as we have a sensation of time, we must 
 perhaps rather call it neutral. Our sensation of space is as of 
 the continent of our motion, of matter as of the absorbent, or 
 counter-agent of our force : how far these sensations are to be 
 considered neutral, i.e. not of pleasure and pain, seems hard 
 to determine, and not now important. Those who think, in 
 the manner which I have mentioned, that we are in the first 
 instance only susceptible beings, and not active till our activity 
 is called forth by something which we want and desire, may be 
 supposed really to consider that action in itself is a necessary 
 evil, and that we should be happier and more perfect beings 
 without it : so far as this is so, the sensations of space and 
 matter, as arising from our action, must be considered painful. 
 On the other hand, so far as we look upon action in the manner 
 in which I have done, as what our nature calls us to for itself 
 as well as for the gaining of a result, they would be to be 
 considered in themselves pleasurable. Of course however pain 
 is always a possible and likely accident of them, as in case of 
 the exertion or pressure being great. Be this as it may, what- 
 ever of pleasure or pain these sensations may have in them is 
 quite inconsiderable in comparison with that which belongs to 
 other sensations, which may be said to be of pleasure and pain, 
 leaving very little of attention to anything beyond the sensa- 
 tion ; that is (in the language which I have used) to the forma- 
 tion of any idea of the supposed object of them. The cardinal 
 sensation of this kind is that which we call taste. We have 
 sensations of pain and pleasure variously localised in our body,
 
 III.] SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. 39 
 
 but which suggest to us uo idea beyond the sensation : but 
 when, in the course of the various parts of our body coming in 
 contact by pressure with matter independent of it, certain sub- 
 stances come in contact with our palate, we have sensation of 
 special pleasure or pain, and this sensation we call taste. Taste 
 may be considered the typical form of the sensation which ac- 
 companies the phenomenal fact of the communication between 
 the chemical properties of matter and certain parts of our organ- 
 ization ; in other words, the phenomenal character of a sort of 
 sensation of w T hich taste may be taken as the type is that the 
 chemical properties of matter (I have made such qualifications 
 as are to be made in speaking of this before) communicate 
 with our organism, while the subjective or feeling character of 
 the sensation is that it is not of activity, but of pleasure or 
 pain, and that perhaps very strongly. 
 
 Our sensation of matter by pressure and our sensation of it 
 by taste constantly go together, as, more or less, in the case of 
 taste proper to which I have alluded : so far as we feel upon the 
 palate the degree of hardness, and the shape (to which we shall 
 come more fully presently), of the thing tasted, the knowledge 
 which we thus gain is not properly by taste, but by the pre- 
 vious sort of sensation. 
 
 As we may loosely call our chemical sensation of matter 
 (so to speak), which is the etymological sensus, 'taste', so we 
 may call our mechanical sensation of it which I have before 
 described, (the etymological feelinrj), the 'handling' of it (pal- 
 patio, yp-T]\a(f)rjcn^), the hand being the portion of our body 
 most naturally moved in tliis way. 
 
 The handling of whatever we come in contact with speedily 
 gives to us the sensation, and suggests to us the idea, of whal 
 we call its sh<ij>e. Our sensation of this is simply the feeling of 
 the amount and direction of movement which the hand has to 
 make in tracing it.s boundai 
 
 We may now (but we had no business to do so till nov 
 apeak of that which, in the advance of knowledge, is of all 
 the most important organ of sensation, the eye: which is in fad 
 a machine for both handling or touching, and also tasting, that 
 is, appreciating certain chemical qualities of matter removed 
 from us, perhape widely, in Bpace. The instrument of this com
 
 40 SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. [CHAP. 
 
 munication is the particular physical substance or agent, (what- 
 ever may be its constitution), light. 
 
 I am not going to enter into any detail about this com- 
 plicated sense. Suffice it to say, (describing first the nature 
 of the phenomenal communication) that there are in the at- 
 mosphere (or in space) variously coloured rays of light moving 
 in various directions, and on the other hand in our eye various 
 lenses in front of a nervous surface, the whole variously move- 
 able by muscles : after and by means of an action in which 
 movement of the rays from without and the meeting them by 
 volitional (though it may be too subtle to be traced) adjustment 
 of the lenses &c. from within concur, the rays arrive at the 
 nervous surface in a particular manner which, for our present 
 purpose, we need not further investigate. The phenomenal 
 communication being this, the corresponding subjective feeling 
 is, that we, in the language which I have used before, as it were 
 taste the colour by means of the nervous surface, in a way in 
 some measure analogous to that in which we taste the taste 
 of anything by the palate : and that, contemporaneously with 
 this (though in a manner the commencement of the other pro- 
 cess must be regarded as the stimulant) the movements of the 
 various parts of the eye (really volitional, though so infinitely 
 rapid, and therefore supplying us with sensation of the former 
 kind) measure to us space in the same manner in which I have 
 described the movements of the hand or other parts of the 
 body to do so 1 . We generally understand that space in the 
 line in which we are looking (which in most cases is what 
 we call the distance of the object which we are looking at) 
 is not measured to us by the eye, or not a thing which we 
 properly see. 
 
 1 Imagine the palm of the hand to be sensitive to particles travelling in 
 right lines, whenever these fall upon the parts of it perpendicularly — imagine 
 it to have its present power of turning its face in any direction, and of contracting 
 itself aDd turning about the portions of its surface — also that it is only the surface, 
 or palm itself, that is sensitive — and we have the same result secured in a different 
 manner as I have described in the eye. The particles must of course give sensa- 
 tions independent of the movements, that is, taste, as we may call it. The hand 
 would then be a kind of instrument of distant taste, like our smell, and discrimi- 
 native in the two ways, chemically and muscularly — intensively and extensively. 
 
 On the next sentence, see a note in the Appendix.
 
 in.] Sensation, intelligence, and will. 41 
 
 But it is very hard to say what we do see, that is, to deter- 
 mine what is the best use of language in reference to the expres- 
 sion 'see', and it is for this reason that I have spoken, in the 
 first instance, rather of other senses than of this. The sensation, 
 on the ivliole, of space is the same, whether the occasion of it is 
 the movement of the muscles of the eye or of those of the 
 hand : and the particular sensations of space are referred one 
 to the other, the later and more remote to the earlier and 
 more intimate. It is possible that we should not understand 
 the seen shape of a remote body if we had not actually handled 
 a near one. The eye travels round an object of sight of any 
 magnitude, as the hand travels round a portion of matter near : 
 the result in both cases is our sensation of shape. When I 
 say 'of any magnitude', I mean only to decline any question 
 which may belong to physicists, as to how much may be said to 
 be seen at once, without any movement of the eye. Whether 
 we can or cannot, physically, follow the less and less amount 
 of movement, in the case of the perception of larger and smaller 
 shape, to entire absence of it, I do not know. 
 
 Active sensations or sensations of handling, though almost 
 always present to us, are what we may call uniform, being of 
 space and matter alone. Passive sensations or sensations of 
 taste are conceivably infinite in variety, at least as various as 
 the different agents in nature, and conceivably also, in par- 
 ticular cases, such as could be brought into no relation the one 
 to the other. As it is, our powers of nervous or sensitive com- 
 munication with natural agents are not numerous. Of those 
 which we have, some are in close relation one to another, as 
 taste and smell; some are, I suppose, so far as we can go, out 
 of relation with each other, as taste proper and colour. 
 
 I shall now, as the shortest and most natural way of ex- 
 pression* -]x;ik of seeing objects. I hope that, after what has 
 been said, we may be able to do so without being misled by 
 our Language. 
 
 But wli.it is the meaning of seeing objects? 
 
 The sense of sight as i.1 ie d< veloped becomes the most im- 
 portanl the intellectual sense, or the sense in a special 
 
 manner. The taste-like sensation of colour, always mosl refined 
 as compared with other taste-like sensations, occupies the atten-
 
 42 SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. [CHAP. 
 
 tion rather in its character of a means of discrimination than as 
 an actual pleasure or pain, except as these latter mingle with 
 intellectual considerations, and become artistic or aesthetic. 
 The active sensation, in sight, of space and shape or figure 
 brings itself into relation with, tests itself by, and grounds itself 
 upon, the nearer sensations of the same kind which accompany 
 motions of the whole body or of larger portions of it, and then, 
 we may say, developes* them and multiplies them indefinitely. 
 The sight of a wide prospect is really a mental travelling over 
 it. What we really, in our consciousness, may be said to mean 
 by saying that we see one conspicuous object, for instance, of 
 such a magnitude and figure at such a distance off, another 
 of such another magnitude and figure at such a distance from 
 that, and these in various relation of magnitude, figure, and 
 distance, with others, is, that were we among them and in con- 
 tact severally with each we should have to move the parts of 
 our body so much and so much in feeling about them, and in 
 getting from one to the other. What amounts to movement of 
 this kind, impossible probably in fact, and if it were not so, 
 endless probably in duration, sight, through the intervention of 
 light, effects in a few moments. Volitional movement of the 
 muscles of our eye accompanying the arrival of the light at it, 
 which light arrives in the particular manner in which it does 
 owing to certain particular circumstances in distant matter, the 
 effect is the same as if the rays of light were so many sensitive 
 filaments, so to call them, belonging to ourselves, by which, 
 across whatever distance, we felt or touched that matter. 
 
 The sense of sight being thus, with developement of the 
 intellect, the most important, takes also a subjective importance 
 of a different kind. We use it as the typical sense by means 
 of which we describe, and to which we refer, the operations 
 of sense in general. We speak of the feelings which we often 
 have, closely resembling sensation or feeling, but not accom- 
 panied, like it, with communication between our body and the 
 universe beyond, as imagination, by a metaphor derived from 
 sight. We speak again of something resembling this last, but 
 accompanied by a (supposedly well-founded) belief in the im- 
 portance and groundedness of it, as intuition or inward sight. 
 It is to this use of the sense of sight that are due the terms
 
 III.] SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. 43 
 
 'presentation', 'representation', and many similar: for in con- 
 sequence of the rapidity of the visual movements, we may 
 have in contact with the sense, or with what is understood as 
 the internal sense, at what seems the same moment, any 
 amount of objects. 
 
 In the case of persons blind from birth, I presume that this, 
 the quasi-visual imagination or inward sight, exists to a certain 
 extent, though there must be an absence of distinction of 
 colour, and it is hard to understand how space is represented 
 in the consciousness. Still I conclude that it is more than dark 
 space, or a mere generalization of handling, feeling, groping. 
 The human organization being one, and the eye being a part of 
 it in such a way that the other parts, if we may use the lan- 
 guage, suppose it and take account of it ; there being also, we 
 may suppose, as a part of that internal organization which 
 every external organization of a being with will supposes, an 
 impulse to the use of the eye, even where that impulse is, from 
 circumstances, abortive: though the stimulant to any ocular 
 movement, by the sensation of colour, is wanting, and perhaps 
 any such actual movement impossible: we may consider it 
 probable that there is something which supplements the hand- 
 ling and feeling, and enables, in a manner, something like a 
 prospect to be present to what we call the imagination. It is 
 a physiological question upon which I do not enter, whether, 
 when imagination is at work, there is or is not disturbance in 
 those portions of the body which, if the imagination were sen- 
 sation, would be rurrcsp.Midontly with the sensation, in such 
 circumstances of disturbance — whether e. <j. in visual imagina- 
 tion there is motion or affection of parts of the eye, &c, and 
 so for other Benses. 
 
 I said a short time since, that it is a difficult thing to say 
 what we really sec, that is, for philosophers, when they arc 
 talking together about seeing, to be sure that they arc using 
 the word in the same application. There is no reason for diffi- 
 culty of this kind in the case of feeling by touch: we have 
 Indeed in this ca e much to bear in mind as to the variety of 
 
 of both the words ' feeling' and 'touch', besides the distinc- 
 tion which has constantly to be borne in mind between the 
 consciousness, whether of effort or not, and the movement or
 
 44 SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. [CHAP. 
 
 communication: but with care as to this, the case is simple. 
 Sight, however, is much more complicated. 
 In reality, Crabbe's lines, 
 
 It ia the mind that sees : the outward eyes 
 Present the object, but the mind descries : 
 
 are happier philosophically than perhaps he meant : so far as 
 we speak, with any reason, of an object of sight, it is the mind 
 that sees the object, and the real sight is this; namely, of the 
 (supposedly) independent and more or less distant object, by 
 the mind : the sensive apparatus of vision or the eye with its 
 appendages perform simply the part of presenting or introduc- 
 ing; and it is not any optical phenomenon (image, e.g.) which 
 may be ascertained to occur (or be formed) within this appa- 
 ratus which is what we see, i.e. is the object of the sensation 
 as feeling. In the case of sight, the corporeal communication 
 which, taken altogether, is what presents the object to the 
 mind, is of a most complicated nature. The light is prepared 
 in a double way for the mysterious point (from the nature of 
 it never to be passed by phenomenal speculation) at which it is 
 converted, so to speak, into sensibility, first by passing through 
 a self-adjusting spy-glass, and then by being converted, so to 
 speak again, into nervous agitation or modification of some 
 kind, which is what our sensation (or feeling) accompanies. It 
 is difficult to follow this process without being in danger of 
 thinking either that the retina sees through the spy-glass, or 
 that we see the image on the retina, to do which, I suppose, 
 another spy-glass would be required behind it, like the one 
 before. But in reality, all that can be physiologically or opti- 
 cally made out as to this complicated process is part of the 
 corporeal communication, which our sensation, or feeling, only 
 accompanies. And the sensation which we have is rudimen- 
 tarily perhaps, simply of a colour, how spatially related to us 
 is hard to trace and perhaps not very much worth tracing. 
 When the sense is at all developed the sensation which 
 we have is that of a coloured object having magnitude and 
 figure, and (with still further development), solid shape and 
 definite distance. This is what we call seeing: this is what 
 we see. 
 
 But, in this noble sense, the corporeal communication which
 
 III. J SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. 45 
 
 is the means of it is not more elaborate than the logical result 
 of the sensation, for the growth of knowledge, is important. 
 What do we mean by saying that what we see is an object, or 
 thing ? Our eye is moveable ah* soils of ways, and rays enter 
 it in all sorts of directions, forming all sorts of images : in other 
 words, what we have at any moment before the eyes is a 
 vague confusion of colour, a kaleidoscope only without even 
 apparent order: how is it then that we see things'} How is it 
 that in this confusion, we individualize, realize, and distinguish 
 any portions from the rest ? 
 
 In speaking here I must myself, and I hope the reader will, 
 be careful. We never do (saving disturbance by disease) see 
 the confusion I am speaking of, and it may be said that it is 
 not before the eye — but the difficulty which we have here is 
 one which belongs to the consideration of the sense of sight all 
 along. In fact, it takes its place with the other senses, and 
 is educated through a use of it conjunct with them, and some- 
 thing more which I am going to mention begins from the first 
 with it, in such a way that by the time that the eye is open 
 to a wide view of colour it has (or rather we have) already 
 learnt discrimination of objects in this view. How we learn, I 
 shall try to show. 
 
 I said some time since, without then explaining it, that 
 unity is not phenomenal. I made the statement then in its 
 broad generality, which for my purpose at that time was suffi- 
 ciently near the truth : more accurately the truth is that unity 
 is phenomenally exceptional, a statement which in its place I 
 will explain. What I mean is, that the communication between 
 natural agents (as I have called them) and certain portions of 
 our organization, which is the physical fact, and upon which the 
 phenomenalist view rests, does not suggest (if we suppose it 
 viewed or understood by a being looking quietly upon it, in the 
 manner I have formerly mentioned, and the result to be know- 
 Ledge) that discriminaiion of objects from which springs our 
 idea of the universe ae composed of things or separate unities or 
 individualities. We may hold simply (if indeed we do hold) 
 ill, phenomenalist view in our developed intelligence, bu1 we 
 never can arrive at it, we never can learn it, exa pi by an 
 unphenomenal process. This amounts to the same as 1 have
 
 46 SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. [CHAP. 
 
 formerly said when I called the phenomenalist view an abs- 
 traction. Unless we to a certain degree shut our eyes, it 
 cannot exist to us without much, we perhaps indeed cannot tell 
 what, existing besides. If I may venture safely to use chemical 
 language, I would say that the phenomenal universe, as con- 
 ceived by us, is a sort of deposit from our thinking nature, 
 definite, tangible, visible, while our thought besides is fluid and 
 unformed — but still, real as it is, and valuable as it is as against 
 other spheres of thought in some respects, to say that it is all, 
 or that it is the most valuable knowledge absolutely, is not only 
 not true, but is intellectually suicidal. Phenomenalism itself is 
 not true, unless much is true besides it. So far as it may be 
 said without contradiction, if we had been phenomenalists and 
 physiologists from the first we never should have been so at 
 all, for we never should have known anything. If we had 
 understood the mechanism of the eye before we began to see, 
 what we should really have rested in would have been the 
 material communication; that through which we should have 
 attempted to arrive at knowledge would have been our own 
 sensations as the physiologist would make them out or judge 
 them likely to be, and we should have seen according to these : 
 following these out into matter independent of us, we should 
 have understood, perhaps, the laws of light and of other agents 
 which affected us, and should have had, to fill our thoughts, 
 such an universe as this kind of knowledge would produce us : 
 an universe of the constituents of things ; a power of following 
 the elements of matter, or such of them as our sensation 
 revealed, wherever they were, with attention chained to them: 
 but the universe of things, as actual human language or any 
 language we can conceive does or must represent it, would have 
 been entirely alien to us. Our subjective sensation, or sensa- 
 tion as feeling, is not a sensation or knowledge of the phe- 
 nomenal sensation or material communication, but is a sensa- 
 tion or feeling by means of this of something beyond which is 
 what it is to us on account of the mixture in it of certain 
 elements independent of phenomenalism, and on which the 
 view which we actually have, even of phenomenalism, depends. 
 The best way of expressing this would probably be to say, 
 that it is not the particular circumstances of the material com-
 
 III.] SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. 47 
 
 munication which, more than in a subordinate degree, deter- 
 mine those of the subjective sensation or feeling (the same 
 thing as by many philosophers is called ' perception') but that 
 with the nature of this feeling other quite different considera- 
 tions enter. We understand this most in the case of sight, 
 because the material communication is longer and more com- 
 plicated, but it is the same in all sensation. We do not feel 
 all the material communication (as whether the image on the 
 retina is upwards or downwards), and so far as we know about 
 it, it is physiological research which tells us. 
 
 Perhaps it may help to illustrate what I have here said 
 about sight if I refer for a moment to what Dr Whewell, follow- 
 ing the language of Aristotle, has said, when, in distinguishing 
 between primary and secondary qualities, he makes it a charac- 
 ter of these latter that they are perceived through a medium, as 
 colour through light. I cannot enter into this language. So far 
 as it is the subjective sensation or feeling which is sjsoken of, 
 that is of an object as seen, of a thing as w r c call it, the sun 
 fur instance, and everything which intervenes between our 
 conscious self and the thing seen is medium, the whole visual 
 apparatus together with light and colour. So far as it is the 
 material communication which the feeling accompanies, that is 
 spoken of, that is not with the sun, but with light, and there 
 is no medium at all. What Dr Whewell says on the subject 
 of outness is open, I think, to the same sort of criticism. But 
 to this I may very likely refer again. 
 
 I said, in speaking of the awakening of our consciousness, 
 that the Hit recognition of our own being is accompanied with 
 the recognition of something besides it, or of an universe into 
 which we are born. It is the same as if I had said, that the 
 lir-t recognition of anything no1 ourselves, or of the universe, 
 was accompanied by the recognition of our own being. In 
 each case the one is the counter-notion of the other: the 
 OOtion of the one i formed by distinguishing it from the other. 
 Whichever is the firsl distinct and affirmative notion is in a 
 manner no1 the first, for the other is the ground and basis 
 of it We will suppose however, ourselves the first: the uni- 
 verse then [to apply so grand a term), or independent reality 
 is what we firsl set against ourselves, or se1 ourselves as \i
 
 48 SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. [dlAP. 
 
 were to measure. The universe has being as we have, so far 
 as we then know being. There is an original logical genus 
 with its two species or individualities, subject and object of 
 knowledge. At the same time the universe is not only under- 
 stood as sharing with us in being, but as the ground from 
 which we stand off: we are in this respect a part of it: and 
 what is to be contrasted or paralleled with us is not it, but 
 one part of it after another as distinguished from it. 
 
 To describe in a sort of exaggerated and magnified, and so 
 far absurd way, the progress of knowledge, a way however 
 which may facilitate the conception of it : each successive 
 reality, as it disengages itself to us from the universe as yet 
 of confusion, is to us at first a counterpart of ourselves : our 
 notion of ourselves is what we carry with us, is our primary 
 idea of being, and what, as one (nervous) sensation after another 
 stimulates our intelligence, we mingle in our thought with 
 the sensation : while, as I have said, it is by a continual pro- 
 cess of self- correction that we advance in true knowledge. The 
 fact is, that every great step in knowledge, besides what it 
 may have about it of addition to an aggregate, has the double 
 character as well both of correction of wrong previous view 
 and of understanding. why the wrong previous view was taken, 
 or in other words, of understanding what there is in it that is 
 true and right : from the former of these processes, united with 
 the aggregation of observation, results the phenomenal view : 
 from the latter result to us, as we shall see, considerations 
 which suggest to us that the phenomenalist view, though true 
 in its way, is not all that we have to think of. 
 
 To the opening intelligence and awakening will, what meets 
 and resists our effort aj)pears to live as we do, and is the object 
 of passion in us as if it were another self; and when this is 
 corrected, as it soon is, there are left in the ground various 
 roots or portions of it: one is, that there is something analo- 
 gous to our will in bodies or matter which nevertheless we do 
 not conceive to have life, by which they can initiate or make 
 things begin to be, by which they can be causes of things in a 
 sense distinct from being regular portions of a chain in which 
 such things occur : another is, that though particulars of the 
 universe (so as yet to call them) have not life they have that
 
 III.] SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. 49 
 
 unity, or individuality, or reason why they should be distin- 
 guished and separately thought of, which in fact is only sug- 
 gested to us by our consciousness of our own life and conse- 
 quent felt self-belonging or independence, and which, like the 
 idea of cause, is a sort of relic or reminiscence of the life 
 which the infant intellect supposed in things. 
 
 It will be seen more fully now why I said that the notion 
 of unity, or of 'things', is not phenomenal. When we say, we 
 see a thing or an object, we are using language of the same 
 kind as when we say, such and such a fact is due to such and 
 such a cause. Phenomenally, cause means invariable antece- 
 dent, and thing means portion of matter, or of that which fills 
 space. But if we had been condemned from the first to think 
 of 'cause' only as invariable antecedent and of 'thing' as por- 
 tion of matter, we never should have learnt anything. Fact is 
 continuous, and we should have had nothing to make us dis- 
 criminate between one portion of it and another, so as to say 
 that the one went before the other. Matter is the interaction 
 of a variety of what I have called natural agents, elements, 
 forces, &c, and the phenomenalist, if he saw things as he knows 
 them chemically to be, and really got rid of the kindly delu- 
 sions (so at present to call them) which are the conditions of 
 our learning anything (as e.g. if he not only knew that, but saw 
 things as if, the colour of an object was not a part of the 
 object, but a part of the light which brings it to his eye), I 
 should think could hardly keep his senses. It would be as if 
 phenomenal truth required us not only to know that we are, 
 but actually to feel ourselves, whirling round upon the earth's 
 surface in space at the rate, whatever it is, at which we actually 
 are doing so. 
 
 When I said that in strictness, unity was phenomenally 
 exceptional rather than unphenomenal, what I meant was this. 
 Suppose no reference at all to our own life and individuality, 
 and Buppose, as I have more than once said is the most convi - 
 iih-iit way of putting the phenomenalist view, thai we are in 
 some way impersonally merely present at and intelligent of the 
 eoinniiinif-atioD which goes on between portions of our body 
 and matter besides: life ie a Cad which we should meel with in 
 nature as so viewed : there would be in it what we should call 
 
 4
 
 50 SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. [CHAP. 
 
 living beings. Such beings would separate themselves off, 
 even to our phenomenal view, from the rest of nature as unities 
 or individual. I will not follow this out now, for the mixture 
 of various life in nature is a thing which I should wish to speak 
 of by itself. I mention it, as a necessary qualification to the 
 statement that unity is unphenomenal. But I do not think 
 any will say that this occasional occurrence in nature of parts 
 of matter of which we may predicate phenomenal unity can 
 account for the fact that our mixed and confused corporeal 
 communication with natural agents takes the form, in the 
 intelligence or to the sensation as feeling, of our noticing and 
 distinguishing individual objects or tilings. Nor can the phe- 
 nomenal fact of spatial arrangements and conditions, as of mag- 
 nitude, shape, &c. by itself do so. We look upon objects in a 
 different way from that in which we look upon clouds, or 
 masses of cloud. And if it be said that a quantity of other 
 sensations, as of colour, are added to that of spatial arrange- 
 ment: what is meant by these sensations is nothing more than 
 this same confused communication, with our body, of a variety 
 of natural agents : whence the resulting unity ? 
 
 There is no doubt that spatial circumscription is one ele- 
 ment of it : but it is one element only, and it does not give 
 life to the object enough. We notice what we notice and make 
 it a thing distinguishing it from what else is within our view, 
 partly because, doubtless, it is of such or such a size and shape : 
 but we require more impulse to the notice and distinguishment 
 than this furnishes. I think Sir William Hamilton uses the term 
 interested in application to our sensations which are pleasurable 
 or painful, to distinguish them from others : in reality all our 
 sensations or perceptions may fitly be called interested : the 
 interest in the case of the intellectual ones being more abstract 
 and remote. For our notice or distinguishment of what then 
 is to us a thing, there is required not only size and shape, so 
 far as these are required, but what is in the first instance a 
 comparison of the thing with, or a reference of it to, ourselves. 
 Grammatical gender, as compared with the notion of actual 
 sex and of neutralness or absence of personality, owes its origin, 
 in all probability, to a similar feeling about things as that 
 which I have mentioned, that their reality was a sort of remnant
 
 III.] SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. 51 
 
 or reminiscence of an actually supposed life, in an infant or 
 mytkologic state of the intelligence. And when the members 
 or portions of the universe, the greater portion of them, have 
 ceased to bear to us, as viewed by our intelligence, the sort of 
 fraternal relation which belongs to a similar life, they come, a 
 great many of them, to bear to us another. In the develop- 
 ment of our activity, and our imagination, without which our 
 activity would be nothing, we very soon become constructive: 
 from using our hands as instruments to move matter, we be<nn 
 to use them as instruments to put it together or to make. It 
 is with the first awakening of the constructive impulse that 
 begins what corresponds to the neuter gender, the true notice 
 and distinguish ment of things. A ' thing' is what we may use 
 or make, or if not we, what others may use or have made. 
 Our notice of things is in this way from the first what I have 
 above called interested: what makes them individualities or 
 things to us is originally a supposed relation to ourselves. 
 
 It may really be called a life which this relation to our- 
 selves, or interest, puts into the universe as we have sensation 
 of it. It is not a life such as our infant intelligence supposes, 
 like our own, but it is a life to our intelligence : the idea of 
 the relation to ourselves soon dies awav, like that of actual life, 
 but there is left what is the soul of thought, namely, the suppo- 
 sition of meaning or reason of things being what they are. But 
 to this we shall come soon. 
 
 The subjectivi tion or feeling, though it accompanies 
 
 the bodily communication, cannot properly be said to corre- 
 spond to it, for this reason: that while it is highly likely that 
 there are portions <>f the communication which have no coun- 
 terpari in tin- feeling, it is certain that there is much in the 
 feeling which has no counterpart in the communication. It is 
 this !att<-r, when philosophers use such language, which is un- 
 d< rstood by the form of the sensation, or the form superadded 
 upon the b* nsation, so thai sensation as consciousness or know- 
 ledge i- something differenl from whal it would be, were it 
 simple attention to the communication. The word 'form' is as 
 ambiguous nsation'. We may understand the meaning of 
 
 it be8l perhaps in tlii-; way. that the relation of 8hape to matt, i 
 
 oncretely and rudely unden '• — I atone, cla} &c I, i - taken as 
 
 l
 
 52 SENSATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND WILL. [CHAP. III. 
 
 a type, figure, or suggestion of the relation of something (the 
 metaphysical form which we want to understand) to incondite 
 or confused material (so to call it) of any kind. As the sculp- 
 tor or modeller gives shape to his clay, so is something given 
 to the unmeaning and unsuggestive feeling — which, if we merely 
 felt, as we feel a prick or a pinch, what is going on in our retina 
 and the other sensive portions of our body, would be all that 
 there would be — to make it the meaning and suggestive feeling 
 which the real subjective sensation is. This, which is given, is 
 the form of the sensation. 
 
 A result of the fact, that our subjective sensation has thus, 
 in comparison with the bodily feeling and any mere feeling of 
 that, a form given to it, is this, that we consider ourselves to 
 be knowing or feeling, not, as in the phenomenal fact, something 
 in ourselves, but something beyond ourselves : and when I said 
 some time back, that at the same time we both have a sensa- 
 tion of a thing, and form an idea of it, I might have expressed 
 the same by saying that the special character of the sensation, 
 as having the form that it has, is that it is something the mind 
 does not rest in. The mind makes out of it something which 
 it rests in. The sensation passes away, yielding to the next 
 sensation : but it has done something and it has left something: 
 and this is expressed by saying that we have formed an idea. 
 
 Our sensations give form to each other, and the early and 
 great sensation, that which we have of space, goes some way, in 
 the manner which I have mentioned, in giving form to all the 
 sensations which follow it. But it does not do everything. 
 
 I hope to make what I have said upon these subjects clearer 
 by comparing it with what has been said by others.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FERRIER'S INSTITUTES OF METAPHYSIC. 
 
 It is possible that the view which I have endeavoured to 
 exhibit here will be better understood if I make a few remarks 
 on one or two of the most important English works of our time 
 on Psychology and Logic, showing how far they fall in with 
 the distinction which I have endeavoured to draw between the 
 phenomenalist and the philosophical or logical view, and how 
 far they offend against it. I do this with no care for criticizing 
 or controverting the works which I shall name, but simply 
 because I think such a course is the best illustration which I 
 can give of my own view. 
 
 The books of which I shall speak have been mentioned in 
 the Introduction, as well as the principle of their selection and 
 arrangement, and the first which comes is Professor Ferrier's 
 Institutes of Metaphysic. 
 
 Whatever demerits Professor Ferrier's book may have, it 
 has what I, having given the view which I have given, cannot 
 but regard as a very great merit, namely, that it is free, I 
 should think entirely, from the confusion of thought which 
 much which I have written is directed to prevent. He has 
 invented or adopted the term ' epistemology' for the logical or 
 philosophical exposition which he has given of the nature of 
 knowledge, and has, it seems to me, in a manner of which there 
 are not many examples, kept in mind throughout the assump- 
 tions with which he has started, without changing his point of 
 view, or introducing alien and unwarranted considerations. I 
 do not attach much importance to the show of demonstration 
 which his Euclidic method exhibits, for which, I think, the 
 subject is not adapted. In fact, he has omitted from it that 
 
 I important preliminary, the definitions and axioms, and
 
 54 ferrier's institutes of metaphysic. [chap. 
 
 that this omission is important, may appear from the fact that 
 his first proposition, from which all the rest are supposed to 
 follow, and which is treated as almost self-evident, Mr Her- 
 bert Spencer, whose book I shall speak of shortly, totidem 
 verbis denies 1 . Till axioms then are agreed upon, representing 
 a ground common to various thinkers on the subject, the most 
 perfect consecution in the demonstration is not important. Nor 
 do I agree with Mr Ferrier's notion of the relation of the epi- 
 stemological view which he gives to the view, in general, which, 
 with great clearness and vigour, he gives as contrasting with 
 it. He describes this latter partly as ' psychology ', which with 
 him is a term of great opprobrium, and more generally, as 'ordi- 
 nary thinking', and something which it is the business of phi- 
 losophy to correct. This ordinary thinking represents in the 
 main what I have called the phenomenalist view (with a mix- 
 ture indeed of the 'logical' which I hope at a future time to 
 notice), which, it seems to me, is as valid within its large pro- 
 vince as epistemological thinking is in its province, the busi- 
 ness of the latter being not to correct or simply to oppose the 
 former, but to prevent the misapplication of it. A good deal, 
 no doubt, of ' ordinary thinking' is simply the philosophy of 
 bad philosophers : but the mass of it, as represented by lan- 
 guage, is not. 
 
 It is not, I think, so much in the direct line of Mr Ferrier's 
 thought as in the incidental remarks, and the whole manner of 
 thought which they exhibit, that the value of his book con- 
 sists. For his direct argument, I can hardly think that his 
 saying, so repeatedly and so barely (this repetition without 
 explanation is due, it is to be observed, to his method of de- 
 monstration) that we cannot think or know an object without 
 thinking or knowing the subject (ourselves) or a subject (our- 
 selves as the type) with it, is a sufficient account of what I 
 should call the feeling which we have, that what we know could 
 not have been known by us unless there had been in it some- 
 thing making it possible to be known, or fit to be known, or 
 the possible matter for future knowledge, or however we like 
 to express ourselves. And in the same manner when he tells 
 us that it is not the object of our knowledge, but ourselves as 
 
 1 Psychology, page 44, et passim.
 
 iv.] ferrier's institutes of metapiiysic. 55 
 
 knowing or apprehending that object, that we know, he seems 
 too much to forget that he has got to give an account of the 
 second knowing which he speaks of, or the apprehending, which 
 at least must be of the object without an apjDrehended subject 
 going with it. 
 
 Whether then Mr Ferrier has thrown any fresh light upon 
 this question by the particular language in which he has chosen 
 to speak about it, I am doubtful ; but he seems to me, as I have 
 said, to have the very great merit of seeing the problem clearly. 
 
 The examination of the nature of knowledge, when we start 
 from the logical or philosophical point of departure, may very 
 conveniently take the form of an observation or consideration 
 of the difference between what on the one side is known, and 
 what on the other side is unknown — not merely as a matter of 
 fact, because we do not happen to know it — but unknown on 
 account of something in its own nature, or unknowable. For 
 the observation of the difference, we may suppose this latter, 
 and we may then add to it in thought what suggests itself to us 
 as necessary in order to convert that which cannot be the mat- 
 ter (or in this sense 'subject') of knowledge into that which can. 
 The simplest expression of this is to say, that for anything, what- 
 soever it is, to be possibly the subject (in this sense) of knowledge, 
 it must have definite qualities or properties, and definite rela- 
 tions to other things, and must be such that one and another 
 tiling may be said or predicated intelligibly about it. What 
 Lb then not possibly the subject of knowledge in this sense is 
 what does not possess the above character. And the tracing 
 the difference between this and that which on the other hand 
 is subject (in this sense) of knowledge, is the transforming, in 
 thought and by successive steps, a something supposed of the 
 latter kind into the universe or system of things as we know it. 
 
 Mr Ferrier lias in very clear and vigorous language dis- 
 tinguished between this with its analogous processes and the 
 apprehensions of tin tn which arc very probable, and are 
 chiefly of two kinds: the one that this pmeess of logic or 
 thought i- an actual, historical (imagined) production on our 
 part of things from nothing, a creation: the other that in such 
 processes, alongside of our thought, we are to suppose things 
 already existing as we know them, Both these misappreh
 
 56 ferrier's institutes of metapiiysic. [chap. 
 
 sions are in reality confusions between what I have called the 
 philosophical and the phenomenalist point of view, of the kind 
 which I have endeavoured to prevent. Against the first of 
 these Mr Ferrier has well shown how the distinction, in the 
 above-named processes, is not between existence and non- 
 existence, between something and nothing, but between known- 
 ness, knowableness, knowable existence and what he (in his 
 language) calls 'nonsense' or 'the contradictory'. Against the 
 latter he has shown that the double point of view merely results 
 from confusion of thought. 
 
 Mr Ferrier claims for himself much merit for his ' agnoi- 
 ology', or theory of ignorance, of that kind which Sir William 
 Hamilton is very fond of claiming, namely, that he is here 
 original, and the first to break new ground. This merit does 
 not seem to me so great in philosophy as in some other 
 branches of thought or literature, for the reason that the pro- 
 blems of philosophy are all so intertwined together, that from 
 the first, in the touching of any of them, they have all been 
 more or less touched, and to distinguish between what is really 
 new, and what is only the same thing in other words, is diffi- 
 cult. But the calling attention to the difference between igno- 
 rance (so to call it) of the knowable and that mere nescience 
 (so to call it) which must be the state of mind in regard of that 
 which is not matter of knowledge, is an observation of much 
 importance. If borne in mind, it would prevent much foolish 
 talk in depreciation of human intelligence. 
 
 I will repeat summarily the view which I have given above 
 myself, and I think Mr Ferrier, with a manner of expression of 
 his own, and a more ambitious, perhaps a better, method, does 
 not in its great features differ from it. 
 
 The course of objective knowledge is the growth of the non- 
 ego, which from the first, in conjunction with the ego, we are 
 conscious of, into distinctness. The spring or start in this 
 course is given by (what I suppose we must consider a pri- 
 mary fact of all intelligence) the attribution, in the first 
 instance, to each one of these members of the form of thought 
 under which we view the other: i. e. the attribution of objective 
 knowableness to our felt self, and the attribution of subjective 
 knowingness or mind to the non-ego. The latter of these two
 
 IV.] FERRIERS INSTITUTES OF METAPHYSIC. 57 
 
 facts is the spring of objective knowledge. Sensation simply 
 and of itself, considered in its relation to knowledge or the later 
 and grown intellectual sensation, might be regarded (Mr Fer- 
 rier has spoken well about this) as the subjective state answer- 
 ing to which, as object or quasi-object, stands what I have 
 generally called confusion or a non-ego of confusion, what Mr 
 Ferrier calls nonsense or the contradictory. It is the projection 
 of ourself into this confusion which begins to generate order in 
 it. It is the supposition of an unity in one and another phase 
 of the non-ego, as we are conscious of them, which unitv is 
 really a projection or extension of our subjective selves, or taking 
 ourselves, the first and most immediate thing we are conscious 
 of, as the type of existence, which makes us (in psychological 
 language) co-ordinate our sensations into masses which suggest 
 to us things ; which gives law to the disorderly mass, and really 
 (in Dr "WhewelTs language) informs (gives form to) or forms 
 the sensation. The continual correction of this by successive 
 experiences divides our knowledge into two lines, or generates 
 on the one side what I have called the phenomenalist view, on 
 the other that of the higher philosophy. For a complete view 
 of things, we in our most developed and instructed thought 
 suppose as much mind in the objective universe as we did in 
 our first and most uninstructed thought. The difference is, 
 that we now suppose an embodiment of the thought or mind 
 which stands between it and our thought or mind: the pheno- 
 menal view is the resting, more or less, in this embodiment, 
 without the thought of its suggesting anything beyond : the 
 supposing it a quasi-absolute, an ultimate fact so far as we are 
 concerned, either for some purposes or entirely and for all. If 
 the former, there is simply that view which is true so far as it 
 goes, and is the basis of all physical science : if the latter, there 
 is what I have called positivism or mis-phenomenalism: a 
 simple negation of everything beyond phenomenalism. 
 
 Knowledge from the philosophical point of view is a com- 
 munication of mind with mind through an embodiment or 
 It of the one, analyzed or traced back out of embodiment or 
 result into thoughl again, by the other. The process or manner 
 of this analysis may 1>" variously described: it is the mistaken, 
 but continuously corrected, attribution to what wo aro con-
 
 58 ferrier's institutes op metapiiysic. [chap. 
 
 scious of as different from ourselves, of the mind which is in 
 ourselves : one thing after another detaches itself from this 
 supposition, and is considered to exist what we call merely phe- 
 nomenally, and by the continuance of this process the mind 
 which we contemplate is set farther and further off from us: 
 but the entire view, if we think rightly, never alters or should 
 alter. The process of knowledge again, logically viewed, is a 
 continued (logical) creation of an orderly universe out of what, 
 but for knowledge, has no properties and cannot have anything 
 thought or said about it: but this creation is always felt or 
 understood by us not as a creation, but as a recognition : while 
 Ave are really throwing our own mind into the inform (unformed) 
 matter of sensation, what we think is, that we are meeting 
 another mind. The great problem of the higher philosophy, as 
 distinguished from simple epistemology or philosophy of know- 
 ledge, is tp examine the validity of this feeling, understanding, 
 thought, that we do not, in knowing or perceiving, make things, 
 but find them. There is a phenomenal outward universe, com- 
 municating with our brain and nerves, an environment corre- 
 sponding to our organized or corporeal life : but when we say, 
 the one thing which we are certain of is our consciousness, in 
 the first instance, only, and the development of that; does the 
 manner of this development suggest any antithesis, anything 
 correspondent to, or we may say, communicating with, that, 
 through and beyond phenomenalism ? and does it suggest such 
 reasonably ? 
 
 "We are really conscious of a non-ego as of an ego, we are 
 not therefore the only existence, and from this it seems to me 
 to follow, that we have reason in considering that in evolving 
 (by thought), order and character, or somethingness out of mere 
 disorder — objects out of prse-objectal possibility — we are not the 
 only mind at work : as much as we feel ourselves mind, we feel 
 ourselves one mind, and that there may be others. We know 
 things therefore not only because we are, but because there are 
 things which can be known : because there are things which 
 have in them the quality or character of knowableness, i.e. a 
 counterpart or adaptedness to reason : which is, however we 
 like to describe it, the same as a mind or reason so far insub- 
 stantiated or embodied. I do not wish to follow this out into
 
 iv.] ferrier's institutes of metapiiysic. 59 
 
 any conclusions of Natural Theology : only to indicate, that with 
 respect to this, is the real difference of view in all philosophy. 
 
 The difference as to philosophical view which is a real and 
 fundamental one, whereas almost all differences which cannot 
 be resolved into this have in them more or less of vagueness and 
 mutual misunderstanding, is that between what I have called 
 'positivism' on the one side, and on the other a view contrasted 
 with this, which has no single name, though in application to 
 ethics I should call it ' idealism'. The point of the difference is 
 that in the former we look upon what we can find out by phy- 
 sical research as ultimate fact, so far as we are concerned, and 
 upon conformity with it as the test of truth : so that nothing is 
 admitted as true except so far as it follows by some process 
 of inference from this. In opposition to this, the contrasted 
 view is to the effect, that for philosophy, for our entire judg- 
 ment about things, we must go beyond this, or rather go further 
 back than it, the ultimate fact really (however for the purposes 
 of physical science we may assume the former) for us — the basis 
 upon which all rests — being not that things exist, but that we 
 know them, i.e. think of them as existing: the order of things 
 in this view is not, existence first, and then knowledge with 
 
 axd to this or to parts of it arising in whatever manner; but 
 knowledge first, involving or implying the existence of what is 
 known, but logically at least, prior to it, and conceivably more 
 :nsive than it, and not all meeting with application. In the 
 former view, knowledge about things is looked upon as a possi- 
 bly supervi ning accident to them or of them: in the latter 
 view, their knowableness is a part, and the most important 
 part, of their reality or essential being. In the former view 
 mind is supposed to follow, desultorily and accidentally, after 
 matter of fact: in the latter view mind or consciousness begins 
 with recognizing itself as a part of an entire supposed matter 
 of fact or universe, and next as correspondent, in its subjective 
 character, b> the whole >>f this besides as object, while the un- 
 derstanding of this latter ;i / "//, germinates into the notion 
 of the recognition of other mind or reason in it. 
 
 The various distinctions, as 1- twe a * sensualism' and 'ideal- 
 ism'— -between ' inductive' and 'intuitive', 'a posteriori' and 'a 
 priori', philosophy— and oth< rs, represenl bo far a real and n< i
 
 CO ferrier's institutes of metaphysic. [chap. 
 
 sary conflict of thought as they embody, each of them, more or 
 less of the above distinction or contrast ; and not more. 
 
 This may be a convenient place for a word or two upon a 
 point, in the treating of which I shall refer not only to 
 Mr Ferrier, but by anticipation to one or two books hereafter to 
 be noticed, as those of Sir William Hamilton and Mr Mill. 
 This is the point of the relativeness of knowledge, and the 
 question of ' things in themselves'. 
 
 There seems a good deal of misapprehension and confusion 
 in people's minds about this. To speak first about ' things in 
 themselves'. 
 
 Our knowledge may be contemplated in either of two ways, 
 or, to use other words, we may speak in a double manner of the 
 ' object' of knowledge. That is, we may either use language 
 thus, we know a thing, a man, &c. : or we may use it thus: we 
 know such and such things about the thing, the man, &c. 
 Language in general, following its true logical instinct, dis- 
 tinguishes between these two applications of the notion of 
 knowledge, the one being yvSvai, noscere, kennen, connaitre, the 
 other being elSevai, scire, wissen, savoir. In the origin, the for- 
 mer may be considered more what I have called phenomenal — 
 it is the notion of knowledge as acquaintance or familiarity with 
 what is known : which notion is perhaps more akin to the phe- 
 nomenal bodily communication, and is less purely intellectual 
 than the other : it is the kind of knowledge which we have of a 
 thing by the presentation of it to the senses or the representa- 
 tion of it in a picture or type, a ' vorstellung'. The other, which 
 is what we express in judgments or propositions, what is em- 
 bodied in 'begriffe' or concepts without any necessary imagina- 
 tive representation, is in its origin the more intellectual notion 
 of knowledge. 
 
 There is no reason however why we should not express 
 our knowledge, whatever its kind, in either manner, provided 
 only we do not confusedly express it, in the same proposition 
 or piece of reasoning, in both. I am not sure whether Mr 
 Ferrier, in general so clear, is not in this particular otherwise, 
 when he speaks of our knowledge as the knowing ourselves as 
 knowing or apprehending, or the knowing that we know and 
 apprehend, the object of our knowledge. I have said that he
 
 iv.] ferrier's institutes of metaphysic. Gl 
 
 seems to lose sight of the necessity of giving an account of 
 the last-mentioned knowledge, or apprehension. Is the word 
 ' know • in the two parts of the sentence used in the same or 
 in different meanings ? 
 
 It appears to me that the notion of a difference between 
 things in themselves and things as we know them arises in the 
 main from the confusion together of these two views of know- 
 ledge. If by knowledge we mean acquaintance or familiarity, 
 kenntniss, then we know the thing in itself, partially indeed and 
 indistinctly, but still in the same manner in which we or any 
 intelligence must always go on knowing it till the knowing is 
 exhausted and the kernel (or rather central point) reached. If 
 we begin, as to the thing, with this notion of knowing, we 
 must keep this notion to the last. We must not suppose that 
 however we may go on making acquaintance with the thing 
 till we know it in this way thoroughly, there is still something 
 to be known about it which is the real and important know- 
 ledge, and which cannot be attained to. What is defective here 
 is not our knowledge, but our logic. 
 
 Perhaps the mistake, as I think it, most frequently pre- 
 sents itself when there is taken, in the beginning, the other view 
 of knowledge. Here I must make a preliminary remark on the 
 use of the terms 'subject' and 'object'. 
 
 If we wish to try the clearness of a philosopher's thought, it 
 seems to me that the crucial test is his use of the term ' object' 
 in application to knowledge. 
 
 ' Subject' and 'object', in their common application to know- 
 ledge, though they form an antithesis in use, do not form one 
 in proper signification. Or, in other words, they arc not proper 
 correlatives. The object is not the object of the subject, or 
 vice versa. I, the knower or intelligence, am the subject of the 
 knowledge, because the knowledge, here, is considered a quality 
 or property attaching to me or which I possess. What I know 
 is the hhject of the knowledge because the knowing, here, is 
 considered an action on my part, not a quality. The two 
 terms are therefore, in different views, relatives to tjie know- 
 ledge, and not properly correlatives of each other. They are 
 only antithetic in use. 
 
 The appropriation of the t< 1 m 'subjecl of knowledge to the
 
 G2 terrier's institutes of metaphysics [chap. 
 
 knowing intelligence has, it so happens, damaged philosophical 
 thought in this manner, that it has interfered with the appli- 
 cation of it in various other ways in which it was needed. 
 When we speak of knowledge in that which I gave as the 
 second view of it, as the knowing this and that about a thing, 
 we want the term 'subject' (as it is used in logic) to express 
 the thing about which what is known (the proper 'object' of 
 the knowledge) is known. Using it now in this sense (I have, 
 where necessary, done so before) I think that the confusion which 
 I have above alluded to as to ' things in themselves ' arises from 
 this, that after, with the meaning of knowledge which I am 
 now supposing, we have known (if it is so) about the thing all 
 that there is to be known, we still, mistakenly, think there is 
 something wanting unless we know, with the first sort of know- 
 ledge or that of acquaintance, the thing which all the other 
 knowledge was about. But that thing, supposing we use such 
 language about it, was itself no object of knowledge, and never 
 entered in thought as such, or even possibly such. The thing 
 in this view of knowledge, 'is all' that can be known about it', and 
 when we have come to this, we have come to the end, not only of 
 our knowledge, but of all possible knowledge, in this direction. 
 
 The notion of the relativeness of knowledge is to be con- 
 sidered much in the same manner. There is little significance 
 in saying that knowledge is 'relative'. It is itself a relation; 
 between the knowing mind and the object known: and this 
 relation arguing a prior one between the mind as capable of 
 knowledge on the one side and the matter of knowledge as, 
 whether actually known or not, knowable, on the other: it 
 shows, that is, an existing constitution or state of things to 
 which the knowing mind and the matter of knowledge both 
 belong. And more than this, knowledge not only is a relation, 
 but it is of relations or related things : that, of which or about 
 which the knowledge is, must be constituted somehow, must 
 have particularity and character involving relations to other 
 things, or qualities having relations to each other, in order for 
 knowledge to be possible of or about it. The unconditioned, 
 unparticular, unqualitied, unpropertied, cannot be known, there 
 being no means of distinguishing it, and nothing to be known 
 about it.
 
 iv.] ferrier's institutes of metaphtsic. G3 
 
 So far then as we talk of knowledge in general, or from the 
 logical point of view, as being relative, what is really meant is 
 that it is itself a relation, and is knowledge of the relative as 
 variously related. 
 
 So far as we speak of our own knowledge, or the knowledge 
 of any minds of supposed particular constitution, being rela- 
 tive, the notion is different, and what is meant then is, 'relative 
 to that constitution '. And here it is important to observe 
 what, in or about the knowledge, is relative in this maimer. 
 The meaning of 'relative' here is 'different' (more or less) 'ac- 
 cording as the intelligent constitution is different' — varying with 
 that. But in this case, it is not the knowledge proper which 
 differs, but what we might rather call the means of it ; or, if 
 we prefer the language, it is not the important and higher 
 part of the knowledge, but the lower and subsidiary. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton's language is, that all that can be 
 possibly known is not existence, but modes of existence — and 
 only some of these modes, according to the particular consti- 
 tution of the knowing mind — and then not the modes them- 
 selves but only modifications of them, determined by the facul- 
 ties making up that constitution. We do not know existence, 
 or the things themselves, but only modifications of some, out 
 of many possible, modifications of them 1 . 
 
 This seems to me to be a very vain multiplication of logical 
 barriers between our intelligence and the thing which we suppose 
 ourselves to know. What is added by the particularity of our 
 Intelligence t - * the general tact of know ledge is, undoubtedly, that 
 we know through sense (under Sir William Hamilton's modifica- 
 tions, see i he '[notation) and that we know, we may say for conve- 
 nience, through some senses, it being possible for us to conceive a 
 larger number (we know some therefore only, in Sir William 
 Eamilton'a language, of the modes of existence). This is what I 
 have in other [ibices expressed by saying, that we are, whatever 
 
 1 LectureBon Metaphysics, p. 148, ed. 2. 'All our knowledge is only relative. 
 It is relative, i", because existence is not cognisable absolutely and in itself, but 
 only 2", because these modes can be known only if they stand 
 
 in a certain relation to oui faculties: and 3°, because the modes, thus relative to 
 our faculties, an presented to, and Known by, the mind only under modifies 
 lions determined bj tfc lti< 1 then Ivi
 
 04 ferrier's institutes of metapiiysic. [chap. 
 
 we may be besides, phenomenal or corporeal beings, communi- 
 cating, as such, with a phenomenal or physical universe, and 
 communicating with it in certain definite ways, which ways we 
 might conceive multiplied. It appears to me that Sir William 
 Hamilton's description of all this as 'our knowledge being 
 relative' is language likely to puzzle and confuse both physics 
 and logic. It seems to imply that if we had more senses (a 
 special organ, e. g. for the perception of magnetism, as the eye 
 for that of light) our present physical knowledge would cease 
 to be real, its reality depending upon our having the particular 
 senses, and no others, which we have. Whereas I conclude 
 that the conception of the physical universe which we form in 
 accordance with our present sensive powers, though it might 
 possibly be absorbed and altered in form by an addition to 
 them, is and must ever remain real and valid so far as it goes. 
 In the same manner this ' relativeness of our knowledge' seems 
 to imply that our knowledge, as through sense, must be con- 
 sidered as what I should call incommensurable, that is, out of 
 relation, non-communicable, with that of any conceivable in- 
 telligence which was not attained through sense, like ours. As 
 the other view puzzles physics, this seems to me to puzzle 
 philosophy and logic. My view is, that though we not only 
 perceive, but even more or less, think, by means of sense, yet 
 that the results of our thought, so far as they are to be held 
 as knowledge or true, must be valid for, and intelligible to, and 
 communicable with, all conceivable intelligence, by whatever 
 means, different from ours, it may have attained to its results. 
 Knowledge is one and the same. 
 
 It seems to me that the proper statement of the fact is, 
 that knowledge, which as I have said is itself a relation and 
 implies for its significance a relation or particularity in things, 
 comes into existence in our case owing to what we may call, if 
 we like it, a relation between our intelligent selves and our 
 phenomenal organism, and to a second definite relation between 
 the parts of this organism and the constituents of the material 
 world. Whether we like or not to use the word 'relation' in 
 this multiplied manner, is a matter of description, carrying no 
 consequences. We may express, if we like it, by the term 
 'relative' properly understood, what I have endeavoured to
 
 IV.] ferrier's institutes of metaphysic. G5 
 
 express by 'phenomenalism.' I have called the phenomenalist 
 view an abstraction, by which I have meant, that though true 
 in its proper place, it must not be taken to represent the entire 
 of what we ought to think, and becomes erroneous if it is so 
 taken. If the relativeness of our particular knowledge is un- 
 derstood as expressing this, I have nothing to say against it : 
 nor again if it be taken to mean simply that our generic intel- 
 ligence, as compared with that of one and another sort of ani- 
 mals, or as compared with that of conceivable incorporeal beings, 
 is particular, our own, in the means and manner of it. No one 
 could doubt this. 
 
 With regard to the relativeness of knowledge in general, 
 as Sir William Hamilton has exhibited it in the first of his three 
 reasons why knowledge is relative, I would refer to what I have 
 said about 'things in themselves'. The 'thing in itself if we 
 use that lan^ua^e, or ' existence ' if we use Sir William Hamil- 
 ton's, may be considered either as a simply logical entity, a 
 manner of expression necessary for us because we wish to con- 
 sider knowledge as the knowing about something, the forming 
 of judgments, scientia — in which case it is not the object of 
 knowledge at all, but simply the. logical subject of the judg- 
 ments, and the notion of reality attaches not to it, but to the 
 sum of what is and can be known about it: or it may be con- 
 sidered as the intended object of the knowledge, what the mind, 
 acting in the way of intuition, apprehension, kenntniss (not, 
 i.e. judgment about) is always aiming at, to whatever degree it 
 succeeds. 'Existence,' says Sir William Hamilton, in the pas- 
 sage already cited, ' is not cognisable absolutely and in itself, 
 but only in special modes.' If cognition is taken in the former 
 view, then the sum of the modes of the existence is the exist- 
 ence itself, as an object of knowledge, and there is no relative- 
 ness, though there may be partialness, some of the modes only 
 being known, and nut others. And this view is what cognition 
 must be taken in fur the word 'absolute' tu have its proper 
 in' aning, antithetical to 'relative'. If it is taken in the latter 
 view, absolute only means 'complete', and cognisable 'completely' 
 cognisable The suppositiun that existence is a reality, and yet 
 that we can only know it in modes, (i.e. the whole supposition 
 of relativeness of knowledge) Beems t" me exactly a confusion
 
 66 FERRIEIt's INSTITUTES OF METAPHYSIC. [CHAP. 
 
 of the two views of knowledge (the simultaneous employment 
 of which is almost a sort of juggling) which I have described. 
 Supposing us to have exhausted, in knowledge, all the modes of 
 existence, we are told, you know all about it, but you do not 
 know it. In reality acquaintance with, intuition or apprehen- 
 sion or comprehension of, it, and judging correctly and exhaust- 
 ively this, that, and the other thing, about it, are two ways of 
 expressing the same thing, and either of them are definitions 
 of knowledge : the difficulties as to relativeness seem to me to 
 arise simply from a confusion between the two. 
 
 It aj)pears to me, accordingly, that the language of almost 
 all the Kantist-speaking philosophers has been a language of 
 uncertainty between the saying, It is absurd to talk of know- 
 ing things in themselves, or, which is the same thing, of con- 
 ceiving the unconditioned, and the saying, It is vainly presump- 
 tuous to think of doing so. The two ways of speaking involve 
 entirely different views. If the impossibility of conceiving the 
 unconditioned is logical, because there is nothing to conceive, 
 (the unconditioned being merely a logical figment, for certain 
 purposes, of the knowable divested of what makes it know- 
 able) then the refraining from the attempt to conceive it is no 
 restraint, or subjugation, or submission of the intellect to 
 limits traced out for it, which it must not transcend : such 
 attempts then are simply mistakes, and there is no reason why 
 people should not find out the mistakenness of them (though 
 of course we may tell them they will find it) by making the 
 attempts, and seeing the absurdity which results. All the 
 language about submitting or restraining the intellect belongs 
 to the other view, in which the impossibility of conceiving the 
 unconditioned is supposed not in this manner logical, but an 
 accident of our particular intelligence. We are then, sup- 
 posedly, bound down to certain ways of viewing things which 
 we see to be particular ways, being able, so far as this, to 
 criticize, i.e. to rise above, our particular intelligence, while, 
 at the same time, we are unable to conceive how the things 
 can be seen in any other way than these particular ones, or 
 what they, independent of the ways of seeing them, are. This, 
 of course, puts the intellect in a state of unstable equilibrium, 
 of a sort of war with itself, of struggle, effort, and difficult}-.
 
 IV.] ferrier's institutes of metaphysic. G7 
 
 All those forms of idealism which represent the present state 
 of things in which we are as ' phenomenal' , in the original mean- 
 ing of the term, beyond and through which we may form an 
 imperfect conception of unseen realities, embody more or 
 less this view. And while, as I think, every supposition of 
 religion necessitates this view in a certain measure, there is 
 reason, though the proceeding is not one with which I have 
 myself much sympathy, in the endeavour, for the interest of 
 definite religion, to restrain the too great activity of the intel- 
 lect in these directions, and to enforce upon it moderation and 
 submission. But what there is not reason in is the endeavour 
 to reinforce this restraint by means of a view quite inconsistent 
 with the view upon which the notion of restraint depends, by 
 means, i. e. of the view which I have given above, namely, that 
 the attempt to conceive anything beyond the phenomenal 
 world is merely illogical and leads to nonsense. 
 
 I have gone into this however rather more at length than I 
 meant here. 
 
 In taking leave of Mr Ferrier, I would say again, that in 
 giving my own view some time since, and supposing his to be 
 similar, I am not quite certain whether I am justified. He is, 
 I think, superfluously occupied in making his demonstration 
 inexpugnable, and scarcely, I think, explains sufficiently the 
 exact point of some of his expressions. Knowledge, in my 
 view, is the mingling our own consciousness with a certain (so 
 to call it) pne-objectal matter of knowledge of which we are so 
 far conscious, as that it is that, by distinction from which we 
 know ourselves: and it is this mingling which generates objects, 
 or converts the supposed occasions of our feelings, a continuous 
 undigested confusion otherwise, into things. When Mr Ferrier 
 
 - that we think the subject with the object, I rather ques- 
 tion the term 'object' in this application: if, till the subject is 
 added to it, there is no knowledge, it is not as yet, or itself, 
 the object. And Mr Ferrier hardly sufficiently explains whe- 
 ther lie means to pass from the notion of ourselves as knowing. 
 or from knowledge being 'knowledge that we know', which of 
 itself, 1 think, is not very important, to the notion of ourselves, 
 or pari of our selv< s, known in the object, which is the importanl 
 one. It is this which really leads on, in the chain of thought, to 
 
 .9 — _
 
 63 ferrier's institutes of metaphysic. [chap. 
 
 the notion of knowledge being the meeting, through the inter- 
 vention of phenomenal matter and the conversion of it into in- 
 tellectual objects, with the thoughts, proceeding in the opposite 
 direction, of mind or a mind like our own, however wider and 
 vaster. This is my version of Mr Ferrier's final propositions. 
 
 But I think a great deal of time is wasted in discussing 
 and rediscussing what one and another philosopher means. Or, 
 granting the value of this for the ancient philosophers, of 
 whom we have very imperfect remains, I think we may very 
 well do it too much in regard of the modern ones. Philosophical 
 language is very uncertain, and it is a good thing, in some points 
 of view, that it -is so, for this manifold uncertainty is a great 
 security against mere unmeaningness in the language. No phi- 
 losopher who reflects on this uncertainty, but must feel the im- 
 portance of making effort to set before both himself and his 
 readers what he himself means by the terms he uses. Nor is 
 any logic or reasoning in a philosophical book of the slightest 
 value without special care given in this respect. But beyond 
 this, a philosopher's view will probably be of most value to us 
 by our conceiving it in our own way, provided we think about 
 it bond fide and without putting force upon it. In a real 
 philosopher, the ground of the whole, the fundamental view, 
 is something very hard, if possible, to put into words and which 
 he probably labours much in expressing, and perhaps he does 
 this by using various manners of expression, or perhaps he may 
 be unwilling to mar such distinctness of expression of it as he 
 may have attained by illustrations of it which may lead to mis- 
 apprehension. In these cases, an infinite literature may be 
 taken up in discussing and rediscussing what he meant. The 
 important thing is how far what he meant or what we may sup- 
 pose him to have meant is suggestive of what is the truth. 
 
 I have said however very little about Mr Ferrier's book 
 itself. I will give now a few of his own words, with comments 
 on them, comparing them with my views. 
 
 How my view stands upon the whole with his I cannot quite 
 make out. His manner of expression is so exceedingly differ- 
 ent from mine, some of it being quite unintelligible to me, that 
 whether what he means is the same on the whole as what I 
 mean, or something quite different, I cannot tell. When there-
 
 iv.] fekrier's institutes of metaphysic. 69 
 
 fore I say that I agree with him, and that what he says seems 
 to me right, I interpret him in my own way, and if any one 
 disputes that being his meaning, I have no care to maintain 
 that it is. "What I say then is not applicable to him. I have 
 observed upon the inutility of lengthened controversy as to 
 whether a philosopher means this or that. Suppose him to 
 mean either or both or neither, and let us see only how what 
 it may be thought he means helps the truth, and suggests 
 thought in us. 
 
 Mr Ferrier says 1 , "Philosophy is not only a war, but it is a 
 " war in which none of the combatants understands the grounds 
 " either of his own opinion or of that of his adversary : or sees 
 " the roots of the side of the question which he is either attack- 
 " ing or defending." And again 2 , "Now, no" (philosophical) "ques- 
 " tion comes before the world which does not present many 
 " disguises, both natural and artificial, worn one above another : 
 " and these false faces are continually increasing. . . It may be 
 "affirmed with certain tv that no man, for the last two thousand 
 "years, has seen the true flesh-and-blood countenance of a single 
 " philosophical problem." Mr Ferrier expresses himself strongly, 
 but otherwise this his starting-point is quite mine. Philoso- 
 phical controversy is full of confusion, and this is one great 
 reason of resultlessness of it. But with his remedy I cannot agree : 
 that is, with the applicability of it. We want, he says, strictly 
 reasoned philosophy : and when we have it, we shall be so cer- 
 tain that we have it, it will be so evidently irrefragable, that 
 we shall take our ground with the most perfect confidence as 
 against all possible controversy. His own Institutes, Mr Fer- 
 rier considers, furnish such a philosophy, and the language of 
 confidence with which he speaks about them is extraordinary. 
 
 It is extraordinary, because his first proposition, which lie 
 takes as a sorl of axiom to build the rest upon, is, as we have 
 seen, controverted by Mr Herbert Spencer (and in fact by many 
 more) and is even it would appear, thought to require support 
 and defence by Mr Kerricr himself. 
 
 This proposition is, that the act of knowledge is not know- 
 ledge -imply of the object of knowledge, but is knowledge of 
 
 1 Page 5. 3 Page 9.
 
 70 terrier's institutes of metapiiysic. [chap. 
 
 ourselves, the subject, along with the object, and as knowing 
 the object. 
 
 I have already hinted a comment or two on this. I agree 
 with Mr Ferrier. Mr Herbert Spencer's view is one which I 
 may possibly touch on further forward : it may be put, as I 
 understand it, thus : the object is more important and imme- 
 diate to knowledge than the subject is : knowledge must have 
 an object, but it may be conceived, i. e. at the ultimate point, 
 as without a subject : in knowledge there must be something 
 known, but, conceivably, and for a moment, there may be know- 
 ledge without its being anybody's knowledge, without anybody's 
 thinking or feeling it : the basal fact is not ' cogito', not sensa- 
 tion or consciousness, but, as we may say, 'hoc cogitatur', or 
 'cogitatur de hoc', from which, though still in my view 'ergo 
 sum' may be concluded, it is by a longer process. 
 
 I am not going to discuss this point, which is the often 
 discussed one of the nature of personality, and only say, that 
 in point of method I do not see what is gained by Mr Ferrier 
 putting a system of philosophy professedly reasoned in such a 
 manner as to preclude all controversy, upon a point thus con- 
 trovertible, however, in my view, he may be right upon it. 
 
 Interpreting Mr Ferrier, as I have said, in my own way, 
 and translating him into my own language, I might under- 
 stand, by this master proposition guiding our whole view of 
 knowledge, what I should express as follows : that knowledge 
 is this ; thought, justifying itself to us as right thought (belief, 
 if any choose to call it) of ourselves as communicating, ac- 
 quainted, in contact, with a something not ourselves ; but this 
 at the same time requires the accompanying thought (as to 
 which I do not know whether it appears in any form in Mr 
 Ferrier) of ourselves as so to speak extending into something 
 not ourselves, or having a being partaking of that which is not 
 ourselves besides our simple being in virtue of which we think : 
 this is what I have called our phenomenal or corporeal selves : 
 this second thought being present, it is seen that the commu- 
 nication, the object of the first thought, is at various steps : 
 communication of ourselves as thinking with thought, and 
 again of ourselves as phenomenal with physical fact : the com- 
 munication at the lower stages gives us what I have called
 
 iv.] feruier's institutes of metaphysic. 71 
 
 'phenomenalism': this may be treated by itself, as hioidedge so 
 far as it goes : but it does not represent an entire view of know- 
 ledge, being all included in the leading thought with which we 
 began, and there being knowledge above and beside it. 
 
 How far Mr Ferrier's view is really intended to be of the 
 nature of this, which is mine, those who read him and me must 
 judge. 
 
 The valuable point in Mr Ferrier, in my view, is, as I have 
 said, his consistency in distinguishing what I have called the 
 philosophical and phenomenalist view. But we must have a 
 transition from one to the other, though we must be careful 
 u'hat transition : and in reference to this I will comment on a 
 passage of his 1 . "That which we call 'I' is the object of intel- 
 " lect alone. We are never objects of sense to ourselves. A man 
 " can see and touch his body, but he cannot see and touch 
 
 "himself. When the cognizance of self is laid down as the 
 
 "condition of all knowledge, this of course does not mean that 
 " certain objects of sense (external things, to wit) arc apprehended 
 " through certain other objects of sense (our own bodies, namely), 
 " for such a statement would be altogether futile. It would leave 
 " the question precisely where it found it." This is important and 
 true, time, I think, as against views of Sir William Hamilton 
 and Mr Mansel which I have touched on, but we must take 
 care of overstatement. What is the meaning of ' our own 
 bodies'? Taking 'external things' as our type of 'objects of 
 sense', our own bodies are not, except subsequently and par- 
 tially, objects of sense to us in this way. 
 
 I v, ill imt dwell upon this, having already spoken a good deal 
 on the subject in another reference. It appears to me that Sir 
 William Hamilton and probably others are obnoxious to what 
 Mi- Ferrier says here': but it seems to me that he is in error in 
 Bpeaking of our own bodies as it' they were merely, in relation 
 to us, external things like the things which surround them. 
 They are a real intermediation between 'us,' (Mr Ferrier's '1'), 
 and externa] things: they belong to both worlds in this way: 
 not thai feeling, or thought is local, for it is not our band thai 
 feels, hut 'wo'; not, •_■;. d 1 1 -_; tie- other way, thai locality is Colt 
 with real consciousness, for what we feel with feeling thus 
 
 1 Page So.
 
 72 ferrier's institutes of metaphysic. [chap. 
 
 meant (i. e. as consciousness) is the amount of will or force that 
 we exert: but that, in that apprehension of self which Mr Fer- 
 rier justly lays down as at the root of knowledge, the self 
 apprehended is not merely the same thing as the self appre- 
 hending, in which case the process would be unimportant: the 
 apprehending the apprehended self is the clothing it with 
 various predicates (then, indeed, first understood), among them 
 locality (corporealness or phenomenalness). That is how it is 
 that our bodies are ourselves and not ourselves: we feel by 
 means of them and we do not feel by means of them: it is 
 not they that feel, but we, but we feel that we should not feel 
 without them. However on this I have spoken. 
 
 Some of Mr Ferrier's sentences seem better adapted than 
 anything else that I know of to cure in the minds of students 
 the great psychological confusion : such as 1 , "The expositors of 
 " Pythagoras's theory of numbers have usually thought " (I do 
 not guarantee the fact) " that things are already numbered by 
 " nature either as one or many, and that all that P3 T thagoras 
 " taught was that we re-number them when they come before 
 " us". And again, "A theory which professes to explain how 
 " things became intelligible must surely not suppose that they 
 " are intelligible before they become so". And again 2 , "As 
 " if any genuine idealism ever denied the existence of external 
 " things — ever denied that these things were actually and bond 
 "fide external to us. Idealism never denied this: it only asks 
 " what is the meaning of 'external' considered out of all re- 
 " lation to ' internal', and it shows that, out of this relation, the 
 " word ' external' has, and can have, no meaning." 
 
 What Mr Ferrier attacks he calls himself, ' ordinary or na- 
 tural thinking, confirmed and made worse by psychology'. It 
 seems to me to be three things, on the first of which I only par- 
 tially agree with him, on the other two quite. 
 
 On the first point however I am not sure whether his view 
 is single and one. He condemns (philosophically) ordinary or 
 natural thinking, with its 'plausibilities' 3 , and considers that 
 philosophy only exists 4 "to correct the inadvertencies of man's 
 
 "ordinary thinking. She has no other mission to fulfil no 
 
 "other business to do". To settle, as a fact, what 'ordinary or 
 
 1 Page 89. s Page 105. 3 Page 25. * Page 29.
 
 IV.] FERRIERS INSTITUTES OF METAPHTSIC. 73 
 
 natural' thinking is, is' difficult enough, as any one will know 
 who has read Bishop Berkeley. And then are 'ordinary' and 
 ' natural' the same ? It seems to me that there are two ways 
 of common thinking, which may well be expressed by these 
 several words, and that each, also, is only ■partially wrong. 
 
 Suppose we call 'ordinary thinking' that which is repre- 
 sented by common language. This, in the main, I believe in, 
 and think it is right. It represents what may be described 
 as the way we learn, or come to our knowledge: it is only 
 partially what I call ' phenomenalist', containing, besides, a 
 large amount of logical notion, here in its place, and most 
 helpful to learning and speculation : the phenomenalism which 
 it has represents a sort of normal condition, or mean level, 
 of phenomenalistic thought, at which perhaps the human race 
 will always stand — (I mean we still talk of the sun rising, 
 oca). I am sorry to say, I have always had the feeling, that 
 the language of ordinary intelligent communication among men 
 is better than the language of philosophers. And the thought 
 therefore cannot be very bad. 
 
 Suppose we call 'natural' thought the thoroughly phenome- 
 nalistic view, as I have called it, which is what, with increase of 
 ; di ysical knowledge, there is in many ways more and more a 
 tendency to ; this, as I have said, is in my view perfectly right 
 in its place and for its own purposes, only not beyond. 
 
 With Mr Ferrier's account of what philosophy exists for, 
 just now quoted, I do not agree at all. So far as philosophy 
 does exist for any correction of this kind its use as to 'ordinary' 
 thinking seems to bo to prevent any tendency to what I should 
 r.ill 'notionalism', that is, to prevent people's thinking that the 
 'qualities', 'attributes' &c. which they talk about, and in my 
 view arc quite right in talking about, are the real things of 
 the universe. Similarly, its use as to 'natural' thinking would 
 be to prevenl phenomenalism trespassing, as I should call it, on 
 morals and religion, and becoming positivism. 
 
 So much t'"i- ill'' first tiling which it seems to me Mr Ferrier 
 attack., — the second is 'the philosophy of the human mind', 
 as he with .-Mini' kind of contempt calls it; psychology, or, as I 
 have called it, nob-psychology (as distinguished from physio- 
 psychology), the Lockian psychology or thai of thelasl centuiy.
 
 74 ferrier's institutes of metaphysic. [chap. 
 
 I may not despise this, as he seems to do, or think its re- 
 sults, as he does, 'frightful' 1 ; but I disagree with it as much 
 as he. 
 
 Under the name of 'psychology' Mr Ferrier includes the 
 third thing, not quite, it seems to me, the same as the last, 
 though it is what I equally agree with him in condemning ; and 
 in fact I have, in much that I have written, been attacking it. 
 It is the doctrine of the 'unknowable substratum', or 'thing in 
 itself. I refer to Mr Ferrier at page 128 for an account, too long 
 to quote, which I go with thoroughly, saving the philosophical 
 language. The misfortune is, that this philosophical difficulty 
 is worse than Proteus-like : it is not only infinitely self-transfor- 
 mative and scarcely any way seizable, but it has the property of 
 making those who most attempt to grasp it appear to hold 
 themselves all that is wrong in it, while itself puts on an ap- 
 pearance all innocent and right. People will say that Mr 
 Ferrier's ' matter per se ' is as bad as ' the unknowable sub- 
 stratum'. I believe, myself, that Mr Ferrier is right, and that 
 there is the error which he notices in those whom he criticizes : 
 but what we want is to be able to do without talking of this 
 horrible chimera which philosopher after philosopher will talk 
 about so much in order to persuade people what, while he does 
 so, he cannot get them to believe, that neither he nor anybody 
 can know anything about it. Consequently, I do not like the 
 language of 'matter per se'. 
 
 Nor am I certain that I see the bearing, on this question, of 
 his great law, that we apprehend ourselves in conjunction with 
 the object. Unfortunately, the method of his philosophy, its 
 being reasoned, as he calls it, which was to carry irrefragable 
 conviction and end controversy, is what I can but little enter 
 into or follow. I can, indeed, translate this ' law ' into my own 
 language, much as I have done : then Mr Ferrier seems to say 
 much the same as I, or I as he. But if I cannot appreciate 
 his demonstration, I can the point and clearness of many of 
 his sentences. 
 
 I may say the same, in reference to this subject, of his 
 Agnoiology or theory of ignorance. His manner of thought 
 here, as I understand it, is one which might strike many 
 
 1 Pa?e «o.s.
 
 iv.] ferrier's institutes of METAPHYSICS. 75 
 
 minds forcibly. We do not know this ' thiug in itself ', to be 
 sure, but then., on the other hand, Ave are not ignorant of it : 
 our state in regard of it is not that of ignorance, which is 
 what all you who talk about it imply, and even say : it is 
 no inore ignorance than it is knowledge : if you can find a 
 third alternative, that is our state in regard to it : if not. you 
 have no more right to say, expressly or impliedly, that we are 
 iornorant of it. than 1 have to sav we know it. This, as I 
 understand, is in other language what I meant by saying, that 
 the notion of knowledge is not applicable to it : that there is 
 nothing to know : that talking of knowing it is like talking of 
 eating light, or smelling sound : disparate, incongruous. 
 
 I will comment slightly on Mr Ferrier's language as to 
 the necessary and the contingent, that which is, and that which 
 is not, conceivable otherwise : with a view of showing how his 
 laniruasre differs from that which I have used. 
 
 Nature, he says in one place if I remember rightly', could 
 have made the sun to turn round the earth, instead of the 
 opposite, but could not have made two straight lines to end - 
 a spac . 
 
 Now here I do not go with him, and I allude to what 
 he thinks because it will perhaps illustrate my view, and be- 
 cause my difference with him spreads further. 
 
 The difference between the necessary and the contingent 
 
 usin g this latter term of what we know to be fact — to avoid 
 
 ambiguity, it might 1 tsatt it 'contingential') seems to 
 
 only a differ.. f our manner of arriving at knowledge ; 
 
 that ki _ which we arrive at chiefly by the way of thought 
 
 and : • n has to us more of the character which we call 
 necessity : that which is more of experience, acquaintance, testi- 
 mony, is contingential : but we cannot draw a line: we cannot 
 
 . one portion of knowledge i> and must be- known tons in the 
 one way, another part in the other: so far as the contingential 
 
 not approximate only or hypotheti- 
 cal, it inL q arrived at by the road of thought, and 
 then it would 1. ary : and, en the 
 other hand, there is no thought which is not exp I 
 have in another pJ I it, v. out ( eerythi 
 r that which rt with, our own exi-t- t
 
 76 ferrier's institutes op metaphysic. [chap. 
 
 I think Mr Ferrier's account of what nature could have done 
 in the above case is not correct — it depends on what we mean 
 by the ' sun ' and the ' earth '. 
 
 If in our notion of ' the sun ' and ' the earth ' we compre- 
 hend only a small number of their actual properties, it is ex- 
 ceedingly easy to suppose the order of things to have been 
 ' the sun round the earth '. Men did long so suppose. The 
 more ignorant we are of their properties, the more easy it is 
 to suppose it. That is, it is the omission of properties from 
 the notion which makes the easiness. 
 
 The straight line has got but one property (say), namely, that 
 it is the shortest distance between two points : there is therefore 
 but one thing to omit (to make a parallel case), and the suppo- 
 sition of omission is difficult, because there remains nothino- 
 for the notion. But omission thus being scarcely possible, let 
 us suppose, what is very likely, obscure view or inattention: 
 it is then perfectly possible to conceive that two straight lines 
 might inclose a space: and I dare say at this moment many 
 people would so conceive about them. 
 
 I am unable therefore to see any difference in nature's 
 power in the two cases : if she had made two straight lines to 
 inclose a space, they would not be what we now understand by 
 straight lines : if she had made the sun to turn round the earth, 
 these would not be what we now understand by the sun and 
 the earth: the solar system would have been different, and 
 very likely we should not be talking of the sun and the earth 
 at all. The difference in the cases is this : common language is 
 constructed on what I have called a sort of normal stage of phe- 
 nomenalism : hence for things like the sun there is a common, 
 non-scientific, language, but it does not express the full intelli- 
 gent notion ; for geometrical notions there is, I suppose, only 
 the scientific language, expressing the full notion. The sun 
 and the earth which can change their relative circumstances 
 are those of the vulgar, but then what the straight lines of the 
 vulgar may do, or what spaces they may inclose, I can hardly 
 tell — we must compare the sun and earth as they are, i. e. as we 
 best can know them, with straight lines as they are. 
 
 The notion of necessity and contingency is important with 
 Mr Ferrier in reference to knowledge altogether. I do not
 
 IV.] terrier's institutes of metaphysic. 77 
 
 • 
 
 propose to examine what lie says, "which would take too long, 
 only to say one or two words. 
 
 The contingent laws of cognition, he says, are the senses 
 and the circumstances of them : the necessary law of it is the 
 apprehension of self in conjunction with the object of know- 
 ledge. 
 
 So far as I understand this, it seems the same view which I 
 hold if we take care about these notions of 'necessity' and 
 ' contingence ', which nevertheless with Mr Ferrier play an 
 important part: there is a fact, a difference to be expressed, 
 but it is not an absolute difference, such as Mr Ferrier pro- 
 bably means to express by these terms. 
 
 His fundamental view, that all knowledge is of oneself in 
 conjunction with the object, is, as I understand it, what I 
 should translate in different ways into my language : one way 
 would be this. Our second or known self is to our first or think- 
 ing self, the great sense or faculty of knowledge, by which the 
 object is known. The notion then of the self (the known self) 
 being the necessary, the senses the contingent, accompaniments 
 of knowledge, seems to me to be simply an expression of the 
 subordination of the latter to the former. 
 
 All that I say about 'necessary' and 'contingent' here is 
 that they do not express an absolute difference : that they 
 shade off the one into the other ; they mean what I have in 
 another place called the comparatively important, and unim- 
 portant, parts of knowledge : the important, according to their 
 importance, belonging more universally to all intelligence : 
 the less important allowing the conception of a science of com- 
 parative epistemology, or of the different knowledge of different 
 beings according to their different cognitive organisations. 
 
 One of the b ildest efforts of abstract imagination (a sort of 
 thing I like very much) is made by Mr Ferrier in pp. 381, 382, 
 and it * ems to me rather to -how what 7" am saying. It is too 
 long to '| 'id 1 can hardly otherwise give an idea of it, 
 
 1 will Iim. • iy. 
 
 One and all of our presenl senses, he says, might be abolished, 
 and provided they were replaced by a set of different sens< 
 man's know 1< <L r '' of a tree, for instance, might be as perfeel as or 
 more perfect than il now is.... Bui Let us suppos the self which a
 
 78 ferrier's institutes of metaphysic. [chap. 
 
 man, knowing the tree, is cognisant of with the tree, to be ex- 
 changed for something else, and that some mode of apprehension 
 different from self-consciousness comes into play — would the 
 man, in that case, continue to have any cognisance of the tree ? 
 Certainly not. " Withhold any of a man's senses from his cog- 
 " nisance while he is conversant with external things, and he 
 " will still be able to apprehend them, provided you give him 
 " other modes of apprehension." But withhold a man's self 
 from his cognisance, and he shall not be able to apprehend the 
 things intelligently — give him what substitute and what endow- 
 ments you please in place of the self which has been withdrawn 
 from his cognition. 
 
 I have quoted textually the last sentence but one, on 
 account of an apparent hesitation or ambiguity, which I wish 
 observed, as to ' any' and 'other '. And I have cited the whole 
 passage, because the conclusion that / draw from it is this : that 
 'senses' (I do not say what senses) or other modes of ajsprehen- 
 sion (distinct from self-consciousness) are necessary : any sense 
 may be removed, but even then some particular mode of appre- 
 hension must be substituted for it : and, on the other side, that 
 'self-consciousness' is so far contingent, that it is possible to 
 make the supposition of some mode of apprehension being sub- 
 stituted for that (as is done in the second sentence — it is one 
 out of various conceivable modes of apprehension), which indeed 
 would not give us ' cognisance' : but this would go to show that 
 it is possible to have a wider notion of 'apprehension' of things 
 than Mr Ferrier's ' cognisance'. 
 
 Another way in which I should translate Mr Ferrier's view 
 into one similar to my own is this: by 'phenomena', using the 
 word for a moment etymologically, I do not mean appearances 
 of something necessarily different from the appearances, but 
 appearances to us, which may be more than appearances, or 
 may be not — that is of further consideration. I mention in 
 passing that this hangs on to the view on which natural facts 
 were first called phcenomena, in this way : that they were called 
 so in distinction from ra ovra, which latter were variously un- 
 derstood : I recognise such, but understand them to be thought, 
 which in my view takes the lead of things : by the real being 
 of things I understand the right conception of them or about
 
 iv.] ferrier' s institutes of metaphtsic. 79 
 
 them, by the phenomenal being of them (so far as I give sig- 
 nification to the term 'phenomenal', besides giving it ajiplica- 
 tion, which is my main business with it, to physical fact or the 
 facts of the spatial universe) I mean the conception of them 
 which accompanies our corporeal communication with them: 
 this I look upon as a right conception of them, but different 
 from the other as the right and complete one. 
 
 When Mr Ferrier says then, that what we know is ourselves 
 knowing, one way in which I should translate this is, that the 
 complete or higher knowledge is the observation and criticism 
 of the way in which things appear (are phenomena) to vs : we 
 are here, as he wishes, in two positions ; in the lower, things 
 appear to us; in the higher, we watch the process, and judge 
 from the appearing, so far as we may, what they are. 
 
 I think in translating Mr Ferrier thus I am going beyond 
 him : but I think that I am right in doinsr so. 
 
 I will finish with quoting from Mr Ferrier a few words 
 upon the highest matters of philosophy, in which I cordially 
 agree with him, and which are not gratuitous, but are an inti- 
 mate part of his view as I understand it, and certainly of mine 
 (the expression is Jtis) : 
 
 " Neither the existence nor the non-existence of things is 
 "conceivable out of relation to our intelligence, and therefore 
 " the highest and most binding law of all reason is, that under no 
 " circumstances can a supreme mind be conceived as abstracted 
 " from the universi l ." " To save the universe from presenting a 
 " contradiction to all reason, intelligence must be postulated along 
 "with it 2 ." "In the judgment of reason there never can have 
 "been a time when the universe was without GodV "Every 
 "mind thinks, and must think of God (however little it may be 
 "conscious of the operation which it is performing), whenever it 
 "think- of anything as lying beyond all human observation, or 
 "as subsisting in the absence or annihilation of all finite intel- 
 ■' Ligen< 
 
 We know more about God than this, but what we know 
 up, re about him is what it is to us because we know this first 
 about him, and if it is detached from this will cease to fill the 
 mind and stir the whole of men's nature as religion has done. 
 1 Page 497. " Page 510. 3 Page 511. * Page 51a.
 
 80 EERRIEIl's INSTITUTES OF METAPHYSIC. [CHAP 
 
 I have spoken about necessity and contingency a little in 
 another place, as well as just now in reference to Mr Ferrier, 
 but I will just put what I have said in still another form, as it 
 is important. 
 
 Contingentialness is in substance the notion of a thing ex- 
 isting as fact, in other words, of this existing, not that: neces- 
 sariness is the notion of a thing existing with reason for its 
 existence. If each notion was carried out to the full, we should 
 mean by the former that this is in fact what exists, but that it 
 is quite possible, and for all that we know, equally likely, that 
 that might have existed instead (or if we prefer the supposition, 
 nothing instead, only that this might not have existed) : we 
 should mean by the latter that this must exist, and that we 
 know it must, and that nothing else could have existed in- 
 stead of it; but that we do not know it does, and cannot (in 
 effect) imagine how it actually does. If we entirely exclude 
 the notion of contingentialness we have no notion of particu- 
 larity or actuality of existence, if we entirely exclude that of 
 necessariness we have no notion of method or wholeness of ex- 
 istence. And in reality the word ' existence ' means two things 
 with us, these two, and they are quite different. And it means 
 in each case not one of the two, but both. If we could abso- 
 lutely and entirely exclude all possibility of even making the 
 supposition that God did not exist, there would then be no 
 meaning in saying he existed: there would be no ground or 
 counternotion, as I call it, to the notion ; it would have no sig- 
 nificance. Similarly, if we could be thorough positivists (in the 
 proper etymological signification of that word) or, I may say, 
 matter-of-factists, i.e. if we could entirely destroy in ourselves 
 all notion of reason for things, and care only for the historical 
 knowledge of fact about them— then, if I might so speak, this 
 knowledge would not be knowledge: the mind would be a 
 record of successive experiences, but we should only really 
 have had intercourse with fact much as a log of wood tossed 
 about by the sea in various climates would bear traces of them : 
 knowledge is thought, judgment.
 
 IV.] FERRIEll's INSTITUTES OF METAPHYSIC. 81 
 
 The canvass or ground of all our knowledge is the conjunct 
 supposition, ' Everything might have been otherwise than it is, 
 hut there is reason why everything is as it is.' The distinct 
 conception of a thing as fact involves some degree of imagina- 
 tion that it mio-lit have been otherwise : and on the other hand 
 there would be no interest in knowing things as matter of fact 
 at all unless we believed some connexion among the things : a 
 'necessitudo', a mutual relation. 
 
 Of course, beginning from the first infinite possibility, rea- 
 son of being is in different degrees. Beginning with the exist- 
 ence of God, I think Descartes, and Mr Ferrier in the passages 
 which I have just quoted from him, go too far in this way, 
 that they make the necessity of such a nature as hardly to 
 allow a knowledge of fact: consequently to what they describe 
 a great many people would say, we do not call this the 
 knowledge of the existence of God at all: it is not what we 
 mean by it. Therefore when people speak of the knowledge 
 of the existence of God a priori and a posteriori, so far as I 
 understand the distinction, I think it is both ways. 
 
 Taking then the existence of God as the first necessity, the 
 ultimate point at which nevertheless we cannot quite escape 
 contingence, we come afterwards to lower necessities, say ma- 
 thematical. I see, as I have said, no principle in the discussion 
 whether two straight lines not inclosing a space is a truth of 
 necessity or experience, the degree to which it may be called 
 the latter depending in my view simply upon the degree in 
 which people could imagine the contrary. People mi<jld (there; 
 is ii" saying) try on a piece of paper whether two straight lines 
 could enclose ;i -pace, but they would never try on a table 
 whether two inkstands were the same as three. 
 
 The various phenomena of the universe have each, and all 
 
 :i connected with each other, their reason, and this makes a 
 
 necessity, as against whal Mr Ferrier says about the sun and 
 
 the earth, ae complete as the necessity which we have just been 
 
 pi aking o£ Bui of all this reason, oven the lower and nearer 
 
 part, the mutual connexion among pheni na, we can know 
 
 I. nt little of: of the higher and more distant part, or the sup- 
 position of purpose for which they may exist, still less. The 
 means "four knowledge about them therefore is by the manner 
 
 6
 
 82 FERRIElt's INSTITUTES OF METAPHYSIC. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 of mere experience: contingential: the more particular they 
 are, the more contingential. All along we may well suppose 
 gradation of reason or necessity for and in them : some things 
 more important in the universe than others, others less import- 
 ant: some for the sake of others: different ways beforehand of 
 doing the same thing, one chosen : on all this however I could 
 not speak without introducing the notions of will, purpose, 
 ideal, which I do not wish to do here.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON'S LECTURES ON 
 METAPHYSICS. 
 
 The next book which I come to is Sir William Hamilton's 
 Lectures on Metaphysics. I wish to test my views by his, and 
 his by mine: or, in other words, to examine how far, in his 
 account of the manner in which we gain our knowledge, he 
 keeps what I have called philosophy and phenomenalism distinct, 
 and whether he falls into the confusion which arises from im- 
 properly mixing them. 
 
 To recall to the reader for a moment, as cannot be done too 
 often, the difference between them: the point of consequence 
 is, what we start with. The physical philosopher starts, and 
 must start, with the view of things which regulates our material 
 life, according to which I, for each one of us, means ODe of a 
 particular class of organized beings out of an universe of beings 
 contained in space ; the whole universe, and this I, as a part of 
 it, being composed of various elements and forces variously 
 communicating together. Upon all these we look, as we for this 
 view suppose, with a disengaged intelligence, dissecting the 7, 
 bo Ear as we can, like any other organism, and watching the 
 play of elements and forces between it and that which is not it. 
 This view is what I have called an abstraction; that is, so far 
 as we look at the entire of things it will not stand by itself, 
 for this reason, Unit we could nut, have attained to it without 
 certain mental principles being in action which enable us 
 to view things as objects or unities: when however we h<t>r 
 attained to it, as we all do, we may leave out of account the 
 manner in which we did so, ami suppose for the time that the 
 element-, fora mtain somehow in themselves the entire 
 
 on why they are viewed by us in the manner in which they 
 
 6- 2
 
 84 sir william Hamilton's [chap. 
 
 are viewed: such a view, as compared with a supposed view of 
 the entire of things, makes what I have called an abstraction. 
 This phenomenalist view is what, both in the individual and 
 collective advance of knowledge, we in one respect grow more 
 and more to, that it is what experience continually clears and 
 confirms : in another respect, it is simply the view of such intel- 
 ligence as is possessed by all animals, and we have something 
 about us which protests against its entire engrossment of us. 
 
 The original fact to us, the one thing of which we are, be- 
 fore all others, certain, is not the existence of an universe of 
 which we, as organized beings, form a part, but the feeling, 
 thinking, knowing, that this is so, and the knowing that we do 
 know it, or, in other words, that we who know it, are anterior, 
 in our own view of ourselves, to it. If then we begin with 
 this supposition, we know nothing about a phenomenal uni- 
 verse, a universe of existing things besides ourselves, except 
 so far as we realize the manner in which one part of it after 
 another becomes known to us or the subject of our thoughts 
 (object of our knowledge), and we must not, previously to this 
 realization, suppose them existing. This successive realization 
 is the logical genesis or growth of our knowledge. It is not ex- 
 istence of any kind, that in the first instance is supposed to be 
 the object of our knowledge, but what is supposed is feeling, 
 thought, knowledge, and I as' the subject of them, and only 
 existence in so far as this feeling may, in whatever way, in- 
 evitably suggest it. This, evidently, is a deeper view than phe- 
 nomenalism, or, in other words, it mounts to an earlier original 
 fact. But, in the first instance, all that we may consider it 
 concerned about is feelings, thoughts, knowledge, of a supposed 
 /. While so restrained, however widely it may trace the man- 
 ner in which we think and the results at which our thought 
 arrives, it is an abstraction, like jihenomenalism, in comparison 
 with what we may imagine, an entire view of things. This is 
 what I have called the logical (epistemological) or lower philo- 
 sophical view. 
 
 My notion of the higher philosophy anwers to what might 
 
 be called, and by many philosophers has been and is called 
 
 Ontology', or the theory of 'being', as against the theory of 
 
 knowing, or the phenomenology of knowledge, or various other
 
 V.] LECTURES ON METAPHYSICS. 85 
 
 language: but I do not think the term a good one, for this 
 reason. I do not at all say but that what I have called pheno- 
 menalism represents to us, or is to us, a true and real existence. 
 I only say, that we must draw no conclusions from it beyond 
 its sphere, and that if we mount to the primary fact upon 
 which every thing to us, even it, rests, our consciousness, it 
 seems to me that we must consider that the sphere of pheno-. 
 menalism does not represent to us the whole of reasonable 
 thought. Further than this I do not go now. 
 
 The purpose with which I am at present examining Sir 
 William Hamilton and other books is to see how far the pheno- 
 menalist view and that of the pure philosophy of knowledge 
 are confused : i. e. how far there is a vacillation, in the primary 
 assumption, between that of a thinking mind and that of a 
 phenomenal universe. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics are I sup- 
 pose, as to method, a Philosophy of the Human Mind, following 
 more or' less the order of considering the subject which was 
 begun long ago, and has been followed, in the main, by the 
 successive Scotch philosophers. He differs from them, or most 
 of them, first, in the greater use of logical conceptions and 
 terms, and next, in what I may call the less prominence, at 
 -t, of phenomenalism. I mean that his purpose is described 
 very definitely as being ' the analysis of consciousness'. So far 
 
 1. 'The phenomena of mind' are however talked of by 
 the side of ' the phenomena of matter'. This is less promising. 
 But effort is then made to get the two into one consideration 
 by the establishing that we have a consciousness (I suppose) of 
 matter similar to the consciousness which we have of mind or 
 self. This so far as it is not language only, but represents 
 fact, is what stands in direct opposition to my view, and what, 
 in consequence of this, I shall rather fully examine. But still 
 my vi<-w outflovnks this, so to speak, and the establishment of 
 this is Dot only impossible, but would not, it' successful, serve 
 the purpose Deeded. Mind is above matter, because even if 
 there could be established a parallel consciousness of pheno- 
 mena of mind and of those of matter, it is mind which has that 
 
 consciousness. There would still be a pli.i nomenoD of mind at 
 
 the head of all, namely, this double consciousness itself.
 
 SO sir willtam Hamilton's [chap. 
 
 "What Sir William Hamilton then has done, is to point out, 
 more distinctly than seems to have been done by others, the 
 doubleness of consciousness, or in other words, he has, it may 
 be, introduced (I am not certain whether that is so) the prac- 
 tice of extending the application of the term 'consciousness' 
 from 'self-consciousness' to (what I may call) the whole amount 
 of knowledge which we have, in the first instance and imme- 
 diately, in conjunction with this self-consciousness. This is very 
 well: but he seems to me to consider that the amount of this 
 knowledge is greater than it is, and to be confused in his 
 notion of it, and consequently he has applied, as I think, the 
 term consciousness quite beyond the reasonable application 
 of it. 
 
 We are aware of the not-self or non-ego quite as immedi- 
 ately and primarily as we are of the self, or ego, the distinction 
 of the one from the other being necessary for the knowledge 
 of either. The term ' consciousness' is therefore very fitly ap- 
 plied, if we like so to apply it, to our knowledge of the non- 
 ego as well as to our knowledge of the ego. But the non-ego 
 as known merely by this consciousness is entirely formless : it 
 is known to us only as the not-self, and in no other character. 
 Difficulty begins to arise when we try to understand how it is 
 that it puts on to us the form of what we call the external 
 world. There requires to be, of course, careful thought here. 
 We are conscious of the non-ego exactly corresj)ondingly to our 
 consciousness of the ego, but no further. We are conscious of 
 ourselves as feeling (say), or thinking, and correspondingly with 
 this Ave are conscious (if we like so to speak) of something be- 
 yond or distinct from ourselves {ourselves being determined by 
 feeling or thinking), which, according to the language we use, 
 we describe as being what w r e feel or think, or what causes us 
 to feel or think, or in various other manners. Over against 
 then, and correspondent to, the feeling of ourselves stands a 
 knowledge of something as not-ourselves. But the various 
 qualities or characters of feeli/ng are not space, direction, mag- 
 nitude, solidity, but are pleasure, pain, duration, repetition, &c. : 
 on the other hand, our detailed knowledge has for its qualities 
 or characters the former sort of things: how is it that the 
 original double consciousness of an ego and non-ego. while,
 
 V.] LECTURES OS METAPHYSICS. 87 
 
 in the line of the ego, it puts on to us those various characters 
 of pleasure, pain, &c, which we can understand as attaching 
 to feeling, changes itself, in the line of the non-ego, into some- 
 thing with which we cannot at all suit the notion of conscious- 
 ness, the qualities or characters of it (space, magnitude, &c.) 
 being what cannot be characters of feeling ? 
 
 In reality of course, being an expression of what, in the 
 last resort, is to us feeling, they are in a manner characters of 
 feeling, and we might, in language cumbrous and bizarre, de- 
 scribe our multiplied experience by talking of ourselves as feel- 
 ing seeingly, feeling hearingly, and by using no other forms of 
 language than verbs and adverbs. What is the reason why we 
 do not do this ? In our capacity for pleasure and pain there is 
 the seed of endless variety in our consciousness in the line of 
 the ego : what is the seed of the expansion of our conscious- 
 ness of the non-ego beyond mere consciousness, which is what 
 would be represented by the language which I have given 
 above, into phenomenal knowledge, which is what our actual 
 language represents ? 
 
 It is strange, but it seems to me as if Sir William Hamil- 
 ton throughout considered that the saying we were conscious 
 of a non-ego w r ere the same as saying wc were conscious of 
 matter 1 . Our body is of course the medium between our in- 
 
 1 I have returned to this in another place, and must apologize for much repe- 
 tition and awkwardness in the treatment of it, only begging that it may be re- 
 
 ibered that J never professed to be free from such. What T have here expressed 
 wonder at is I suppose undoubtedly what Sir William Hamilton did consider, and 
 his considering it is looked upon by those who sympathize philosophically with him 
 as an important discovery on his part. So far as he did mean this, I have in another 
 place (page 116&C.) commented on the misapplication of the term 'conscious- 
 Jnd' pendent of the term, all that T can see in Sir William Hamilton's sup- 
 
 d discovery is a fresh form of what seems to me the cardinal error, the putting 
 
 phenomena of matter and the phenomena of mind side by side. Sir William 
 Hamilton, starting from consciousness, thinks it a great thing to be able to put 
 the phenomena of matter by the ride of the phenomena of mind, which of couim: 
 are the first thing he supposes: Mr Mill, starting from the supposition of the spa 
 
 nniverse, thinks it a great thing to bo a Kb- to put the facts of mind by the side 
 of th( which (jf ionise- an; the first thing he supposes. Sir William 
 
 Hamilton's supposition of our being conscious of matter seems to me to he wrong 
 in exactly the tame manner as Mr Mill's supposition, which I should describe as 
 that we phenomenally know mind- i.e. that we may put itt facts, and that ex- 
 haustively, or as our only consideration of them, by the side of physical ones. In
 
 8S sir willtam Hamilton's [chap. 
 
 telligence and the external world : only that in saying this we 
 must be careful. We may conceive ourselves as we are pheno- 
 menally, or in other words, corporeally : we may in this view be 
 said to be conscious of our body : that is, whatever takes place 
 in it (speaking generally) has corresponding to it some kind of 
 alteration of our feeling : our body is in this view a great 
 organ of sense, a vehicle by which we come to feel the exist- 
 ence, as similar to our own phenomenal existence, of a vast ex- 
 ternal universe in which we fill a place : in this use of the term 
 consciousness, according to what I said just now, that con- 
 sciousness of the non-ego is corresponding to that of the ego, 
 we are conscious of the external universe in the same way as 
 we are of our bodies, knowing the one by distinction from the 
 other, or (in this case) by the mutual antithetic communication 
 of the two, only the self is what is in the first instance directly 
 in thought. 
 
 But in all this we are supposing ourselves corporeal, cor- 
 poreal here being a highly complicated notion, which, in its 
 complication, we certainly do not immediately feel ourselves, for 
 what we mean by it is that we' see and handle ourselves as of 
 such and such a shape and solidity, a tree having such and 
 such another shape, &c. What is the root of this in feeling ? 
 
 The question whether, as the root of all our after objective 
 knowledge, there can be admitted what we may call a relation 
 of locality of our conscious or feeling self, taking place in conse- 
 quence of the extension of our body — (we, who feel, are pheno- 
 menally here — is the feeling here? our arm is phenomenally a 
 part of us — is the feeling in it, or in us?) — is a question which 
 has two sides, a physiological and a logical one. The physio- 
 logical side, whether, so far as that science goes, we are to be 
 considered as having a locally distributable, or on the other 
 hand concentrated and unitary, feeling self, I do not touch. 
 But the logical side is whether the notion of ascribing locality 
 to feeling, the various possible modes of which, I have said, are 
 pleasure, pain, duration, &c. can be even admitted — whether it 
 
 respect of Sir William Hamilton — we are conscious of seeing, and just the problem 
 of philosophy is to make out what is our mental relation to the thing we see : what 
 is it hut plastering up a crack to say that the word 'consciousness' will cover that 
 also, and that being conscious of seeing is being conscious of the thing we see ?
 
 V.] LECTURES ON METAPHYSICS. 89 
 
 is not like talking of a yellow sound, a sour colour, or various 
 other incongruities of thought. No doubt locality is abun- 
 dantly associated with feeling, as the language of psychologists 
 runs : but the question is as to the nature of this association, 
 and how we are to conceive it beginning. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton's view of our knowledge of an ex- 
 ternal world seems to be that we feel or are conscious of, 
 locally, the parts of our body and the changes which take 
 place as to them, first, and that then with our body we feel, 
 proceeding onward, outward space and matter. 
 
 It seems to me that this is not true physically (or in my 
 language, phenomenally), and that if it were, it would do 
 nothing to explain the logical difficulty. 
 
 The logical difficulty is, Why, instead of saying, I feel in 
 such and such a manner, which is all that, with any of us, what 
 we are pleased to call knowledge, when we get to the bottom 
 of it, amounts to, do we use such language as, I see (e. g.) this 
 or that tiling ? 
 
 Sir William Hamilton's answer seems to be, There is a part 
 of space {i.e. the dimensions of our body) within which if the 
 thing or object bo, the knowledge of such things or object and 
 the feeling in such and such a manner, are two identical things, 
 or two ways of expressing the same thing. Our feeling in such 
 and such a way, and our knowing e.g. the form of an image 
 on the retina 1 are, we are to suppose, two tilings which not only 
 uv in whatever wav. associated with each other, but which 
 n illy are the same thing, and the knowledge of the image on 
 the retina leads, in after experience, to the knowledge of an 
 outward object corresponding with it, which is full or developed 
 
 vision. 
 
 Nov, it seems tome not only that wc do not know, except 
 bv Inter science, the form of the image on the retina, nor that, 
 if we did, could our doing so he considered the same thing, 
 the Bame (nol an associated) notion, as our feeling in such and 
 
 1 Sir William Hamilton's language is, I believe, and bo far as T know, that 
 what we really perceive is the rays of light in contact with the eye. It is Mr Man- 
 ia hii Metaphj ics who says that what we see is the imago on the retina, 
 
 agreeing in this with manj other philosophers (among them I believe I)r Tl as 
 
 Brown). I suppose the two notions arc in .substance the samp. See forward (p. i i • 
 where passages are quoted.
 
 00 sir william Hamilton's [chap. 
 
 such a manner. The blank ' in such and such a manner' must 
 be rilled up with some possible quality or character of feeling 
 (pleasurably e.g.), and this cannot be the same thing as the 
 other. 
 
 What takes place is: correspondingly with, in the phe- 
 nomenal world, certain movements of light, and then of the 
 muscles of our eye, and certain changes, mechanical or chemical, 
 in our oj)tic nerve and brain, there exists in the world of con- 
 sciousness a feeling on our part, which we call the sight of such 
 and such an object. Of course the feeling is what it is, corre- 
 sjDondingly with the changes in our sensive organ being what 
 they are: and in this way, if we like to change the word feeling 
 from being a neuter verb to being an objective term, we may 
 say we feel those changes, as we say, ' servit servitutem': but 
 we are not conscious of them in the sense of being able to tell, 
 independent of after science, what they are : we only know the 
 variations of them from considering them correspondent to the 
 variations of the feeling. 
 
 The fact that our body is the vehicle of our communication 
 (so to speak) with the external world, does not mean that we 
 feel our body and its parts first, and then the external world 
 afterwards. Our body is a part of matter which has these two 
 characters, that disturbances of the parts of it are accompanied 
 with feelings, on our part, of pleasure and pain, and that motion 
 of different parts of it follows at once upon, or accompanies, 
 our will. But whenever it is disturbed, there is a disturbing 
 cause, which we feel, in the sense of being aware of it, contem- 
 poraneously with the disturbance, and we cannot move parts of 
 it without moving, or pressing, something beyond it, what we 
 are aware of also in the same manner. Though, therefore, our 
 being aware of it is accompanied with pleasure and pain, or 
 with exertion, and in this way it is specially intimate to us, yet 
 we are as much aware of it through the external world as we 
 are aware of the external world through it. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton it would seem, considers that he has 
 made a discovery in showing that we are conscious, or imme- 
 diately aware, of the existence of the external world. It appears 
 to me unphilosophical even to suppose that a discovery can be 
 made of the kind which he thinks he has made.
 
 V.] LECTURES OX METAPHYSICS. 91 
 
 It cannot possibly be shown, nor would there be any purpose 
 in showing, that we know our own existence (or, more generally, 
 the existence of mind) and the existence of an external world, in 
 the same manner, or with the same kind of knowledge. So far 
 from this, it is evident that we do not. The question is not, as 
 to both one and the other being certain to us : we may have no 
 inclination to scepticism either way, but if we try to realize to 
 ourselves the nature of our certainty of the two, we cannot but 
 understand that it is in a different manner that it is realized 
 in the two cases, and that to the extent to which we confine 
 our idea of knowledge to, or let it be absorbed in the one or the 
 other, we have a tendency to lose our certainty as to the other 
 case, or to become, as to that, sceptical. So far as we try to 
 establish the one certainty on the basis of the other, we have 
 the double difficulty, first, that we have no logic applicable 
 to such rudimentary thought, or which can give validity to 
 inference in such very primitive matter: and next, that even 
 so far as we can do what we are here wishing to do, the second 
 certainty, whichever of the two we suppose such, would be only 
 derivative and secondary, which does not correspond to the 
 character which seems to belong to it. So far as we suppose 
 two independent and original knowledges of different kinds, we 
 must give up the idea of homogeneity of knowledge, and of the 
 necessary commensurability (so to speak), so far as they are 
 known, of the things known in it, i.e. of the possibility of their 
 bring brought into relation one with the other. If we have one 
 sort of knowledge in which the forms of the knowledge or the 
 qualities of the things known are space, solidity, Sec. (whatever 
 language we use) and another kind of knowledge in which such 
 firms or qualities are pleasure, pain, &c. — knowledge then is 
 nol a common ground upon which the things which are known 
 can 1 1 j • -• - 1 — nol a way in which they can be brought together : 
 there are two worlds: and though we may think of space and 
 solidity, and though we may see the space or the solid body in 
 which we understand the pleasure and the pain to be, we can- 
 oot bring th<- characters of the one world into relation with 
 those of the other, or in differenl words) establish any relation 
 • iy Lmperfecl one of contemporaneousness, between 
 them.
 
 02 sir William Hamilton's [chap. 
 
 This being so, we may either, in our thought, start with 
 supposed knowledge of the one kind or the same of the other, 
 and in that case what we have to aim at is (that which it 
 is the object of all these observations to urge) the keeping 
 steady to our first principle or original point of view. The 
 more important and higher point of view is that given by con- 
 sciousness or thought of our own existence. 
 
 But since, in our habitual thought and life, we both con- 
 sider ourselves to exist as thinking beings, and consider the 
 external world to exist also : that is, equally call by the name 
 of existence the being the subject of pleasure, pain, will, &c. 
 and the being the subject of figure, solidity, colour &c. : how 
 are we to deal, or how do human beings deal, with these two 
 kinds of knowledge (so for the present to call them) when they 
 are thus in conjunction? 
 
 Practically, where the one has been considered a knowledge, 
 the other has been considered what we may call a belief, that 
 is, has been expressed by some term not at all conveying, in 
 the natural sense of it, any less notion of certainty than know- 
 ledge conveys, but conveying a notion of the difference of the 
 manner of the certainty. ■ 
 
 The most ordinary use, in relation to each other, of these 
 two terms 'knowledge' and 'belief is for 'knowledge' to be 
 applied to right thought in the phenomenalist view or sphere, 
 and for 'belief to be applied to the feeling (so far as supposed 
 reasonable) which we have of our own unphenomenal or super- 
 phenomenal existence, and to the consequences considered to 
 flow from that — the world or sphere of super-phenomenal rela- 
 tions. A view more or less phenomenalistic is natural from the 
 first to our manner of existence here ; distinct phenomenalism 
 (as I have already said) is on the one side what experience 
 developes, but it is also on the other a manner of mental action 
 analogous in certain respects to that of the animals, in whom 
 distinct consciousness is not beo"un. 
 
 On the other hand, Eeligion in many forms, the higher 
 philosophy as in Plato, and the lower or logical philosophy (as 
 e.g. in Dr Keid), all point out that in reason the name 'know- 
 ledge ' belongs to the certainty which attaches to consciousness 
 or to the recognition of ourselves as thinking or as mind.
 
 V.] LECTURES OX METAPHYSICS. 93 
 
 This is what I have at various times expressed by saying that 
 the great original fact to each of us is not the existence of the 
 univei'se or the external universe, but our feeling ('our' sup- 
 posing of course the preliminary feeling of ourselves) that it 
 exists, whatever may be the value and warrant of that feeling. 
 Knowledge of the external world thus, in the philosophical view, 
 descends a step, and has to be dependent on the consideration 
 what is this value and warrant. 
 
 Philosophical language therefore has usually been (rather 
 startlingly to the phenomenalist or merely natural habit of 
 thought) that we believe in the existence of the external world, 
 on whatever ground. The ground of this belief has been vari- 
 ously assigned as instinct, habit, &c. Dr Reid, whom I particu- 
 larize here on account of the constant reference to him by Sir 
 William Hamilton, assigns as the ground 'common sense', or 
 the common sense of mankind. The question has been evi- 
 dently confused. In the first place, it took the form in the last 
 century of a controversy against scepticism, or a defence of 
 certainty altogether, and the jDossibility of such, against peo- 
 ple supposed to deny such possibility. But this is quite an 
 accident of it. The discussion of the nature of our certainty 
 of an external world is of itself a simply philosophical one, and 
 should so be treated. 
 
 Again, the question of our knowledge of the external world 
 is the same as that of the knowledge of our corporeal selves. 
 This people are very confused in seeing, nor is it wonderful 
 they should be. For in the reasonings by which the external 
 world, as independent of our mind, was supposed to be anni- 
 hilated, our corporeal scum's, the exigence of which was a part 
 of the matter in dispute, had, for the purposes of the proof (and 
 that not a proof by way of reductio ad absurdum) to be sup- 
 posed existing. Under such circumstances, whatever the value of 
 the conclusion, there was danger as to the validity of the proof. 
 
 The point and interest of Berkeley's proceedings seem to 
 have beeu his putting together two notions which really do not 
 belong to the -.one manner of thought 1 , viz. the philosophical 
 
 1 Not but that they might <lo po, being botli true, aii'l Berkeley on both of them 
 in my view, right. In fact, Berkeley w;ih so thoroughly right (setting aside his 
 affirmative o] ini>t.H as lo the meaning "f tin: Bpatial universe and the things in it,
 
 34 sir william Hamilton's [chap. 
 
 notion that the external world cannot be known to exist in the 
 same manner in which we know ourselves to do so, and another 
 notion, to the effect that by the existence of the external world 
 is meant the same thing as the actual, phenomenal, existence 
 of the logical subject of the various qualities, (shape, size, 
 solidity, colour, &c.) which we speak of matter as having. By 
 giving his view the one or other of these two forms (that of 
 the denial of a knowledge of the external world in the same 
 sense in which we know ourselves, and that of the denial of the 
 actual existence of the logical subject as above) according, in 
 general, as he turned it towards the philosophers or towards 
 the vulgar, Berkeley commanded to a considerable extent, 
 though always as to a paradox, the assent of both. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton seems to consider Dr Reid to have 
 held confusedly and with mistake the doctrine, in this respect, 
 which he himself exhibits clearly and right. Really, he may 
 be said to take Dr Reid's 'common sense', and instead of 
 describing it as a ground and a legitimate ground of a belief 
 that the external world exists, to consider it a proof in us of a 
 consciousness of this external world. 
 
 Our being conscious of a thing, and every body that we 
 know of (apparently therefore in virtue of his human nature) 
 thinking it, are two very good sources of certainty for us, but 
 they are different, and the certainty which they produce is 
 different. If we call the certainty in the former case know- 
 ledge, we must call the certainty in the other by some different 
 name: we will say 'belief. Sir William Hamilton labours 
 hard to found our certainty of the existence of the external 
 world on consciousness, or to make it, in his language, the result 
 of immediate perception. The way to show how far this is so, 
 is carefully to analyze consciousness : a process at least very 
 difficult. But Sir William Hamilton seems to me in a very 
 unphilosophical manner to reiterate the fact that the mass of 
 
 that what he said would have been quite unremarkable, if it had not been that he 
 started with the Lockian supposition of ourselves in the middle of a spatial uni- 
 verse, which made the conclusion he came to seem absurd, and invited the unphi- 
 losophical refutations of it by kicking things down, or whatever it might be. The 
 drawing the conclusion invalidated the premises it was drawn from, under which 
 circumstances the mind gets into the state into which the old sophistical puzzlers 
 tried to bring it, unless we suppose a reductio ad absurdum.
 
 V.] LECTURES OX METAPHYSICS. 95 
 
 men do think in such and such a manner, as a proof that what 
 they thus think is a fact of consciousness. AVhat the) T thus 
 think may have as much certainty as if it "were a fact of con- 
 sciousness — that is not the question: but when what we are 
 investigating is the nature of the certainty, the fact that any 
 number of men think so may be a legitimate ground for our 
 believing in that manner, but can never be a proof of its being 
 a fact of consciousness. 
 
 The analysis of consciousness is so difficult, and when it 
 goes beyond the simplest observations, so deceitful, that I am 
 disposed to think (I will not say however altogether) that 
 nothino- should be referred to consciousness in regard to which 
 even the doubt can arise whether it belongs to consciousness or 
 not. Pleasure or pain e.g. are referred to consciousness or 
 feeling, for the simple reason that except as matters of con- 
 sciousness they cannot be conceived as existing at all. But, if 
 I were called upon to produce a fact of consciousness, I should 
 be disposed to assign as such the direct negation of that which 
 Sir William Hamilton assigns, and to say that if we are con- 
 scious of anything, one thing of which we are so is of our own 
 existence as feeling, thinking, &c. in a manner not only differ- 
 ent from, but out of relation with, that which we, in advancing 
 experience, understand as the manner of existence of the ex- 
 ternal world: that consciousness thus, while embracing (if we 
 like so to speak) a non-ego as distinguished from the ego, dis- 
 tinctly guards itself against, throws off from itself, that non-ego 
 in the investment which it acquires, in whatever manner, of 
 phenomenal or sensible existence. It is a fact of conscious- 
 ness, if any is, that existence as lit", thinkingness, feeling- 
 ness, the exercise of will, is not the same thing with existence 
 as visibleness, tangibleness, measurableness, audibleness, &c. : 
 tli.it they are known, so far as they are known, in a different 
 manner: it is a fact of consciousness again that existence of 
 the first kind is known to us in ourselves by consciousness : if 
 any logic i- allowed as to these rudiments of thought, we may 
 surely then say thai it i> a fact of consciousness, that it is in 
 iome other way than by consciousness that we know, so far as 
 we ki: i itence of I be \&\ ter kind 
 
 I wish mosl carefully to guard againsl mere verbal discus-
 
 96 sir william Hamilton's [chap. 
 
 sions on the word 'consciousness'. All our knowledge, as 
 knowledge, is consciousness: Sir William Hamilton has well 
 exhibited the philosophy of knowledge as the analysis of con- 
 sciousness. But consciousness, thus widely understood, is ana- 
 lysable in two manners: into reflexion or self-consciousness on 
 the one side, and that on the other which is understood to have 
 a bearing, or to relate to something, beyond ourselves : and again 
 into that which is original, and has never had, as to our mind, 
 any other character than that of consciousness, and that of 
 (or in) which we have become conscious, or which we have come 
 to know, through (or in conjunction with) some sort of sug- 
 gestion different from the above original consciousness: we 
 know ourselves by self-consciousness or reflexion: we know the 
 existence of a not-self by consciousness, in so far as we do not, 
 and cannot, conceive ourselves as constituting an universe: but 
 we know the form or qualities of this not-self (i. e. the sensible 
 world) as something entirely dissimilar to the form and quali- 
 ties which in ourselves we are conscious of. This ought not 
 indeed (as I have said) to be called knowledge, if knowledge 
 is what is built on consciousness: we may call it belief: by 
 which we need mean no more than that, without the slightest 
 doubt as to matter (the form and qualities of the not-self) 
 existing, the certainty which we have of it is not the same (in 
 kind, i.e. for in degree, for all that I know, it may be) as the 
 certainty which we have of our own existence. 
 
 I can see nothing in Sir William Hamilton's doctrine except 
 assertion that it is the same, without any attempt at reason for 
 the assertion except wdiat I have already spoken of, the notion 
 (if I may so describe it) of a local coincidence of thinking ex- 
 istence and material existence on the occasion of what we call 
 a sensation in a particular part of the body. We feel that part 
 of our body and what is in contact with it, I understand him to 
 say, — that is, we feel or are conscious of matter — in the same 
 way as we feel or are conscious of mind, our thinking selves. 
 We know thus from the first, in the same way and with a like 
 original knowledge, mind and matter. In different words, we 
 have an immediate knowledge of matter (or the external world), 
 and the establishment of this immediate knowledge Sir William 
 Hamilton looks upon as an important discovery.
 
 V.] LECTURES ON METAPHYSICS. 07 
 
 All this is exactly that confusion between two lines of 
 thought which it is the purpose of what I am writing to criti- 
 cize. We feel (say) the prick of a pin, and feel it locally, though 
 in the nature of the reference to the locality there is much, I 
 suppose, for physiologists to discuss. But though we may use 
 one word, as impression, for the two (so to call it) coincident 
 things, the movement of certain particles of matter (in the pin 
 and in our finger), and our feeling of pain, the two things belong 
 to two different regions of thought, and the only way in which, 
 supposing the two both existent, we can be certain of their 
 being related to each other, is that they are contemporaneous. 
 The supposed locality of the feeling is a complicated fact, and 
 no matter of original certainty. Sir William Hamilton's view 
 is (as I understand it) that the coincidence brings the two kinds 
 of things, our feeling e. g. (on the one side, the form of the pin 
 on the other), into the same world of thought, and that we are 
 aware of the form of the pin with the same consciousness, the 
 same immediacy, with which we are aware of the pain which it 
 produces. Surely this is not so. They belong to different kinds 
 of thought, and the knowledge in the two cases is different. If 
 we call knowledge, or if we call immediate knowledge, what 
 we know in the latter case, we may reasonably call the other 
 belief or knowledge not immediate. In the one we might, con- 
 ceivably, be deceived : in the other we could not be. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton calls his doctrine of the immediate- 
 ness of our knowledge of the external world by the name of 
 Natural Realism or Natural Dualism 1 : the mass of philosophers, 
 who have Looked upon this knowledge as, in comparison with 
 our knowledge of our own existence, something which required, 
 so to speak, to give an account of itself, a belief, a mediate 
 knowledge (or however they might express it) — being called by 
 hi in Cosmothetic Idealists or Hypothetic Dualists. 
 
 The classification here made of philosophers seems of very 
 lit tli- value, making, as it does, no account of the purpose and 
 method of tin: various philosophies, nor any distinction between 
 what a philosopher a -umed at the beginning and the results 
 which he considered himself to arrive at. As to the Hypothetic 
 Dualists, it ia to 1m- observed that almost all philosophers have 
 
 1 Lectures, Vol. r. j>. 79-2.
 
 98 sir william Hamilton's [chap. 
 
 been dualists, (nay, have not all?) in admitting a 'besides-self 
 as well as a self or mind, Berkeley as much so as Sir William 
 Hamilton : our sensations were not in his view causeless or merely 
 self-modifications, only he did not consider the cause of them to 
 be what we are here calling ' the external world'. The name 
 ' Hypothetic' therefore is little applicable to these philosophers, 
 nor, it seems to me, is that of Natural Dualism to Sir William 
 Hamilton's view, which I should rather describe as a sort of 
 Monism (in language of his own), or an attempt to fuse toge- 
 ther, as objects of one kind of knowledge, two kinds of things 
 (if they may be called things) so different as feelings and 
 material qualities \ 
 
 The way in which I should state what seems to me the fact 
 is this : We feel ourselves as mentally living, or know our ex- 
 
 1 In speaking of what all or almost all philosophers have thought I speak with 
 unfeigned diffidence, not only because I have a very imperfect knowledge of the 
 history of philosophy compared with Sir William Hamilton's, but because I seem 
 to myself to have a different notion from his of what such a knowledge should con- 
 sist in. As a branch of study, what I should mean in the first instance by the 
 history of philosophy is a (probably rather loose) general account of the course of 
 philosophical speculation, which is an important branch of literature, and will 
 make a man know, in the general, what philosophy has concerned itself with : but 
 in case any one means to make a more thorough study of it, I think there is 
 another branch of study, so to call it, which he wants first. This is 'interpreta- 
 tion': penetration and conscientiousness in entering into people's thought. And 
 in order to this a man must think much himself. He is a merely superficial (which 
 in this case is inaccurate) reporter unless he understands and has felt the philoso- 
 pher's doubts and difficulties. For thought like this to co-exist with an extensive 
 literary knowledge may be difficult— I will not say — perhaps I may be making the 
 reader think no man can be a historian of philosophy, as Crassus that no man can 
 be an orator, or Imlac that no man can be a poet — but anyhow I hope that I am 
 ennobling his notion of the task. 
 
 In the present case the philosophers are bundled up together, and a vast quan- 
 tity of them represented as allowing nothing but 'modifications of the ego'. But I 
 am very doubtful what this really means. A sentence for instance like the follow- 
 ing (Vol. it. p. 29,) quite staggers me. 'Others, again, deny to the mind not only 
 any consciousness of an external non-ego, but of a non-ego at all, and hold that 
 what the mind immediately perceives, and mistakes for an external object, is only 
 the ego itself peculiarly modified.' Whether Sir William Hamilton means here 
 that the philosophers whom he speaks of suppose the notion of external objects, 
 and a wrong assignment to that class of what belongs to another — in which case 
 they would be most thorough Dualists- — or whether the mis-psychological iron has 
 entered so deeply into his soul that he can never, in the most abstract regions of 
 thought, get rid of the notion of 'external objects' himself, I cannot tell.
 
 V.] LECTURES ON METAPHYSICS. 99 
 
 istence as thinking and feeling beings, and with this have what 
 we may call a sub-consciousness of something besides ourselves; 
 or, as I have above expressed it, that we are not everything — 
 not the universe. This is our most immediate or absolutely 
 necessary knowledge : without this we should not be we, to 
 think and feel. We feel ourselves wdth less intimacy and less 
 immediateness to be corporeal or (as I have called it) pheno- 
 menal beings, and, what is a part of the same feeling, to be 
 locally portions of a material or phenomenal world. There is 
 no harm in describing this latter feeling as consciousness : in 
 fact it is so : only it is a consciousness which might be illusion, 
 whereas the former consciousness cannot: we feel as if we lived 
 in a material universe, and people have been found like Bishop 
 Berkeley to say that though we feel as if we so lived, yet we 
 really do not so live : but there is no meaning in saying we 
 feel as if we felt and thought : here then is real immediate- 
 ly -<: and no one can say that though we feel as if we felt, 
 yet we really do not feel. Hence the second consciousness, 
 though consciousness if we like to call it so, is still, in com- 
 parison with the other, mediate or belief. 
 
 What we are conscious of in this way is not matter, but 
 ourselves as materia] : and the meaning of this is simply that 
 a certain portion of our feelings, so it is, are suggestive of what, as 
 we feel it, we may call a communication (or in language which has 
 been used by some, ' a conflict') between us and what is not ' we 1 
 going on in a particular manner, (which manner is what is 
 meant by the common confused term, 'sensation'). This com- 
 munication, as our feeling suggests the existence of it, is, as I 
 have described, between us and what is not Ave. This same 
 communication if phenomenally viewed, or studied as a matter 
 of physiology by what I have called a disengaged intelligence, 
 is only between one portion of matter and another, namely, our 
 bodies and what is around them. That is, the communication, and 
 with it the e\i-H nee of matter, is only, from the side of feeling, 
 something that feeling, so it is, suggests: and feeling sugges- 
 tive (as distinguished from the immediate feeling above) might, 
 conceivably, be all wrong: there might be no external world 
 at all. On the ether hand, from the side of phenomenalism, 
 the convmunication is the certain fact, and the fact which can 
 
 7-2
 
 100 sir william Hamilton's [chap. 
 
 be compared with other phenomenal facts : that along with the 
 communication there go feelings of a sentient being is something 
 which phenomenalism as such, can only take as supposed cause 
 (or causes) of various effects, which might be caused otherwise. 
 
 The study of this communication, what should have been 
 called sEsthetics, is of course most interesting : biit the keeping 
 in mind whether our point of view is that of consciousness, or 
 that of physiology, is important for the success of it. 
 
 The communication, so far as we are to conceive such, be- 
 tween mind and matter, or (in other words) between feeling 
 and the spatial universe, is a different notion from that of the 
 communication between the matter or nerves of our body and 
 matter extraneous to it, with which latter communication 
 feeling on our part is some way correspondent. Such questions 
 as those of immediateness of knowledge have all really refer- 
 ence to the former communication. In reference to this former 
 communication, we might either consider the notion conceivable 
 and reasonable, but the thing, except by some extraordinary 
 agency (the meaning of this will appear shortly), impossible : 
 or we might consider the notion reasonable and the thing pos- 
 sible ; or we might consider, which is what I am disposed to 
 do, that there is something confused in the notion. 
 
 Perhaps it is more correct to describe the first of these 
 views as the considering the notion unreasonable, but still the 
 thing, or something amounting to the thing, by some contri- 
 vance (we may almost say) such as a pre-established harmony, 
 or by the continued interposition of divine power, possible. 
 We look now upon theories of this kind as unphilosophical, but 
 the philosophers who made them had the great merit of seeing 
 clearly what we do not always see, how feeling and the qualities 
 of matter belong, as I have expressed it, to two different kinds 
 of thought. All that we know, or, it seems to me, can know, 
 as to the relation of the feeling in any case to the contempo- 
 raneous nervous or cerebral disturbance, is that they are con- 
 temporaneous. Theories like that of a pre-established har- 
 mony, unreasonable enough it may be, yet exhibiting the two 
 streams running side by side, have the merit of clearly bringing 
 home to us that this relation of contemporaneousness is as far 
 as we can get.
 
 V.] LECTURES ON METAPHYSICS. 101 
 
 The second view given above, to the effect that the notion 
 of a communication between mind and matter, feeling and 
 space, is reasonable, and the thing possible or the fact, seems 
 to have been held by those philosophers who considered that 
 the primary qualities of matter were like their ideas or mental 
 representations, whereas the secondary were not: this being, 
 as I understand it, equivalent to saying, that in respect of the 
 primary qualities, the mind and matter (or feeling and space) 
 actually met, that there was a communication or something 
 common to both, whereas in respect of the secondary qualities 
 there was only a correspondence, or contemporaneousness, be- 
 tween feeling on the one side and the presence of the qualities 
 of matter on the other. This notion as to the primary quali- 
 ties, which is to the effect, that in the case of knowledge of 
 them, the qualities of matter might be predicable of feeling, 
 for otherwise there could be no resemblance between the idea 
 and the material object, was I suppose suggested by such things 
 as the image on the retina. The image, on the nerves, of a 
 square object, did look something like a square idea. The re- 
 tinal surfaces, at once sensible and capable of square figure, 
 seemed to be a meeting-ground of mind and matter. The thing 
 forgotten was, that what felt was not the retina which was thus 
 figured, but /, and though, in calling it sensible, we imply a 
 particular relation of it to this /, the nature of this relation 
 was still the undetermined question. 
 
 I can only see, in Sir William Hamilton's doctrine of imme- 
 diate knowledge, the re-introduction, in different language, of a 
 notion similar to this. 
 
 I am aware that, as in a great many philosophical errors, 
 there is a truth involved in this notion of the resemblance of 
 the ideas of primary qualities to their prototypes. The form 
 which tli is truth bears to me, is this: the matter of our bodies 
 and that of the external world seem to communicate in two 
 different manners, which we may call mechanical and chemical: 
 correspondingly to the first we have feeling of the kind which 
 we call active, i.e. we, with more or less of attentiveness, exeii 
 our will : correspondingly to the latter we have feeling of the kind 
 we call passive: we feel mure or less of simple pleasure and pain 
 In saying above 'seem to communicate in two manners', whal I
 
 102 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON S [CHAP. 
 
 mean to express is this : it is possible, perhaps, for close physio- 
 logical observation to make out that the difference in the consti- 
 tution of one and another of our nerves, which fits them for one 
 and another purpose, is only at the bottom, mechanical, and that 
 all that takes place in them is really only motion of homogeneous 
 elements, and correspondingly with this, it is conceivably possible 
 for us to follow out our consciousness to such minuteness that in 
 the pleasure and pain (contemporaneous with the movements) 
 we may discover really elements (so to speak) of volitional effort, 
 attraction and repulsion, acquiescence and shrinking, &c. — 
 about all this possible ultimate analysis I say nothing, only 
 considering in the meantime the fact to be as I have described. 
 The fact which the above-named erroneous notion -as to 
 primary qualities seems to me indistinctly to represent, is this : 
 that active feeling, exertion of our will, is homogeneous in our 
 view : pleasure and pain (passive feeling) are both infinitely va- 
 rious, not always even readily distinguishable the one from the 
 other, neither of them suggesting that kind of attention to them 
 which could make measurement, and such that the different 
 kinds of them have scarcely any comparability the one to the 
 other. And as active feeling is, in its different exertions, homo- 
 geneous in ourselves, so it is what we seem to be able reasonably 
 to assure ourselves is the same in us and in others : with passive 
 feeling this is in no respect so : as has abundantly been said, 
 what I see as green another man may see as blue, and the differ- 
 ence be for ever undiscoverable. Hence we feel the amount of 
 exertion of will, and in so feeling we feel ourselves also in 
 relation with other beings which exert will: mechanical sensa- 
 tion is measurement, whereas chemical remains in this par- 
 ticular nearly sterile. The reason why I have mentioned this 
 here, is, because, in this measurement, we have something like 
 an actual meeting of mind and matter, of feeling on the one 
 side, of space and solidity on the other. When therefore philo- 
 sophers said that the ideas of primary qualities, and not of 
 secondary, were resemblances of the qualities (the primary 
 qualities being, speaking generally, those known by mechanical 
 sensation), they meant, in a not good way, to express what I 
 will for a moment call an approach to each other of mind and 
 matter in the way which I have above described.
 
 V.] LECTURES ON METAPHYSICS. 103 
 
 This approach is in fact by means of the idea of motion. 
 Time or duration belongs to, or is an attribute of, mind or feel- 
 ing, no one doubts. Does locality also? Has feeling 'daseyn'? 
 The attributing locality to feeling in virtue of passive sensation 
 is as we have seen, very difficult. When we are investigating 
 physiologically what we call the seat of feeling, what we want 
 is, to find the portion of the body, with the material modifica- 
 tions of which portion the feeling is exactly {finally we might say) 
 contemporaneous. So far as the feeling or consciousness itself 
 tells us, this part, scientifically found, is rarely or never the seat 
 of it. A man's feeling, so far as itself bears witness, may be in 
 his supposed leg, which he has lost long ago. 
 
 The attribution of locality to feeling in virtue of active 
 sensation seems to present less difficulty. A feeling of ours of 
 this kind, we say, moves or is the means of moving our arm, 
 and must therefore be locally present or in communication with 
 the arm to do so. 
 
 I am not going to discuss this: only to say thus much. The 
 notion implies the unity of the two ideas, force as one of the 
 ingredients (so to speak) of motion and pressure, and force (or 
 activity) as the source of change, or that which gives beginning 
 to what did not exist before. That our volition is a real cause 
 of the movement of our own body, or, in other words, that our will 
 is a reality and our supposed consciousness of it not a delusion, 
 I hold most thoroughly, and if we like from this to draw the 
 conclusion that our will, acting locally, must have locality, 
 valeat quantum. • But I think that the only way in which we 
 arc able to conceive these things, and to investigate them fruit- 
 fully, is to keep, even here, the two lines of thought which I 
 have endeavoured to exhibit, separate: to put no stress upon 
 the phenomenalist to admit what cannot be expressed in quali- 
 ties of matter, nor on the other hand, to assert against him 
 that we are cdflscious of anything which he from his premises and 
 by reference to those.- qualities, can disprove: keeping however 
 in mind thai we, in the position of consciousness, are nearer the 
 source of the stream of knowledge than he, and that he can 
 have cone of it, in the entire view oft lungs, except as we allow 
 il tops to him. It may be a question whether we bave an 
 arm at all (for all our immediate knowledge is thai we feel or
 
 104 sir william Hamilton's [chap. 
 
 think we have), aud if this is denied, the matter, as to certain 
 knowledge, is settled for him and for us alike. Only every 
 reason which goes to justify our belief that we have an arm or 
 that our arm exists, goes also to justify our belief that we move 
 it, and that it rests with us, uncertain till we determine it, 
 whether it is moved or not. But for the purposes of research, 
 there are two sets of things or considerations — on the one side 
 the circumstances which determine our will, on the other the 
 qualities of our arm as matter — which, like oil and water, will not 
 mix together. We create then, or abstract, the phenomenalist 
 view, from which origination is excluded, and in which there are 
 instead of it only relations of time and perhaps of mechanical 
 force : and since feeling, whatever it may be susceptible of be- 
 sides, is susceptible of these relations of time, we let feeling so 
 far into phenomenalism, or in other words, we let the two lines 
 of thought ruo together in this particular, though further than 
 this we cannot do so without confusion. 
 
 What I have said is not exactly as I meant to say it, but 
 I think there is conveyed in it what I should have said, namely, 
 the reason why I think that even the idea of a communication 
 between mind and matter, feeling and space, further than as 
 a relation of contemporaneousness is such, is not reasonable. 
 
 The measurement which I have last spoken of, or in other 
 words, the mental conversion of so much effort of will into so 
 much space traversed or so much motion resisted, is a manner 
 of sensation, and far the most important manner, its import- 
 ance arising from this, that by means of the relation of amount 
 or magnitude (measurableness) the qualities of matter and of 
 mind do seem to, or do in some measure, approach each other. 
 But they do not meet or mix: amount of will exerted, and 
 amount of space traversed, though both amounts and so far in 
 relation, belong to different worlds of thought. 
 
 In respect then of that kind of form of objects which is 
 given by relations of space and solidity, mind and matter 
 (feeling and space), though they in a manner approach, do not 
 meet or mix. The kind of form of objects in relation to which 
 they do meet is the el&os, principle, meaning, purpose of them, 
 that which gives to each its unity. This kind of form may be 
 considered at once an attribute of the material object and of
 
 V.] LECTURES OX METAPHYSICS. 105 
 
 the knowing mind. The colour of an object is not transplanted 
 from matter into mind in any degree — colour cannot be at all 
 a quality of our thought: the length of it only partially — it 
 is so much distance, and our will may have for an attribute of 
 it quantity of exertion corresponding to this distance : but the 
 meaning, reason, purpose, of it, that is, the expression of the re- 
 lation of the parts of it to each other, which gives it unity, 
 thinghood, reality, may be transferred to the mind altogether 
 — it may be with equal propriety described as a thought and as 
 the thing, as something in our mind or something in the object. 
 
 I do not think that the metaphor or manner of speaking 
 conveyed in the word ' transference ' and in such expressions as 
 'in' the mind can really here cause any deception. Of course 
 I am not speaking of any movement or any locality, and the 
 reference to such which the words convey (and it is impossible 
 to find words un-extravagating in this respect) does not enter 
 into the thought or argument. 
 
 I have not lately been making much reference to Sir "William 
 Hamilton, and will now for a short time leave him entirely, in 
 order to discuss some points connected with what I will call the 
 scale of sensation or knowledge.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SCALE OF SENSATION OR KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 I DO not know that there is any harm in saying that we 
 have sensations, or the sensation, of time, space, solidity, and 
 even of unity or genericity. After all, sensation is the general 
 term to express the consciousness, feeling, thought which we 
 have correspondent with (so far as we assume the existence of the 
 external world, but), more correctly, supposed by us correspond- 
 ent with, the presence of any portion of existence independent 
 of us. We may conveniently imagine two kinds of this sensa- 
 tion, in no degree rigidly separable the one from the other, viz. 
 feeling and thought: feeling, that kind of it in which self- 
 consciousness, reflexive attention, pleasure or pain, is strongly 
 present : thought, that in which the attention is directed rather 
 to the non-ego and to the exertion of the will. The former is 
 clearly that in which there is the least approximation to each 
 other, in the qualities of the feeling and those of the matter. 
 To this extent there was reason in the language of many philo- 
 sophers, that the ideas, as they called them of secondary 
 (chemical) qualities were unlike the qualities. A feeling em- 
 bodying pleasure or pain must be most thoroughly incommen- 
 surable and out of relation with any quality which can be sup- 
 posed in unliving matter. As at the extremity on the side of 
 feeling the incommensurability is complete, so at the extremity 
 on the side of thought, or the sensation of unity, thinghood 
 (so for the present to call it), the meeting is complete : this 
 we have seen. Half-way along the line stand the relations of 
 space. 
 
 At one end then of this line the mind has feelings, the 
 matter qualities, contemporaneous, but not mutually compar-
 
 CHAP. TI.] THE SCALE OF SENSATION, &C. 107 
 
 able: at the other the mind has thoughts, and the matter 
 something in it which we may call (for the present) thoughts 
 embodied: near this extremity must be relations of time and 
 half-way those of space. 
 
 At every step of what we call perception, i.e. the advance of 
 our experience or conception of the external world, sensations 
 of all these kinds are blended together. It is obvious that 
 sensations belonging to the feeling end would be of themselves, 
 for intellectual result, mere confusion. What makes this con- 
 fusion orderly is in a less degree sensation belonging to the 
 middle of the scale, in which there is measurement ; and in a 
 higher, the highest degree, sensations belonging to the other 
 end, to which belong special distinction, arrangement, classifi- 
 cation. 
 
 I carefully guarded the word ' transference ' where I used it 
 before, but I will now resume it with a little less care. We 
 will speak of mind and matter as if they were things between 
 which there could take place something like movement. 
 
 In what I have called feeling the mind is passive, and since 
 it is supposed there must be activity somewhere, the matter is 
 considered active, and the mind or subject of the feeling is 
 spoken of as 'affected' or in some similar way. In reality 
 there is no importance in this, for in respect of the sensation, there 
 is no more activity of the matter than of the mind. Under 
 certain circumstances of the one, there is feeling of the other: 
 activity must have been required for the putting the former in 
 these circumg . and that is all. 
 
 The passivity of the mind is tolerably readily comprehen- 
 sible, but what is the meaning of its activity? and as it is all 
 passive at the feeling end of the scale, is it all active at the 
 thought end? And what is it halt-way? 
 
 There being at this latter end, on the one side, thought in 
 the mind, on the other, thought embodied in the matter, is the 
 relation ofthi je two thoughts one of coincidence, or of identity? 
 In other words, Lb the thought which meets as in the matter 
 though! which we have firsl put there? Here the mind would 
 be acti 
 
 Again, half-way, the qualities of space and those of the 
 mind being capable of being brought into Borne relation, has
 
 108 THE SCALE OF SENSATION [CHAP. 
 
 this which is common to the two, its source in the mind, or 
 from the other side? Is the mind here active or not? 
 
 The describing space as a form of thought, or as a form 
 given by thought to sensation, seems to me a manner of speak- 
 ing in some respects exactly analogous, from the opposite 
 point of view, to the manner of speaking about primary quali- 
 ties of Locke and other philosophers, which I before commented 
 on (namely, that the ideas of them were like their prototypes) ; 
 to be in the same manner itself an error, but to be representa- 
 tive of the same truth which that represented. 
 
 To say ' we think spatially ', which is the kind of language 
 we ought to use on the supposition of space being a form of 
 thought, seems to me language in some respects of (exactly) the 
 same kind as the supposition of a square idea. The way we 
 think spatially, so far as we do so, is to will a certain amount 
 of exertion, which exertion we understand as carrying our hand 
 (say) through a certain amount of what then we call ' space'. 
 
 I have before said, that if we liked to use language in that 
 manner, all that we ultimately or immediately are certain of is 
 that we think or feel in such and such a manner. There is 
 therefore certainly no harm in the description of our having the 
 sensation of space (so I have expressed it) as 'thinking spati- 
 ally '. But the point is, Is there more reason, in the above case, 
 for using the language ' think spatially ' than there is for de- 
 scribing our sensation of a red colour as 'thinking redly'? In 
 other words, is space more a form of thought as distinguished 
 from a quality or relation of body or matter, more subjective, as 
 some w r ould describe it, than colour is ? 
 
 I do not think we can understand the manner in which it is 
 so without here making a most careful distinction. 
 
 When I said just above, "may we speak with more reason 
 "of 'thinking spatially' than of 'thinking redly'?" I follow the 
 same line of thought as Berkeley, when he considers, Is there 
 any difference in the manner of our perception of primary and 
 secondary qualities, giving everything of a higher or more im- 
 portant character to the perception of the former ? He decides 
 that there is not. 
 
 But the prerogative of the primary qualities above the se- 
 condary, against which he argues, viz. that the ideas of them
 
 VI.] OR KNOWLEDGE. 109 
 
 are like their prototypes, whereas those of the others are not, 
 is, in one view, exactly the opposite of the prerogative which is 
 claimed for them when space is described as a form of thought, 
 so that we might use the language 'think spatially', whereas we 
 could not say reasonably, 'think redly'. If, in the case of pri- 
 mary qualities, the idea was like the quality, whereas in the 
 other it was only correspondent or contemporaneous, it was 
 clear that the object in the former case came into the mind in 
 a manner which it did not do in the latter, or that the percep- 
 tion in the case of the primary qualities was objective, and that 
 of the others subjective, possibly therefore illusion. And it was 
 on this supposed subjectivity of the perception of secondary 
 qualities, and the disproof of any prerogative of primary per- 
 ception above them, that Berkeley built what we know as his 
 doctrine. 
 
 If we describe space as a form of thought, in contrast with 
 secondary qualities as qualities or relations of matter, we of 
 course do exactly the opposite to this, and make the primary 
 perception the subjective, the other the objective. This is what 
 I referred to in saying, that the Kantian language had an ana- 
 logy with that of Locke, from an opposite point of view. 
 
 Now what we must keep in mind about all this is, that our 
 thought must start from the phenomenalist or the philosophical 
 assumption, and that whereas in the former objectivity is the 
 test of truth, in the latter subjectivity is. On the philosophical 
 or epistemological assumption, knowledge is not the bringing of 
 one thing which is, into the relation which we call knowledge 
 with another thing which is: such a description would be ab- 
 surd, involving in the description the thing which we are de- 
 scribing (we cannot describe the things without supposing them 
 known): knowledge is the view as orderly, formed, having reason 
 and meaning, character and qualities, in it, of that which, but for 
 the knowledge, would have to be viewed (if it could be viewed) 
 
 tonfused, inform, characterless, undistinguished. ( >n thephe- 
 nomenalisl assumption, on the other hand, we begin with sup- 
 ]. . ed i tence independent of us, of which we are a pari orwith 
 which we coexist, and taking for granted what knowledge i 
 (which cannot be investigated on this view), we investigate the 
 particular ways in which we come to the knowledge of the par-
 
 110 THE SCALE OF SENSATION [CHAP. 
 
 ticulars of this existence. On this view what we see first is 
 things, then we see them of such and such a shape and size, then 
 of such and such a shape, size, and colour : by which of course I 
 do not mean that this is the historical order of perception, but 
 I mean that if we take up a book of this kind, we see first 
 things talked about as what are supposed (or very often, with 
 much confusion of thought, objects) — these tilings are supposed 
 from the first to have various powers to do this and that, and 
 the course of the investigation is to make out how the shape, 
 size, &c, which is assumed as belonging to them comes to be 
 known by us, and then how the colour, taste, &c, similarly 
 assumed, does so: and the old doctrine as to primary and 
 secondary qualities was to the effect that the shape, size, &c, 
 really belong to them, as a part of the thing, but that the 
 colour, taste, &c, are something, as compared with those, super- 
 added, and which the thing might be without — and are more- 
 over known to us much less perfectly than the others, we only 
 knowing, as to them, that we have certain feelings to which 
 there must be something, though we know not what, corre- 
 spondent. 
 
 Now, exactly to the degree to which anything (the reader 
 will not be deceived by the necessary word ' thing') on this 
 assumption, is a more necessary quality of external or objective 
 reality, so on the other or philosophical assumption, is it more 
 subjective, or in a higher degree a form of thought. 
 
 The order of consideration on the philosophical assumption is 
 exactly the reverse of that on the phenomenalist, which I have 
 described. On the philosophical assumption the confused mass of 
 chemical or secondary sensation gives the confused and chaotic 
 matter of (in this sense), or preparation for, what is afterwards 
 knowledge. To this time and space (which viewed from within, are 
 in fact a higher degree of self-consciousness and so much volitional 
 exertion) give form and order of the first or lower description, 
 in the sense of shape, magnitude, relative position, &c. Then 
 finally form of the higher description, eZ8o?, quality or qualitiecl- 
 ness, kind, true reality, is given by a higher self- consciousness, 
 and there begin to be things. The things are specially things, 
 they are noticed and distinguished as unities out of the confused 
 mass of sensation of which they are a part, in virtue of various
 
 VI.] OR KNOWLEDGE. Ill 
 
 suppositions, most thoroughly subjective or matters of thought, 
 about them : that they are like ourselves : that they are a con- 
 trast to ourselves : that they are what we can handle or use : 
 that they are like -what we can construct: that they are what 
 hurt us: and a variety of other suppositions of like kind. They 
 are made things to a certain degree by the lower description of 
 form or by relations of space : but it is evident things mean to 
 us much more than solid shapes, of one and another colour, &c, 
 and if this was all the character which they possessed, we 
 should very slightly notice and distinguish them, even if we 
 did so at all. 
 
 Of course this is not meant as a historical order of percep- 
 tion, any more than the order which I gave as to phenome- 
 nalism. 
 
 Of the actual or historical course of such perception, I shall 
 speak in a moment. 
 
 It will be seen that the discussion whether space, e. g. is a 
 form of thought (i e. a form given by thought to our sensation, 
 experience, or lower intuition) or a relation (circumstance, 
 quality) of matter is one which I do not regard as important, 
 or, more strictly, I think the supposition that it must be one or 
 the other unphilosophical. As that discussion is sometimes 
 conducted, people seem to think that the supposition is, that 
 there are things with their secondary qualities on one, the 
 objective side, and we, out of various possible forms which 
 thought might have, have for our form of it the supposing these 
 existing in what we then call space. So far as space is a form 
 of thought and not a relation of matter, it is when the subject 
 of our investigation is not what matter is, but how we think 
 about what we call so. 
 
 Space is very fitly described as giving form to that which is 
 commonly described as sensation, that is, to the confused scmi- 
 peroeption which belongs to what I have called the 'feeling' 
 end of the Bcale. Any dwelling upon this would come more 
 fitly in speaking of I>r WhewelTs books: but 1 will say now 
 thus much, thai so far as relations of space are considered to 
 give fonu to that Borl of sensation, they want higher relations 
 still, thus.- which 1 have described as of unity or reality, to give 
 what is more properly '•.•died 'form' to them. Relations of
 
 112 THE SCALE OF SENSATION [CHAP. 
 
 space, in consequence of their being, as I may say, perceived 
 by measurement, or measured in the perceiving, have a cha- 
 racter of exactitude about them which has caused great atten- 
 tion to be given to them as exhibitions of accurate truth, in a 
 way in which nothing else is. All this may be made to mean 
 too much, or may have more philosophical importance given to 
 it than it should have. From the time of Plato downward, 
 more strongly however in followers of his than in himself, this 
 has been so. But mathematics, though giving exact truth, give 
 truth only of a very poor sort : and what is more, they require, 
 even for this, to be informed (or to have form given to them) 
 themselves by higher considerations than those of space, time, 
 and number. As I have said, it is not the shape (or size, or 
 position) of a thing which to us, except in a very limited de- 
 gree, constitutes it a thing, but it is what Aristotle called the 
 A.0709 of it, that in it which Plato conceived to correspond to 
 the idea, that which I have variously called (for indeed one 
 can give it no one name) the meaning, purpose, &c, the reason, 
 in a manner, embodied in it which is a kind of principle or soul 
 to the arrangement of it. This is what, in order to have a 
 fixed point round which growing knowledge may group itself, 
 we suppose, and mark by the name, and take for the logical 
 subject of the adjective things or predicates which one after 
 another we go on learning about the substantive thing or ori- 
 ginally noticed and distinguished unity. This first principle 
 of notice so to call it may be a mere supposition, may turn out 
 to have been a mistake — this is not of consequence to the after 
 knowledge : for every real step of knowledge, as I have before 
 remarked, is as well a correction of error as, if we like so to 
 view it, an addition to an aggregate. The important point is 
 this — that the thing, unless it is a mere mathematical repre- 
 sentation, is a thing or object of our thought in virtue of some- 
 thing (supposedly) in it or about it more important and of a 
 higher reality than its shape or size, which, in comparison 
 with this, are only accessory features. 
 
 It is the same in regard of number. The great importance 
 of this at all times in philosophy has been assumed (and honour 
 has thence accrued to mathematics) to arise from the exactitude 
 of which the calculations which it deals with are susceptible.
 
 VI.] OR KXOWLEDCE. 113 
 
 But this is quite a subordinate reason of its importance, the 
 great reason of which is in the conception of a unit which such 
 calculations suppose. Such unit is really a logical individual, 
 a conception most complicated: that is, not merely an object 
 singular (what in common language we loosely style an indi- 
 vidual) which is all that relations of space can separate and 
 distinguish for us, but an object of a sort or kind, involving 
 therefore the idea of such sort or kind, or of order and arrange- 
 ment, that is, invested, embodied, mind, in the universe. Num- 
 ber, setting apart the pleasure of calculation, has no importance 
 except as it is number of tilings, the bringing of which together 
 implies, so far, generic identity. 
 
 What I have last said explains, sufficiently for the present, 
 the thought which I have supposed to stand at the opposite end 
 of the scale from sensation as mere feeling. 
 
 Historically, in every act at all important of perception, 
 sensation enters of every kind, all along the scale. It may be 
 said in this respect that all the operations of our mind are 
 homogeneous, or that into all perception, or intelligence, what 
 we commonly describe as the later mental operations really 
 enter. In the same manner also all perception or intelligence 
 is acquired or composed — an aggregate, cemented by past expe- 
 rience. 
 
 If Ave analyze the operations of the mind, or which is the 
 same thing, analyze itself as we know it, assigning to it various 
 faculties, what 1 have called sensation will probably be divided 
 among several of these. The thougld at the head of my scale, 
 the measurement at the centre, and the feeling at the bottom, 
 have from very early times been allotted to three separate facul- 
 called once 1/01/9, hiuvoia, aiadrjais, and this sort of triple 
 division, under various names, has been frequently recognized. 
 
 The course of the school often called Sensationalisl or that 
 of Experience (now perhaps the Inductive School) has gene- 
 rally been to blend together the central and lower part of the 
 scale, as involving no important difference, and to leave out of 
 account, ae more or Less visionary or fiotitious, the upper pari 
 (thai of thought), thus making the whole homogeneous. 
 
 The question whether relation of space (e.g.) are modes of 
 thoughl or of objective reality, Is as I bave said, al leasl unim 
 
 8
 
 114 THE SCALE OF SENSATION [CHAP. 
 
 portant, perhaps wrong in the conception: hut it is otherwise 
 with the question whether they are of the same nature as the 
 secondary qualities, or those of mere feeling. 
 
 Locke as I have said, and I suppose Kant, maintain the 
 difference from opposite sides, the former (following the old 
 philosophy) making the primary qualities more objective or 
 more intimate to matter than the others, and therefore in his 
 view more real, the latter making them more subjective or 
 more a part of thought than the other, and therefore more real 
 than they, so far as his view is to be considered the philoso- 
 phical, less real so far as it is to be considered the phenomenal. 
 On this I sav nothing. It seems to me that the general effect 
 of Kantism in England, owing perhaps to a phenomenalist appli- 
 cation of it belonging to our habit of mind, has rather been to 
 puzzle philosojDhy and to strengthen what seems to me scepti- 
 cism, and that when applied in the other direction, it has had, 
 as perhaps with Kant himself, too much of a merely mathema- 
 tical (or drily logical) character. We in England use the word 
 subjective often as almost synonymous with visionary: and the 
 saying that space, upon the reality of which depends whether 
 or not the external world (or what we think so) is an illusion, 
 is subjective, would be taken as the saying, with a different phi- 
 losophical reason, much the same as Berkeley did. And so for 
 much of Kantism besides. 
 
 What I have said hitherto about mind and matter has been 
 very general — I will now speak of them a little more with 
 reference to the particular circumstances of our perception. 
 
 I use the word 'perception' for the gaining of fresh know- 
 ledge in what I have previously called the way of acquaintance 
 with things, kenntniss. 'Sensation' I rarely or never use, 
 though I use it constantly, without describing what, in the 
 particular application, I mean by it. 
 
 At the lower or feeling end of the scale of sensation which 
 I gave a short time since the two things which stand opposite to 
 each other are not properly feeling and matter (sensation and 
 body), but are sensation or feeling on the one side, and on the 
 other side a communication between two kinds of matter, that 
 of our body and that which is external to it. It is possible, as I 
 have said, that here there may be a mechanical measurement
 
 VI.] OR KNOWLEDGE. 115 
 
 and corresponding to it a latent, because infinitesimally minute, 
 consciousness: e.g. that the real character of taste might be an 
 action and reaction (the force on the one side being our will)' 
 between the separate portions of our organ of taste and the 
 particles and minute forces of the thing tasted. But this, 
 though we might possibly follow it out on the side of physiology, 
 we could never possibly follow out on the side of feeling, having 
 no microscope for consciousness. We can only say then, that 
 the communication between the tasted substance and the palate 
 is accompanied by what we call a feeling (the sensation of 
 taste) entirely, as feeling, out of relation with the communi- 
 cation. And the contact or contemporaneousness is not be- 
 tween feeling and matter, but between feeling and the mutual 
 communication of two kinds of matter. 
 
 At the middle of the scale, to which correspond relations of 
 space, the case is not exactly similar. Here the sensation or 
 feeling (not like the last) does enter in some degree, though 
 not in a great degree, into a relation which we can under- 
 stand with the supposed matter without. It is still the phe- 
 nomenal fact, that matter on the one side (in our bodies) com- 
 municates with, on the other side, space, or what is traversed, 
 and external matter, or what resists or is resisted: but the 
 feeling on our part which accompanies this communication, is 
 one which, starting from the phenomenalist side, we can to a 
 certain degree take account and speak of: it is not entirely 
 out of relation with the qualities of matter: it is what we 
 understand as not Bimply accompanying, but more or less giv- 
 fche reason for, the communication. Winn we say that 
 it is an effort or force of will that moves the arm, of course 
 we do not mean more than to a certain degree to compare 
 what tak<-; place in the world of feeling with the phenomenal 
 forces in the world without: but to that degree we do mean bo 
 compare them: between the one and the other then.' is some 
 relation which we can understand: they are mutually commen- 
 surable or the one is understood as measuring the other: the 
 will-force ha in this respeel aol thai entire subjectivity which 
 belongs to feeling of pleasure and pain (which, as I have said, 
 mighl be entirely differed in different people, and the thing, 
 of it» It. Q< ■ i i 'in" bo be know d), in o far as, having an imme- 
 
 8—2
 
 116 THE SCALE OF SENSATION [CHAP. 
 
 diate measure in the world without, we are able in some degree 
 from this direction to judge of it. At this part of the scale 
 then, though still feeling and matter belong to two worlds, and 
 we must say that what is on the one side is feeling, and what 
 is on the other side is the communication between two sorts of 
 matter, yet the feeling is associated with one of the sorts of 
 matter in a way which we can more or less understand : it acts 
 upon it, and that means something though it may not mean 
 much : feeling is here in relation not merely with a relation 
 between two kinds of matter, but with matter itself. 
 
 At the upper end of the scale, that of thought, the case is 
 exactly the opposite of what it was in the lower. As there there 
 was communication between two kinds of matter, and over 
 against these a corresponding feeling or mode of mind, so here 
 there is communication between two different forms or modes 
 of mind, and matter, phenomenalism, appears distinct from them, 
 as simply what has brought about the communication. The 
 perception, in its completeness, of an existing object of know- 
 ledge, is really a sympathy with its constitution, arising from 
 the fact that we know ourselves more or less as constituted 
 beings, and that we can make or constitute things ourselves for 
 purposes for which we need them. We recognize therefore in 
 the objects mind kindred to our own. The feeling and mea- 
 surement which build up the knowledge thus completed, and 
 through which this final (far indeed from final in point of time, 
 for it is the spring of the others) perception strikes the life of 
 unity, are the crude material of the knowledge on our side, just 
 as the qualities of matter are on the other side the material in 
 which the mind which we recognize has been invested, em- 
 bodied, immateriated. 
 
 It is in consequence of the complication of all this which I 
 have endeavoured to exhibit, that the words 'presence', 'pre- 
 sentation ', &c, and the words ' inward ', ' internal ', have rarely 
 been used in reference to these subjects without confusion. 
 
 If we mean by ' presence ' a sort of abstract contact, which 
 phenomenally or concretely, is only contemporaneousness, then 
 what is ' present ' to the feeling (obscure, not known) is, at the 
 lower end of the scale of sensation the communication between 
 the two 3orts of matter: in the middle, either (or both) that,
 
 VI.] OR KNOWLEDGE. 117 
 
 or (and) matter itself: at the upper end the mind embodied in 
 the matter. 
 
 If we mean by 'presence' local presence, then by 'ourselves' 
 (the one side) we must understand our corporeal selves, i.e. 
 the organized matter of our bodies, to which our mental selves, 
 our feeling, is, in whatever way, related. 
 
 With the confusion of these two notions, that is, with the 
 failure to keep in mind whether our assumption is the pheno- 
 meualist or the logical, and with the taking the sense of sight 
 for the typical sense, there arises an entanglement almost inex- 
 tricable. 
 
 A thing cannot act where it is not. This, as to pheno- 
 menalist things and forces (or, if any prefer the expression, when 
 spoken concretely and without metaphor) is true. Hence an 
 object {e.g. a tree) affecting the eye, must in some way be pre- 
 sent at the eye: and even, affecting the mind, must in some 
 way be present there (somewhere, as those who speak thus have 
 usually supposed, within the body) too. All this is only car- 
 rying out the language. Hence the endless theories about 
 ' images ' of things, and hence too the discussions and rediscus- 
 sions, whether or not Dr Reid's adversaries meant by ' ideas', 
 images, whether or not he meant that they meant images, 
 whether if he did mean that they meant it, he really refuted 
 them — and much more. The disentanglement of this may be 
 left to those who have Sir "William Hamilton's interest in clear- 
 ing up points like these. 
 
 Perhaps the thing will appear most clear if, looking back 
 to the sentence in tin- last paragraph which refers to an object 
 affecting the eye, I try to point out to the reader which por- 
 tions belong to the logical, which to the phenomenalist view. 
 'Object 1 (in other words the Baying that it is the tree that we see, 
 the tree which out of the whole field of view is in relation 
 with us) and then afterwards, 'affecting the mind,' 'being pre- 
 sent al the mind,' are logical or philosophical: 'affecting the 
 eve,' 'being pn • nt at the eye,' are phenomenalist. 
 
 Logically, the object, or the tree as such, may be said to 
 affect the mind and to be pr< 3en1 at it, so far as that is a good 
 description ofwhal really takes place, viz. that we have a feel- 
 ing in our mind that there exists in that relation to us which
 
 I ] S THE SCALE OF SENSATION [CHAP. 
 
 we call .sight, one particular object of knowledge out of a spatial 
 universe, which object we call a tree, and understand to be 
 such in virtue of certain qualities, forming together a whole or 
 unity, which we suppose it to possess, vegetable life, greenness, 
 &c. &c. 
 
 Phenomenally, what the eye is affected by is light, one cir- 
 cumstance of the light which so affects it being that it is in- 
 terrupted, or reflected, or modified in whatever way by the 
 portion of matter which, when the perception is completed, we 
 call the tree. The saying then that the tree affects the eye, 
 though there is no harm in it, is insignificant, and carries no 
 conclusion of the kind above. But the speaking of any one 
 thing affecting the eye is dangerous. The whole is a process 
 highly complicated, one part of which is various change (of 
 position &c.) in what we call the eye. 
 
 It would take me too long to go further into this confusion, 
 illustrations of which will recur. 
 
 It is not so easy to discover how far there is or is not con- 
 fusion in the use by philosophers of the terms 'presentation' 
 and 'representation', or e.g. ' presentative and representative con- 
 sciousness'. ' Presentative consciousness ' should mean the feel- 
 ing (which we regularly and naturally have) of our phenomenal 
 existence, and in conjunction with this the feeling also, to 
 which latter it is that the attention is directed, that there 
 exists in actual communication with us through the bodily 
 senses an object, which in this character we fix and name, in- 
 dependent of us. (In this view of presentativeness there is no 
 room for discussion whether the knowledge is or is not imme- 
 diate. The speaking of it as 'immediate' would have no dis- 
 tinctive significance.) In contrast with this stands consciousness 
 representative: which is the feeling, first as before of -our phe- 
 nomenal existence, and then (with attention given to it) of 
 there being in our thought something which might be in com- 
 munication with us by the bodily senses, but which, so far as 
 the representation goes, is not. I say, ' so far as the represen- 
 tation goes', because the feelings of presentation and repre- 
 sentation may be, without special attention, undistinguishable, 
 or may be concurrent. Philosophers generally have considered 
 that the only way in which we can consider that a thing might
 
 VI.] OR KNOWLEDGE. 119 
 
 be in communication with our bodily senses is from the know- 
 ledge that every separate portion of it has been. In this respect 
 representation must involve memory, and may involve besides 
 what we may call an active power in the mind of recomposing. 
 
 How do presentation and representation thus viewed, stand 
 related to the notions of mediacy and immediacy of knowledge? 
 In this way: Representation, in the notion of it, might be 
 described as bi-objectal knowledge, that is, knowledge in the case 
 of which we might use the word object in either of two senses, 
 either to express what is thought, or (in common language) 
 what is thought of: there is supposed something (for the mo- 
 ment we will say) in the mind, and something also, possibly 
 but not necessarily existent, out of the mind, which that in it 
 represents. We know then the thing out of the mind by vir- 
 tue of (through the medium of) that in it. 
 
 It is important to observe that the notion 'mediate' or 'im- 
 mediate' is really wider than that of 'representative' or 'presen- 
 tative,' and that they ought not at all to be used as equivalent. 
 Bi-objectalism is only one form of mediateness. What is really 
 meant by knowledge being immediate, when we are speaking of 
 the foundations of knowledge, is that from the most intimate of 
 it there is no break, but that it is continuous, in a manner 
 homogeneous. Thus, if our most intimate knowledge is con- 
 sidered to be of ourselves, we have not an immediate knowledge 
 of an external or phenomenal world: there is a break: and so 
 far as the word knowledge belongs to the former, some word 
 like 'belief belongs to the latter. This is in fact only saying, 
 tli.it we have no means of demonstrating the latter from the 
 former. But this docs not mean, thai we know the external or 
 phenomenal world by representation: if the reader will look at 
 the description given of representation above, he will see tli.it 
 this cannot be. The whole notion of representation is in fact 
 borrowed from the supposition of an external world, ami cannot 
 be applied back to that. Ts'ay more, it, is borrowod, ,-it greal 
 danger of confusion, from one particular manner of viewing the 
 
 ernal world, or the suggestions of one sense, the eye. 
 
 The difficulty of Language in these respects may appear 
 from the word 'immediate', as I have above applied it. Con- 
 tinuousm - "t knowledge (by which is meant the absence of ; ,
 
 120 THE SCALE OF SENSATION [CHAP. 
 
 break or gap) may be denoted by immediateness or mediateness, 
 really as we choose to apply the word : immediateness may mean 
 no chasm between, or no road between. I have made it mean 
 the formei - . 
 
 Our knowledge of the external world is not a knowledge 
 gained (in the first instance) or gainable, by demonstration, and 
 in this respect, so far as it is a knowledge, it is immediate : but 
 at the same time it is a knowledge separated by a step or break, 
 and that a most important one, from our knowledge which is 
 immediate, our proper consciousness, and in this respect it is 
 mediate. The two things, the reader will see, are the same ; 
 there is different use of the same word. It is from the suppo- 
 sition of their being different things that arises what is often 
 called scepticism : such, e. g. as that knowledge which is medi- 
 ate, and yet undemonstrable, must be no knowledge, and that 
 such is our knowledge of the external world. 
 
 I will just signalize what, in the endlessly confused contro- 
 versy as to immediate or mediate knowledge, presentative or 
 representative perception, which carries away in its torrent alike 
 clear metaphysical thinkers like Mr Ferrier, masters of philoso- 
 phical history like Sir William Hamilton, and masters of phe- 
 nomenal] st logic like Mr Mill (as we shall see), seem to me to 
 be the real points of importance. 
 
 Our knowledge of the phenomenal w T orld is not, if we take 
 as standard of immediateness our proper consciousness (i. e. self- 
 consciousness with a formless non-ego as accompaniment) imme- 
 diate. The latter has the higher degree of certainty. 
 
 We know, but besides this we know that we know. It is 
 not proper to say that this latter statement, as against the 
 former, is the true one : both because in this way, as Aristotle 
 would say, the thing goes on ek a-rreipov, and the same reasons 
 which recommend to us this degree of abstractness of conscious- 
 ness or double use of the word know, would seem also to recom- 
 mend to us a higher degree of it, and a triple use of the word 
 (we know that we know that we know, &c.) : also because (as I 
 mentioned in speaking of Mr Ferrier) it is very possible that 
 this double use of the word know may be applied by us, or may 
 tempt us, to give the word ' know ', improperly, a double mean- 
 ing. But though this is so, there is reason in making the latter
 
 VI.] OR KNOWLEDGE. 1*21 
 
 statement by the side of the other, because, besides knowing 
 the object of knowledge, we do know the fact or phenomenon 
 (the first and greatest of all phenomena) of knowledge, and 
 upon this knowledge, in the higher philosophy, many important 
 conclusions depend. But this is only saying that the object of 
 knowledge may be, if for a particular purpose we choose to 
 make it so, the fact of knowledge itself. Sir William Hamilton 
 seems to me to make all knowledge, even as knowledge, me- 
 diate. 
 
 We know the external world by our feeling ourselves some- 
 thing, which I have called phenomenal beings : the fact being, 
 that we feel, consider, imagine (however we may describe it) 
 ourselves in communication, not merely with a formless non- 
 ego, but with a regular and various universe independent of us, 
 by means of a part of that universe which we call our bodies, 
 with which part also, in various manners, we consider our feel- 
 ing associated. Of some portions or characters of this universe 
 (secondary qualities) our feelings are only suggestive : some 
 (primary qualities) they directly measure : some (the composi- 
 tion and order in the universe) they identify themselves with 
 or entirely appropriate. 
 
 With what reason we think or feel all this, is the problem of 
 what is commonly called 'Ontology'. Upon this I will not enter 
 now, nor upon the question, whether there is reason in proposing 
 such a problem. 
 
 This being so, calling our knowledge of the particulars of 
 tlic universe ' perception', are we to consider it immediate or 
 mediate, presentation or representation? 
 
 The answer to this really depends on what we mean by the 
 word 'thing' or on what we consider, in perception, to be the 
 object of knowledge. 
 
 I described some time since the two kinds of words by 
 which, in mosl languag* -. knowledge has been expressed. One 
 chief particular of the difference between the two, is our placing 
 ourselves in imagination, when speaking of knowledge, lower or 
 higher upon the scale of sensation 
 
 Knowledge of acquaintance with things is the notion <»l 
 knowledge which is raggested by the lower portion of the scale 
 of sensation, where are the secondary qualities of matter: (the
 
 122 THE SCALE OF SENSATION [CHAP. 
 
 primary qualities enter both into this and as we shall see into 
 the other kind of knowledge, most specially perhaps and neces- 
 sarily into this). This is kenntniss, connaissance : the type of it 
 is usually taken to be the sense of sight, which embodies both 
 secondary and primary qualities : hence the philosophical name 
 of it is ' intuition', ' anschauung': and hence the great tendency 
 in the term 'representation', &c, as applied to it, to give the 
 notion of an actual image. It would have saved some confusion 
 of thought, at the expense of some picturesqueness, if instead of 
 words referring to the sense of sight to express notions of this 
 kind, we could have used or coined some referring to the sense 
 of touch (in the double character of feeling and handling, nerv- 
 ous and muscular perception), such a word e.g. as 'betouch- 
 ment'; the term 'apprehension' and words of this kind have 
 something of the character which I mean : here, however, there 
 would have been danger of confusion too : for whatever sensive 
 power (even the simplest) we refer the term we use to, the re- 
 ference to the sensive power will be something of a metaphor, 
 for we mean to express something more general, more abstract 
 than the reference to the sensive power would imply, though 
 something which the sensive power suggests to us. Any feel- 
 ing distinctly attended to is more or less of an intuition, and 
 any recurrence of such feeling, similarly attended to, is more 
 or less of a representation. 
 
 If we take knowledge of acquaintance, or by way of in- 
 tuition in this use of the term, for the type of knowledge, and 
 mean by the word 'thing', as is its real meaning, 'the object 
 of our knowledge', then of course our perception or knowledge 
 of things is immediate : the words intuitive and immediate in 
 this sense will mean the same thing. The 'thing' in this view 
 is what we see, handle, smell, taste. I have expressed the fact 
 this way as the way in which it would be expressed, and to shew 
 how many philosophical disputes arise from mere inattention 
 to language. Is here expresses a relation of co-extensiveness 
 or identity : it does not mean that what follows it is a predicate 
 or part of the description of that which goes before. The pro- 
 position is true converted : what we see, handle, smell, taste, 
 is the thing. Even so it is not absolutely safe from misappre- 
 hension: and it is this misapprehension which gives rise to
 
 VI.] OR KNOWLEDGE. 123 
 
 the notion of something mysterious contained in the word what. 
 What is it we see, handle, &c. people will ask : with some 
 reason we shall see presently, though not with the reason they 
 sometimes think. What is the substratum or substance of 
 which these qualities which we perceive, seeableness or colour, 
 handleableness or shape, taste, smell, &c. are attributes ? The 
 answer is, there is, in the sense you mean, none such : the 
 thing itself is really, so far as knowledge is concerned (on this 
 view of knowledge as acquaintance), determined by these par- 
 ticulars which you perceive about it, which are really therefore 
 the elements or constituents of it. But because you do not 
 know how many of these constituents there are (and for an- 
 other reason too, which we shall see) you choose, in thought or 
 language, to suppose the thing itself unknown, and to call all 
 these things qualities or adjuncts of it. In reality, on this 
 view of knowledge, there is nothing more to be known than the 
 sum of these qualities. 
 
 But of these qualities of the supposed thing there is one of 
 transcendant importance, which is its thinghood or reality, 
 which is really the same notion as that of the relation of its 
 parts to each other, and of itself to what is about it. In the 
 view of knowledge as acquaintance with things, this is not to 
 be treated as a mysterious substratum of the qualities, but is 
 a quality itself, only the most important, and the particulars of 
 which we are always endeavouring to discover. I have men- 
 tioned, that all the discussion about things in themselves seems 
 to me to arise from the treat ing as two different portions of know- 
 Ledgewhai are really two differenl views of the same knowledge. 
 The cardinal quality of a sensible object of knowledge, which 
 is what I have called its 'reality' or 'unity' vanishes out of the 
 field of knowledge of acquaintance with things, fur this reason, 
 that it bi ' bo a high it [kiN of tin- sr;i!o of sensation and 
 
 thoughl than thai knowledge will really apply to. 
 
 It i- possible however, thai we may take acquaintance with 
 things, instead of being the type of knowledge, to be do know- 
 ledge a1 all, and to resolve all intellecl a1 bottom merely into 
 
 n of habit or familiarity: just as from passings tree every 
 day we might know, entirely without intellectual exercise, ever) 
 branch and leaf of it, or might know in little purpose ever)
 
 124 THE SCALE OF SENSATION OR KNOWLEDGE. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 line on the face and every button on the coat of a man whom 
 we meet every day, but to whom we had never spoken. "We 
 may take for type of knowledge the knowledge of facts about 
 things, judgment. 
 
 This is the logical notion of knowledge, and it is because it 
 is so that, in the manner which I have mentioned, knowledge 
 or acquaintance, in order to enter into thought and language, 
 is put into this form, and the thing we make acquaintance with 
 is split into substance and qualities, to which correspond, logic- 
 ally, subject and possible predicates. 
 
 Knowledge, when the former type is taken of it, is a matter 
 of communication, the suggestion of which is given by the com- 
 munication between our body and the external universe : when 
 this latter type is taken, it is a matter of question and answer, 
 of dissection and analysis : we stand as it were behind the great 
 web of reality, of which we do not, so far, see the face ; or 
 rather, seeing the face, we endeavour to get behind it. 
 
 Of knowledge of this type there are continually varying 
 actual objects, which are the facts we know about things : these 
 facts put together make up in this view the thing, and we are 
 said to have a conception of the thing, as distinct from an in- 
 tuition. 
 
 Truth, in the intuitive view of knowledge, is simply undis- 
 turbedness or purity : in the conceptive, it is thinking rightly 
 or as we should about things : the highest notion of truth alto- 
 gether is perhaps the accordance of the two desertions of 
 knowledge, or the agreement of the results of the one with 
 those of the other.
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON— CONSCIOUSNESS OF 
 
 MATTER. 
 
 Xx the last Chapter but one I have made some general re- 
 marks on Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, but have as yet 
 made little or no quotation from him. 
 
 I shall probably have occasion, in a later Chapter than this 1 , 
 to refer to his philosophy again : in the present Chapter I will 
 try to exhibit the part of it with which I am most concerned 
 in his own words as well as the proof which he gives of it. 
 
 Upon this part of his philosophy, our (supposed) consciousness 
 of matter, I have myself written, I fear, with some confusion (and 
 I must apologise for it) in this way : I have done my best to 
 enter into. Sir William Hamilton's view, by putting it to myself 
 in various ways, and have seemed to myself thus to come to 
 see it more clearly — it is probable that what I have written 
 will bear the traces of this effort. But certainly, the more I 
 seem to myself to understand it, the less do I agree with it. 
 
 I should almost be disposed to consider it the master-con- 
 fusion, the 'temporis partus maximus' of mis-psychology — but 
 we will see. 
 
 I have myself not the slightest objection to say that we are 
 conscious of matter, if these are the terms we like to use, in 
 this way. Matter is a thing we know, and whatever we know 
 we may be said to be conscious of, if we talk of 'consciousness 
 o/' things : all our knowledge, even all our thought, is con- 
 Bciousness, as I have said myself as strongly as I can : what we 
 know then, and not only that, bul what we imagine, what we 
 conceive, what we remember, we are conscious of: thi^ very 
 simple fact, or rather manner of expression seems to me to be 
 all the Bubstance of many pages of Sir William Hamilton, 
 where he proves thai the different faculties, by which, in the 
 language of some philosophers, we are said to do these various 
 
 ' In the q< ■■■ part,
 
 126 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON — [CHAP. 
 
 tilings, arc only so many manners of consciousness. Matter, 
 then, is a thing that we are conscious of: this is my cardinal 
 doctrine: I put it two ways: it is because matter is after all, 
 so far as we can tell, only a thing that we are conscious of — 
 a thought of ours supposed warranted, a mental creation pro- 
 perly created, a something the certainty of the existence of 
 which depends for us on the certainty of our own existence, 
 and the trustworthiness of our own feeling — that the study of 
 consciousness is higher than the study of matter (in my lan- 
 guage, philosophy than phenomenalism) and that we ourselves, 
 who are conscious, know ourselves, preeminently, with a differ- 
 ent knowledge from that with which we know matter, of which 
 we are conscious, just as we know also our own thoughts and 
 feelinsrs with a consciousness more intimate and immediate than 
 that with which Ave know matter, since we mean by matter 
 something which we suppose to give occasion to varieties of 
 such feelings : that is one way : again because matter is a thing 
 which w r e are conscious of, therefore there is a study of it as 
 we are conscious of it, which we may pursue without at all 
 troubling ourselves what the being conscious of it means, and 
 this is what I call 'phenomenalism'. 
 
 My hesitation in treating of Sir "William Hamilton's view 
 has arisen from an anxious desire not to misinterpret him : but 
 the more I study what he says, the more I think that his view 
 is nothing like such consciousness of matter as this, but some- 
 thing quite different. "Whatever we are conscious of must be, 
 so far as we are conscious of it, an object of consciousness, a 
 creation of the mind: I really suppose that what Sir William 
 Hamilton means by saying that the whole body of philosophers 
 onlv allow us to be conscious of modifications of the ecro, is that, 
 in fact, they say this, which I have said above: and that he 
 himself really says against it that we may, making the phe- 
 nomenalist (which, used in connection with philosophy, is the 
 mis-psychologist) supposition to begin with, that the things, 
 or matter, are actually, spatially, existing before us, describe 
 our relation to such things as the being conscious of them, 
 without altering the meaning of the word 'conscious', but using 
 ir still in the same manner, drawing the same conclusions 
 from it, as we do when we use it as to the previously sup-
 
 VII.] CONSCIOUSNESS OF MATTER. 127 
 
 posed objects of consciousness, mental conceptions, mental states, 
 self. Matter is supposed first as existing, described, defined, 
 quite independent of consciousness: Sir William Hamilton is 
 not finding matter by examining consciousness, but knows it 
 already and lays down what it is. Consciousness then, which 
 is variously synonymized, defined, particularized, as thought, 
 feeling, will, and by other such notions or expressions, all, for 
 that is the condition of them, referrible to a conscious or sen- 
 tient subject, is examined as to its 'contents', in Sir William 
 Hamilton's expression, which of course must be in some way 
 homogeneous with, or predicable of, these things, thought 
 feeling, &c. : and then among the contents of it there comes 
 to be found this matter known otherwise, so entirely hetero- 
 geneous, with its constituents of oxygen, light, &c, and its 
 qualities and predicates of shape, colour, taste, sound, &c. : 
 and from its being thus supposedly found the conclusion is 
 drawn that matter with its constituents or qualities exists to us 
 in the same manner and with the same reality as the thought, 
 feeling, &c. which are the other contents of consciousness, and 
 tliis conclusion is supposed to be necessary to obviate scepticism. 
 Against this incongruity I will endeavour to put what seems 
 to me the truth. 
 
 Wo are conscious of beliefs, thoughts, feelings, occupying 
 our mind with various degrees of conviction or cogency, and 
 next in conviction to the central belief. that we exist at all, is 
 the belief that we exist with what we call a body, by which 
 we communicate with much which is not only independent of 
 mil- primal selves, but external to our corporeal selves, and 
 whai we thus, speaking from our primal selves, think Ave com- 
 municate with, or, speaking from our corporeal selves, actually 
 do communicate with, we call the universe of matter. 
 
 Taking this universe of matter, with our corporeal selves in 
 the middle of it, up here and with these considerations abort it it 
 v.. .ire philosophers, and, if we * 1 « » not care to philosophize, simply 
 ,//, without these considerations ;ii .-ill: and proceeding in (lie 
 i, - e direction to that in which, if we have made these consider- 
 ation-, we have hitherto proceeded : this universe of matter com- 
 municates with on i- body a ii< I all its various sensive organization, 
 :ui«l concurrently with this various communication there is various
 
 128 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON — [CHAP. 
 
 consciousness, with which this course is brought to a halt — the 
 other is complete, this is not — for in the consciousness thus 
 come to we say I, I know, and other such things of which this 
 way of consideration can take no account, and which, belonging 
 really to the other, absorb everything which belongs to this, 
 and make tliis appear a something secondary, included, an ab- 
 straction. 
 
 I hope the reader will give me credit for a wish to make 
 Sir William Hamilton's view intelligible to him, so far as it 
 can be so made — of course he may think it would have been 
 better without my aid — and for being thus long, both upon the 
 view itself and the opposite view, with this purpose. 
 
 But we will now take Sir William Hamilton's own words. 
 I will give first his various enunciations of his view, then his 
 proof of it : and on his proof I will first examine whether it 
 proves what he wishes, and next, if it proves anything, what it 
 proves. 
 
 First of all, however, I will make a general remark on his 
 reasoning, and on his frequent quotation. 
 
 His reasoning is, it seems to me, sometimes very doubtful : 
 I think I could find more instances like the following. 
 
 Philosophers, he saj^s 1 , refuse to admit the fact of conscious- 
 ness, the immediate perception of external things, declare it to 
 be impossible, and give reasons for thinking so : these reasons, he 
 continues ought, if they are good for anything, to establish the 
 absolute necessity for the rejection of this testimony of con- 
 sciousness : he will endeavour to refute them, ' by showing that 
 they do not establish the necessity required'. He finds five 
 such reasons given : the second is, " Mind and matter are sub- 
 " stances of different and even opposite natures : mind cannot 
 "therefore be conscious or immediately cognisant of matter." 
 Sir William Hamilton conceives it is an answer to this to say: 
 " But the very first fact of our experience contradicts the asser- 
 " tion, that mind, as of an opposite nature, can have no imme- 
 " diate cognisance of matter : for the primary datum of con- 
 " sciousness is, that in perception, we have an intuitive knowledge 
 " of the ego and of the non-ego, equally and at once " (know- 
 
 1 Vol. ii. p. 1 1 8.
 
 VII.] CONSCIOUSNESS OF MATTER. 129 
 
 ledge of the non-ego and of matter being not, with Sir William 
 Hamilton, distinguished) 1 '. The philosophers reject what Sir 
 "William Hamilton considers the testimony of consciousness, be- 
 cause the fact which, it is averred, it bears witness to, they say 
 is impossible. Sir William Hamilton undertakes, against five 
 reasons, to prove the possibility. The above is the way in 
 which he does so against one of them. To prove the possi- 
 bility, he thinks it enough straightforwardly to re-assert the fact 
 which is in dispute on the ground of its being impossible. The 
 philosophers say, What you assign as a datum of consciousness 
 cannot be admitted as such, because mind can have no im- 
 mediate cognisance of the non-ego or of matter: he thinks it 
 is an answer to this to say, You are wrong in saying mind 
 cannot have immediate consciousness of matter, because that 
 which I have assigned as a datum of consciousness is such a 
 datum, and the primary datum 2 . 
 
 I notice this, which I hope the reader will examine for 
 himself, not in respect of the consideration, which here is wrong 
 or which is right, but because it shows a notion of argument 
 which, in the case of any with whom, as with Sir William 
 Hamilton, argument is so main a feature, rather affects one's 
 confidence in him. The passage here quoted is not something 
 occurring obiter, or an apparent inadvertence, but is introduced 
 as is often Sir William Hamilton's wont, with much parade. 
 
 Next, on his quotations. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton's Lectures, as published by Professors 
 Mansel and Witch with full references, form a book the 
 
 1 Vol. II. p. 12 2. 
 
 2 I do not lay so much stress upon another thing which I will just mention 
 here, which is a certain degree of inconsistency of view in what is said in 
 different places, because some uncertainty of view, possibly even involving incon- 
 sistency, is by no means a defect in a philosopher in my eyes, if only it seems to 
 
 not from eonfused thought, but from a continued nisus in the conception of 
 truth, a struggle and a feeling after it. But if we compare Sir William Hamil- 
 ton's language herewith the first portion <>f his proof, which I shall shortly notice, 
 it is certainly i ble. Tin's supposed fact of mind and matter being opposite, 
 
 in what 1. upon ili'i-i as a strong argument for the knowledge of the two 
 
 being on. l^e, viz. consciousness: /";"•, what he had then brought forward 
 
 as an argument for the thin.', tin- philosophers are represented as bringing forward 
 asanargumenl against the pot ibilityofit: ami he, as if In; had forgotten his 
 own arguiiv-nt, instead of r. | »rting the at fument upon them, or doing anythis 
 that kind, answers as we see, by simpbj I ag the matter in dispute. 
 
 i)
 
 130 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON [CHAP. 
 
 value of which cannot be over-estimated to the student who has 
 opportunity to turn to the references. But I trust that the 
 notion of learning, and of its meaning and value, which made 
 Sir William Hamilton quote so much, is going out of fashion. 
 I am quite ready to consider, that for reporting a philosopher's 
 opinion, no person could have been found better, both in the 
 way of conscientiousness and of penetration, than Sir "William 
 Hamilton. But I should have thought that his own endless and 
 complicated discussions as to Heid's misconstruing of those 
 before him, and Brown's misconstruing of Reid, and I know 
 not what more, would have suggested to him of how very little 
 value an off-hand report of a philosopher's opinion on an 
 intricate and disputed matter is ; so that his frequent citations 
 of philosophers and quotations of them, in strings and shoals, 
 might as to value have been spared, though I fully acknow- 
 ledge the interest of them. When we come to Mr Mill, we 
 shall see perhaps the value of one such string. 
 
 In my own opinion, but that is my own only, there is some- 
 thing depressing in this weight of learning, in this manner : 
 nothing can come into one's mind, but one is told, Oh, that is 
 the opinion of such and such a person long ago: and naturally 
 therefore on the other hand if anything should come into our 
 mind which we cannot find in any body, the air of a discoverer 
 is put on for very little, and in a manner which seems to me 
 unworthy of those whose business is simply truth. So long as 
 a philosopher's meaning is as discussible in the case of our 
 predecessors, as Sir William Hamilton has in practice shown, 
 I am suspicious both of the professed originalities and of the 
 references of opinion to this or that philosopher. And I can 
 conceive nothing more noxious for students than to get into the 
 habit of saying to themselves about their ordinary philosophical 
 thought, 'Oh, somebody must have thought it all before', and 
 about one or two particularities perhaps, ' Ah, but this is some- 
 thing which I have been the first to say'. The progress of philo- 
 sophy is a thinking, and a re-thinking, and a re-thinking still 
 more clearly and better, about the same matters of everlasting 
 interest, and the philosophic disposition is to value correct 
 thought about these greater things, rather than small originality, 
 if it be so, in detail.
 
 VII.] CONSCIOUSNESS OF MATTER. 131 
 
 I will now proceed to give the various manners in which 
 Sir William Hamilton enunciates his doctrine, that we are 
 conscious of matter. 
 
 1. The primary datum of consciousness is described to be: 
 "That we are immediately cognitive of the phenomena of 
 "matter and of the phenomena of mind 1 ". 
 
 2. This is called in the passage cited a short time since: 
 " That we have an intuitive knowledge of the ego and of the 
 "non-ego, equally and at once 2 ". 
 
 3. Again : " Consciousness declares that we have an imme- 
 "diate knowledge of an ego, and of an external non-ego 3 ". 
 
 4. Again : " The fact to which consciousness testifies is — 
 "that the object, of which we are conscious in perception, is the 
 " external reality as existing, and not merely its representation 
 "in the percipient mind 4 ". 
 
 5. In the following passage the two portions of this intui- 
 tive knowledge are looked" at separately. 
 
 " The acquisition of knowledge can only be accomplished 
 "by the immediate presentation of a fresh object to conscious- 
 " ness, in other words, by the reception of a new object within 
 "the sphere of our cognition. We have thus a faculty which 
 " may be called the Acquisitive, or the Presentative, or the Ite- 
 "ceptive". 
 
 " Now new or adventitious knowledge may be either of things 
 " external, or of things internal, in other words, either of the 
 "phenomena of the non-ego, or of the phenomena of the ego: 
 "and this distinction of object will determine a subdivision of 
 "this, the Acquisitive Faculty. If the object of knowledge be 
 "external, the faculty receptive or presentative of such objects 
 " will be a consciousness of the non-ego. This has obtained the 
 "name of Externa] Perception, or of Perception simply 6 ". 
 
 G. Again: "The great fact" — is — "that we .tie immediately 
 "conscious in perception of an ego, and a non-ego, known to- 
 " orether, and known in contrast to each other. This is the fact 
 " of the Duality of ( lonsciousness 6 ", 
 
 ' Vol. n. ,.. 86. ' Vol. i. p. -27s. 
 
 1 Vol. 11. p. 122. s Vol. II. [». M. 
 
 <l. 11. p, 19. ' Vol, 1. p. 1 
 
 9—2
 
 132 Silt WILLIAM HAMILTON [CHAP. 
 
 7. But in the same page : " Such is the fact of perception 
 "revealed in consciousness, and as it determines mankind in 
 "general in their almost equal assurance of the reality of an 
 "external world, as of the existence of their own minds. Con- 
 " sciousness declares our knowledge of material qualities to be 
 "intuitive or immediate — not representative or mediate". 
 
 I will comment for a moment on each one of these passages. 
 
 The first of them (I will not discuss the exact meaning of 
 immediate) belongs in substance to that view which made me 
 some time back put together in a note Sir William Hamilton 
 and Mr Mill. The passage may be regarded as a parallel pas- 
 sage from a different point of view to Mr Mill's saying that the 
 universe is made up of mind and its attributes, and body and its 
 attributes. In reality what we are conscious of (beginning from 
 this side, viz. the side of consciousness) is the phenomena of 
 mind (to use this language), and a large class of these pheno- 
 mena are interpretations of the felt non-ego or supposed oc- 
 casions of our sensation, which interpretations constitute our 
 thought of an external world, while we call this thought 'per- 
 ception ' in virtue of another important phenomenon of mind, 
 viz. our belief that there is an objective reality in what it 
 leads us to — I mean by objective reality, a reality as certain 
 to us, though differently known, as our own subjective reality, 
 which is our type of reality. So much for that side. From the 
 other side, that of the universe, what the universe is made up of 
 is matter variously constituted and put together, more or less 
 filling space, and two phenomena or attributes of this matter 
 (if so w r e are to call considerations more important than the mat- 
 ter itself) are, one that there is an order, a system or constitu- 
 tion to which belong the laws or principles of the above con- 
 stitution, the other that certain portions of the matter, our 
 bodies to wit, are so constituted as to communicate in a special 
 manner with (in the language of many philosophers ' to be im- 
 pressible by') various natural agents &c. — hence there are in the 
 universe the great phenomenon of order, or a sort of organi- 
 zation of the whole, and the scarcely less phenomenon of life, or 
 the particular organization, with sensation for accompaniment, in 
 parts : but all as to these that is phenomenon, to be connected 
 with what communicates with our bodies, is that there is order,
 
 VII.] CONSCIOUSNESS OF MATTER. 133 
 
 and that there is sensation. I will not say but that from the 
 side of the universe, physiologists may make something of sensa- 
 tion as a part of life, nor have I any wish to prevent them 
 making as much as they can. But beginning thus with reality 
 as indicated to us by our bodies and what communicates with 
 them, what happens in regard of facts of mind is that if we 
 proceed further with them than I have just indicated we find 
 our first supposition or our universe absolved by them, and 
 must go over to the view which I gave before, from conscious- 
 ness. ' I ' is not a phenomenon of the universe, but a some- 
 thing of which, as we then saw, the universe itself is a belief 
 or a thought. 
 
 "We are conscious then of phenomena of mind : the uni- 
 verse consists of phenomena of matter, thought of by mind, 
 which thinks also of much besides (the language, 'phenomena', 
 'mind', &c. belongs to others). 
 
 I wish I had not been so long on this, but in fact the 
 whole object of my writing these pages is to enforce what I 
 have given just here. 
 
 The second and sixth passages in substance I agree with, 
 and anything which I may have to say besides about them 
 will come shortly, when we speak of Sir William Hamilton's 
 proof. It will be observed that the 'Duality of Consciousness ' 
 as thus described is independent of any notion of 'externality' 
 or matter: what Sir William Hamilton can mean by refusing 
 the name of 'Dualism' to a large portion of philosophy when 
 this is his Duality, is \<> me inconceivable. 
 
 That there should have been some confusion on my part 
 in making out Sir William Hamilton's view may perhaps 
 appear excusable, when we pass from these passages to the 
 third, where we are told that we have an immediate know- 
 ledge of a iiMii-ego and of an external non-ego. Here we have 
 a duality given essentially different from, or going beyond, the 
 last It is this ' external ' which is the point. And the fourth 
 passage is to the same effect. So also the seventh, where for 
 
 ternal' we have l material qualities'. To this we shall re- 
 turn. 
 
 The fifth pa ■■ ha1 I call the wrong psj chology 
 
 in its fullesl blossom. There La a parallel drawn (continued
 
 134 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON [CHAP. 
 
 in what follows, if the reader will refer) between the presenta- 
 ation or consciousness of things internal, and of things external. 
 Now the things internal are feelings, thoughts &c, and the 
 making them present, or their becoming present, to conscious- 
 ness, is reasonable enough : in Sir William Hamilton's wide 
 view of consciousness they are in fact always so, they are (in 
 their nature) presentations : but then, next, there is supposed a 
 material object already existing with its material qualities, and 
 Sir William Hamilton seems to think that by merely using the 
 same word he can make it be believed that in respect of (or be- 
 tween) consciousness and something so incongruous with it as this 
 there takes place a process in some way similar to that which takes 
 place in respect of (or between) consciousness and the thoughts 
 or feelings. What is of consequence, of more consequence than 
 the criticism of Sir William Hamilton, is that the i*eader should 
 see what these errors spring from, or what I have called the bad 
 psychology — it is the confusing together the difference, on the 
 one side, between thought and matter, or in other words the mu- 
 tual independence of them, and, on the other, the externality, 
 the distance from us, of the object, or the difficulty of its com- 
 munication with the bodily sense. Of course, when Sir William 
 Hamilton begins with supposing the existence already of the 
 material object, he cannot but have in mind the thought of 
 this latter communication : and as soon as he thinks he has 
 solved the difficulty as to this, so that object and sense can 
 come together without anything which he would call represen- 
 tation, he thinks he has solved the other difficulty. But what he 
 has got to do is to show that there is, or can be, any mean- 
 ing in form, smell, sound being -present to thought except that 
 they are thought, thought of, thought to exist and to occasion 
 sensation in us. 
 
 The last thing which I will notice is the 'almost' in the 
 last passage, which at first sight one might be disposed to 
 take for a misprint. In fact there is a carelessness in the sen- 
 tence altogether, which would lead one to think that perhaps 
 further attention would have put it differently. For what has 
 philosophy to do with qualifications like this 'almost'? And 
 what is Sir William Hamilton's 'consciousness of matter' good 
 for at all, if it does not furnish an altogether equal assurance of
 
 VII.] CONSCIOUSNESS OF MATTER. 135 
 
 the reality of matter and of that of mind ? And what is the 
 meaning of his supporting, as he does, his opinion by the voice 
 of mankind against the voice of philosophers, if all that the 
 voice of mankind goes to is this qualified, partial, assurance ? 
 If the expression is genuine, it seems to me to show a sort of 
 unphilosophical misgiving, which really I think does belong to 
 all the psychology with its notions of ' common sense' &c. I 
 hold a secondary and mediate (if Sir William Hamilton likes 
 the term) knoidedge of an external world compared with the 
 knowledge of ourselves, but a perfectly equal assurance of its 
 reality : i.e. the assurance is in each case, in its own way, com- 
 plete : what is the use of establishing a primary or immediate 
 knowledge, to come after all to an almost equal assurance? 
 
 So much for Sir William Hamilton's statements of his doc- 
 trine : now for his manner of establishing it. 
 
 Reid, in Sir William Hamilton's view, had in his doctrine 
 of Common Sense taught truly on the subject of our immediate 
 knowledge of an external world, but had been wrong in re- 
 stricting the meaning of the term 'consciousness' to self-con- 
 sciousness or reflection, and in saying that the knowledge which 
 we had in the furmer case was by a faculty, 'perception', different 
 from consciousness. Against this Sir William Hamilton argues 
 that it is wrong so to restrict 'consciousness', ami that 'per- 
 ception' is a 'consciousness'. The discussion has a double cha- 
 racter, one character quite indifferent to me, and I should hope 
 to many of my readers. It is a convenient often and useful way 
 king to speak of did faculties of thought or know- 
 
 ledge, but the realizing them to such an extent as to make it 
 a matter of importance whether this or thai piece ^( thoughl 
 belongs to one or another facult}', is a thing I do not care for. 
 But the discussion has anoth< r character more important. Sir 
 William Hamilton makes use of the description of perception as 
 ' consciousness' to give to the supposed 'immediate know Ledge' 
 a meaning so far as moaning of the kind is possible vi ry dif- 
 ferent from whal the term 'Common Souse' or any such term 
 would i 'I beg 1 may not be understood as giving any 
 
 opinion as to what Dr Reid meant). This meaning I have en- 
 deavoured t" describe above. 
 
 We are conscious then, jays Sir William Eamilton, 'I do1
 
 136 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON — [CHAP. 
 
 only of ourselves, but of the not-ourselves : (2) not only of 
 perception, but of the object which we perceive. 
 
 I will begin with the latter of these, and quote at length 
 the reasoning on it, with a few remarks on it : the reason why 
 I take the other last will be seen 1 . 
 
 " Reid's assertion, that we are conscious of the act of per- 
 ception, but not of the object perceived, involves, first of all, 
 " a general absurdity. For it virtually asserts that we can know 
 " what we are not conscious of knowing. An act of perception 
 "is an act of knowledge; what we perceive, that we know. 
 " Now, if in perception there be an external reality known, but 
 " of which external reality we are, on Reid's hypothesis, not con- 
 scious, then is there an object known, of which we are not con- 
 scious. But as we know only inasmuch as we know that we 
 "know, — in other words, inasmuch as we are conscious that 
 "we know, — we cannot know an object without being conscious 
 "of that object as known; consequently, we cannot perceive an 
 "object without being conscious of that object as perceived. 
 
 " But, again, how is it possible that we can be conscious of 
 " an operation of perception, unless consciousness be coextensive 
 " with that act ; and how can it be coextensive with the act, 
 " and not also conversant with its object ? An act of knowledge 
 "is only possible in relation to an object, — and it is an act of 
 "one kind or another only by special relation to a particular 
 "object. Thus the object at once determines the existence, and 
 "specifies the character of the existence, of the intellectual 
 "energy. An act of knowledge existing and being what it is 
 "only by relation to its object, it is manifest that the act can 
 "be known only through the object to which it is correlative; 
 "and Reid's supposition that an operation can be known in 
 "consciousness to the exclusion of its object, is impossible. For 
 " example, I see the inkstand. How can I be conscious that my 
 "present modification exists, — that it is a perception, and not 
 " another mental state, — that it is a perception of sight to the 
 " exclusion of every other sense, — and, finally, that it is a per- 
 ception of the inkstand, and of the inkstand only, — unless my 
 "consciousness comprehend within its sphere the object, which 
 
 1 Vol. i. pp. 227, 228.
 
 VII.] CONSCIOUSNESS OF MATTER. lo7 
 
 " at once determines the existence of the act, qualifies its kind, 
 "and distinguishes its individuality? Annihilate the ink- 
 " stand, you annihilate the perception ; annihilate the conscious- 
 ness of the object, you annihilate the consciousness of the 
 " operation." 
 
 This proof, so to call it, seems to me to have three mem- 
 bers, each, for a different reason, wrong. 
 
 In the first paragraph, so far as I can make out, there is a 
 non-sequitur at the point of the conclusion : f we know an object 
 inasmuch as we are conscious that we know an object' (or 'we 
 cannot know an object without being so conscious') is treated 
 as if it were the same sentence as, 'we cannot know an object 
 without being conscious of that object as known' — the whole 
 question in dispute is the legitimacy of the application of the 
 term 'consciousness' to the object — Sir William Hamilton 
 settles the dispute by simply so applying it, which he is at 
 liberty to do, and then, which he is not at liberty to do, con- 
 cluding that his so applying it is a reason why it ought to be 
 so applied. 
 
 The second portion of the argument, occupying the first 
 half of the second paragraph, is a piece of what I call ' notion- 
 alism'. Knowledge is described as 'an act'; an act must have 
 an object, and can be known only through the object — whether 
 there is meaning or not in this, I recognise no cogency in it. 
 Knowledge might be described in many other ways than as 
 being an act, and in calling it an act I should in no degree 
 mean that it was thereby broughl under the laws of a sort of 
 general science of acting or agency, supposing that there was 
 such. 
 
 The third or remaining portion of the argument seems to me 
 to belong to the wrong psychology. I do not understand the 
 phrase, 'unless my consciousness comprehend within its sphere 
 the object'. Consciousness doubtless comprehends within its 
 sphere the object of the consciousness, but what it is that is the 
 objed of the consciousness is just the question in dispute. Sir 
 
 William Hamilton wants to prove that consciousness compre- 
 hends within its Bphere the inkstand, and seems to think that can 
 be done by calling the inkstand an object. The expression 'an 
 nihilate the inkstand, you annihilate the perception' shows the
 
 138 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON — [CHAP. 
 
 ■wrong view : i. e. the phenomenalist view trying to swell itself 
 out to include consciousness, which makes the bad psychology. 
 I should say: Are we in the spatial world? then I know 
 nothing about consciousness of things — it does not belong here 
 — I know about things, and communication of what we call 
 external things with one important thing which we call our 
 body, and accompaniment of this communication with sensation — 
 which we have to stop with: annihilate the inkstand, there is 
 vacant space, no communication, no accompanying sensation: 
 call the sensation perception, if you like, use the language if 
 you like 'perception of the thing': then with the inkstand, you 
 annihilate the perception of the thing: but all this cannot 
 prove, when we start with phenomena, that consciousness of 
 the thing, or perception of it, represents any fact, anything to 
 do or done between the mind and the thing — any relation 
 between them. The thing is what it is— the feeling or con- 
 sciousness is what it is — there we have to stop. 
 
 If instead of starting with the spatial world and coming in 
 to ourselves, we are awaking without any previous knowledge 
 or remembrance, and opening, as a sailor might say, the spatial 
 world point after point, feature after feature, thing after thing, 
 to ourselves — then the truth is not perhaps exactly the converse 
 of what Sir William Hamilton says — annihilate the perception 
 and you annihilate the inkstand — but something like it — sup- 
 pose no perception of an inkstand where perception of an ink- 
 stand ought to be, and (barring sensal defect or disease, which 
 is not our present business) there is no inkstand. 
 
 So much for the second portion of Sir William Hamilton's 
 proof: the first is of a different nature. Having quoted the 
 other portion at such length, I cannot do the same with this : 
 I trust the reader will refer to the book : but I will endeavour 
 to give as good an account of it as I can. 
 
 Dr Reid then 'maintains', says Sir William Hamilton, 'that 
 we are conscious of our perception of a rose, but not of the rose 
 perceived'. 'That we know the ego by one act of knowledge' 
 (viz. consciousness), 'the non-ego by another' (viz. perception). 
 This doctrine he proceeds to refute 1 . 
 
 I will now quote : " It is not only a logical axiom, but a 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. 225.
 
 u 
 
 vn.] consciousness or matter. 139 
 
 "self-evident truth, that the knowledge of opposites is one. 
 "Thus we cannot know what is tall without knowing what is 
 " short, — we know what is virtue only as we know what is vice — 
 "the science of health is but another name for the science of 
 "disease. Nor do we know the opposites, the I and Thou, the 
 ego and non-ego, the subject and object, mind and matter, by a 
 
 different law Unless we are prepared to maintain that 
 
 " the faculty cognisant of self and not-self is different from the 
 " faculty cognisant of not-self and self, we must allow that the 
 "eco and non-e^o are known and discriminated in the same 
 " indivisible act of knowledge". And this faculty or act of know- 
 ledge he proceeds to describe as ' consciousness'. 
 
 This is a line of proof with which, if we examine what 
 it really proves, I heartily concur. But what does it really 
 prove ? 
 
 Let us look at Sir William Hamilton's catalogue of oppo- 
 sites. The nature of the antithesis between subject and object 
 I examined before. Whether here Sir William Hamilton con- 
 siders all these as different oppositions, or different views of the 
 same opposition, I cannot tell. But what is the nature of the 
 antithesis between mind and matter? Mind and matter are 
 repeatedly called by Sir William Hamilton opposite. I suppose 
 that what at the top of the same page, he puts into the mouth 
 of the partisans of Dr Reid, but it would appear, fully admits, 
 may be taken as an explanation of what he means by this oppo- 
 sition, " Mind and matter are mutually separated by the whole 
 '• diameter of being. Mind and matter are, in fact, nothing but 
 " words to express tin- series of phenomena known less in them- 
 -, than in contradistinction from each other". This loose 
 manner of speaking, ' known less in themselves than ...', which 
 mbles the 'almost' on which I commented before, and 
 which is quite i t with the argument, seems to me 
 
 to denote a want of confidence in the opinion hold, a fear of 
 going through with it, or it may be a want of full Bight and 
 hold of it. The firsi of the two sentences I have jusl quoted 
 may be perfectly true, bul has nothing to do with the opposition 
 which we are now concerned with. An opposition of Buch 
 'separation' as that could not make the two things objed of 
 one faculty. But an opposition of 'contradistinction' such as that
 
 140 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON — [CHAP. 
 
 mentioned in the second sentence, (if we omit the qualification 
 ■which destroys the argument) would. Only the argument bears 
 to me a different aspect from that which it does to Sir Wil- 
 liam Hamilton, and I should use it to draw from it the con- 
 clusion that the two things (or any two things) which, in the 
 manner which he describes, are the objects of one faculty or 
 one act of knowledge, must be opposites of each other, and 
 must be known in mutual contradistinction. This the ego and 
 non-eg-o are. But what is the case as to mind and matter ? 
 
 The fact of the contradistinctional opposition of matter to 
 mind is, it appears to me, my great fact, not his — it belongs to 
 the philosophical view, not to the psychological — and, coupled 
 with the inevitable existence to us of mind, thought, ourselves, 
 it is what makes my fundamental view. For I recognise two 
 manners of existence, in mutual opposition or contradistinction, 
 thinkingness and thoughtness, and it is this latter which, when 
 we believe the thought correct or justified, we call phenomenal 
 existence or matter. In this view I have no objection to speak 
 of our consciousness of matter. 
 
 But matter, from Sir William Hamilton's phenomenalist 
 (which here is the wrongly psychological) point of view, is 
 something quite different from this. He supposes the matter 
 existing as we know it : I have myself, at the beginning of all 
 that I am now writing, described how it does thus exist: it is, 
 if we like to call it so, a succession of natural agents acting 
 according to their various laws : it is body or matter, if we like 
 rather to call it so, with its various attributes or qualities: 
 mind, on the other side has its attributes or qualities : (for this 
 logical language, and it is its great advantage, being kept in 
 mind as referring to notions only, may be used without imply- 
 ing, as to the things of wdiich it is used, any commensurability 
 of existence or possible co-consideration). And the thing to be 
 observed is, that the attributes of matter and the attributes of 
 mind as thus understood are not contradistinguished or opposed : 
 they are simply incongruous with each other. They belong, 
 in my more ordinary manner of expression, to different worlds. 
 Sir William Hamilton, as in fact every body else, allows and 
 teaches this abundantly when that is what is before his con- 
 sideration — strange that he forgets it here, for, so far as we
 
 VII.] CONSCIOUSNESS OF MATTER. 141 
 
 speak of faculties, this incongruity most thoroughly shows that 
 the two sorts of things must be the object of different ones. A 
 moment's consideration will show the reader that there is no 
 meaning in memory being contradistinguished from light, or 
 imagination from weight — the things, as I have said, belong to 
 different worl 
 
 I reserved the discussion of this first part of Sir William 
 Hamilton's proof till last just to show what the fact is which he 
 misapprehends and misdescribes — to show, as I said in other 
 words, what his argument does prove. The knowledge of some- 
 thing besides ourself is, so far as we can judge, a necessary 
 accompaniment of the knowledge of ourself — here we may 
 speak of contradistinction and opposition, and may with reason 
 use, if we like it, the word consciousness for the double know- 
 ledge. But the word consciousness thus used, to keep any 
 value or to serve any use, must retain the notion of the con- 
 tradistinction to self which is the point of it when used of this 
 non-ego, and when we come, by sense, perception, orhowever 
 we may call it, to develope this non-ego into the phenomenal 
 universe or matter, and come thus to a set of things or qualities 
 entirely incongruous with the facts of mind of which we are 
 conscious — then, if we choose still to apply the word conscious- 
 ness to our knowledge of them, we simply destroy all value in 
 the word, and can conclude nothing from it. 
 
 If the reader will turn back to a previous passage 1 of Sir 
 William Hamilton's, where he is showing how consciousness is 
 a discrimination, and examine it, I hope it may help his 
 understanding what I am saying. Sir William Hamilton 
 speaks of three discriminations: between self and not self: 
 between one state of mind and another: between one external 
 object and another. In these three ways consciousness discri- 
 m iu The distinction therefore between mind and matter 
 
 is considered, I presume, identical with thai between self and 
 not-self. This is in harmony with all that I have been noting 
 in Sir William Hamilton: [ call attention to it as just thewr 
 
 chology, or the misapplication of phenomenalism, which I 
 wish to condemn. A- 1 have] bjection to our speaking of con- 
 sciousness of matt, r, so I have no objection to our speaking 
 
 1 V..]. i. p. 20;.
 
 142 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON [CHAP. 
 
 a self distinguished from external or spatial objects: this is what 
 I called our phenomenal or corporeal self: only let us then remem- 
 ber that our starting point is matter, and no more expect pheno- 
 menal knowledge of thoughts and feelings, than in the other case 
 we expected conscious knowledge of weight, light, and oxygen. 
 
 In commenting, a short time back, on the expression 'almost 
 equal assurance', I alluded to Sir William Hamilton's opinion 1 , 
 that on the doctrine which we have been treating of he has 
 with him the universal voice of mankind, and against him the 
 almost universal voice of philosophers. This I think of little 
 consequence either way, on account of the exceeding difficulty, 
 as it seems to me, of ascertaining what, on a point of philosophy 
 of this kind, is the common voice either of mankind or of phi- 
 losophers. I will however notice it now for two reasons : first, 
 because, as I have already slightly noticed, the assertion that 
 the opinion in question is thus the common opinion of mankind 
 throws, in my view, a little suspicion upon the assertion that 
 it is a fact of consciousness — suspicion, lest really this latter 
 should mean no more than the former, in which case it is liable 
 of course to the same doubt as the former, in reference to what 
 the opinion of mankind really is. Sir William Hamilton changes 
 Reid's expression 'common sense' into his own 'consciousness': 
 but a passage like the following leads one to doubt whether 
 what he points to is after all much more than popular opinion : 
 "The fact that consciousness does testify to an immediate 
 "knowledge by mind of an object different from any modifica- 
 "tion of its own, is thus admitted even by those philosophers 
 " who still do not hesitate to deny the truth of the testimony : 
 " for to say that all men do naturally believe in such a know- 
 " ledge, is only, in other words, to say that they believe it on 
 " the authority of consciousness. A fact of consciousness, and a 
 " fact of the common sense of mankind, are only various expres- 
 " sions of the same import. We may therefore lay it down as 
 "an undisputed fact, that consciousness gives, as an ultimate 
 
 1 Passages in which Sir William Hamilton expresses the above-mentioned opi- 
 nion are numerous: as Vol. I. p. 223, £Dr Reid vindicated against the unanimous 
 authority of philosophers, the universal opinion of mankind." Again, Reid and 
 Stewart, Vol. I. p. 204, "hold with mankind at large, that we do possess an im- 
 mediate knowledge of something different from the knowing self." See also Vol. 1. 
 p. 278, and in fact passim.
 
 VI!.] CONSCIOUSNESS OF MATTER. 143 
 
 "fact, a primitive duality 1 ". This is another manner of proof, 
 so to call it, of Sir William Hamilton's doctrine, from that 
 which we have considered. 
 
 I am not fond of discussing whether a thing is or is not a 
 fact of consciousness, because the principles upon which the 
 dispute is to be settled are not very clear. If we appeal to 
 what is felt, feeling is individual : we can only very imperfectly 
 compare one man's with another's : but if we try to cure this 
 defect by massing individuals together, we get rather, it seems 
 to me, out of the region of philosophy. I must confess to 
 caring not much what, on questions of this nature, men in 
 general or masses of men think or are said to think. Not but 
 that, if I knew that they thought and knew really what they 
 thought, I should prize (speaking generally) the opinion of 
 any one of them as much as my own, and their collective 
 opinion much more : but I do not know these things, and I do 
 not see how I am to know them : whereas I do know what I 
 think myself, and know probably also (if I am a philosopher) 
 that 1 have taken some pains to think, if I can, correctly. By 
 philosophy, as the analysis of consciousness, I do not mean a 
 report and record of the popular opinions of mankind. 
 
 The second reason why I notice Sir William Hamilton's 
 saying that the common or universal opinion of mankind 'is on 
 his side, is because I cannot the least understand the use of his 
 saving so when he has got so shortly afterwards, in order for 
 his view to hold, to use the extraordinary language about what 
 it is that we perceive which I have in a former chapter alluded 
 to'"', and of which I will now give a specimen. 
 
 "The reporl of consciousness", he says, "is that we perceive 
 " at the external point of sensation, and that we perceive the 
 " material reality 3 '. 
 
 The word 'perceive', in the former part of the sentence, 
 in it exactly that confusion between physiology and phi- 
 losophy which is what I want to prevent, spoiling as it does 
 both. But I will not repeal my own often given view as to 
 what takes place. Duly how dose 'consciousness' report as it 
 is bere Baid to do? " The too ordinary style of philosophising", 
 Sir William Eamilton in speaking of Dr Thomas Brown, 
 
 1 Vol. i. p 291. " Pi • 8g. ' J Vol. n. p.
 
 144 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON [CHAP. 
 
 " is an easy way of appealing to or overlooking the facts of 
 "consciousness, as the philosopher finds them convenient or 
 " inconvenient for his purpose 1 ". It is in the hope that the pre- 
 sent generation of students of philosophy, who are likely to 
 learn so much from Sir William Hamilton, will not learn from 
 him their tone of speaking about other philosophers, that I 
 notice how thoroughly, if philosophers will not give each other 
 credit for a real love of truth, this same language may be used 
 of any, and of himself. 
 
 But the matter of importance is the second part of the 
 sentence. What is meant by 'perceiving the material reality'? 
 
 " In the first place", we are told, "it does not mean that we 
 " perceive the material reality absolutely and in itself, that is, 
 " out of relation to our organs and faculties : on the contrary, 
 "the total and real object of perception, is the external object 
 "under relation to our sense and faculty of cognition". 
 
 Have we not here even enough to make the appeal to the 
 common voice of mankind nugatory and unmeaning, for what 
 does that voice know about this notionalism of the absolute 
 and the relative, in which Sir William Hamilton qualifies his 
 statement into what Mr Ferrier, or I, or almost any body might 
 accept, supposing only we acknowledged meaning in it ? The 
 common voice of mankind, so far as it says anything, says, We 
 perceive the thing: the thing is what we perceive : this common 
 voice would surely say to Sir William Hamilton here, You mean 
 then, we do not see the thing after all ? 
 
 But the common voice, or feeling, of mankind must be still 
 more shocked with the answer to the next question. 
 
 " In the second place, what is meant by the external 
 "object perceived? Nothing can be conceived more ridiculous 
 "than the opinion of philosophers in regard to this. For ex- 
 " ample, it has been curiously held, (and Reid is no exception), 
 " that in looking at the sun, moon, or any other object of sight, 
 " we are, on the one doctrine, actually conscious of these distant 
 " objects; or, on the other, that these distant objects are those 
 " really represented in the mind. Nothing can be more absurd : 
 " we perceive, through no sense, aught external but what is in 
 " immediate relation and in immediate contact with its organ; 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. 278.
 
 VII.] CONSCIOUSNESS OF MATTER. 145 
 
 "and that is true which Democritus of old asserted, that all our 
 " senses are only modifications of touch. Through the eye Ave 
 " perceive nothing hut the rays of light in relation to, and in 
 " contact with, the retina". 
 
 If anything was wanted to justify my saying that there is 
 really no use in appealing to the common voice either of man- 
 kind or of philosophers, surely this extraordinary passage would 
 do so. Did any language ever, if we may take that as a specimen 
 of human opinion, talk about perceiving 'rays of light', and not 
 the sun or the tree which they proceed from? Common opinion 
 is asked, Do we perceive immediately, and what do we per- 
 ceive ? It answers, we do perceive immediately, and we per- 
 ceive the tree, sun, &c. I might doubt as to the answer which 
 it would give to the former part of the question, but no one 
 could doubt as to the answer to the latter. Sir William 
 Hamilton then, who made just now the observation as to Dr 
 Thomas Brown which I quoted, answers common opinion, I 
 will accept you as representing human consciousness so far 
 as the former part of your answer goes, but cannot as to the 
 latter. And common opinion, it would appear, Sir William 
 Hamilton's self-chosen referee, considers that we perceive im- 
 mediately something which, in his view, it is impossible that we 
 should be conscious of, namely distant objects ]ike the tree or 
 the sun: going, it would appear to me, to prove, that though 
 we perceive the external world as it understands perceiving, we 
 are not conscious of it. I am myself indeed q\iite unable to 
 appreciate the greater philosophical difficulty of saying, 'we are 
 conscious of the gun'j than of saying ' we ;ue conscious of the 
 rays of light'. We are told that it was ridiculous in the phi- 
 losophers who held representation to say that distant objects 
 like the sun were represented in the mind — would he have 
 had them say, as Less ridiculous, thai the rays of light were re- 
 pr< -ented in the mind? But it is hopeless to make anything 
 of ;dl this, and the philosophical reasoning which follows, and 
 t,, which I refer the reader, is ;i- hopeless. We have seen 
 sufficiently then, 1 think, how Sir William Bamilton really 
 deals with the common voice of mankind. 
 
 Bui I havi Baid lor thi pr< enl enough upon this subji ct. 
 
 LO
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LOGIC— MR MILL. 
 
 I WILL vary the somewhat monotonous course of what I am 
 now writing by a very little philosophical reminiscence. 
 
 The idealism, personalism, or whatever it may be called, 
 which lies at the root of all that I have said, is not simply a 
 doctrine or opinion, but seems to me to have been my earliest 
 philosophical feeling, and to have continued, if not so vivid, yet 
 not less strong, ever since. Experience in these things is all 
 individual, but what from my own, I should guess, is, that that 
 phenomenalism which seems to us to be everything, that world 
 which is too much with us, that nature or universe into which, 
 as time goes on, we seem to sink all our independent selfhood 
 so as to be only parts of it, the highest animals in it, is some- 
 thing in a manner which we require to get used to : and that 
 before this familiarity is complete, in earlier years, there is a 
 disposition in us to be struck with what I may call our personal 
 or conscious difference from it, or independence of' it, or how- 
 ever else we may style the individual feeling: this is what is 
 with me the root of philosophy : in respect of the problems, or 
 difficulties, or as some please to call them mysteries of philo- 
 sophy, I think that one reason why they have this character is 
 on account of a kind of dullness which is superinduced over 
 our disposition to higher thought by what the course of every- 
 body's life is pretty certain to be. We get then the notion of 
 philosophy as something only to be learnt with infinite labour, 
 as indeed is the case when all this familiarity with life, and 
 nature, and the phenomenal universe has supervened — but we 
 have had it near to us, and still all this labour would be of 
 little value except there comes now and then a glance of insight, 
 which is the real philosophy.
 
 CHAP. YIII.] LOGIC MR MILL. 147 
 
 I suppose there is more of what may be called personal or 
 individual philosophy in the world than one readily hears of, 
 but it is not a thing which seems much in people's mind that 
 any real philosophy (or metaphysics, other than mere talk) is 
 something that they must see for themselves, and that they 
 must value any chance or early glimpses they may get about it, 
 because the course of life and study will in many respects make 
 it more difficult for them to get such. 
 
 Corresponding with the feeling, from early times, of the 
 deep interest of personal consciousness, has been to me the 
 feeling which I have alluded to already l , of the dreariness, as I 
 have called it, of the phenomenalist view, or knowledge as ot 
 experience, taken to represent everything for us. I will not 
 repeat what I have said about that. 
 
 In a similar manner, my condemnation in these 'rough 
 notes' of what I have called 'notionalism' is not an opinion 
 simply produced in me by the sight of what seems to me a 
 wrong philosophy, but represents much effort in thinking what, 
 as to these logical conceptions, is the truth. A belief in a real 
 substance, or thing in itself, is what I have always had, and 
 have most strongly: but it is this very belief which makes me 
 revolt against the philosophy which would disjoin from the sub- 
 stance or reality of the thing every thing, it appears to me, 
 which we do or can come to know about it: it is the assigning 
 a character of unkn uess to the substance which i- repug- 
 
 it to me. So long as our knowledge is imperfect, which in 
 fact all knowledge of every being One Being only except 
 must be, we must suppose complete knowledge, i" fast* d out 
 incomplete knowledge on: and the complete knowledge thus 
 supposed includes of course a portion <>i' ignorance, or unknown, 
 But of the unknown there is no reason for us t<> suppose either 
 that it is unknowable, or that it is (necessarily) more important 
 to the thinghood of the thing about which the knowL 
 than the qualities which we <l<> know about it. 
 
 There is without doubt a - use in which we may say that 
 knowledge itself i> impossible —complete knowledge Decessarily 
 i-, and in various point-, of view complete knowledge and know- 
 ire tic- same. In knowledge of thought, we suppose 
 
 1 Ante, )• 15. 
 
 1M -2
 
 148 LOGIC — MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 subject or a substance, and knowledge is the filling this up with 
 its appropriate predicates or attributes. In knowledge of 
 acquaintance, our attributes and those of the thing communi- 
 cate: but there is not proper knowledge except so far as we, 
 consciousness, thought, comes into play: there must be, for 
 knowledge, something in the thing with which this can come into 
 communication — is there ? the thinghood of the thing, thus, 
 looking at the matter this way, is the thought locked up in it, 
 which by the key of our sensive power, fitting its sensible qua- 
 lities, we try to open. But in either of the cases it may be 
 said, do we ever arrive at knowledge? Can we ever, in the 
 former case, convert our supposition into anything which we 
 can consider as more than supposition, and can we ever, in the 
 latter case, get at any thought in the thing in regard of which 
 we may consider that it is more than imagination on our part 
 about it? It appears to me, that what is to be said about this 
 is that which I hold strongly, that while there are two views, 
 there are not two parts, of knowledge, and consequently, that it 
 is not knowledge, or any one kind of knowledge, which we 
 cannot get at, but complete knowledge: the knowledge of the 
 thought locked up in a thing is not generically different from the 
 knowledge of its sensible qualities, which are all portions of its 
 thought or thinghood: in the same way substance is not differ- 
 ent from the qualities, and we attain towards the knowledge of 
 it as we fill up the knowledge of the qualities. Knowledge is 
 thus a reality, though either of the two manners of knowledge 
 may be described in such a manner as apparently not to con- 
 stitute it: the mere rubbing ourselves against fact (which, con- 
 cisely put, is the view which some have of experience) is not 
 knowledge, nor on the other hand, is the imaginatively sup- 
 posing what after all may be chimera: learning, or the action 
 of the mind in gaining knowledge, is by these two processes in 
 conjunction, but knowledge does not consist of an union of the 
 two, which would be incongruous, but of a something between 
 the two, which may be conceived arrived at either way, and to 
 which we may approximate, and really approximate, each way. 
 As we learn, thought and fact may be said roughly to cor- 
 rect each other: but it is incongruous to describe knowledge 
 either as thought corrected by fact (as something different from
 
 VIII.] LOGIC — MR MILL. 149 
 
 thought), or as fact converting itself, in the mind, into thought 
 (as something different from fact). We may describe it as right 
 thought, and then what such thought presents to us we call 
 fact: or we may describe it as communication with fact, and 
 then, supplementing something, which in this, the incomplete 
 view, we must, we may suppose the communication accompanied 
 on our part by feeling. In the former case we have the know- 
 ledge given us, with difficulty as to knowing its truth : in the 
 latter case we have something given which so far as it is know- 
 ledge, must be true, but is it knowledge 1 '} 
 
 I seem unable however to keep the thread of philosophical 
 reminiscence, and will only mention one more particular, which 
 is in fact the occasion of my having alluded to the subject here. 
 
 AVith respect to the psychology which I have rather strongly 
 criticised, from my very first, study of it I have felt, though 
 indistinctly, the difficulty about it; what it was that it aimed 
 at, or what it could result in. The sort of bewilderment or 
 puzzle which Berkeley's views produce in many has always ap- 
 peared to me to belong to the whole of this psychology. I 
 
 1 One of the many possible ways in which the distinction between the two 
 views of knowledge may be put, and of which I give, for illustration, as many as 
 suggest themselves to me, is this : suppose a mirror reflecting the universe : and 
 then make in succession the two suppositions, first, of the mirror simply feeling 
 the reflection, or image, if we may use such language, i. e. of there being feeling in 
 it, we cannot tell more, varying with the variations of the image: next, of an eye 
 more or less identified with the mirror seeing the ima^e. We have here roughly 
 the two views of knowledge. In tin; first, the communication, that Is, the reflection 
 of the universe in the mirror, is a fact, there is no (piestion as to mi-take or error 
 in it. in wy . but it is not knowledge : for knowledge we must Buppose an 
 
 accompanying sensation, and as to the relation of such sensation to the image, or 
 whether it is pose ble for it to have any relation to it, we cannot say anything at 
 all. That is, with knowledge begins fallibility or uncertainty. In the second c 
 we have only the depreciated mediate or indirect knowledge: but it is knowlei 
 from the first, it 1.. gins with though! : possibility of mistake, the test oihnou 
 as distinct from m< re familiarity an. I habit, is in it from the first; tie i tivity 
 
 from the first, or knowing what we are about. Not to dwell on this, I will jn t 
 these two views of knowledge cannot !»■ pot together. We an- sentient 
 in ir.. i - iii tin- on..- view, in the other we are contemplators of the universe as it is 
 in our consciousness ; but rs of our sentience, because the 
 
 . put different ways. The supposed eye seeB the imau'e, 
 not tl,.- supposedly coincident sensation. In the same way it would lie unrei 
 able to -ay thai pari ol the ims n. and part felt.
 
 150 LOGIC — MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 never could understand how, if we took for granted, as we all 
 naturally do, that we were members of a spatial universe with 
 things round about us, it ever could be considered a question 
 whether things really existed, or how there could be any 
 meaning in giving an account (as by means of 'Common Sense') 
 of our supposition of their existence. The whole psychology 
 begins with human beings knowing that they are members of a 
 spatial world, and then, as an important defence against scepti- 
 cism, it is established upon this basis that they believe (safr on 
 principles of common sense) that they are so. What is their 
 actual state of mind on the subject seems in this way hard to 
 tell. I have always had a strong faith in philosophy and 
 thouo-ht, and have believed that the former existed for a better 
 purpose than to make itself a reductio ad absurdum by return- 
 ing upon its postulate and invalidating it. The uneasy state 
 of one's logical feelings thus produced is likely to concentrate 
 thouo-ht more strongly upon personality or consciousness as the 
 real starting-point, in distinction from which the phenomenal 
 point of view is an assumed one for certain purposes, so that 
 in the establishing that it does not hold for others there is no- 
 thing at all surprising. 
 
 It would be an interesting subject to consider how philo- 
 sophers have got into what seems to me this singular position, 
 but I will not follow that now, but mention the point in this 
 psychology, a slight and small one, which is the immediate oc- 
 casion of my introducing these experiences. 
 
 The relation of logic to the above psychology long ago 
 puzzled me. "We are told in the books of psychology about 
 ' perception', this is what the logicians call ' simple apprehen- 
 sion', without any reason given why the logicians should call 
 the same thing by one name and the psychologists by another. 
 I am inclined to think that the different ways of speaking, all 
 in my view meaning the same thing, coming some from logic 
 and some from psychology, cause in the minds of students a 
 great deal of puzzle, and in the minds of philosophers them- 
 selves a great deal of notionalism, by the converting different 
 accounts of the same process into different processes. 
 
 I am quite aware that the having, so to speak, different 
 * philosophical sciences, and the yet mixing them, in some par-
 
 VIII.] LOGIC — MR MILL. 151 
 
 ticulars, together, is a thing which has been from the begin- 
 ning, and certainly was in Aristotle. But I am sure it is 
 desirable as much as possible to consider them together, and as 
 one subject, or we get into hopeless confusion. When logic and 
 psychology are pursued each by a different person, are they the 
 same line of thought in different language, or are they not, 
 and who is to know ? 
 
 In Aristotle, Logic, Physics, Metaphysics, and Psychology 
 all are connected with each other, or have common parts. But 
 Aristotle's psychology is much more pure psychology, as I 
 should call it, than the nob-psychology which we have been 
 speaking of. 
 
 The Aristotelian logic and psychology therefore confuse 
 each other very little. Logic is the theory of thought and of 
 correctness of thought and of advance of correct thought by 
 reasoning, almost for any kind of intelligence, almost for any 
 universe. There is assumed a subject of thought as a peg to 
 hang predicates on, and in these predicates is the knowledge : 
 the subjects, in virtue of the predicates attachable to them, 
 may be put together (as terms) in propositions, and the propo- 
 sitions again be put together in syllogisms leading to further 
 propositions. Correctness of thought is in proper predication, 
 in making propositions and putting them together: advance 
 of thought is in the fruitfulness of such predication, making of 
 propositions, and putting them together, in view of further pre- 
 dication. 
 
 Right thought, and its advance, being thus in right predi- 
 cating, asserting, and syllogizing, what, to begin, is right predi- 
 cating? 
 
 The 'subject' is to be supposed a something with only one 
 character about it, viz. a capacity for certain predicates and not 
 for others, and when we have attached .-ill the right predical 
 to it we thoroughly know it; when we have attached any wrong 
 ones (or for which it has not a capacity) we are mistaken about 
 it. How to attach whal predicates to what Bubject, Aristotle 
 tells us nothing: that belongs to knowledge of the universe: 
 hut he give.- ;i rough list of heads of predication, greal or 
 summary predicates, predicaments, categories . The predicates 
 too may attach to the subject in differenl ways: he speaks of
 
 152 LOGIC — MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 these to some extent, and bis successors catalogued them : they 
 are a sort of higher predicaments or categories still, 'predicables '. 
 In all predications we assert, but when the subject has had 
 any predicate attached to it, or is at all clothed, it becomes not 
 only, in reference to other predicates, a subject, but in reference 
 to the proposition, or assertion, a term, as does also that which 
 in the proposition is predicated of it. For rightness of asser- 
 tion, besides the relation of subjects to their possible predicates, 
 there have\to be considered certain other relations of the terms 
 to each other. 
 
 Propositions put together in certain ways bear fruit in fur- 
 ther propositions, or predications, by which therefore our know- 
 ledge of the subjects is increased : and thus knowledge grows. 
 
 Of the manner of tins growth of knowledge I have at 
 various times^ spoken. It is as I have said by imagination or 
 speculation about things with constant self-correction arising 
 mainly from our constant rubbing against things, as I a short 
 time ago expressed it, which latter it is that in the main fixes 
 predicates to subjects. The Aristotelian scheme may be re- 
 garded as an exceedingly abstract outline of a vast imagina- 
 tion about things,~with certain ways and methods in which this 
 imagination may correct itself and keep itself in order inde- 
 pendently of this experience : still the imagination without the 
 experience is entirely visionary; as the experience without the 
 imagination or thought would be merely proximity or famili- 
 arity — not knowledge. 
 
 As I have said, whatever we rightly imagine we might con- 
 ceivably have been in contact with: whatever we are in contact 
 with we might conceivably have pre-imagined: there is nothing 
 generically different in the object in the two cases : the difference 
 isjn the manner of our learning. We might therefore if we 
 liked it, call Aristotle's list of categories a sketch of the great 
 heads of reality or fact in all, or almost all, conceivable uni- 
 verses : the great category of ' quality ' would I suppose be 
 the repository ^of differences, and an universe in which (their) 
 matter had what some would call different secondary qualities, 
 or in vvhich light, oxygen, magnetism, &c. were replaced, if we 
 can conceive it, by other elements or natural agents, would differ 
 from ours in this category.
 
 VIII.] * LOGIC — MR MILL. 153 
 
 The growth of knowledge being, as I mentioned just above, 
 by the ""speculation and experience joined, it is obvious that the 
 Aristotelian proceeding, running wholly on the former, or on 
 the latter only in so very abstract a form, can be of little conse- 
 quence as to this. I shall call a supposed method of Logic, of 
 any kind, which so far incorporates into itself the notion of 
 actual experience as to be able to take into account the growth 
 of knowledge, whether in the individual or the race, a Real 
 Logic, in contrast with such as the Aristotelian, which we may 
 call if we like, when pure and by itself, Formal, and which may 
 have various valuable applications, besides this, if we consider it 
 one : as to verification, to grammar, or to digestion of argument. 
 
 The great mass of ' the Philosophy of the Human Mind' 
 is in its details an attempt at a Real Logic of individual know- 
 ledge ; an attempt vitiated in various ways. For this Real 
 Logic of the individual is of more complicated and difficult con- 
 sideration than the Real Logic of the knowledge of the race, 
 unless we may say that this, to counterbalance, has difficulties of 
 a different kind. The greater difficulty is in this: that we are 
 considering the growth of the knowledge of one mind in the 
 midst of a quantity of others where the knowledge exists. This 
 I believe, at bottom, is the origin of the mis-psychological error 
 on which I comment so abundantly. 'A stone lies before me: 
 I see it'. "We put this down quite naturally in the account of 
 the growth of individual knowledge, not apparently thinking 
 that the first clause is other people's knowledge : the second is 
 the step-of mine: and, now, that the step is taken, I say the 
 -• me lies before me. Our collective Ileal Logic, which I shall 
 shortly speak of, is not to the same extent puzzled with the 
 double view of angels and superior beings of we know not how 
 many amounts and kinds Beeing the universe, and our seeing 
 
 it with them, in the way in which the human race will (physi- 
 cal! it, we may suppose, some hundred centuries heme, 
 .-honld it last so long, ami with this, of our race coming step by 
 p e it in this real way. In respect of the race, we can 
 understand and watch the learning, because we cannot and do 
 
 Hot make the ?asl and ah.-uid - ii|>|tosit ion of all the /,/ !„■ inmnt 
 
 in i hi- way as already exi i ing Had '. 
 
 1 I an Dot certain whether this ia put in the best way, but 1 leave it. On the 
 ject of advance in perception ce in knowledge "I natui beyond
 
 154 LOGIC MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 The fact of the one learning mind existing in the middle 
 of a multitude of knowing ones is of importance in another way. 
 While almost all books, I think, of the philosophy of the Human 
 Mind make, as above, the already existing knowledge come in 
 where it ought not, they do not make it come in where it 
 ought. The course of individual knowledge is described not only 
 without sufficient reference to the consideration, how much, 
 as a matter of fact, we are taught by others, but also to the 
 more important consideration, that whether we are actually 
 taught by others or not, our intelligence is in its very constitu- 
 tion social, and our mind is the mind of a social being, a being 
 such as our organization (tongue, &c.) shows us to be. We 
 think of necessity socially : more socially perhaps in some soli- 
 tude than in some society : we think with the minds of others 
 as well as our own: thought is internal conversation and dis- 
 cussion. Language, which is social, goes to the bottom of our 
 mind: not but that we might, and perhaps do, abundantly ima- 
 gine without language, but that we should not, without it, come 
 to anything like the results to which we do come, and that 
 in respect of some of the earliest and simplest things. 
 
 The two sets of Lectures of Sir William Hamilton which 
 have been published are one on Metaphysics, and the other on 
 Logic, the two courses having some introductory Lectures in 
 common. The Lectures on Metaphysics I have to a certain 
 degree examined, because, though the subject is called Meta- 
 physics, and the point of view, the purpose assigned being the 
 analysis of consciousness, is more philosophical than that of 
 several of Sir William Hamilton's Edinburgh predecessors, yet 
 still the subject is considered 'the Philosophy of the Human 
 Mind' ; and the confusion of the wrong psychology is abun- 
 dantly prevalent. In pursuing his subject of the Philosophy 
 of the Human Mind, Sir William Hamilton discusses faculties 
 &c. and gives several new names, but hardly seems to have said 
 anything very important. 
 
 What I have criticized in those Lectures of Sir William 
 Hamilton is his application of the term 'consciousness' to 'per- 
 ception'. It may perhaps be remembered, that the point of 
 view of the analysis of consciousness has been called by me 
 
 what would be commonly called perception, and their relation to each other, I 
 shall have a few things to say.
 
 VIII.] LOGIC MR MILL. 155 
 
 sometimes the pliilosophical (answering to Sir William Hamil- 
 ton's metaphysical) and sometimes the logical. Sir William 
 Hamilton's error seems to me to have arisen from his haviner 
 before him the psychology of his predecessors, which prevented 
 him, as he was so abundantly able to do and one would have 
 thought would have been likely to do, taking the line of philo- 
 sophical (not mis-psychological) metaphysics and logic in con- 
 junction, going so naturally as they would together. As it is, I 
 imagine students ask themselves what his metaphysics and 
 logic have to do with each other : they read, I think, the former 
 more than the latter, with some wonder, of the kind which I 
 mentioned before, how the subject comes to be two. Locke's 
 Essay on Human Understanding is Logic and Psychology united : 
 most of the Philosophies of the Human Mind are intended to 
 supersede the necessity of the Formal Logic, and Dugald Stew- 
 art, whose memory Sir William Hamilton cherishes in a manner 
 which does him great honour, says of it that its 'inutility is 
 now pretty generally acknowledge'!, and it deserves our atten- 
 tion chiefly as a curious article in the history of science': while 
 a Logic of the kind which I have called Real Logic he describes 
 as the valuable logic, though still in its infancy. 
 
 The importance of all this is of the following kind : people 
 constantly talk about these different professedly philosophical 
 subjects as it' they were like branches of physical science, say 
 geology and botany, in regard of which one man may know and 
 value both, another may know one and honour the other as a 
 ace, anothermay know one and think, or pretend to think, 
 the other worthless, and all this be of no consequence in respect 
 of his knowledge of what he does know. But this is not the 
 case with the e philosophical subjects. Theyare rival claimants 
 more or less for the same ground. The thinking wrongly about 
 their relation to each other may do damage in all sort.-, of ways. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton speaks, as we have seen, of matter 
 being the objeci of consciousness. It seems odd thai he should 
 do this, when, in a differenl sel of Lectures, those on Logic, we 
 have the real objects of consciou uess, which he calls ' concepts', 
 treated truly and properly a such: we seem to have here, all 
 along, thai difficulty which I spoke of, and the student of Sii 
 William Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics is astonished t<. 
 
 •
 
 156 LOGIC — MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 find that, when he has got through them, there are two volumes, 
 as big as the others, treating knowledge and the processes of the 
 human understanding in an entirely different manner and with 
 different language — after, all, he asks, have I only got half the 
 subject, and now I know what 'perceiving' things is have I got 
 to learn all about the ' forming concepts ' of them, and is it a 
 different thing or the same ? 
 
 I have written this (and shall now not go further into the 
 subject) for two reasons: first, to suggest that these things want 
 putting together — we want to know, more than people are 
 aware of, what different terms only express the same thing put 
 different ways ; and secondly, to account for my speaking of 
 the philosophical and the logical view as in the main the same, 
 though by the logical we may often mean what, as compared 
 with the other, is an abstraction. If Sir William Hamilton had 
 put his metaphysics and his logic together, I do not think we 
 should have had the same confusion. The 'consciousness of 
 matter' seems to me to be a jumbling together of the things 
 impressing our senses and our forming concepts or ideas of them, 
 which would not have been fallen into except that the whole 
 theory of this forming concepts is made into a separate subject 
 for a different set of Lectures. 
 
 I mil say no more about the Formal Logic and the various 
 books of interest and value upon it. What I protest strongly 
 against is the realizing its terms (which is what I have called 
 notionalism) : but I do not at all call in question the great value 
 of its language for its proper purpose. Its value depends in 
 every way upon this non-realizing, upon its being kept formal 
 and abstract. The attempt to apply it too much may very pos- 
 sibly I think by confusing it and realizing it in another sort of 
 way, injure its value 1 . But that is not now my business. 
 
 What I am going to speak of is the Real Logic of the know- 
 ledge of the human race, which is at once an important branch 
 of literature and an important philosophical subject, and the 
 two books which I have taken as specimens of it are Mr Mill's 
 and Dr Whewell's. 
 
 1 An exact appreciation of the real bearing and importance of the extensions of 
 tLis Logic by Sir William Hamilton, Professor de Morgan, the late Professor 
 Boole, Dr Thomson, and others, would be of very much interest. 
 
 -1*
 
 VIII.] LOGIC — MR MILL. 157 
 
 My concern, it will be remembered, is not so much with the 
 advance of knowledge as with the beginning of it: not with 
 reasoning, but with sensations; with conceiving and perceiving 
 But since this latter process or these processes take place in 
 advanced knowledge, of course I am concerned with the ad- 
 vance ; what I mean is that I shall say little about the manner 
 or mental machinery of the advance, reasoning, syllogism, in- 
 duction, deduction. 
 
 Mr Mill's book is what I should call a Phenomenalist Loo-ic 
 with a starting point from the Aristotelian or Formal Loo-ic. 
 
 It will be remembered that I described the phenomenalist 
 view, as I called it, to be an abstraction, meaning this : that 
 when we have got the knowledge, we may suppose the things 
 we know to exist without any reference to our knowing them or 
 to the manner in which we come to know them: but that in 
 reality the manner in which we come to know them is by a 
 great deal of imagination, speculation, and action of mind. 
 However, when we know them, we say one of two things of 
 them, both coming to the same: either, 'they exist': or 'we 
 believe them'. There is a third thing which we might say: viz. 
 'We have learnt them'. In the first case the understood men- 
 tal accompaniment is more or less of this nature : ' There they 
 are : do you not see them?' In the second, ' I can give a reason 
 for my belief, if you wish to hear it'. In the third, ' I have 
 thought about the matter a good deal and made many observa- 
 tions, and this is the result I have come to'. 
 
 The view of knowledge which 1 understand Mr Mill to take 
 is that which I should call the proper phenomenalist view, or 
 the notion of 'adstance', 'presence at' anything (the French 
 assistance), which I have already in some degree alluded to, 
 and to which I hope to return 1 . 
 
 1 Mr Mill's phenomenalist 1 gic is in '-fleet a description of the farts of nature, 
 the heads of this description being suggested by the relations and processes of 
 
 . as these \>:< previously underel I. 'Mir knowledge is then, in hi.. 
 
 view, a Following "r tracii g in one direction or another, a keening close to, these 
 
 Thus in : ' of propositions, whal Mr Mill considers is, thai where the 
 
 proposition is important forth advai ! knowledge, what we are doing in 
 
 ion of anything as to the applicability of the terms or names (which 
 i* the Ham- thing as thi reference of things to classe i, nor the making a ji 
 in th that the result of the proposition is something in or having referenci
 
 158 LOGIC — MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 The special character of this view is the avoidance as much 
 as possible of any reference to activity of the mind — the saying 
 but little, so to speak, of 'thought about things'. So far as the 
 state of the mind which possesses knowledge, in face of the facts 
 of nature, is to be described, it is to be described as a state of 
 belief upon evidence. We are in phenomenal contact, so to 
 speak, with every thing that we know : but this contact, in re- 
 gard of a great deal of our knowledge, is not immediate, distinct, 
 recoguisable : it is mediate through the intervention of evidence 
 on which we believe. We believe that the earth moves round 
 the sun, and can, if we wish, exhibit a scheme of the grounds of 
 our belief in this, for examination as to satisfactoriness : at the 
 same time these grounds only represent a complicated and vast 
 contact of the same nature as that in virtue of which we consider 
 that a tree before us is green, or a bird in front of us is flying. 
 
 On this ' belief on evidence', as I am not at this moment 
 going to dwell upon it, I will just remark so much : that the 
 evidence upon which we should justify our belief is not at all 
 likely to represent in any way the process by which the know- 
 ledge of it has actually been come to : that such evidence is a 
 very vague term, and the manner of its possible exhibition, 
 
 to our own mind (a view, a change of view, a notion &c.) but the assisting, as it 
 were, the standing by or looking on at, an (imagined or actual) natural fact, which 
 the terms of the proposition, indicate. The proposition in this phenomenalist 
 logic, is not the reference by us of a thing to a class, nor is a judgment, or opi- 
 nion, on our part, about a thing, but is an expression of a natural fact or rela- 
 tion of things. What is important about the proposition is not the goodness and 
 good employment of a classification of things which it may imply, nor the correctness 
 of thought on our part which it may imply, but its trueness to the phenomenal fact. 
 
 The distinction between the latter two of these members is in fact the dis- 
 tinction between the logical (as I have called it) and the phenomenalist view. 
 The object of the previous logic has been correctness of thought : that of Mr 
 Mill's logic is true following and rendering phenomena. 
 
 In the distinction between the two latter and the former of these members, 
 disallowing this, the reference in the first instance to classification, as the proper 
 business of any logic, Mr Mill, as I understand him, has my hearty adhesion. 
 His views as to the subordination of the classification of things to what I will call 
 their nature, which latter, not the former, our propositions in the first instance 
 refer to, are important and true for all logic alike. Reference of things to classes 
 and the introducing in this way quantitative relation into logic may be a most 
 valuable and important subsidiary thing to do, but logic looks at things as 
 variously endued with similar qualities, and therefore as classifiable, not, except 
 subsidiarily, as already classified.
 
 Till.] LOGIC — MR MILL. 159 
 
 in many cases, infinitely various : that, in fact between the 
 remote, hidden, or complicated phenomenon and human sense, 
 there are what we may call two threads of experience, contact 
 or communication, the one the historical thread by which the 
 knowledge has been arrived at, the other the thread of most 
 satisfactory justification of the belief, or nearest communication 
 between the sense and the phenomenon now. So much as to 
 the relation of the evidence to experience and sensation. 
 
 Mr Mill's purpose, as I understand it, is to avoid as much 
 as possible what I have called the logical point of view in 
 our simpler or more immediate knowledge of nature, and when 
 we come to the more complicated and mediate knowledge of it, 
 the historical attainment of which by the human race is what 
 we call the advance of science and is the object of Real Logic, 
 to treat this by what I may call the Logic of Evidence. It 
 is the minor proposition in a syllogism, or that in an argument 
 which most corresponds to such minor proposition, which con- 
 stitutes what we should call the evidence for the conclusion — as 
 distinct from the principle of the argument, or the considera- 
 tions which give value to the evidence, or the theory upon 
 which we conclude from it, which vaguely represent what in a 
 regular syllogism is the major proposition. Mr Mills treatment 
 of the syllogism seems to me to go upon this view. 
 
 My business here however is very little with reasoning or 
 belief upon evidence, but with the general view of knowledge: 
 and I proceed t.. explain what I mean by saying that in resped of 
 our simple and more immediate knowledge, Mr .Mill takes great 
 pain- to avoid the logical point of view: which is in this way 
 remarkable, thai he bas taken great pains to preserve the eld 
 logical language, and if I may so speak, utilize it. In this I 
 
 rpathize with him much : but I think it has led him into 
 !i amount of error, which I -hall afterwards notice. 
 
 The old logicians had thru tie— proc simple apprehen- 
 
 . ' perception, ption), 'judgment', and 'reasoning', and 
 
 one way or another this triplicity must always Thoughl 
 
 or language naturally divides itself into notions or words, judg- 
 ments or propositions, and Byllogisms or argumenl 
 
 It i> for the two former members of tin- triplicity that 
 Mi- Mill as I said carefully avoids the Logical poinl of view.
 
 1G0 LOGIC — MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 For instance I mean that in regard of the first member 
 of the triplicity he prefers not to speak of notions, ideas, con- 
 cepts, or to use corresponding terms, but will take cognisance 
 only of things, which things we express by names. His care 
 in this respect is more striking on account of his equally care- 
 fully avoiding all nominalism, as it was called, that is, the 
 ignoring more or less the reasons why things were collected as 
 they were into classes, and had such and such names given 
 to them, and the attending only to the classes and names. Mi- 
 Mill sees more in a thing than a mere member of a class and 
 object of a name: he sees in it the properties in virtue of 
 which it is such : but he will not allow of 'notion', ' idea', 'con- 
 cept ' of it. 
 
 This, so far as we have gone, is what I have called the plie- 
 nomenalist point of departure in contradistinction to the logical : 
 and for the better explaining what I say of Mr Mill, I will 
 just say how / should have proceeded from this point of de- 
 parture, which of itself is a very legitimate one. 
 
 I should have asked the physical, chemical, physiological, 
 philosopher what it was to the best of his knowledge that the 
 universe was made up of, and I suppose he would have told me 
 elements, forces, tissues, organizations, I know not what more : 
 he and I should both of us have understood that there must 
 be space and time for all these to exist in : and though we 
 should have in some degree diverged as to what comes next, 
 yet we should have gone some way together; namely, as to 
 laws, order, system, if I may venture to say, ' idea'. 
 
 Mr Mill's first proceeding however with his 'things' is to 
 categorize them. This is a part of what I mentioned, his care 
 to preserve the old logical methods and language, while altering 
 their application and utilizing them. 
 
 I mentioned previously about the Aristotelian categories, 
 that though they proceed from a logical point of view, yet they 
 might be turned round to a sort of quasi-phenomenalist one, 
 in which view they will represent the main constituents, so to 
 speak, of almost any possible universe. Mr Mill finds, reason- 
 ably enough, that they are a very poor catalogue of the con- 
 stituents of this universe, and proceeds to utilize the notion 
 by substituting others for them.
 
 VIII.] LOGIC — MR MILL. 161 
 
 I will make a few remarks on what he substitutes. 
 He makes four categories of things : minds : bodies : attri- 
 butes of mind, viz. feelings : attributes of bodies, of which then 
 he makes sub-categories. 
 
 This classification resolves itself, for use, into the two latter 
 heads (as I have given them) : for minds, and bodies (or sub- 
 stances), are only described as the unknown and unknowable 
 substrata of the feelings and the bodily attributes or qualities: 
 the categories therefore of things which are objects of know- 
 ledge are really to be considered only two, with the observation 
 appended that these objects of knowledge are not independent, 
 but involve in themselves (how can Mr Mill or anybody avoid 
 saying in our notion of them ?) a reference to something un- 
 known as the substratum of them. 
 
 "\\ e are thus, at this apparently second step of our progress, 
 only advanced as far as to say that the things (known to us 
 are yet only as nameables) are attributes of a substratum, which, 
 in reality, was Aristotle's first .step, or was the notion, itself, 
 of categories. 
 
 In one respect indeed we are further advanced, but, it seems 
 to me, wrongly, or, at least, confusedly. 
 
 Mr Mill makes two sets of attributes of two substrata, mind 
 and 1) >dy. 
 
 The importance of this proceeding in Mr Mill is this. For 
 the whole of what we may call his actual logic, things are with 
 him only the^ attributes of body with their substratum what- 
 i is to be considered about this), and the above classification 
 is of no applicati m a1 all. It only receives application when 
 it is considered, as Mr Mill does consider in the latl r part of 
 his book, that the same Logic which he has exhibited and illus- 
 trated from an examination of the advance of phenomenal know- 
 Ledge La applicable also to knowledge of the attributes of mind. 
 Now thai it may be possible to find or exhibit a 'real' Logic, 
 I ■ used the word real applicable both to the study 
 of mind and the study of physical nature, I have no \s i h to 
 deny. I; • I do not admil the propriety of the proc 
 settling such a from observation of the advance of phj sical 
 
 knowledge my 'phenomenalism') and then at once saying, All 
 this is applicable similarly to the study of feelings or mind. 
 
 I I
 
 1G2 LOGIC — MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 The relation which facts of mind, so to call them, bear to facts 
 of body is not this : nor on this supposition, can we deal 
 properly with the great fact of mind, human liberty. 
 
 As the appai'ent purpose of this classification, in my view, 
 involves errors, so the classification itself involves some curious 
 danger of confusion. Mr Mill sees well, and has expressed in 
 language which leaves nothing to be desired for clearness, the 
 difference between feelings (or sensations) and physical fact or 
 relations of any kind. He also says as distinctly as I or any 
 one taking my view could say it, that, nevertheless, in the last 
 analysis, all physical fact or relation is in fact our feeling of 
 such fact or relation : this, our feeling or sensation, is what we 
 come to in the last resort as to all. But yet again, in another 
 place, he says, in effect 1 , that it is conceivable that further 
 physiological knowledge may resolve all our feeling, as we 
 call it, into a sort of refined physical fact: into a delicate and 
 special kind of physical relation. The complication here is 
 great. There is a circularity which seems almost to result in 
 nihilism : for if physical fact is at the bottom only a manner of 
 describing our feeling, and yet again this our feeling is or may 
 be a refined kind of physical fact, we seem to revolve endlessly 
 without any logical standing for our feet. In fact, Mr Mill 
 seems to try to take at once two positions which, in my view, 
 can only be taken separately ; we may choose which we will 
 take, and there is one of the two which may be so taken as to 
 embrace the other. But Mr Mill's view seems to me to puzzle 
 phenomenalism as much as to annihilate the higher philosophy. 
 The phenomenalist will, I conclude, say with Mr Mill, that as 
 he looks upon physical science, it is within its purview, it is 
 what he hopes will one day be accomplished, that mental facts, 
 as he would call them, one such fact being what we call our 
 consciousness of personality, should be recognized and under- 
 stood as one kind of affections or circumstances of the orga- 
 nism, and nothing more, in the same ways as its size, colour, 
 form, are another kind of circumstances of it. But I do not 
 think such a person would be inclined to say with Mr Mill that 
 the qualities of matter are after all only our feelings of some- 
 thing. The phenomenalist's test of reality is not our feeling 
 
 1 Noticed afterwards, p. 197.
 
 VIII. ] LOGIC MR MILL. 1G 
 
 about anything, but things or elements as he understands them 
 — what I have before called ' natural agents', for instance. Aud 
 conversely the logician or philosopher who really looks upon 
 the ultimate test of reality, for us, as being our consciousness, 
 is, in truth, precluded by his initial view (and this, as I shall 
 have to say more fully, is what it seems to me philosophers too 
 much forget) from allowing the possibility that this conscious- 
 ness can, by any process, be proved to be only a circumstance 
 or relation of matter. It stands to him as his basis for every- 
 thing else that he knows, and therefore, whatever may be 
 proved from this so as that he knows it, the utmost is that he 
 must hold it in accompaniment with that his original thought or 
 basis. On this view it can never be the feeling itself, but only 
 something about the feeling, which on any supposition of pheno- 
 menalism, can be shown to be a circumstance of matter. 
 
 It seems to me then that the manner in which Mr Mill tries 
 to put mind and its feelings by the side of body and its attri- 
 butes is not successful. It was open to him to take the phe- 
 nomenalist view, to understand by 'things' body and its attri- 
 butes, to take as ultimate realities chemical elements or primary 
 forces, to trace the logic of our knowing them and all about 
 them (supposing it possible), and to consider it conceivable that 
 future physiology might possibly bring into relation with them 
 the as yet incommensurable or unassimilated matter, not yet 
 things for this view, which we call 'consciousness', 'feelings'. 
 This view would have had its truth as what I have called an 
 abstraction. Or it was open to him to take the other view, 
 which, made a co-abstract inn with this, is the 'logical', an<J, 
 carried out, is the view «.f the higher truth and philosophy: to 
 this belongs the saying thai things (bodies and their attribul 
 are really to us whal we think and know to be things. But 
 we have no righl to bring in mind and feelings as matter of our 
 knowledge, except upon this view. Where they enter, they 
 must take precedence of phenomenalism, and be presupposed 
 to 'n. qoI be put by the 3ide of it, subjected to a Logic derived 
 from it. and considered as whal may conceivably be reduced to 
 
 it This last is what Mr Mill has d i, I think wrongly, and in 
 
 spite of hie rMn.-iin.-iit and correct view of the real pr< d dencj "I 
 
 consciousm 
 
 I I 2
 
 1G4 LOGIC — MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 The important point is the putting 'mind and its attributes' 
 as a part of the ' things in the universe ' by the side of ' body 
 and its attributes'. I have alluded to this already by anticipa- 
 tion in speaking of the partly similar, partly opposite, proceed- 
 ing of Sir William Hamilton, in putting ' matter and its attri- 
 butes' if we may so speak as a part of ' consciousness ' by the 
 side of ' mind and its attributes'. It is what I shall continually 
 refer to, as constituting the great groundwork of my differences 
 with Mr Mill. 
 
 I acknowledge that there is a difficulty before Mr Mill here, 
 and that there are reasons why, for his purpose, it is better 
 that things should be categorized logically than sketched or 
 roughly enumerated physically : because we are going to ex- 
 amine how men have come to the knowledge of their physical 
 nature, and we ought not at the outset (like the bad psychology) 
 to anticipate this knowledge: and also because our physical 
 knowledge is continually improving, and our sketch now would 
 not have done for readers of Mr Mill's book a thousand years 
 hence. But this goes with me to show that Mr Mill, since he 
 cannot avoid the logical view, had better have taken it boldly, 
 as what it is. I think his partial taking it has misled him 
 more than a more thorough takiug it would. Talking so much 
 of 'things', I think he realizes some logical entities more than he 
 would have done if he had allowed himself more to talk of ' notions '. 
 
 Mr Mill then (in this respect not unwise) takes 'things' 
 from the dictionary, not from the universe, and understands by 
 them ' nameables '. It is not quite easy to follow this view, as 
 an index to 'things', nor can it be accepted except as a very 
 rough one. ' Things' are in this view 'that which names are 
 meant to designate, and very much besides like that which is 
 thus designated' — of all the infinity of 'things', it is only that 
 part which has already come under human knowledge which is 
 named: and there is so much human mis-knowledge, altoge- 
 ther one is puzzled — I think 'notions' and 'concepts' would 
 after all have been easier: unless I have read Mr Mill carelessly, 
 it hardly appears whether the ' things ' he speaks of are assumed 
 to 'exist' or only to be the objects of names, in which cases, 
 like Centaurs, they may not exist, and never have existed — but 
 I need not dwell upon this. I need hardly say that I have
 
 VIII.] LOGIC — MR MILL. 165 
 
 myself sufficiently spoken of the importance of language in the 
 advance of thought not to quarrel with Mr Mill for making 
 such use of it as is possible. 
 
 Coming now to the second member of the triplicity, Mi- Mill 
 is as careful to avoid the use of the expression 'judgments ' as 
 he wa< before as to 'notions' and 'concepts' : as 'things' exi-t 
 in nature, and are expressed by names, so 'facts' or 'phe- 
 nomena', relations of things, exist in nature, and are expressed 
 by 'propositions'. And as effort was before made ft> categorize 
 or classify the ' things', so the same is now done as to the facts 
 or phenomena, and there are found to be five great facts or 
 heads of fact 1 . 
 
 On these I shall not comment, except very slightly, as e.g. on 
 the mention of 'space' and 'time'. 
 
 They occur I think here for the first time, and I am not 
 quite certain as to the position which they are intended to 
 occupy — i.e. whether they are to be considered ' things ', and to 
 come under the category of attributes of matter, or of matter 
 and of mind — or whether they are something prseter-real which 
 we are here introduced to, and with which 'things' have rela- 
 tions, such relations as we see here, forming the object of propo- 
 sitions. I scarcely know whether Mr Mill is quite aware of 
 the great delicacy of speaking as he does about co-existence in 
 time and again in space, and about 'order' in them. Two 
 things or facts, both occupying or taking place in space, or one 
 doing so and one not, or perhaps both not doing so, are co-exist- 
 ent 1 supp ise in time if tjiey occupy the same time. The saint- 
 two things or facts, pari of their nature being tin-' occupation of 
 space, if they occupy the same space, are jusl what are not 
 
 xistent, either in time or in space: they are non-eo-ex- 
 
 iit in time, and though they have a special relation the 
 one to tin' other, it i- aol "in' which any term of this kind can 
 express. All objects filling space and co-existenl in time may 
 
 ■ ■ailed co-existenl in space: but I suppose co-existence in 
 
 1 Mr M !' _•'. ;reat heads "f natural fact, just aa he giv< -. '.\itli what- 
 
 sis or cat o[ things. Ti ire facta about the 
 
 things, or what th< inner as propositions are about 
 
 the terms, "r whal they enter into. Th< jories or kinds "T f.u-t an I 
 
 enoes, Sequi l ' ition, Resemblance.
 
 106 LOGIC — MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 space means proximity, side-by-sideness — equally exclusive of 
 occupation of the same space or of a remote one. 
 
 I mention these various things only to show that what 
 Mr Mill is speaking about here is not at all a matter of easy con- 
 sideration, or clear — otherwise I do not know that about space 
 and time I am particularly likely to differ with him. Whether 
 they had come in previously under 'things' or come in here 
 first as something with which ' things' have a relation, is not a 
 matter of consequence in my view. Things are in them, and 
 yet if we like to extend the use of the term, they are things 
 too : they are objects, so far as we can tell, of our right or 
 grounded thought, and that is all that I mean by ' things'. 
 
 As space and time come thus in here, after we have cate- 
 gorized the universe, so there comes in at a later stage still, in 
 the chapter entitled ' On the Ground of Induction', something 
 which I should have thought would have come in sooner. But 
 I will speak of this by itself in another chapter, though I fear 
 it will not be in what I publish now. 
 
 In the same manner in which 'things' are 'nameables', so 
 propositions are in Mr Mill's view, though he does not use the 
 language, 'asseribles' or ' assertables'. That is, their object exists 
 in nature in the same way as the object of names does. The 
 universe is an infinite complication of the 'nameable' and the 
 'assertable' (or thing and fact) from the former of which we 
 separate portions into distinct nameables or things, from the 
 latter of which we separate portions into distinct assertables or 
 propositions. A thorough philosophical language is the ideal of 
 a good separation of the former kind. An ideally good separa- 
 tion of the latter kind would be a perfect scheme or rationale 
 of knowledge. 
 
 As I said in regard of names, we are puzzled by the fact of 
 human error, and by the vast mass of the asserted which is not 
 properly asserted, that is, of propositions which do not corre- 
 spond with any facts of nature. The truth of propositions is 
 their so corresponding. And the case in regard of the proposi- 
 tions is different from that in regard of the names. It is in the 
 asserting facts of nature, and only such, that is truth. And 
 how do we know hoiv to do this, and when we do do it? 
 
 This is proper Logic : and here, in respect of the third
 
 VIII.] LOGIC MR MILL. 167 
 
 member of the triplicity, Mr Mill does come to a certain extent 
 to a logical point of view, i.e. entertains the idea not only of 
 things being and our expressing them, but of our thinking and 
 reasoning about them. 
 
 I may perhaps however have spoken too generally about 
 this — but it is not of importance. I am not writing to criticize 
 Mr Mill. There is in him abundance of most valuable logic in 
 reference to definitions 6cc. (the earlier portion of the triplicity). 
 And, in reference to reasoning (the latter portion of it), there is 
 kept up fully, as with what went before, the notion that what 
 we want is in nature — that it is not supposition of ours about 
 nature. Only that with reference to this third member of the 
 triplicity, the manner of our proceeding in reference to what 
 is thus in nature is given more elaborately : as is natural, this 
 being the most special and thoroughly necessary business of logic. 
 
 Without at all entering to or criticizing Mr Mill's Real 
 Logic as compared with others, which would be quite beyond 
 my present purpose, I shall just mention what in his view (so 
 far as I understand it) is in nature, and how we, in the progress 
 of knowledge, proceed in reference to it. 
 
 Mr Mill changes his ground (so I describe it, but that is of 
 no importance) from th ings to fact. 
 
 I mean by this, that his important continent of the universe 
 as something to be investigated, in other words, that which the 
 universe and its contents exist in, is time, not space: in othei 
 words still, that which we are to investigate in the universe is 
 not (at least so much) what is or exists in the universe, but 
 what goes on in it. Order in space is with him of some import- 
 ance in the universe, but only apparently in reference to some 
 geometrical considerations, and so much as to occupy a few 
 pages: what is important in the universe is, its sequences, and 
 
 I shall take the liberty of calling them, it- 'contemporanei- 
 ties' or co-existences in time) or 'simultaneities' (I use the 
 word to prevenl any misleading of the term 'co-existences'). 
 
 But as the sequences are thus importanl in the univ< 
 there is something most important in respect of them : there 
 are uniformities of them, or invariable sequences among thi m: 
 these uniformities are, in a manner, quasi-identities or same- 
 
 es of sequence, i.e. of fad or occurrence, they are whal we
 
 1G8 LOGIC — MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 should describe roughly as the same fact, their sameness being 
 of the same sort as that which generic identity gives to things 
 — they constitute kinds of fact — they are sequences different in 
 time and place, and with different accompaniments, but alike 
 in themselves. 
 
 These sequences have their conditions or antecedents (which 
 answer with them to the qualities of things) : but each sequence 
 has what we may call a prime condition, or antecedent not only 
 invariable, but really connected with it, and unconditional, which 
 gives us the answer to the question, Why has it occurred ? and 
 which, as we conceive, accounts for the sequence being what it 
 is : and this is its 'cause'. 
 
 In the case of contemporaneities or (definitely constituted) 
 tilings, it might be considered there must also be some prime 
 quality, corresponding to cause in the case of fact, giving the 
 reason and principle of the thing, and making the thing what it 
 is, in the same way as the cause does in the case of fact. This 
 however Mr Mill does not allow : considering indeed, that we 
 may indeed look for the cause or causes which have made the 
 thing what it is, but that is all. I mention this, not as criti- 
 cizing, but as showing what I mean by saying that with him 
 what is important in the universe is the fact or sequences in it, 
 not the things (contemporaneities or co-existences) which, he 
 considers, depend upon the other. His proceeding has a sort 
 of similarity of contrast with that of Bacon, with whom the 
 causes of fact depended on the forms or prime properties of 
 things, which he thought the important part of nature \ 
 
 I mention it also for this reason. The regularity of the uni- 
 verse, that is, both the entire connexion of fact and the entire 
 compages of thing, is composed, in Mr Mill's view, of a number 
 of regularities, or different sequences and co-existences. Mi- 
 Mill speaks to this effect very quietly, without seeming to ob- 
 serve how much he is saying. I have already spoken of the 
 circumstances, most complicated, under which there takes place 
 this process, which I am quite willing should be described as we 
 please, either as the universe separating itself in our presence 
 
 1 Mr Mill criticizes Bacon's view, Vol. n. p. 128, 2nd Edit. See the accurate 
 description given of this part of Bacon's method by Mr Ellis, in his General 
 Introduction to Bacon's Philosophical Works, Ellis and Spedding's Edition.
 
 VIII.] LOGIC — ME MILL. 1CD 
 
 into units of fact and being, or as our conceiving separate and in- 
 dividual facts or things. In reality, the facts or sequences which 
 he speaks of — would rarely have any unitary character at all, 
 that is, would hardly be looked at as separate or particular fa< 
 without the notion of a cause or necessary antecedent, and it is 
 this which most strongly suggests the existence of such cause. 
 But the same is the case in regard of things. Mr Mill's word 
 'coexistence' as I have before said, always puzzles me, and I 
 converted it into 'contemporaneity'. But it is evident that 
 a thing is more than a contemporaneity of attributes (a crow 
 e.g. more than a contemporaneity of blackness, feathers, living 
 tissue, &c.) and yet the question is, What more? Unless Mr 
 Mill flies to his unknown substratum, about which I shall shortly 
 have something to say, what is the nexus or connexion in virtue 
 of which we say 'co-existence'? Is it spatial ? but what are we 
 to think of things indefinitely separated or indefinitely dispersed 
 in space, as the solar system, or a gas ? We seem to want, in 
 regard of the 'thing', to individualize it or separate it from the 
 rest of the universe, exactly that same nexus which the sup- 
 posed cause supplies in the case of the sequence: or at least 
 the 'co-existence' requires some explanation — a better one 
 than the substratum. 
 
 This looking in the universe at /'■■( rather than things, at 
 
 what goes on rather than at what is, is of course a part of that 
 
 to look at matter of knowledge as history or 
 
 irrencc, which belongs to positivism (I do not mean the word 
 at all in any invidious sense). 
 
 Such then being the matter of knowledge, viz. the facts or 
 sequences in the universe, and the circumstance of importance 
 in reaped of each of these being it- 'cause', what is our mental 
 position in respect of them? Any adstarwe or presence with 
 them iiiu-i be by an intermediation of some kind, and it mighl 
 have been considered what sort of intermediation there could 
 be. Mr Mill however, as I have said, deals with the univ< 
 ;,- with facts, not with things: and the knowledge of these 
 facts he describes (mosl reasonably) as belief: by so doing he 
 takes what I have called the logical point of new, or considers 
 
 what is the state of out i jciousm 58. In other words, when 
 
 v.,. ,, e the term belief of anything, it is not the $ame rie*
 
 J 70 LOGIC — MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 if we said, Such and such a thing is in nature, it is there what- 
 ever is the case with me, whether I believe it or disbelieve it, 
 whether I am alive or dead, whether or not there is or has 
 been anybody to know about it — in this case, if we do suppose 
 anybody by or present (adstant) to know, we must bear in mind 
 that the thing known is entirely independent of the know- 
 ledge. When, on the other hand, we speak of believing, con- 
 ceiving, &c, the thing known is a part of the knowledge : we 
 are at what I called the logical point of view : we must not 
 previously suppose the independent existence of the thing 
 known, because its existence depends upon the correctness of 
 our belief: we cannot speak with meaning of believing any- 
 thing that is in the universe : we believe something about the 
 universe, and if our belief is correct, then we may say with 
 reason, if we like the language, the thing is in the universe, 
 but not before. We believe then in the first instance, by a 
 belief counter-respondent to (i. e. the same thing as, looked at 
 the other way) simple adstance or presence with the thing 
 known, the existence of the facts or sequences : if we believe 
 anything as to the causes of them, it must be through an 
 intermediation, which is what we call 'evidence', and the 
 treatment of this evidence is the purpose of Mr Mill's Logic 
 proper. 
 
 Mr Mill's Logic then, like Bacon's, is simply a Theory of 
 the Evidence of the Facts of Nature, or Art of dealing with 
 it, in the double way of dealing with evidence which belongs 
 to all use of it, whether for legal purposes or for others, viz. to 
 find out by it that which we do not know, and to verify by it 
 (or prove to others) what we suppose we do know. This is 
 one way in which the advance of knowledge may be looked 
 on: we go on from one to another fresh step of knowledge: 
 each must be fresh, and each must be knowledge : we have got 
 therefore first to have it suggested to our thought, and then 
 shown to be knowledge : the evidence acts to both purposes. 
 
 Mr Mill uses the word ' induction' in a wider and in a nar- 
 rower sense : first, for all inference, or in fact all mental 
 process, by which anything is added to knowledge, or know- 
 ledge grows : and next for the particular case of such inference 
 or process, in which the added knowledge is more general than
 
 VIII.] LOGIC MR MILL. 171 
 
 that which it had proceeded from. Hence the most important 
 process of Induction in the first sense is Deduction, by which 
 latter term is signified a triple process : first of Induction in 
 the second sense : next of Ratiocination, which may be con- 
 sidered an extension or expansion, in the sense of a wide appli- 
 cation, of the general truth thus approximately obtained : and 
 finally, a continued Verifying or testing it as thus applied. 
 
 This language does not seem to me very happy for general 
 use : by which I mean : every philosopher has a right to his 
 own language : I think such language is generally best when it 
 is most his own : and all this language is explained and used 
 by Mr Mill with most perfect clearness. Brit the term ' De- 
 duction', of which I do not very well know the history, was I 
 suppose invented and used as an antithesis to Induction : and 
 so, in books inferior to Mr Mill's, and in much philosophical 
 language derived more or less from his views it constantly is : 
 with him it scarcely represents such an antithesis: it is must 
 expressly opposed to 'Experimental'. Altogether, I do not 
 think the language is favourable to clearness of thought, and 
 I question whether there is much significance in what Mr Mill 
 says, ;is to the Anti-Baconian revolution (so to call it) now going 
 on. But I will not dwell on this. 
 
 I am not at all going to criticize Mr Mill's System of Real 
 Logic, if so we may call it. To do this with any utility would 
 requin- much more space and care than belongs to my presenl 
 purpose. I will only make one or two observations. 
 
 A Real Logic has in one respect two parts, thus: it contains 
 always in some degree a sort of review of the manner in which 
 knowledge has advanced, and also a scheme, Bystem, and ratio- 
 nale of the manner of proceeding which is best for its future 
 advance. Every Real Logic is to me of great interest on ac- 
 count of the former of these parts of it, But the differenl 
 view-; taken of the circunist anees under which knowledge has 
 
 advanced, or, in other words, which have been the cause of its 
 advance, make me pu1 not much faith in the second part, or 
 in any Real Logic as a kind of art of the advance of know- 
 ledge tor the future. Tic- logical language which the imw 
 
 Real Logic is introducing semis to nie to he of ;i cumbrous 
 character, as likely to be a load upon speculation and investi-
 
 172 LOGIC — MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 gation, and as little likely to be helpful, as much of the old 
 Formal Logic. I think there is still something to desire as to 
 the way in which we ought, philosophically, to think of the 
 vast advance in physical knowledge which man has made. And 
 till we understand it in this way more than it seems to me we 
 do, I think any conclusions from the manner of it as to our 
 best way of proceeding now are very doubtful. According to 
 Mr Mill, we are unlearning Baconianism — would it, or would 
 it not, have been better for us never to have learnt it \ or after 
 all, is it nothing that we have learnt and are now unlearning, 
 only a manner of speaking? Apparently, however, non-logical 
 physical research has been too strong for our Baconian Real 
 Looic — if this is so, I do not say that no purpose is served by 
 our trying, in whatever degree, to direct this research by a fresh 
 Heal Logic, but only that the same thing may happen again. 
 
 In another quite different respect also a Real Logic has two 
 parts : viz. it has a view of nature or of the universe, and it has 
 a view of the manner in which our mind should proceed for the 
 advance of the knowledge of it. These two are pretty certain 
 of course to be connected together, and if the one is wrong, 
 some things also necessarily in the other must be : but it may 
 be some only, and it is quite possible that to a considerable ex- 
 tent the views may be separable. 
 
 In the case of Mr Mill his Logic of Evidence may be to a 
 considerable extent separated from his phenomenalist view of 
 nature : we may disallow, or think very insufficient, his view of 
 the universe with its supposed sequences and their causes, and 
 yet consider that the scheme he gives of the manner in which 
 we may best find out the truth about something which we want 
 to know, is most valuable, important, and useful. For all this 
 ' Induction ' is only what we are always about when we want to 
 increase our knowledge of any kind, or to find out the truth 
 about anything. This Mr Mill tells us, and truly. And this is 
 important, in relation of my present discussion, in this way. 
 What seems most important to Mr Mill's mind, and what many 
 of his readers think most important in his researches, is the 
 making a Real Logic for Social and Moral Science — the appli- 
 cation of methods which have been so fruitful as to physical 
 science, now to moral. I have not the least doubt but that
 
 VIII.] LOGIC- — MR MILL. 173 
 
 Mr Mill's book is full of most valuable hints and helps for such 
 a Keal Logic. But so far as this is so, I think it is quite in- 
 dependently of his view of nature and of the universe. So tin- 
 as his book is a good Real Logic in general, applicable to Moral 
 Science as well as physical, it might be taken in hand for in- 
 stance by a lawyer, and there might be published, similar in 
 method to it, and without a word about sequences and co- 
 existences, a treatise e.g. on the manner in which we hunt out 
 crime, and bring it home to any body — the word ' causa ' is 
 probably, like atria, a quasi-legal word from ' caveo ', signifying 
 who or what is to blame for anything, to whom or what it 
 ought to be attributed. I dare say Mr Mill's Deduction, with 
 its three steps, would be the best way to set about this — a pre- 
 liminary induction would fix upon some one for strong suspicion 
 — suppose him to be the man, and argue then what other sup- 
 positions must follow from this — see if these suppositions are 
 verified by actual fact. I put this in this manner only to show 
 how thoroughly independent all of it is of Mr Mill's peculiar 
 lancmage or of his views of the universe : it is his Logic as a 
 good logic of discovery of fact and belief of it on evidence 
 which is of value for moral and social science, not his Logic as 
 founded on any particular view of nature. 
 
 How far Mr Mill's view of the [nductive Deduction to which 
 I have just now referred, is really different from Dr WhewelTs 
 view of fitting a cone ption to the observed farts, is no1 easy t.» 
 I very much doubt whether it is greatly so. Mr Mill's 
 discussion with Dr Whewell as to the 'conceptions' La in sub- 
 stance double: Do the <-,,. ci ptions belong t" the mind, or are 
 they, if right, in the facts? Is the process of tw> members 
 only, a comparison of conceptions ami facts, or is ii more elabo- 
 rate, induction, ratiocination ami verification? 
 
 I have just alluded to this controvi which I am not 
 
 ig to pursue, tor the two following reasons. 
 
 My difference with DrWhewelLas we shall shortly see, is in 
 this: that I think the conceptions- which are d< scribed as tal 
 their origin in the mind are oothing but the other side, so to 
 p ak, of the tacts which are described as independenl "I' the 
 mind, and to which the conceptions arc to l> • applied. I regard 
 therefore the firsi member oi the above di cu ion between
 
 174 LOGIC MR MILL. [CHAP. 
 
 Dr Whewell and Mr Mill as not involving any real matter of 
 discussion. It is discussed in Mr Mill's Chapter on Abstractions : 
 he makes great effort to prove that " the conceptions which we 
 " employ for the colligation and methodization of facts, do not 
 " develope themselves from within, but are impressed upon the 
 " mind from without : they are never obtained otherwise than by 
 " way of comparison and abstraction, and in the most important 
 " and the most numerous cases are evolved by abstraction from 
 "the very phenomena which it is their office to colligate 1 ". 
 If the reader follows what I have written all along, he will 
 see that one special value to me, of the view which I take, 
 is, that it prevents this most undecidable controversy. Let 
 us call knowledge whichever we please, an impression made 
 by reality upon the mind, or a right view taken by the mind 
 as to reality, but do not let us discuss which it is, for it is either 
 and both: do not let us say it is one to the exclusion of 
 the other, for then we shall infallibly become slaves of our 
 terms, and think that we mean something really taking place, 
 when we talk of 'conceptions being impressed upon the mind 
 from without': in respect of each view, its counter- view is 
 needed to prevent any such misapprehension: and last, do not 
 let us say, which seems to me to be Dr Whewell's mistake, that 
 knowledge is partly in the facts and partly from the mind : the 
 highest conceptions are in the things as well as the most mate- 
 rial and secondary quality: the most material quality, as a 
 part of knowledge, is a notion of the mind, as well as the 
 highest conception. 
 
 If this discussion is put aside, we come much more freely and 
 hopefully to the other, namely, that as to the manner of the 
 action of the mind in adding to its store of knowledge, and eli- 
 citing truth. And, as I have hinted, it would probably be really 
 the better for the Real Logic of Science, that it should not be 
 too speedily involved with technical terms, but that the general 
 principles of the logic of learning or finding out anything 
 should be as distinctly as possible laid down first. Mr Mill 
 appeals from his technical logic to the natural logic of us all : 
 ' Let any watch the manner in which he himself unravels any 
 complicated mass of evidence 2 ': and then he goes on to de- 
 
 1 Vol. II. pp. 223, 224. 2 Vol. II. p. 30.
 
 VIII.] LOGIC MR MILL. 17.") 
 
 scribe how we speculate, and form our theories, &c. and see 
 whether they will do, and so on. In reality, I doubt much 
 whether any purpose is served by speaking, in a manner which 
 I have described as ' cumbrous ', about the ' Hypothetical 
 Method ', for instance — the disadvantage is, that we get hard 
 and sharp technical distinctions, of little use, as it seems to me. 
 This 'Hypothetical Method', says Mr Mill, 'out of the three pro- 
 cesses, induction, ratiocination, verification, suppresses the for- 
 mer' : now the former, surely, at least exists in the shape of 
 ' suggestion ', and considering that in the proper ' Deduction ' 
 the preliminary induction is avowedly incomplete, the limits be- 
 tween such suggestion and the incomplete induction are very 
 vague : and then the distinction between the preliminary induc- 
 tion and the final verification is by no means very absolute : as 
 the terms are technically used by Mr Mill, no doubt it is so : 
 but as I have said, the technical ism ought to stand upon a 
 general basis of good mathetic logic, or the logic of learning, 
 finding out, arriving at truth, and then we have to apply this. 
 
 The reason why I do not say any more about Mr Mill's 
 account of the various Inductive and Experimental processes, 
 is because what is of interest in his book for my present purpose 
 is his view of nature and his view of the general action of the 
 mind. I shall investigate to a certain degree how far he is or 
 is not free from what I have called ' notionalism', and from what 
 I have called wrong psychology: I shall allude to what he says 
 about the logic of the moral sciences: and after an interval, 
 shall make a few additional remarks upon his most general 
 views of the universe, of truth, and of the manner of our arriv- 
 ing at it, and the extent to which we do so arrive.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MILL'S LOGIC CONTINUED. 
 
 If an}* person would have been likely to avoid notionalism (or 
 relativism) and the wrong psychology, one would have thought 
 that Mr Mill would, on account of his strong view of ' things ' as 
 the objects of knowledge, and of his clear observation of the dif- 
 ference between 'sensation' as 'consciousness' and 'sensation' as 
 (so to call it) 'bodily affection'. I do not think he does avoid 
 either of them, and the present chapter is a discussion as to his 
 doing so : the conclusion which I draw from this is, that phe- 
 nomenalism, with a philosophic mind like his, will not stand 
 alone, and if it cannot have (what seems to me) right philo- 
 sophy to support it, must have wrong. 
 
 1. In speaking of an unknown and unknowable substra- 
 tum of things, Mr Mill seems to me amenable to all that I said 
 in speaking of Mr Ferrier, about the error of those philosophers 
 who speak about ' things in themselves ', or use any language 
 of that kind, from a logical point of view, converting their mere 
 logical supposition into a supposed reality. I will leave this 
 however for a moment, and before saying more about it, will 
 say a little about something else. 
 
 2. I think Mr Mill is inconsistent with himself in the fol- 
 lowing manner. All facts of body are ultimately facts of mind, 
 i. e. the truth about them is capable of being reduced to truth 
 of thought in the thinking mind. This is what I understand 
 him to say, what I heartily agree with him in, and what seems 
 to me the same as my saying, that the phenomenalist view is a 
 partial one or an abstraction, and that the philosophical view, 
 or that from the point of view of consciousness, is the compre- 
 hensive and complete one. But in this philosophical view, that 
 which we are conscious of in the first step of immediateness is
 
 chap, ix.] mill's logic. 177 
 
 on the one side our own feelings, on the other side something 
 which gives occasion to them, which latter developes itself, as 
 our intelligence goes on, into the facts of body or phenomenal- 
 ism. Thus, on the philosophical view, these facts of body stand 
 at a further remove from our consciousness, the test of certainty, 
 than our feelings do: which Mr Mill himself seems to consider, 
 in saying that the facts of body may be ultimately referred to 
 feelings of mind. But then these feelings of mind ought not 
 to be put on the same level of thought as the facts of body, 
 as phenomena together with them, to be treated conjunctly 
 with them, and to be considered as forming, along with them, a 
 class of nameables in the universe. Still less ought a system of 
 logic, formed upon the basis of the observation how we advance 
 in the knowledge of the phenomena of body, to be applied to 
 them, and to be considered as the instrument by which we shall 
 advance in knowledge of them. And Mr Mill's attempting to 
 do this seems to me inconsistent with his saying previously, 
 that the facts of body are ultimately referrible to feelings of 
 mind — i.e. that these latter stand at a higher stage, in the 
 complete view, than the former. The immediate result of this 
 logic, which I have called phenomenalist, is the denial of the 
 existence of will, and of causation as action : i. e. as soon as the 
 feelings of mind are prof - lly set by the side of the facts of 
 body as co-phenomena, they are really subordinated to them, 
 no longer treated as facts of mind or consciousness, bul dealt 
 with according to principles which the phenomenalisl Logic has 
 given. It is quite possible thai our supposed consciousness of 
 will or activity may be a delusion: but it is possible in exactly 
 the same manner, and at the same Btage of thought, in which it 
 is possible for our supposition of the existence of an universe 
 independent of us, or a spatial, external world, to be a delusion. 
 Our feeling of our activity or of our being sources of change 
 exists by the side of, and at tin; level of, the entire and general 
 feeling thai there is a universe independent of us. We follow 
 oul this latter feeling into phenomenalism, and lay down (or 
 describe) the fact of the universe : bu1 it is not a proper coi 
 to pul by the Bide of the e fad . and to consider as phenomena 
 analogous in any way to them, our various consciou uess, 01 our 
 feelings, which belong to a higher and different region. Our 
 
 12
 
 178 mill's logic [ctiap. 
 
 feeling of there being a universe at all, upon which all phe- 
 nomenalism depends, is but one of these feelings. Our feelings, 
 viewed from the philosophical point of view or point of view of 
 consciousness, are not phenomena of the universe or capable of 
 standing by the side of such, but the universe, if we like to use 
 the language, is a fact or phenomenon of them. 
 
 I do not quarrel with the looking at our feeling, so far as it 
 can be so looked at, from the phenomenal point of view. Each one 
 of us is a corporeal organization in the universe, filling space as 
 a tree fills space, and sensitive more or less as a dog is sensitive. 
 Of this sensitiveness which we share certainly with the dog, 
 perhaps with the tree, for there may be an infinite number of 
 degrees and kinds of it, we may, from the phenomenal point of 
 view, have some notion : it is a fact of the universe : we may 
 call it if we like consciousness : we may apply our individual 
 feeling of consciousness towards the gaining this notion, so far as 
 we can : we may imagine what the dog's feeling must be, and 
 judge from what he does, how far it is like our own : I have no 
 quarrel with all this. All I say is, that with each one of us (if 
 we say 'each one'), with me, with you, the one great reality which 
 absorbs all others is that I, you, think and feel, and we only 
 talk of a universe because we think and feel that there is one ; 
 that our thought in this way surrounds or embraces the uni- 
 verse and cannot therefore be embraced by it in such a manner 
 as to be liable to have said of it, This, or that, matter of con- 
 sciousness, is inconsistent with such and such laws of the uni- 
 verse which we have discovered, and therefore cannot be true. 
 We may, to a certain extent, be able to treat of our thought or 
 feeling as embraced in the universe, as a fact of it : but we have 
 no right to conclude that because we may do this we may con- 
 clude things about it, from its being a fact of the universe, 
 which the thought itself, as consciousness, disowns. 
 
 There seems to me, in all this attempt to apply pheno- 
 menalist logic to the consideration of thought and feeling, to 
 be the same confusion of two views which I have all along 
 been noting. We are, for physical and physiological study 
 (which is what I call phenomenal) one species of animal upon 
 the earth, the highest that we know, with communicative 
 tongues and constructive hands, so that we can make all sorts
 
 ix.] mill's logic. 170 
 
 of things and combine together, with common and mutual 
 understanding, to make them, and talk about them, and talk 
 in our own minds about them — we may study the facts of 
 our own nature, including our thought and feeling to the ex- 
 tent I have mentioned above, in our place in the universe, 
 we may study any facts of any nature, phenomenally. But 
 we are, and we cannot help really feeling ourselves, for pur- 
 poses of philosophical and moral study, not this, but something 
 different — what I should call, 'higher'. We feel with, and wo 
 feel ourselves as having, a free consciousness, a disposition to 
 look at things generally, a curiosity, or love of knowing, a 
 disposition to do things for a purpose and to try to do them 
 well, all which with kindred feelings besides, makes us occupy, 
 in our own view, the position, not of animals, however 
 high, in the universe with a sphere and environment, and with 
 our own existence subordinated to that, but of observers of 
 the relation between ourselves and this universe, with its ex- 
 istence subordinated to ours, believing in it not because we 
 are inferior to it but because we think it, judging about it as 
 well as studying it, and when we are settling upon our action, 
 thinking, from this free point of view, what is worth doing, 
 what wants doing, what it is well should be done ; not simply 
 considering that our experience in the universe as the animal 
 inn a, is to guide our action in the same way as a dog's ex- 
 perience or instinct as the animal dog guides his, which is what 
 he cannot help. 
 
 I have pu1 this a little strongly just to mark how it is 
 at the point of human nature and human action that we must 
 take care that we keep tin views distinct. 1 have been notic- 
 ing, throughout what 1 have been saying now, the confusion, 
 as it Beems t<> me, of the two views, in reference to philoso- 
 phy or the stu.lv of knowledge: Mr Mill, in resped of the 
 application of his logic to knowledge, docs not much fall into 
 it, but he does when he thinks to apply his Logic to social 
 science and to morals. Because for these, in my view, we musl 
 start, net from phenomena, hut from consciousness, in the same 
 way as we -tart for the higher philosophy of knowledge. I 
 baye jusl tried to describe what I mean by this. The put- 
 ting our feelings as co-phenomena with the facts oi the uni- 
 
 I 'J
 
 180 mill's logic. [chap. 
 
 verse is the bringing them from a higher level to which they 
 do belong to a lower to which they do not. It is analogous 
 in a different application of thought, to the want of clearness 
 of view in setting before ourselves the question whether we 
 are thinking of ourselves as corporeal and local, or whether we 
 are considering how we gain the knowledge, or conceive the 
 notion, of corporealness and locality. 
 
 From what I have said as to the extent to which our 
 feelings may be treated phenomenally it will be understood 
 that I do not wish to deny the possibility of much valuable 
 result from this line of thought — but it must be kept within 
 its proper limits for this, and must be subordinate, as a logic 
 of philosophy and morals, to the logic of the higher point of 
 view which I have mentioned. Whereas Mr Mill considers, 
 and I believe has influenced many to consider, that by what 
 he has said he has opened the way to a new and better 
 method, promising much advance, in respect of social science 
 for instance and morals. This I think is mistaken. 
 
 I should perhaps have said, that for the phenomenalist 
 study of human nature and morals, we have now, at this stage 
 of the world's life, something beyond physics and physiology, 
 in the facts of the history of human society. All this I most 
 fully allow, and the very valuable results which may result 
 from the study of these facts or phenomena. But even these, 
 though phenomena if we like to call them so of a higher 
 order, do not alter what I have said, that our starting point 
 must not be from them. All that man has done, whatever 
 aid it may give, can never teach us what man should do or 
 what it is best for him to do, any more than the facts of the 
 universe can. 
 
 Before however proceeding further on the logic of the moral 
 sciences, which is what comes last in Mr Mill's book, I had 
 better finish what I have to say about the 'unknowable sub- 
 stratum' of things, and mention one or two points in which 
 there seems to me confusion. 
 
 3. I am not at all now criticizing Mr Mill, which could 
 not be properly done except at much greater length than I 
 wish here to go to, and without going into details which would 
 interfere with the general view which I want to give. I take
 
 ix.] mill's logic. 181 
 
 his book, a book well known and of universally acknowledged 
 merit, as a type of a kind of thought, and so far as he is 
 concerned, it is quite sufficient answer for him to say that I 
 have misunderstood him. This is not unlikely, but in that 
 case the criticism of the view which I suppose in him remains 
 the same. 
 
 This may be not an improper place to call attention to a 
 possible misunderstanding of the term ' phenomenal', as I use 
 it. I use it as an adjective formed from 'phenomenon', in our 
 present acceptation of the word phenomenon, as synonymous 
 with physical fact, or fact of nature, or fact in the universe, or 
 however we describe it. The word ' phenomenon ', in this use, 
 is a relic of the old philosophy which taught that all in nature, 
 as sensible, was appearance, and that the process of learning 
 or gaining knowledge or forming true notions was a coming, 
 through the intervention of this appearance, and by proper 
 thinking about it (dialectic) at the idea or true reality of 
 tilings, and forming our notions in conformity with this. The 
 word ' phenomenon', as I use it, means to those who are what I 
 call wrong phenomenalists, or posit Lvists, simply fact, they recog- 
 nizing no other reality: to me it means what it does to them, 
 so far as used for their purposes, but also besides, for philo- 
 sophical purposes, what it meant, in the main, to the old philo- 
 sophers. That is, I look upon our complete and right concep- 
 tion of things as something in relation to which our view of the 
 universe as fact or nature is something incomplete — I do not call 
 it deceptive appearance) but 1 call it partial and an abstraction. 
 
 The words 'phenomenal', 'phenomenal', 'phenomenology', 
 andothei such, as they are used by Sir William Hamilton and a 
 greal many philosophers a1 present, carry with them a different 
 reference, /recognize in 'nowmena\ their opposite, only mental 
 creations, temporary notions, if we like so to call them, formed 
 
 bide to, or in the way towards, the notions which we want to 
 form, not at all the things themselves or our final uotions of 
 them. W li.it thephysicisl considers facts are 'phenomena' (sig- 
 nificantly) in the eye of the philosopher, because lie takes c< 
 nizance of something further back than the physicisl goes, viz. 
 thai he only calls them 'facts' because they seem to him 
 which last is the real fact, the fad of facts: the universe is all
 
 182 mill's logic. [chap. 
 
 a dressing up of one side of this fact : he wants to escape from 
 the word 'seem', not, as the simple phenomenalist does, by 
 ignoring this latter great fact, but by facing it, and trying whe- 
 ther he can arrive at, or approach towards, anything, in regard 
 of which the word ' seem' would lose its meaning, and be felt as 
 identical with 'is' — at anything which is to him with the same 
 completeness and conviction as, in his own view, he himself is. 
 In this view the idea, the proper reality, is the true. object of 
 knowledge: it is what all our efforts are directed towards: to 
 say that it is not matter of knowledge, that it is something 
 which from its nature cannot be known, is negativing the view 
 altogether: it is just what can be known, and the only thing 
 which can be known in the full propriety of the term, so far as 
 we can attain to know it. 
 
 All this is entirely different from the notion of an unknow- 
 able noumenism with which pha3nomenism (as I here on pur- 
 pose write it) is contrasted, phenomena being supposed only 
 the dress of the noumena, and the latter, though in their nature 
 unknowable, being the things in themselves, the substratum, 
 the true realities. Our consciousness, the ultimate test, sug- 
 gests to us, we may say, ourselves, as a continuing substratum 
 of our varying feelings; but it does not suggest to us this as 
 unknoivn, for it is just what we most do know: and it is quite a 
 false parallel to suppose that in any way our consciousness sug- 
 gests to us a (supposedly) similar unknowable substratum for 
 the occasions of our sensations, or phenomena. What our con- 
 sciousness su£f2fests to us on this side is not at all tJiis, but is 
 
 oo 
 
 a universe or existing order of things of which we form a part 
 at the same time that, in the first instance, we in our thought 
 comprehend it. What suggests the supposed substratum is 
 merely notionalism, or wrong conclusion from the manner or 
 process of our knowledge, which is the describing things by pre- 
 dicating qualities of them, so that in the process of knowledge, 
 we have to suppose the thing (for it is only temporary supposi- 
 tion), independent of each, and therefore of all, its qualities. 
 
 I hope what I have said may make it clear how my use of 
 the term 'phenomenal' differs from Sir William Hamilton's in 
 that passage of his quoted in Mr Mill's later editions 1 , where 
 
 1 Vol. i. p. C$, 4 th edit.
 
 ix.] mill's logic. 183 
 
 he says, "All that we know is therefore phenomenal — phreno- 
 " menal of the unknown." All that we know is but a small part 
 of the knowable, and since we all hold whatever we know as a 
 whole, since our knowledge is a view of things or of the uni- 
 verse, since there is given us in our mind so to speak a frame 
 for our knowledge, which the particular things which we know 
 more or less fill up — all that we know may be regarded as that 
 appearance which the universe or reality takes to us — as 
 phenomenal of the unknown whole — the whole unknown and 
 unknowable as a matter of fact, but not unknowable in its 
 nature or philosophically. 
 
 It seems to me a strange perversion of the notion of know- 
 ledge to suppose that we can know that anything is in its 
 nature ?/??knowable, except so far as the notion 'knowledge' is 
 inapplicable to it, in which case nobody would talk of knowing 
 it, or would call it unknowable. We do not talk of colours as 
 inaudible, and if we do of sounds being invisible, it is because 
 of the wide and loose way in which sight is used as the type of 
 all sense. It is the giving a mere logical puzzle as a supposed 
 wholesome humbling of the intellect which is what I call 'no- 
 tionalism' or 'relativism'. 
 
 To return from these observations on phenomenalism to 
 Mr Mill. In that passage 1 which I have just referred to, 1 
 doubted, in the former edition, where he ceased to speak tin- 
 language of Kant, and where he began his own: in the lata r 
 it appears more clearly. B< pr< -< rv< - in his note the passa 
 of Cousin which expresses, as pointedly as could possibly I"' 
 pressed, the relativism with which 1 have expressed my dis- 
 agreement, now evidently as expressing hie own view, and he 
 adds the p from Sir William Eamilton which 1 have jusl 
 
 quoted. 
 
 '•It may", says Mr Mill, "be safely laid down that of the 
 
 "outward world we know and can know absolutely nothing, 
 
 "excepl the -• osations which we experience from it 2 ". 
 
 1 Page 78, 2nd edit. ; page 64, 4th edit. 
 
 • I am in a difficulty as to what to quote hi re, but perhaps, 1 had bettei 
 inthil note the whole p d Mr Mill (aince I shall return to il 
 
 stands in the fourth edition, omitting onlj the long from M. Cousin, 
 
 which the reader may una [ine. 1 will Bi tt. 
 
 "But although the doctrine of the [dealist metaphysicians, that
 
 184 mill's logic. [chap. 
 
 I mentioned some time since that a good test of a philo- 
 sopher's manner of thought was his use of the term ' object of 
 
 " objects are nothing but our sensations and the laws which connect them, has not 
 "been generally adopted by subsequent thinkers ; the point of most real importance 
 "is one on which those metaphysicians are now very generally considered to have 
 " made out their case : viz. that all ire hnow of objects is the sensations which they 
 "give us, and the order of the occurrence of those sensations. Kant himself, on 
 "this point, is as explicit as Berkeley or Locke. However firmly convinced that 
 "there exists an universe of 'Things in themselves,' totally distinct from the 
 "universe of phenomena, or of tilings as they appear to our senses; and even 
 "when bringing into use a technical expression (Noumenon) to denote what the 
 "thing is in itself, as contrasted with the representation of it in our minds; he 
 " allows that this representation (the matter of which, he says,- consists of our 
 " sensations, though the form is given by the laws of the mind itself) is all we know 
 "of the object : and that the real nature of the Thing is, and by the constitution 
 "of our faculties ever must remain, at least in the present state of existence, an 
 "impenetrable mystery to us. ' Of things absolutely or in themselves,' says Sir 
 " William Hamilton, ' be they external, be they internal, we know nothing, or 
 " 'know them only as incognisable ; and become aware of their incomprehensible 
 "'existence, only as this is indirectly and accidentally revealed to us, through 
 " ' certain qualities related to our faculties of knowledge, and which qualities, 
 "'again, we cannot think as unconditioned, irrelative, existent in and of them- 
 " ' selves. All that we know is therefore phsenomenal, — phenomena] of the un- 
 " ' known.' The same doctrine is laid down in the clearest and strongest terms 
 "by M. Cousin, whose observations on the subject are the more worthy of atten- 
 tion, as, in consequence of the ultra-German and ontological character of his 
 "philosophy in other respects, they may be regarded as the admissions of an 
 " opponent. 
 
 "There is not the slightest reason for believing that what we call the sensible 
 " qualities of the object are a type of anything inherent in itself, or bear any affinity 
 "to its own nature. A cause does not, as such, resemble its effects; an east 
 " wind is not like the feeling of cold, nor heat like the steam of boiling water. Why 
 "then should matter resemble our sensations ? Why should the inmost nature of 
 " fire or water resemble the impressions made by those objects upon our senses ? 
 " Or on what principle are we authorised to deduce from the effects, anything con- 
 cerning the cause, except that it is a cause adequate to produce those effects? 
 " It may therefore safely be laid down as a truth both obvious in itself, and ad- 
 "mitted by all whom it is at present necessary to take into consideration, that, 
 " of the outward world, we know and can know absolutely nothing, except the 
 "sensations which we experience from it. Those, however, who still look upon 
 " Ontology as a possible science, and think, not only that bodies have an essential 
 "constitution of their own, lying deeper than our perceptions, but that this essence 
 "or nature is accessible to human investigation, cannot expect to find their refuta- 
 tion here. The question depends on the nature and laws of Intuitive Know- 
 " ledge, and is not within the province of logic." 
 
 I will now give the note. 
 
 " Sir William Hamilton even goes so far as to assert that this opinion not only 
 "now is, but always has been, held by nearly all philosophers. ' It has been com-
 
 ix.] mill's logic. 185 
 
 knowledge ' : I will now mention another, which is, his use of 
 the term 'outward' or 'external'. For instance, Mr Mill speaks 
 in one place of something being ' external both to the body and 
 the mind ' as if the term was in the same sense applicable to both. 
 This is just the way of speaking which I do not understand, 
 and which I have called a confusion between two views. The 
 mind, as distinguished from the body, is the knowing (thing) or 
 the subject of the attribute knowledge, in regard of which the 
 question is, not whether anything is or is not spatially external 
 to it, but whether it is or is not, in any way, independent of it. 
 Not however to dwell on this: as to the passage quoted, I cannot 
 see the force of it, because I cannot understand what 'the out- 
 ward world' means or can mean more than the (supposed) 
 occasion of the sensations which, in Mr Mill's language, 'we 
 experience from it'. What I understand by the term 'out- 
 ward' is a reference of it to these sensations: so far as we 
 know any more, if we do so know, than these sensations tell us, 
 the term 'outward' so far ceases to be applicable to it : thai is 
 all that seems to me to happen : as I should express it, we are 
 taking no longer the phenomenalist view. And what I differ 
 from Mr Mill in as to the last sentence is this, that while con- 
 demning apparently Ontology, or the notion that bodies have a 
 
 "'monly confessed, that, as substances, we know not what is Matter, and are 
 jnorant of what is Mind. With the exception, in fact, of a few late Absolutist 
 " 'theorisers in Germany, this is, perhaps, the truth of all others most harmoni- 
 " ' ously reechoed by every philosopher of every school.' And he supports his 
 "assertion by quotations from seventeen thinkers of eminence, beginning with 
 " Protagoras and Aristotle, and ending with Kant. Gladly, however, as I Bhonld 
 '• learn that a philosophical truth destructive of so great a mass of baseless and 
 "misleading speculation had been universally recognized by philosophers <>f all 
 "past time, and that Ontology, instead of being, as I had hitherto beli red, the 
 "oldest form of philosophy, was a recent invention of g ,ni II _. ! ; I am 
 
 'obliged to confess, that none of the passages extracted by Sir William Hamilton. 
 "except one from the elder Scaliger and another from Newton, convey to my 
 "mind the conclusion that the writers had ever come within sight of the greal 
 " truth which he supposes them to have intended to express. Almost all the pas- 
 "sages seem to me perfectly compatible with the rejection of it; and in most 
 "I cannot, by any legitimate interpretation, find anything more than a recog- 
 " nition of tiie far more obvio iple, that our knowledge of external things 
 
 "i.« : ly conditioned by the laws of our knowing faculty: a very diflerenl 
 
 "thing fr^in th- ii that the laws of that faetilty are Mich as to deny us 
 
 "all kn ■■ of outward tilings, except that of their mere I
 
 ISO mill's logic. [chap. 
 
 super-perceptional constitution which we may hope to find out, 
 he seems to countenance the belief that they have one, which, 
 from its very nature it is useless for us even to try to find out. 
 This is the ' notional ' Ontology, if I may so call it, which seems 
 to me worse than an attemptedly Real Ontology. It is what 
 I have alluded to above as the Kantist manner of thought — 
 I give no opinion as to proper Kantism. I say nothing at all 
 as to whether there is any meaning in speaking of 'an essen- 
 tial constitution of things': I say only this, that if the notion is 
 to be entertained even so far as to say that such a thing is 
 possible, this constitution must have some relation to the facts 
 about things which we know by our sensations, along which re- 
 lation there is a road for our intellect towards the knowledge of 
 this constitution — how good a road is a question I do not enter 
 upon : the question is as to a chasm or discontinuity in virtue 
 of the nature of things. 
 
 I do not allude to this in Mr Mill for the purpose of criti- 
 cizing his sentences — it requires much fuller consideration than 
 I am giving here to know how far a particular sentence ex- 
 presses a philosopher's full view — but because it is all a part of 
 that which is my difference with him — his not indeed ignoring 
 the philosophical view, which would be the course of many 
 phenomenalists, but his attempt to bring it in along with the 
 phenomenalist, in a way which confuses both. He thus seems 
 to consider that the semi-Ontology of Kantists and Sir William 
 Hamilton (which seems to me a mocking of our intelligence) 
 will come in by the side of his phenomenalism, while a further 
 going philosophy will not. I have taken as the real or import- 
 ant line of thought with him that which seems to me really in- 
 consistent with this, and in which ' notionalism ' is just what he 
 opposes. What we see and name are ' things ', and propositions 
 express 'facts' or 'phenomena'. Ideas of things, and judg- 
 ments about things, may in this view, and I agree with him in 
 it, be left out of consideration. 
 
 I cannot resist dwelling still however for a moment on this 
 page of Mr Mill, in which every sentence, both of his and Sir 
 W. Hamilton's fills me with a sort of wonder — how so much 
 knowledge, and so much ignorance or nescience, of these 
 'things in themselves', can go together, I cannot understand.
 
 ix.] mill's logic. 187 
 
 "Of things absolutely and in themselves", says Sir William 
 Hamilton, " be they external, be they internal, we know nothing, 
 "or know them only as incognizable: and become aware of their 
 "incomprehensible existence, only as this is indirectly and acci- 
 " dentally revealed to us, through certain qualities related to our 
 " faculties of knowledge, and which qualities, again, we cannot 
 " think as unconditional, irrelative, existent in and of themselves. 
 "All that we know is therefore phaenomenal — phsenomenal of 
 "the unknown 1 ". 
 
 I go with the description so far as this — we know the object 
 through certain qualities fitted to our faculties of knowledge — 
 these, in language I have used, fit each other. I generalize : 
 whoever, whatever mind, even an all-knowing one, knows the 
 object, knows it by qualities fitted to its faculties of knowledge. 
 Qualities and faculties of knowledge go together. Suppose one 
 single universal faculty of knowledge, in place of various special 
 and particular ones, what the mind having tins must know is — 
 one universal quality of the object and no more. Who then 
 knows the object itself, if even omniscience does not and cannot 
 go beyond quality? Here we have doubtless got at an unknow- 
 ableness of the 'thing in itself, but it is an unknowable]] 
 I think of my sort, viz. because there is nothing to know. Or 
 was I wromr in generalizing as I did above, and should I have 
 said, Some minds, including ours, know objects through qua- 
 lities, and some know them independent of knowledge of their 
 qualities, by themselves ? They know them then I suppose 
 without faculties of knowledge. An. I what then is meant by 
 qualities? By qualities or properties of an objed I mean no- 
 thing but what (by one mind and another, if you like, accord- 
 ing i'. its faculties) can be known about it: here we Beem 
 to have an object unqualitied, unpropertied, unconditioned— 
 But I do nut pursue the Bubject. There can 1- little doubt 
 but that in all this there i- tin- confusion I have Bpoken of, 
 and that tin- philosophers who have thought in this manner 
 didnol know whether they themselves meanl that wecouldnoi 
 l,,,,,v. the thing itself because we could only know qualiti< -. 
 or because with our intelligence, we could only kno* some 
 qualiti 
 
 1 P*g« ( >l, 4 t ' 1 «M''
 
 188 mill's logic [chap. 
 
 The real being of things is doubtless uncomprehended by 
 us: how do we know that, and how do we know why, it is 
 incomprehensible? How do we know that the revelation of the 
 things to us by the particular qualities by which we know them 
 is 'indirect' and 'accidental'? Can anybody imagine there is 
 any meaning in these terms as thus applied? Or can there be 
 a worse, and a more vain Ontology? 
 
 This is the worst form of realism : the realizing of logical 
 notions, and then pacifying our intellectual conscience by say- 
 ing that we only know the things, the result of this our real- 
 izing process, as ' incognisable '. How do we know them as 
 that, I ask? There is truth within its province in phenome- 
 nalist realism, so to call it, by which I mean the supposition 
 that the chemical elements or constituents of the universe, 
 forces perhaps, are the ultimate realities : and if this does not 
 satisfy us, as it does not me, because the universe consists not 
 only of such things as these, but of these going together to 
 make other things, bodies as we call them, organizations, sys- 
 tems, constitutions, more or less after the analogy of the manner 
 in which we make them go together to compose things which 
 Ave want for our use, ploughs, houses, &c, in regard of which, 
 besides the elements, there is, at once in our mind and in them, 
 plan, meaning, purpose — then we may consider this plan, mean- 
 ing, purpose, itself a reality, of a different and higher nature 
 than the elementary reality, and as constituting the real thing- 
 hood of the things, the reason why we notice them and call 
 them things: here we have the ideal reality of things, in con- 
 tradistinction to the phenomenal : we know the things by a 
 process which may equally well be described in either way, 
 cither as putting meaning into the things, or seeing meaning in 
 them, for the simple reason that in reality the thinghood is a 
 something between the two sides, the subjective and the ob- 
 jective — it is the meeting of the two. The thinghood of a thing 
 is the proper thoughtness of it — what it is rightly thought to 
 be : the right thinking about it is indeed on the other side the 
 thinking of it as it is, but the two do not exactly counterdefine 
 each other, because mind comes first — the cardinal point of 
 philosophy in my view: the thing as thought, pre-contemplated 
 by its Creator, contemplated by beings with created faculties
 
 ix.] mill's logic. 189 
 
 ■ 
 
 of knowledge -with such following of his thought as they can 
 attain to, is the idea, the ideal thing, the ideal reality, the 
 truest reality. 
 
 This of course, when carried to this extent is abstruse and 
 may seem visionary : no one need carry it further than he likes : 
 what I have endeavoured to show is that to whatever extent 
 we go along it, so long as we are in this road, we have a true 
 reality: I accept the notion of phenomenal realty most fully, 
 when not misapplied. What I protest against is the wretched 
 ghost of this higher philosophy which is furnished by the real- 
 izing our logical notions. It is Sir William Hamilton, not I, 
 who says that the real existence of things is only ' indirectly 
 and accidentally revealed to us' by the phenomenal knowledge 
 which we have of them. It is an accident of the things we 
 know that they are known by us, but that they are known by 
 means of faculties of knowledge such as ours is no accident of 
 them — they are so known in consequence of their having quali- 
 ties which those faculties fit, which qualities are as much a 
 part of their constitution or thinghood as anything else of them 
 is. Indirect, we may indeed call the revelation of them if we 
 like, in tJtis way: whatever higher realities, so to call them, we 
 may be able to know about them might have come to our 
 knowledge without the necessity of so much lower reality — of 
 so much communication and contact, to be used by intelligei. 
 of our corporeal or sensive frame with the particular natural 
 ate, elements, constituents, of the universe. But I do not 
 think there is really reason in this. I do not think man is the 
 worse for the fact, that for such knowledge as he has of the 
 universe, there has been obliged to be such a vast amount of 
 particular "1.- rvation or communication betw< en his senses and 
 phenomena. Were our knowledge direct, it would 1m-. I sup- 
 pose one grout, single, monotonous art: we know the higher 
 properties of things with the same Borl of indirectness of know- 
 Ledge with which wo know that the earth turns round the sun. 
 
 ;md I do not know that directness of knowledg : immediate- 
 
 nesfl of feeling would be any advanta 
 
 I JU pp thai Sir William Hamilton, in his attempl to 
 anitelogic, Ri idian psychology, and Kantian criticism, really did 
 confus • . ther the logical view of knowledj forming
 
 190 mill's logic. [chap. 
 
 proper notions of what (no matter to logic what) in virtue of 
 the notions thus formed, we call things, and the view of know- 
 ledge as a communication or presence with something supposed 
 existent. The idea of the essential unknowableness belongs to 
 the former : the solemnity with which it is talked about, as if 
 this unknowable were something real and awful, belongs to the 
 latter. 
 
 I write with genuine self-distrust here, in spite of the firm- 
 ness of my conviction, on account of my wonder not only at 
 Sir William Hamilton's saying what he does, but at Mr Mill's 
 receiving what he says as he does. In spite of Mr Mill's ad- 
 miration of what Sir William Hamilton says here, whether he 
 and Sir William Hamilton really understand each other, is what 
 I cannot make out : Sir William Hamilton says the doctrine 
 which he gives has been held always and by almost all philo- 
 sophers, and cites, textually and in order, seventeen philo- 
 sophers to prove this : Mr Mill, judging from Sir William 
 Hamilton's own citations, thinks all but two of the seventeen hold 
 a doctrine different and apparently wrong, the doctrine which I 
 and (it would seem) most people hold. If we consider that what 
 Sir William Hamilton really holds is that which is taught by 
 the fifteen, and understand his text by this comment, then he is, I 
 suppose, on my side against Mr Mill. Nor can I make out from 
 Mr Mill's own description whether his doctrine is really the same 
 as Sir William Hamilton's : the latter says, we are aware of the 
 existence of things, aware that it is incomprehensible, and aware, 
 accidentally, of various qualities about the things: Mr Mill 
 says, as I understand, 'The laws of our knowing faculty are 
 such as to deny us all knowledge of things, except that of their 
 mere existence'. And the unexpected fraternization of such an 
 Ontologist, in Mr Mill's view, as Mr Cousin, whom Mr Mill 
 quotes with approval, might almost make him suspect. 
 
 I dwell on this in Mr Mill rather for my own satisfaction, in 
 this way : in order to convince myself that I really do him 
 justice in treating his plienomenalist view and logic as really his 
 true view, and that it is only his dread of Schelling and Hegel 
 which makes him fly to such a very doubtful auxiliary in these 
 points as Sir William Hamilton. He says, shortly afterwards 1 , 
 
 1 pp. 69, 70, 4th edit. ; 83, 84, -2nd edit.
 
 ix.] mill's logic. 191 
 
 that qualities and attributes are not real entities, but the result 
 of the convenience of discourse (what I call logical) 1 : and he 
 describes, no one could do it clearer, the various sensations which 
 are the real fact when we use the logical language, such and 
 such qualities. The confusion arises from this : that while, 
 as clearly as can be, he points to us the two worlds, or two 
 points of view, to which the expressions ' quality ' and ' sensa- 
 tion'" belong, he makes the mysterious unknowable which we 
 have been speaking of a citizen of both worlds — a something 
 underlying both sensations and qualities. Sensations may very 
 likely have something beyond them — i. e. they may not be proper 
 knowledge themselves, but a means towards knowledge : if so, 
 that which they are the road to is just what we can know, and 
 ought to try to know. Qualities again, as a logical expression, 
 may involve the notion of a subject or substance : but this latter, 
 then, by the notion of knowledge, is something which we know 
 when we know the qualities, and only know by knowing them : 
 knowing it is predicating all its predicates of it : to try to know 
 it otherwise is like trying to hear a colour. Speculation about 
 the basis of sensations (if we like to use the language) or 
 qualities as they are phenomena, may be fruitless, but is not 
 foolish : speculation about the knowledge of the subject of 
 qualities or attributes a- distinct from knowledge of the quali- 
 ties, and the treating it as a grave and real fact that the former 
 is unknowable, La foolish. 
 
 4. The manner in which, in his categories, Mr Mill speaks, 
 rather reiteratedly, of facts and phenomena being resolvable 
 into states of consciousness, after he had put facts of body and 
 facts of mind by the side of each other as going together to 
 makeup the universe of things, is another part of the same 
 bringing in of philosophy when it should not come. The ne- 
 
 rity of this reiteration iii reference to particular facts, and 
 as it Beems to me, puzzling of things, would have be< o spared 
 by tie- saying in the beginning, as I should do, that the exist- 
 ence of body itself, the universe, anything, is a fad of mind 
 
 1 From the fact that tli. ■ we n Sties, Mr Mill apparently 
 
 draws the conclusion that the substratum (tli- thing it- If. or in its own oat 
 supposed unknowable) must be real: fro... the same feet / draw ti. ion, 
 
 that it ii only a supposition rendered neoes ary by the supposition of them, and 
 bat the Ham<; reality, or non-reality, with them.
 
 192 mill's logic. [chap. 
 
 or mental supposition in the first instance, and of course there- 
 fore every developement of it is: then, with this preliminary 
 supposition made about body and all the facts of it, we might 
 proceed to categorize and treat them without continually and 
 puzzlingly repeating this supposition as to particulars. In 
 reality, Mr Mill's continually saying that facts of body are re- 
 solvable into facts of mind is, to my view, a refutation of the 
 view with which he starts that facts of body and facts of mind 
 go by the side of each other, as co-phenomena in the universe. 
 
 This view of Mr Mill's is of course the view of the ordi- 
 nary, or, if I may call it, Lockian, psychology, and Mr Mill 
 cannot help, as, it seems to me, the whole of that does, con- 
 fusing the philosophical and phenomenalist views together. I 
 cannot understand such a sentence as the following : " I infer 
 " that the object is present, because it gives me a certain assem- 
 " blage or series of sensations 1 ". If this means, as I suppose it 
 must, 'because I feel that it gives me the sensations', then I 
 am aware of its presence before the inference. If it means, 
 'because, as a fact, it gives me the sensations', then the fact 
 is not properly described as inference : the phenomenal fact is 
 the communication (as I call it) between the natural agents 
 concerned with what we call the object, and our organs, and this 
 is accompanied with the feeling or fact of consciousness, which 
 makes us use the language, 'Such and such an object is present'. 
 No person describes more clearly than Mr Mill the distinction, 
 as he calls it, between the sensation itself, and the state of 
 the bodily organs which (as he says) precedes, (as I should say) 
 accompanies in time, the sensation. The difficulty begins 
 when he goes on to say, ' and which constitutes the physical 
 agency by which it is produced', the same language as in the 
 sentence I quoted, 'the object gives sensations'. 'Physical 
 agency' seems to imply a sort of intermediation of means of 
 some sort : and what intermediation or means can be conceived 
 between a physical state of the organ, some mode suppose of 
 motion, and what we call feeling or consciousness ? Nor does 
 Mr Mill seem able to keep hold of his own distinction w T hen 
 he uses such language as " When a stone lies before me, I am 
 " conscious of certain sensations which I receive from it : but 
 
 1 Vol. I. p. 83, 2nd Edit.
 
 ix.] mill's logic. 19 
 
 o 
 
 " when I say that these sensations come to me from an external 
 "object which I perceive, the meaning of these words is, that 
 "receiving the sensations, I intuitively believe that an external 
 " cause of those sensations exists 1 ". In this sentence does 'receive 
 the sensations' exjiress a part of the consciousness, or express 
 simply a fact, a second fact besides the fact that ' the stone lies 
 before me'? If it expresses a part of the consciousness, then I 
 cannot understand the distinction made between the conscious- 
 ness of the sensations and also of the reception of them from 
 the object, in the first part of the sentence, and the intui 
 belief that the object exists, in the last. This is the same as I 
 said in regard of the last sentence quoted. If the conscious- 
 ness is simply of the sensation, or feeling, which according to 
 Mr Mill's distinction it should be, then the stone giving me the 
 sensations, or my receiving them from it, is simply a matter 
 of fact, like the stone lying where it does lie, and then there 
 seems to me the confusion between the two views, which is no 
 particular fault of Mr Mill, for I conclude it to belong to all 
 the psychology which he here represents. Instead of describing 
 a thing in either of two ways in which wc might describe it, 
 we seem to describe it in a manner confused of the two. 'Winn 
 a stone lies before me, i. e. corporeal me, filling space in the 
 univer- me (or I receive from it) certain sensations': 
 
 this is my manner of describing the fact that light comes from 
 it in such a way that my optic nerve and brain are in a parti- 
 cular state, simultaneously with which state I, knowing sub- 
 ject, feel or think, There is a stone. Or we miglrl say, I, 
 knowing subject, am conscious of something or have a feeling 
 — a double feeling, viz. of a feeling ami a supposed occasion 
 for it; and tlii-. tak< o along with my pasl and my other con- 
 temporaneous consciousness, is what I express by saying, I, 
 corporeal I, see a stone before me in a phenomenal uiiivi i 
 filling space a& I myself do. All that I say is, that we musl 
 take the one view or the other, ami that it is mere confusion of 
 thought to try to blond both, except -o l':ir us the phenomena] 
 one may be absorbed in the conscious. It' 'the stone I 
 before us', then we are making our supposition already of the 
 phenomena] world and oursel part of it, and anythi 
 
 1 Vol, r. p. 70. 1
 
 194 mill's logic. [chap. 
 
 about ourselves which will not come into relation with this 
 phenomenal world is so much besides this view and showing it 
 incomplete : of this nature is our consciousness as feeling, 
 which it is right, with Mr Mill, to distinguish from its bodily 
 accompaniments, but as to which it is otiose and useless to talk 
 of its being produced by physical agency, for no notion which 
 we can form of physical agency can make us at all understand 
 how it can produce what we call 'consciousness' or feeling. If 
 on the other hand 'we are conscious of certain sensations', then 
 we begin with the conscious side : /, then, is the knowing sub- 
 ject : w r e interpret the sensations into the thought of ourselves 
 as corporeal or phenomenal, and of the stone, w 7 e will say, lying 
 before us and being seen by us : but on this supposition and 
 previously to the supposition of the interpretation it is idle to 
 talk of ' the stone lying before us'. The stone lying before the 
 knowing subject is like such a phrase as 'external to the mind' 
 which I commented on before. 
 
 Whatever is wrong in all this Mr Mill shares with a very 
 large number of others, most of whom have gone less far than 
 he has in drawing attention to the distinction between con- 
 sciousness and bodily state or phenomenalism. 
 To come now r to the logic of moral science. 
 I do not want to go into any detail on the subject of social 
 or moral science, on the logic of which Mr Mill has several 
 chapters, though in reality it is with a view to that that what I 
 am now writing is written ; namely, in order to test, by com- 
 parison with the views of others, the general intellectual or 
 philosophical spirit in which I should look on moral questions. 
 But w r hat I have said will be made clearer by a word or two 
 on these chapters. 
 
 They are full of value. I agree with Mr Mill, that, according 
 to the title of his third chapter, ' there is, or may be, a science 
 of human nature' in the manner in which he describes such a 
 science in that chapter: such a science does exist, more or less, 
 as a practical science : we do study human actions, and more or 
 less, accordingly, predict them: this prediction, or even attempt 
 at prediction, shows that we consider they go upon law r s. Such 
 a science as this may be in some degree, but only in some 
 degree, brought into relation with phenomenalism, and studied
 
 ix.] mill's logic. 195 
 
 by phenomenalist logic. Actions are determined by motives, 
 circumstances, and character : this character again is itself 
 largely determined by circumstances: to a certain extent we 
 may consider this to be analogous to the occurrence of natural 
 phenomena according to their laws, and to this extent we may 
 put these facts of mind as co-phenomena in the universe with 
 facts of nature: this extent is not I should think determinable: 
 and under the circumstances of this indetermination, there is an 
 extensive approximate or inexact science of human action, bv 
 which we may learn a great deal about it, and to a considerable 
 extent, as I have said, predict it. 
 
 But the point where I differ with Mr Mill and that which 
 makes me say that we must not, as he does, except to a small 
 degree, put facts (so to call them) of mind on a level, as co- 
 phenomena, with facts of nature, is this. We seem, in my view, 
 to have in the above but a small part of what is wanted for 
 moral and social science. Mr Mill speaks 1 of ' the laws of Mind, 
 and the laws of Society', and says, 'it is still a controversy 
 whether they are capable of becoming subjects of science, in 
 the strict sense of the term' : and thinks that ' the principles ' 
 (i.e. of phenomenalist logic) 'laid down in the preceding books 
 will be useful' to settle such controversy. 
 
 No doubt they would, and they would settle it, if we were 
 to allow their application, but that is what, except to the extent 
 described above, I should not be disposed to allow. Take ' the 
 laws of Society', mentioned above: what do we mean by the 
 term? In my view (I am not now speaking of any religious 
 view we may entertain besides), what we call 'society' is a 
 creation of man, which then he (that is certain portions of the 
 human race) has been endeavouring during all his coiled 
 life upon earth to improve, according to his notions of improve- 
 ment. The result we call 'civilization'. We have got to form 
 our notions of improvement, in order to do our part, in our 
 time, for this work, and it seems to me that the firs! and •-' 
 point of a social science is to aid us in forming these notions. 
 We may examine the laws, so to call them, upon which society 
 has developed itself (so again to call this] : or in othi c words, we 
 may study what man haa thoughl about society, and by what 
 
 1 3 2
 
 19G mill's logic. [chap. 
 
 means man has succeeded in creating the society which he has 
 created : I should be the last person to deny the importance of 
 all this : and we may study these laws, so far as we can study 
 them in that manner, as we study the laws of nature : anthro- 
 pology like geology. 
 
 But before we can act, which is the important thing as to 
 society, as Aristotle told us long ago, we must know what we 
 want. In social and moral matters, art comes first, science 
 afterwards, and therefore the phenomenal view will not be suf- 
 ficient for us, in which, as Mr Mill rightly describes in his con- 
 cluding chapter, science comes first, and art afterwards as an 
 application of it. Suppose we know perfectly how society has 
 developed itself, or how, and with what views, man has created 
 and developed it : still, before acting, we want to make up our 
 minds what society ought to be. That is, we come here into 
 the region of ideals. "We are at the point of view, not of phe- 
 nomenalism and observation, which has become subordinate, 
 but of consciousness and activity. The laws which have deve- 
 loped society may in virtue of their having done so, guide us 
 now, for one of two reasons : either because that they have 
 been is taken by us for an argument or proof that they ought 
 to have been, and were what was meant to be and should be 
 now, in which case full account should be given of the nature 
 of this argument : or these laws may guide us because we are 
 not really active and have not really power of choice, though 
 we seem to have — we may say that they will guide us because 
 they will guide us. Upon this manner of speaking, which is 
 the complete application of phenomenalism to human action, I 
 will say nothing now. No person can really, in moral and 
 social matters, consistently adhere to it. There cannot but be 
 an oscillation of expression between, 'This is what you will 
 do anyhow', and 'This is what you ought to do'. I think the 
 reader will see this in M. Comte : it is never exactly clear 
 whether we are to be positivists (I mean in his earlier philoso- 
 phical application of the term, not with reference to any later 
 extravagances) because we ought to be, or because it is certain 
 we shall be, and is what we have come to. 
 
 Having said so much about the laws of society, let us now 
 take the laws of mind. A good deal of what Mr Mill says in
 
 ,- "I *rrrx' 
 
 IX. ] MILLS LOGIC. 107 
 
 his chapter with that title I agree with, and will only notice 
 one point of difference, because it is important to illustrate my 
 own view. 
 
 In the paragraph 1 which begins 'Whether any other por- 
 tion of our mental states (besides sensation) are similarly de- 
 pendent on physical conditions', he appears to me to confuse 
 the views from the point of consciousness, and from that of 
 phenomenalism, in the way which I have frequently alluded to. 
 
 What I am unable to see is, that supposing physiology were 
 carried to such an extent that every association (so to call it) 
 between thoughts were proved to be accompanied (as I should 
 call it) by an association between two states of the brain and 
 nerves: that even then 'mental science', in Mr Mill's language, 
 ' would be a mere branch, though the highest and most recon- 
 dite branch, of the science of physiology'. 
 
 I mentioned in the introduction to what I am now writing, 
 that, in my belief, the more genuine and thorough, in a proper 
 way, is our phenomenalism on the one side, the more genuine 
 will be our philosophy on the other. Mental science, as the 
 analysis of consciousness, seems to me to be unaffectable by 
 anything that physiology can possibly discover. Whatever may 
 be proved, from the side of phenomenalism, about what, simul- 
 taneously with thought, takes place in the brain, seems to me 
 to have nothing more to do with mental science as the analj sis 
 of consciousness than anything which can be proved about what 
 similarly takes place in the eye or hand. I may be wrong, but 
 it appears to me that in all thai .Mr Mill says here, be is neither 
 true to the distinction which, as we saw a short time since, ho 
 rightly draws between feeling and bodily states, nor to his own 
 view, phenomenally I suppo-e correct, of causation as antece- 
 dence. He uses such expressions as ' thoughts bring griirraird 
 through the intervention of material mechanism', and similarly 
 ' produced' and other terms in the same application, as we have 
 
 d before, as if they involved the thing generated being is 
 some way of the same nature as the generating speaks (e.g I oi 
 'derivative uniformities'. If, as he tells us himself, the feeling is 
 something in it- nature different from any bodily Btate, hoM 
 can anything thai is discovered aboul the bodily tate con 
 
 1 Vol. n. ]p. 504, ind edit.
 
 198 mill's logic. [chap. 
 
 the science of the feeling, such as it is, into a science of the 
 bodily state, or physiology ? 
 
 I have alluded to this, because itappears to me that nothing 
 is more important at the present time than that physiologists 
 should not attempt by their science to prove what it is not in 
 its nature to pi-ove, and on the other hand, that much most 
 unreasonable jealousy of physiology should cease. 
 
 But what is of most consequence for my present purpose is 
 what Mr Mill says in his chapter entitled 'Ethology': on which, 
 in relation to the laws of mind, I have the same to say as what 
 I have just said about the laws of society. 
 
 Mr Mill says 1 , "If we employ the name Psychology for the 
 " science of the elementary laws of mind, Ethology will serve for 
 " the subordinate science which determines the kind of character 
 " produced, in conformity to those general laws, by any set of 
 " circumstances, physical and moral. According to this definition, 
 " Ethology is the science which corresponds to the art of Educa- 
 " tion". It seems to me that either for the science which corre- 
 sponds to the art of education, or else for that art in such a 
 manner that the 'science' becomes something in comparison 
 subordinate, you have got to know something which Mr Mill 
 takes no notice of here, as he took no notice of the same kind of 
 thing in reference to society — namely, the kind of character you 
 want to produce. It is very well to know what circumstances 
 will produce this and that character, but it is subordinately im- 
 portant, i. e. as something to be applied : what is first to be 
 discussed is the comparative merits of the characters. That is, 
 here again we have come to 'ideals': art goes before science. 
 The consideration of the laws by which character is formed is 
 something comprised in a wider view from a different point, viz. 
 the consideration what we ouo-ht to do and be, or had better do 
 and be, and had better trv to make others. 
 
 Ethology, Mr Mill tells us, is still to be created : and in 
 describing how it should be studied 2 he apparently considers 
 that it takes for granted what are the 'qualities in human 
 beings which are most interesting to us, as facts to be pro- 
 duced, to be avoided, or merely to be understood': and that 
 what it studies is, 'the origin and sources of these qualities, 
 1 Page 528, 2nd edit. = Page 534, 2nd edit, ad fin.
 
 ix.] mill's logic. 199 
 
 in order to consider what circumstances would promote or 
 prevent them'. As I said in reference to Mr Mill's science 
 of society, I yield to none in my estimation of this ethology ■. 
 but there seems to me to want a science, so to call it, besides 
 and above this ethology, to discuss and tell us what are the 
 qualities which are thus interesting. In fact there needs a 
 whole science, in my view, to explain the meaning of the word 
 ' interesting,' as it is thus applied. 
 
 In his later editions, Mr Mill has added something at the 
 end to what he had said before on this subject, and has given, 
 or adopted the name 'Teleology' to represent a science, in effect, 
 such as I have just described. 
 
 This science, in the domain of practice or of life, must be 
 considered I suppose to correspond to what, for the domain of 
 thought, Mr Mill frequently (as I have mentioned) alludes to at 
 the beginning of his book as 'the higher metaphysics', and to 
 ■which he refers various problems as to the nature and grounds, 
 for instance, of belief, which, he says, it does not belong to logic 
 to touch. 
 
 All that I have said amounts to this. Mr Mill, as belongs 
 to him to do, limits his own subject, and excludes 'Teleology' 
 from the Logic of the Moral Sciences as he excludes 'the higher 
 metaphysics' from the logic of physical science. 
 
 This being so, logic, in both cases, stands as a subordinate 
 science to a higher one: but subordinate, in the two cases, in 
 very different degrees. Phenomenalist logic, as I have called 
 it, will stand for the physical world, in many ways, well by itself, 
 and one of the reasons why I am writing what 1 am writing i 
 make this more fully appear. 1 have endeavoured to show thai 
 Mr Mill Introduces into his phenomenalist logic more meta- 
 physics than he need, and puzzles the simplicity of hi- vie\* of 
 it with notion- from Sir William Hamilton of relativism and an 
 unknowable substratum. If the simply phenomenalisl view 
 sat; ny one's intelligence, 1 have no care to urge him 
 
 beyond it. I a matter of positive revelation, has 
 
 grounds or roots in that as well as in philosophical thought, 
 however 1 may think that without this latter, it i dingly 
 
 imperfect. All that I want La thai the phenomenal »uld 
 
 doI c include beyond his phenomenalism from data thai belong
 
 200 mill's logic [chap. 
 
 to that alone. As, for instance, that he should not be under the 
 delusion that in anatomizing the brain and accurately watching 
 states of nerve he is getting really any nearer to the expressing 
 and explaining in terms of what we often call matter — i. e. in 
 sufficiently describing by any language of motion or chemical 
 change — that which Mr Mill, as we have seen, distinguishes so 
 justly from any bodily state, the feeling, the subjective feeling, 
 which corresponds to the bodily states, so far as it does cor- 
 respond to them, really in quite another world of notions, and 
 which corresponds to phenomenal fact, not as actual or possible 
 co-phenomenon (except to the very small extent which I have 
 described), but as cast and mould, mould and cast, correspond 
 the one to the other. Let the phenomenalist or physiologist 
 either leave this subjective feeling alone, or else take his stand 
 fairly within it and look at things from that point, in which 
 case, in my view, he will find, not that phenomenalism absorbs 
 it, but that it absorbs phenomenalism. That is, that if we are 
 to say one or the other, there is more reason in saying, that the 
 phenomenal world of chemical elements and mechanical forces, 
 as we suppose it, is an imagination on our part perhaps 
 ungrounded, than that God, freewill, the notion of something 
 which we ought to do and of a purpose to which all action 
 should be directed, are so. 
 
 The phenomenalist logic then may, in many ways, stand alone 
 without metaphysics if we are satisfied with physical pheno- 
 mena and speculation about them, though, as I hope to say 
 shortly more fully, I do not think it is by the use of it, at least 
 as commonly understood, that physical science has made the 
 advance which it has, and I think that the supposed scientific 
 sterility of the pre-Baconian period arose quite as much from 
 want of imaginative enterprize and speculation as from want of 
 observation and experiment — from inability to digest or make 
 anything of known matter of fact as from an attempt to exer- 
 cise the intellectual digestion without matter of fact for it to 
 act on. That however does not belong to us now, and is rather 
 a matter of the phenomenalist logic itself. 
 
 But the logic of the moral sciences, or what Mr Mill con- 
 siders such, will not at all in the same degree stand alone with- 
 out Teleology, and the attempt to make it do so is almost
 
 ix.] mill's logic. 201 
 
 certain to be an abuse of it as logic — that is, there will be a 
 supposition more or less express and distinct, but always with- 
 out reason given for it, that it, the logic, is to supply us with 
 the end as well as the means. This is precisely what I under- 
 stand as the proceeding of M. Comte, and it seems to me the 
 proceeding, to some degree, of all those who, like Mr Mill, put 
 moral phenomena in the universe simply by the side of physical. 
 Suppose ' sociology', a science of the logic, and treated as such 
 by Mr Mill, tells us that it is a fact or law of human history 
 that at a certain stage of civilization man passes through a me- 
 taphysical stage in which he talks of the ideal of the good and 
 right, and then passes out of this into another, the positivist, in 
 which he looks at all this as figment — on what principle are we, 
 individual men, to infer from this that we are therefore to look 
 upon it so ? The logic of the moral sciences is to guide us in 
 sciences of the fact — what men do do — what are the laws by 
 which they do act — what they ought to do, what Ave ought to 
 think, belongs to the supposed teleology. By what right, and 
 on what principle of logic, so to call it, does the sociology settle 
 the teleology .- 
 
 This greater importance of the teleology in reference to the 
 moral sciences, above that of the metaphysics in reference to 
 the physical sciences, is what I meant when I said that in the 
 former, art came before science. In another way we may put 
 it thus: the moral world is man's creation: the phenomenal 
 world is not. All the uses to which we put our physical know- 
 ledge, all our inventions and applications, are a small thing 
 compared with the vast amount of thai physical knowledge, 
 and a main reason why they are 30 Large as they are ia thai we 
 have pursued the physical knowledge to a considerable degree 
 for its own sake, and independenl of thorn — science first, ari 
 afterwards, lint sociology and ethology (Mr Mill's) — independenl 
 of the consideration how far societii - and individuals have b 
 right in what we find, by these sciences, they do do and have 
 done — are matters of quite a different sort of important — they 
 will not at all stand in this way as simple sciences of fact, even 
 if we can conceive them so. The truth is, thai the- conception 
 of them i- not clear — History and Teleology are mixed in the 
 conception of each science -sciences of this kind are not trulj
 
 202 MILLS LOGIC. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 analogous to phenomenal and physical science : so far as they are 
 really carried out according to the conception (I speak of course 
 mainly of sociology and of the other only as a supposed 
 parallel of it) they will be a bad mixture of history and specula- 
 tion, the former rendered inaccurate by the latter, the latter not 
 recognizing its proper position, and trammelled by the former, 
 instead of hand-in-hand with it. 
 
 Since adding to his later editions what I have been noticing, 
 Mr Mill has published his ' Utilitarianism.' On this I say just 
 so much, in illustration of the present matter, that it seems to 
 me to show how logic, that is, a principle of decision among con- 
 flicting claims to truth, is wanted for the Teleology, more than 
 for the subordinate science. Without saying here the least 
 whether Mr Mill is right or not in considering 'human happi- 
 ness' to be the great end or ideal, I look only, and that for a 
 moment, at the principles upon which he considers himself 
 to be justified in saying so. Roughly, these seem to me to be, 
 that with human happiness thus taken morality can be made 
 an inductive science, and that happiness is what men do desire. 
 Suppose both these things to be so, I ask myself, do they esta- 
 blish what Mr Mill wants, that human happiness is that to 
 which men ought to direct all their effort, or their highest effort? 
 that it is the proper end, the end to be chosen in preference to 
 other conceivable ends ? Have we in this a real Teleology, or 
 merely the same thing which I have just noticed in M. Comte ? 
 Are fact and ideal rightly put together? I do not the least 
 here want to press upon Mr Mill, being quite willing to go on, 
 Can anybody make a Teleology, or put fact and ideal properly 
 together ? Does not this carry us back to the hopeless discus- 
 sions of Ethics long, long ago ? Perhaps it may : all my point 
 is, that here are the real difficulties of Ethics, and that Mr Mill's 
 sociology and ethology will only solve subordinate ones.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 DR WHEWELI/S PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 
 
 I COME now to Dr "Whewell's series of works, originally con- 
 stituting in conjunction 'The Philosophy of the Inductive Sci- 
 ences', which he has since amplified and made into three 
 works, the 'History of Scientific Ideas', the 'Philosophy of Dis- 
 covery', and the 'Novum Organon Renovatum'. 
 
 As I understand the arrangement, the first of the three 
 above-mentioned works or portions may be considered as the 
 philosophy of the History of Science, which history Dr Whewell 
 had first investigated, and exhibited in detail, as a basis (cer- 
 tainly much the fittest basis) for all speculation about the 
 advance of the science, or Real Logic. 
 
 The last two of the three works may be considered as upon 
 Scientific Method, the former being a History of such Method, 
 i. e. of the views which have been entertained about it, and of the 
 manner in which men actually have proceeded in advancing, 
 or trying to advance, knowledge : the last being the Philosophy 
 of this History (so to call it) which of course is the exhibition of 
 the proper method, the Real Logic itself, for which all the n -i 
 is foundation and preparation: the actual 'Novum Organon 
 Renovatum'. 
 
 We have then two histories, or a double Rational', of Hu- 
 man Thought: the one of Human Thought about the univ< 
 which is the history of the progress in Science itself: the oth< r 
 of Human Thoughl ahoul Real Logic as I have called it), thai 
 
 aboul the way in which knowledge ought to be pursued and 
 
 anced. 
 
 We each one of us learn, and the human race learn and 
 between I he two proc< i • ' here musl be and may I 
 
 very great, analogy. Real Logic, a [ha cribed it, beloi
 
 204 dr, whewell's [chap. 
 
 to both. So far as there is analogy, the history of learning 
 by the race must be that of learning by the individual, ' writ 
 large'; and must aid the understanding of the latter in the 
 same kind of way in which Plato expected (rightly or wrongly) 
 that politics would help the understanding of morals. And the 
 growth of knowledge in the individual, on the other hand, is 
 something conveniently at hand for us continually to notice, 
 and within a compass possible for us to notice: it may, on its 
 side, greatly help our understanding of the other. In fact, 
 however, in the manner which I have noticed, this learning by 
 the individual is not a thing of which the rationale has been 
 traced out very accurately ; as happens with things near at 
 hand to us, w T e do not know much about it. 
 
 Dr Whewell's starting point is then in many respects the 
 same as that of those Philosophers of the Human Mind, who 
 describe, according as they conceived it, the growth of indi- 
 vidual thought and experience. As by that practice of the 
 limbs and senses which results in greater sharpness and skill in 
 the use of them, coupled with activity of mind and of reason, 
 we learn individually to see and think of things about us in the 
 manner in wdiich we all of us do, so the race — by that continual 
 use of sense in fresh and fresh observation, which is experience, 
 and the continued improvement of sense, so to call it, by the 
 invention of instruments, all this also coupled with continual 
 activity of mind, in reasoning, speculating, and discussing — 
 has learnt (as represented by its instructed and scientific in- 
 tellects) to see and think of things in the way in which it now 
 does, and which we describe as its present stage of knowledge 
 or scientific attainment. 
 
 Dr Whewell's book, though not starting like Mr Mill's from 
 the science of Logic, yet starts with what I describe as a more 
 logical point of view. That is, his book is a view, substantially, 
 of change in human thought : not a view, as I have described 
 Mr Mill's to be, of the objective world such as we may be sup- 
 posed, standing by, to see or know it. The history of the 
 growth of human thought about the universe forms a sub- 
 ject of. consideration in some respects analogous to the past 
 history of the universe itself, and to some minds it may be 
 quite as interesting. It is a history not likely to have sug-
 
 X.] PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 205 
 
 gested itself as a special subject of consideration before our 
 time : and in our time, what has made it do so has been with- 
 out doubt one science in especial, astronomy. The ideas of 
 human scientific progress would probably not have been what 
 they are, or even like what they are, if it had not been for that 
 science, assumed, with more or less reason, as a type of the 
 others. 
 
 This change of human thought about the universe is a 
 matter of fact, quite as much as the universe itself is, and it is 
 a matter of fact which is a more convenient starting point for a 
 Real Logic than a description (or anything of the nature of 
 a description) of the universe itself and the facts of it, because 
 the manner in which we must describe the universe is a vary- 
 ing manner according to this change of thought about it, and it 
 ought to come last in our logic, rather than first. In spite of 
 Mr Mill's desire to escape from notions to things, his Real 
 Lo«ic, it seems to me, is more notional than Dr Whewell's. 
 There seems to me to be in Dr Whewell's book more of what 
 I might call an open air effect, more of contact with living 
 thoughts of men and with nature and actual fact, A descrip- 
 tion of the universe, or what amounts to such, set before a 
 view of the logic of our knowing it, can hardly avoid i ither 
 being notional, or else anticipating what should come afterwards, 
 and, so far as the logic may really act practically, hind, ring the 
 growth of knowledge. Mr Mill's old Logic of substances and 
 attributes, and his newer logic of co-existences and uniformiti 
 
 fe from the latter of these dangers, bu1 still they Beem to 
 me (it maybe prejudice) less in harmony with actual pheno- 
 menal nature before us, and with the way in which men have 
 fruitfully and profitably speculated about it, than Dr Whewell's 
 Language and way of speaking. This is what 1 should mean 
 by describing the latter as more real, Less notional, than the 
 
 :ier. 
 
 The view, mch as Dr Whewell has given it, of the growth of 
 knowledge in the human race, is invaluable, not only in n p 
 of our understanding this knowledge in the race, and the best 
 way of our pushing it further, bul in resped of the compari 
 between the growth of knowledge in the race and in the indi- 
 vidual. 1 have said on a former occasion, that the growth of
 
 206 Dit wiiewell's [chap. 
 
 knowledge is a perpetual self-correction as well as a perpetual 
 aggregation or self-enlargement. Seeing little is seeing wrong. 
 If we are to talk of real stages in an advance of knowledge, one 
 character by which the reality of any such stage may be known 
 is that it is a mistake in regard of what follows it in the same 
 manner in which it is a truth in regard of what has preceded it: 
 if it is not afterwards itself corrected by being included in a 
 broader view, in the same manner as it has itself corrected by 
 inclusion what has gone before it, it is out of the line of advance 
 of knowledge: a deduction or analogical conclusion, but not 
 fruitful : its fruitfulness is in its correctibility. 
 
 Our first act of knowledge then is not only a seed or cell in 
 which is contained, seminally or as in a focus of aggregation, 
 all that comes after, not only like a word of a language, what 
 could not exist or be in the mind without the supposition of 
 the existence of the whole which it belongs to, but it is a real, 
 though utterly insufficient, indistinct, even mistaken, look at 
 the entire universe. I am not at all here, it is to be observed, 
 speaking the words of Dr Whewell, though I am saying some- 
 thing which it seems to me his view suggests : and I am doubtful 
 whether the bearing of what I have said would be on his side 
 in the question of ' inconceivability ' as a test of falsehood, and of 
 the difference between our knowledge of space, &c. and our 
 other knowledge. I observe these things now, in the view of 
 the interest of human knowledge as a course: and this interest 
 is doubled, when we compare the course in the individual and 
 the course in the race. It is interesting to think in what re- 
 spects the learning of the individual to see a distant object, and 
 the learning by the race to see, for so it virtually is, what is the 
 real motion of the heavenly bodies, are and are not in analogy. 
 The one and the other is a continued correction of first (and 
 even of second, third, &c.) impressions by putting them together 
 in conjunction with a continual activity of mind in respect of 
 them : there is in the former all that Dr Whewell calls ' colli- 
 gation of facts' and 'induction of conceptions' in a rudimentary 
 state : in these earlier stages with changes of consciousness so 
 rapid that we cannot follow them : whereas each one of the 
 corresponding changes of thought or view in later science may 
 be the work of generations, involving observation heaped upon
 
 X.] PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 207 
 
 observation, and the trying fruitlessly conceptions after concep- 
 tions. So far there is first a tolerably complete, and then a 
 very imperfect, analogy : in what follows there is no analogy at 
 all : namely, that the first lands us in a normal or habitual 
 state of thought and view from which all the latter, to what- 
 ever extent carried, does not, and does not seem likely to, dis- 
 lodge us. This is a circumstance which, apparently, depends 
 upon the relation between the time which we take to learn 
 anything and the duration of our individual existence. We 
 learn to say that we see the distance between a tree a mile off 
 and another many times that distance, but I suppose we should 
 hardly say that we saw the sun to be further off from us than 
 the moon is, though we know this fact as perfectly, and have 
 learnt it really in very much the same manner. In the same 
 way we never feel, and I suppose never shall feel, that we turn 
 round the sun or round the centre of the earth, though various 
 things which we say we do feel or know by sensation come to 
 our knowledge in really as distinct and intellectual a manner as 
 these facts do. I mention this analogy and want of analogy 
 between the course of knowledge in the individual and in the 
 race, because the comparison between the one and the other 
 seems to me in its truth one of the most important, and in its 
 error one of the most deceiving and injurious, of comparisons 
 possible. 
 
 I have mentioned that I say very little about the merit of 
 books, one reason fur which is, that my view of merit of this 
 kind is rather my own, and what in tin.- common talk of criti- 
 
 i mighl not he accepted as praise. In any branch of know- 
 Ledge which is advancing, a \e .. or a hook without something 
 of incompleteness, and undig< stedness, and consequently mistake, 
 would seem to me as little to be desired as full developed man- 
 hood in a growing boy ; and in estimating the value of a book 
 I look quite as much at the openings which it make, in fronl 
 of it for fresh knowledge, which are no1 unfrequently in the 
 way of mistake, as at the points which it. definitely secui 
 And besides this, I have a grounded disbelief in that view of 
 the nature of the advance of knowledge which is implied h\ the 
 Haconian expn ion 'intellectue sibi permissus', used in a de- 
 preciating I do not want to have the intellect unshackled
 
 208 dr whewell's [chap. 
 
 from sloth, and prejudice, and misapplied authority, to be re- 
 shackled by a perhaps mistaken logic. This makes me look with 
 less interest upon Real Logic as a means, method, or instrument 
 of discovery than many would. But it makes me look with more 
 interest upon it as a rationale of what man has actually, from time 
 to time, thought. I have not the smallest belief in Bacon's having 
 reformed the methods of discovery (believing rather that if he 
 had had any success in this way, in the manner he wished, it 
 would have been most calamitous for science) : nor, to the extent 
 of my knowledge, which is not great/ should I judge with 
 Dr Whewell that a reform is wanted in this respect now 1 . But 
 I think that the history of the advance of human thought 
 about the universe is only inferior in interest and profitable- 
 ness, if it is that, to the history of the universe itself, and that 
 the vigorous manner in which Bacon conceived this advance, 
 as possible when not actual, sets him in the highest intellectual, 
 as much as the earnest manner in which he urged it on sets 
 him in the highest moral rank. What Bacon had to look back 
 upon was not in many respects satisfactory, and he misconceived 
 it by making it worse than it was. Dr Whewell looks back 
 upon a far brighter retrospect, and has the advantage of Bacon 
 in the absence of such misconception. This advantage and the 
 tone of mind belongfinsf to it, runs through the book. Dr 
 Whewell show T s us how the human mind has acted in the 
 advance after truth, how its very mistakes have been of advan- 
 tage to it, and how great men have trodden down the way 
 which may after them be the more easily followed. Bacon had, 
 
 1 " It will be found, I think," says Dr Whewell, "that some of the doctrines now 
 "most widely prevalent respecting the foundations of truth are of such a kind that a 
 "Reform is needed. The present age seems, by many indications, to be called upon 
 " to seek a sounder Philosophy of Knowledge than is now current among us." (Hist, 
 of Scientific Ideas, Vol. I. p. 7.) ' I suppose this refers to positivist or ultra-phe- 
 nomenalist doctrines, and if so, I heartily sympathize with Dr Whewell's efforts 
 against them. But to know what philosophy of knowledge, or whether any, is 
 current among us, seems to me to be a very hard task, and the desire to find it out 
 is one of the things which has prompted my present employment. What Dr Whewell 
 assigns as the task of the present age seems to me to be the duty of every age. 
 To improve the philosophy of our age in the direction which seems to us the right 
 one is the duty of all who can do it — but to understand it to such a degree as to be 
 able to judge that it ought to be reformed, seems to me very difficult. How great 
 is the complication, for instance, of all the controversies with which I am dealing.
 
 X-] PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 200 
 
 whether necessarily or not, the far less enviable task of a con- 
 demner, critic, corrector. 
 
 In my view then of Dr Whewell's book, I consider it a o- od 
 Keal Logic, because it does exhibit the action of the human mind 
 in large as the same, in its great features, with its action in small, 
 and because it recognizes not only as interesting, but as im- 
 portant in the past history of the human race, that varied 
 experience, that feeling after truth, that approach towards it at 
 once by way of mental activity and variety of experience of 
 fact, which is the same way as that in which we gain our simpler 
 and earlier knowledge. With full justice done, in this way, to 
 the value of past imagination and even error, there is no fear 
 of too shackling or restraining an art of logic for the future. 
 
 Logic of all kinds, Real Logic included, is likely to be in 
 some difficulty as to its way of dealing with first principles of 
 belief or knowledge — that is, whether it shall include within itself 
 notice of them, or not. Mr Mill professes not to do so — dealing 
 only with logic of inference: some difficulties, we have seen, 
 arise from this. Dr Whewell goes to the bottom — does deal 
 with them 1 . 
 
 We may view knowledge, as I have said, from the logical or 
 from the phenomenalist point of view. The pure phenomenalist 
 point of view is what, in speaking of Mr Mill, I have called the 
 supposition of presence witli things, or 'adstance', on our part — 
 in this case notice of our faculties of knowing:, or our manner of 
 thinking, does not enter into the consideration: there is sup- 
 posed the universe with its facts: it so happens that it is we, 
 witli and by our faculties of knowledge, who know them: bu1 
 
 1 Mr Mill, I think, i3 rather too free in his references to a supposed ' meta- 
 physics', to which the consideration of certain fundamental difficulties belongs. 
 That is to say, he does to a certain extent ileal with such difficulties, to such 
 an extent, it seems to me, as to preclude himself from saying with reason thai 
 they belong to a different subject from that which he treats of. In my view, as I 
 have mentioned, philosophy is all one subject, and tho reference of a difficulty from 
 one to another supposed branch of it is one of tin- must, tempting subteri 
 bad philosophers, and with good ones, like Mr .Mill and sir William Hamilton, is 
 likely to lead to mistake ami insufficient consideration. Of mnrse tie n i a diffi 
 culty in this: no one book can contain everything. Bat the reference of thing to 
 a different subject is a shelving them, different from a simple declining, for * 
 ever reason, to enter upon them. I think DrWhewell's vi< w faces diffi 
 fully and thoroughly, in this respect, than Mr Mill's. 
 
 1 1
 
 210 dr wiiewell's [chap. 
 
 so far as the view of the universe (or the proper physics) is 
 concerned, it might be a different being with and by different 
 faculties who did so. The facts, not the knowledge of them, 
 make here the important consideration. 
 
 The logical point of view is that of correctness of thought. 
 So far as we say 'correctly' of thought about things, we must 
 be aware that by ' things ' here we only mean a formless non- 
 ego; the thought is not about the really existing things until, 
 or except so far as, it is correct: i.e. there must be supposed 
 something distinct from ourselves which we think about, but 
 from this point of view it is no more than an assumed object, 
 or rather subject, in one sense of the word subject, of our 
 thought : we have no business with any supposition as to 
 what it may be, or may not be, in itself: knowledge of it 
 is the thinking rightly about it, or investing it with the at- 
 tributes which the laws of our thought induce us or compel 
 us to invest it with. Any supposed real essence of itself is in 
 this view left out of account exactly in the same manner as any 
 specialty of the faculties of knowledge is left out of account 
 by the phenomenalist. 
 
 It will be remembered that, using the word ' sensation' to 
 express the whole of our consciousness, from the most agitating 
 feeling of nervous or concrete pleasure or pain to the merest 
 abstraction of thought, I supposed a scale of this, in which 
 relations such as those of space would concern about the middle. 
 The logical view takes notice first of the top or thought end of 
 this scale, and proceeds downwards, considering what it meets 
 with as of less and less intellectual importance, till the lower 
 part will be neglected altogether, or treated as that unreason 
 or nonsense which it is the business of the higher part to con- 
 vert into knowledge. And each higher part, as I said, is form 
 to what is below it. 
 
 The phenomenalist view, so far as it deals with the scale at 
 all, begins with the lower end, as, for it, the most real. It then 
 proceeds upwards, attributing more and more of an empty, 
 non-material, visionary character to what it in succession meets 
 with : till that which the logicalist begins with, that which 
 constitutes what I have called the thinghood of things, is with 
 the phenomenalist unnoticed or treated as a delusion. The
 
 X.] PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 211 
 
 thing is, with him, a co-existence (say), in regard of which any 
 supposition of reason for the co-existence, anything beyond its 
 beiug a fact, is unmeaning. 
 
 In my view, it is a difference in manner of thinking rather 
 than a difference in absolute truth, whether we speak of the 
 whole scale or of any part of it as belonging to ourselves or as 
 belonging to things, as part of the subject, or as the object, 
 of knowledge. Our faculties of knowing and the things which 
 we know are plainly in adaptation, however arising, the one to 
 the other, and I do not see what principles we have to o-o 
 on in saying what, in the act of knowledge, belongs to the 
 one and what to the other. Except so far as this; I have 
 represented sensation as a scale: so far as we speak of subject 
 and object about it, we might represent it by two converging 
 and meeting lines. Subject and object, at the lower or feeling 
 end of the scale, are widely separated, there being between 
 them (I mean the subject and object of intelligence) matter or 
 body, phenomenalism, which is the vehicle of their communica- 
 tion: our body on the one side, extraneous matter on the other. 
 Higher in the scale they converge, till in thought they meet. 
 Let us say, e.g. as Dr Whewell would be inclined to say, that in 
 an organized animal there is plainly indicated purpose or a final 
 cause. Xow here it seems to me an identical way of speaking, 
 and only different in words, whether we say that the purpose 
 is a fact of the organization, or a thought which we with reason 
 have about it. If we disputed whether it was one or the other 
 we should be disputing only about words. Being a thought in 
 any case, it is jusl the same tiling whether Ave consider it em- 
 bodied in the organization or existing, with reason to exist, in 
 our j j i ii j* Is. Lower down in the scale, if we discuss whether 
 whatever it is that we are speaking about is in the subject or in 
 the object, in ourselves or in things, it is more than a question 
 of words, though less than a question of absolute truth ; it i a 
 difference of yiew. We mean different things, though we might 
 mean either not incorrectly. This 1 conceive to be th< 
 for instance, as to space. 
 
 If there is to bo any meaning of importance in our saying 
 that space is subjective ami not objective, an idea or form «'i 
 thought as <!1 : ; hed from a fad of objective reality, 
 
 I 1 -2
 
 212 dr whewell's [chap. 
 
 must mean that we could conceivably, though not in our par- 
 ticular and necessarily spatial conception, think of things in 
 a way other than spatial, or with some form of thought re- 
 placing that of space. Unless with some conception or quasi- 
 conception of this kind, the saying that space is subjective, is 
 otiose and resultless. If we separate space as subjective from 
 certain other notions about, or qualities of, the universe which 
 we consider objective, we must mean, if we mean anything, 
 that we could, conceivably, apply our spatial thoughts to ano- 
 ther sort of objective universe, and that, similarly, another set 
 of beings, differently constituted from us, might look at our 
 objective universe with other than spatial thoughts. I do not 
 think we are prepared to mean all this. Our knowledge all 
 goes together. The universe is what we, in the correct course 
 of our thought, make for ourselves, if we so like to consider it, 
 and again, our knowledge is not knowledge, unless it is know- 
 ledge of what actually is, independent of us, in the universe. 
 
 I have said that the thinking differently of the different 
 portions of the scale of sensation is of cardinal importance : but 
 the dividing them between subject and object I do not think is 
 so : and for the same reason for which I dare not say of any 
 such division that is not true 1 , I do say that it is unimportant, 
 namely, because we have nothing to go upon in judging of its 
 correctness. The analogy of the subjective and objective relation 
 with the relation between thought and the sensive organs of our 
 body is not applicable, and will not suggest any division of this 
 kind so far as it is, or rather would not if it were. Our know- 
 ledge, subjectively, is different kinds of sensation or conscious- 
 ness, giving us no idea, or rather precluding idea, of any analogy 
 of parts of it with material organs of sense. And in the case 
 of the sensive organs, what we have, as I have many times 
 said, independent of the correspondent stream of conscious- 
 ness, which, to us, is out of relation — is only contemporaneous 
 
 1 I have preserved on purpose the gradual change, or rather perhaps increasing 
 fixedness, of view, presented by these pages, which were not written entirely in the 
 order in which they appear. It will be observed that I speak a little more strongly 
 on this in what will shortly follow. But I think the cause of truth, which is all 
 that I care for, is best served by leaving what I say as I here leave it. The reader 
 may perhaps think I am right here, and have gone, in what follows, too far. If so, 
 perhaps his own thoughts will conduct him afterwards where mine have me.
 
 X-] PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 213 
 
 — with what goes on materially or phenomenally, is the 
 same thing on the one side as on the other. If it could be 
 imagined that at this moment all light ceased to exist and 
 the laws of optics were forgotten, but eyes remained, and, 
 in some mysterious manner, a possibility of anatomizing 
 them : and not only of anatomizing them, but of knowing all 
 their possible movements and affections : I conclude that, were 
 the intellect acute enough, a considerable portion of the laws 
 of optics, the theory of a now absent light, might, from a 
 knowledge of them, be recovered. The constitution of our 
 body involves and implies the existence of light as much as 
 light involves the existence of eyes for the knowledge of it. 
 Just as our body fits the phenomenal universe, so under the 
 important qualification which I mentioned just now (as to the 
 different circumstances of knowledge in the different parts of 
 the scale), does our mind or consciousness the wider or whole 
 objective universe 1 . Knowledge is the link or communication 
 between them : all of it is objective, or all subjective, as we 
 describe it. 
 
 The difference between parts of the scale of consciousness is 
 not of this nature, nor is it well described by saying that a part 
 of our knowledge is gained by sensation, a part not. If we 
 mean by sensation something distinct from, and opposed to, 
 thought and idea, no part of our knowledge is due to it : if we 
 mean by it something which must be superadded to thought or 
 idea, or must mingle with it and go with it, in respect of each 
 particular of our knowledge which is more than inference or de- 
 duction from what we have known before, then all such know- 
 ledge is duo to it. 
 
 These matters are difficult to write about, and I have sonic 
 hesitation in saying to what extent Dr Whewcll is right, and to 
 what extent wrong, in his ' Fundamental Antithesis ' of know- 
 Ledge. Knowledge is arelation between two members, commonly 
 called by philosophers t 1m- 'subject ' and 'object ' of it, which re- 
 lation we may call an antithesis if we like, though we must be 
 careful in doing 30. And there are various other terms in u 1 
 bo knowledge, which will admit of being compared together, and 
 
 1 Oor thought outflanks (if we may so peak) or comprehend all phenomena] 
 ibility, which, on the oth< r hand, does not outflank or compn bend it.
 
 214 br whewell's [chap. 
 
 exhibited in a form more or less what we may call antithetical. 
 The question as to this is, whether we gain any advantage from 
 so exhibiting them, and considering them various forms of the 
 same antithesis. There is one character which seems to belong to 
 most of Dr Whewell's exhibited forms of this antithesis, and 
 which is connected with what I have said of him, viz. that his 
 view really proceeds from the logical point of starting : this is, 
 that it is generally on the objective side (so just now to call it) 
 that the member of the antithesis is indistinct. That this is the 
 case with the term ' object ' itself is not his fault, and belongs to 
 the consideration that the relation of 'subject' to ' object' is a 
 logical relation (by which I mean one in which ' object ' is 
 viewed from 'subject', or, in other words, in which 'subject' 
 represents the viewer of the relation) : 'object' therefore is a 
 word of very various signification according to the view which 
 we take of knowledge, and the relation, 'subject' to 'object' 
 is not one antithesis, but many, while one signification of 
 ' object ' may well stand quite as much in antithesis with another. 
 In the antitheses, ' thoughts and things ', ' ideas and sensations ', 
 'theories and facts', which in certain respects do doubtless repre- 
 sent a single antithesis, it is to be observed that it is the former 
 member which is distinct, the latter which, as standing in oppo- 
 sition to it, is indistinct. The former member of the antithesis 
 in each case is the clearly viewed creating and active power, 
 the latter in each case represents something mentally created, 
 out of whatever material, by the former, and then when thus 
 created, it stands in antithesis to the former, its creator, as 
 material for this to create or produce something more with. 
 This is what I mean by saying that the latter member in each 
 antithesis is indistinct as compared with the former. Each lat- 
 ter member involves the former, and not vice versa. 
 
 I do not at all complain of this, because I think that in the 
 main it represents the truth, but what I doubt about is the 
 desirableness of exhibiting it as a distribution of the various 
 things or circumstances which enter into knowledge into two 
 portions, the one supposedly, we will say, subjective, the other 
 objective. I see the supposedly subjective portion, but I do not 
 see the objective. On the objective side I see something as 
 truly subjective as what is on the other side : not indeed so
 
 X.] rillLOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. til 5 
 
 purely so, but still so much so as that it ought not to be put in 
 this way in antithesis to the other. It seems to me that the 
 test of our being able to exhibit the ideas or supposedly sub- 
 jective side of knowledge by themselves and independently is 
 our being able to do the same by that which stands in contract 
 with them. And this we cannot do. A thing, as it is probable 
 the etymology of the word indicates, and as Dr Whewell himself 
 most clearly describes, is made what it is, and understood for 
 what it is, by thought — there is no antithesis between thought 
 and it, but only between thought on the one side and on the 
 other whatever the thing would be, if it would be anything, 
 without essence, thinghood or reality. In the same way with a 
 ' sensation ', a term used by Dr Whewell, as generally in the last 
 century, in a very dangerous manner. A sensation as it must 
 here be understood, so far as it carries with it attention to it 
 or distinct consciousness of it, has got thought mixed with it 
 already, as much as ' a thing ' has. The only thing which can 
 be opposed to thought or idea in this respect is the crude blind 
 undistinguished feeling, so far as we can suppose such, with 
 the attention to it abstracted 1 . On the subject of the an- 
 tithesis between 'theory' and 'fact', which is the fruitful and 
 it seems to me really valuable one of Dr Whewell's antitheses, 
 he has himself spoken fully, and described how the now-recog- 
 nized fact is really just and verified theory. 
 
 I do not think that we can really separate our knowledge 
 into its material on the one side and on the other its form or 
 that which makes it knowledge, or in other words, and invert- 
 ing the order, into ideas on the one side and something which 
 is not idcts on the other: except so far as I have said, thai 
 we may consider each higher part in the scale of (my) sensal lod 
 (or increasing abstractness) to stand in the relation of 'form ' to 
 the part below. The attempt to divide our knowledge thus, bo 
 far as it has meaning, and it may have a great deal, is really 
 only a proceeding in the Logical method, ami studying the man- 
 ner in which the continual addition of thoughl to thought pro- 
 duces the growth of knowledge. What thought in the fir I in- 
 
 1 J have bo put it, but even this cannot properly be bo oppo ed, but onlj th< 
 
 itaot, communication, which I 
 I rred to.
 
 21 G Dii whewell's [chap. 
 
 stance is added to or superinduced upon, is something which it 
 seems to me we cannot in any logical manner (that is, by any 
 term having anything to do with knowledge) describe, and just 
 in the same manner as we cannot describe this, I do not think 
 we can describe the particulars of thought itself as separated from 
 this, i. e. ideas. And I think we are in error if we do attempt 
 to describe them thus distinct and separate, and consider them 
 as thus described, the criterion of truth. So far as Dr Whewell 
 does this, I differ with him, and consider that with his right 
 view, that advance in knowledge is the growth of correct 
 thought, he mingles a wrong one, that this correct thought 
 can be exhibited separately from, and set antithetically against, 
 the universe of fact : that under the name of ' ideas ' it can be 
 looked upon as something native to our mind in a manner in 
 which something else, also a part of knowledge, is not native ; 
 and as, in virtue of this nativeness, the proper truth. 
 
 What ideas are superinduced upon is, in the first instance, 
 vague, undistinguished feeling, undeveloped consciousness 1 : and 
 everything which is superinduced upon this is idea, if anything 
 is. In saying then that we ought not to consider with Locke 
 that we have an idea of everything we know, but that we have, 
 for instance, an idea of space, language in no respect wrong to 
 use, what I should understand would be, that the knowledge 
 which we have of space is in this respect different from the 
 knowledge which we have, e.g. of heat, that it is much more 
 abstract and less accompanied with feeling, more of the nature 
 of thought and less requiring comparison or experience, which 
 is what I have meant by considering it as high on my scale: 
 but that the one, unless it had thought or attention superin- 
 duced on the experienced pleasure or pain, would not be know- 
 ledge, and that the other would be at best but a bare possibility 
 that an idea might arise, if we think that anything, till the idea 
 did arise on the occasion of some movement, for example, or 
 pressure : and this being so, it is a mere^arbitrary difference of 
 language to say that our knowledge of heat arises in conse- 
 quence, not on occasion, of the application of a hot iron to the 
 hand, but that our knowledge of space arises on occasion, not in 
 consequence, of the conscious movement of our hand from one 
 
 1 See the note in last page.
 
 X.] PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 217 
 
 point to another. Both are sensations, so far as we call our 
 knowledge by the name of sensation : both are facts, so far as 
 we say that it is of facts that we have knowledge. 
 
 The best meaning perhaps which can be given to the saving 
 that knowledge higher on my scale is more of the nature of 
 thought than that which is lower, is, that any single experience, 
 so to call it, of the former is endlessly fertile in the region of 
 thought, and a similar experience of the latter very little so. 
 
 One single perception of space, and, were our thought in 
 strength powerful enough, Ave need no more experience, and the 
 whole of geometry might be evolved. How far the difference in 
 fertility of an experience here and e.g. in respect of heat de- 
 pends upon the constitution of our minds and upon the consti- 
 tution of things respectively, is what, it seems to me, we cannot 
 determine, because the relation of our mind in general and 
 things in general, of subjective and objective, what absolutely 
 belongs to the one and what to the other — since they are given 
 to us only in conjunction and no nov arw, nothing besides, is 
 given to us — is what, as I have many times said, we do not 
 know. It is here that arise the ideas of necessity and con- 
 tingency 1 . Truth connected in thought with other .truth we 
 call ' necessary': truth connected with other truth as being 
 matter of similar feeling, or experience involving little of thought, 
 we call ' contingent'. We say, it is impossible for us to conceive 
 the former otherwise : the latter we readily may. But the tiro 
 in geometry is as readily able to conceive the angles of a triangle 
 being equal to three right angles as to two, and the pre- 
 rsYwtoiiian astronomer was as readily able (I suppose) to con- 
 ceive the law of the central force, if there were such, being the 
 inverse cube, as the inverse square: the tiro arrives at his after 
 knowledge by way of thought or understood demonstration, tin- 
 astronomer has arrived at his by the way of thoughl coupled 
 with manifold observation, i.e. by induction: the former now 
 c.-uiiiMt possibly coin-i ivc that the thing he knows could cvit \>\ 
 
 1 'Contingent truths', Hays Dr Whewell, 'are truths which it happen* 
 (eontingit) are true', (as that a lunar month contain! 30 days). Thi« u making 
 the conveying term too significant, for Dr Whewell would hardly liki the leu [th 
 of the lunar month to be called 'an acci<lunt' of the universe, which in thii view it 
 might IHi. of Scient. Tdeat, VoL t, p. 25.
 
 218 dr whewell's [chap. 
 
 any possibility have been otherwise, the latter is most likely in 
 a mixed, state of mind, and to the extent to which the truth he 
 knows depends upon past observation he can see various ways 
 in which it might have been otherwise, to the extent of which 
 it depends upon past reasoning and thought he cannot. Neces- 
 sity, the inconceivability of the contrary, depend upon, and are 
 an expression for, seen reason. Whether the reason, the neces- 
 sity, is in our understanding or in the things, is what, so far as 
 anything which we are now speaking about goes, we cannot tell. 
 
 Inconceivability of the contrary is only so far a test of truth, 
 as, with thought, we can see, more or less distinctly, the reason 
 of the inconceivability. 
 
 The mark of the clearness and the firm hold with which 
 we possess our knowledge is our being able, and our not being 
 able, at the same time, though in different respects, to conceive 
 the thing (or the truth as to the thing) being different to what 
 it is. Such truth as we hold in the way of fact is held the 
 better and the more really for our imagining various ways in 
 which the fact might be otherwise, for it is its being what it is, 
 in contradistinction to its being any of these, that is what we 
 do hold, and the lively hold of the fact itself is really the percep- 
 tion of the distinction. But when in addition to the thing being as 
 it is, we are able to understand why it is as it is, all supposition 
 that it might have been other than it is is of course excluded. 
 
 As the human moral activity, to speak in homely language, 
 does not know its own mind, but aims at rest with a restlessness 
 which will not allow of acquiescence in it: so the human in- 
 tellectual activity does not seem to know what it wants in its 
 eagerness at once both for reason of things and for ultimate 
 fact to rest in. Its desire after reason of things will not let it 
 rest in anything as ultimate fact, at the same time that its 
 earnest desire for a basis to its reasonings makes it most eager 
 to suppose such fact. 
 
 Mr Mill and Dr Whewell discuss much the value, as a test 
 of truth, of this 'inconceivability of the contrary'. Mr Mill, whose 
 notion of knowledge is as I have said the supposition of fact, 
 and then the supposition of a knowledge of it, holds it, as on 
 that view he should, as a false or unimportant one. Dr 
 Whewell, whose view of the advance of knowledge is the sup-
 
 X.] PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 219 
 
 position of the human mind judging about things more and 
 more correctly, thinks, as is natural, the opposite way. 
 
 I do not like the applying of the test of inconceivability of 
 the contrary as it is often, perhaps indeed usually, applied, to 
 supposed first principles. Argument in this case is too often 
 only reiteration on the one side, with counter-assertion on the 
 other. These first principles are supposed to be held as fact: 
 and as I have said, we really hardly hold a thing as fact at all, 
 clearly and forcibly, unless we make an effort to suppose the 
 thing other than it is: in knowledge of fact, a main part of 
 knowing what a thing is is the knowing what it is not. And 
 can we set any limit to human conceptiveness or imagina- 
 tiveness ? Can we say of anything that no mind of whatever 
 power in this respect can possibly conceive the contrary of it ? 
 We may say it cannot reasonably conceive the contrary, but 
 then it is not conceivability, but reasonable conceivability, in 
 fact reason, which determines the truth. 
 
 I am rather straying, but still what I say has some reference 
 to Dr Whewell's book. He is, it seems to me, most eminently 
 right in describing the course of human knowledge to be what I 
 will call a theorizing on facts, and the mental generating, in 
 this way, of new fact to be theorized on. The view does not 
 necessitate the expression of it being in what I have called 
 the logical direction : we might describe it, if we liked, as the 
 proceeding from the looking at or knowing a fact or facts to 
 the looking at or knowing a fact more general : but the advan- 
 tage of the logical or Dr Whewell's view is the bringing into 
 relief the activity of the mind in the looking at this second 
 more general fact. The facts do not present themselves to tin 1 
 mind in succession, but the new fact comes into knowledge a 
 the result of a very various activity on the mind's part, which 
 Dr Whewell we]] describes. I think that the description of the 
 process as the superinducing an idea or conception upon the 
 facts and so making them into a unity to be marked by a term 
 is an admirable one; but it is only lor the none,., for this pro- 
 
 , thai tin- Idea is to be considered as belonging to the mind, 
 the facts to objective nature : the facts belong to the mind, for 
 they are nothing but verified theories: the idea, bo far a H is 
 correct, belongs to objective nature, for as soon as we nave
 
 220 dr whewell's [chap. 
 
 verified it and found it answer the facts we shall consider it a 
 new fact of objective nature, to be itself theorized upon. But 
 I do not see that there is any reason to join this view with the 
 other, not necessary to it, that there are certain ideas which we 
 can enumerate and distinctly exhibit belonging to the mind, as 
 facts, things, or however we describe them, belong to objective 
 nature. The two views, instead of holding well together, hold 
 ill together. Just as right theory is the side turned towards us 
 of what, turned the other way, is natural fact, so ideas, even the 
 highest and most abstract, are the side turned towards us of 
 what equally, turned the other way, exists in the universe as 
 fact, if we choose rather so to look at them and describe them : 
 were it not so, they would not be true ideas. 
 
 A more important antithesis than that between some things 
 or circumstances as subjective and others as objective, is the 
 contrast between knowledge as of fact and knowledge by way of 
 reason. What Dr Whewell says is valuable as it is on account 
 of its full recognition of this. Each fact involves in itself an 
 abundance of thought — has an abundance of form : but so far as 
 it is known as fact only, it is isolated : on account of this ab- 
 sence of connexion it might be conceived as being variously 
 otherwise : we only know as matter of fact (as we call it) that 
 it is what it is. We want to cease to be able to conceive it as 
 what might be otherwise, and to this end to bring it into con- 
 nexion with other facts, to view it as part of a wider fact: we 
 make a theory, a provisional or supposed fact, which will in- 
 clude it and other facts, and see how far the truth of this is 
 consistent with the entire truth of the facts. When we can 
 make the suppositions which want actuality fit with the actu- 
 ality which wants more of form, order, connexion to be given to 
 it, we have got really valuable knowledge. 
 
 I have said that the attempt to exhibit ideas which are 
 purely subjective seems to me the same sort of thing as would 
 be, on the other side, the attempt to exhibit facts, so we will 
 call them, which were purely objective and unmixed with 
 thought (if we might call this 'objective'). I will notice now 
 one way in which the doing the one and the other of these 
 things would have something of a similar result. The purely 
 subjective and objective would be with great difficulty brought
 
 X.] PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 221 
 
 into relatioD with the advance of knowledge. What is the 
 nature of the advance, for instance, in respect of the idea ? As the 
 advance goes on, is the mind in a better state as to its manner 
 of holding the idea, or in a worse, or in neither, it being, so far 
 as the idea is concerned, in the same state, but the advance in 
 knowledge consisting in the advancing perception of the re- 
 lation of the idea to that which is not idea? 
 
 I shall not enter into this, only making an observation or two 
 about it. The state of the mind, as Dr Whewell recognizes, in 
 its advance, is quite different as its advance has reference to 
 different ideas among those which Dr Whewell describes. Space, 
 for example, exists clearly in the mind in the first instance, is 
 developed into geometry, which is variously, almost endlessly, ::]>- 
 plicable to phenomena and in aid of observation : but observation 
 adds nothing to it, either in the way of amount or clearness. The 
 case is exactly opposite in reference to the idea of 'polarity': 
 this the mind has no hold of at the first or the slightest sug- 
 gestion of it: only with far advanced observation it shows 
 itself. In the case of the idea of resemblance, what happens 
 is that it takes, with advance of knowledge, the character of 
 a different idea: the growing definiteness attaching to it is an 
 alteration of its nature, this definiteness being, in reality, an 
 increasing perception of law, order, reason, meaning, underly- 
 ing the resemblance, and substituting itself in the mind for 
 it, making: the sciences which Dr "Whewell has called 'classifi- 
 catory' continually less and less so, and more and more what 
 may be loosely called 'physiological'. As the idea of 'resem- 
 blance' is thus a temporary one, so the idea of c a medium' 
 seems to me a mistaken one, mistaken both in a logical and 
 phenomenal point of view, ami to disappear for this reason. 
 
 The great ideas of ' substance ' and of 'cause' are tin- mosl 
 difficult. With regard to the former, I should have bhoughl 
 that chemical speculations and researches :is to the constitution 
 of matt* r were not Likely to be benefited by a comparison of 
 the object of their search with the very difficult ami doubtful 
 notions, in which to disentangle logic from supposed pheno- 
 menal truth i- scarcely possible, which the philosophical use "t 
 the word ' Bubstance ' involves 1 . If it is really an idea, it ■ ■ ma 
 
 1 Qpon this idea of 'substance', uvdl u upon that just mentioi
 
 222 DR tvhewell's [chap. 
 
 to me that the advance of knowledge consists in the entire 
 transforming it, and gradually substituting a different one. 
 
 'Cause' Dr Whewell seems to look at in four manners. 
 ' Efficient cause ', which is what is connected with the sciences 
 of force: 'final cause', which is what is connected with the 
 sciences of organization: rical cause', which is what is 
 
 connected with the (Etiological sciences, or those which concern 
 the historv and origin of things : and what I may call ' physical 
 cause', the consideration of which is what differences certain 
 sciences or branches of science 'astronomy, e.g.) as 'physical', 
 from certain others relating to the same subject and which 
 are called ' formal '. 
 
 I may observe that ' cause ', as looked upon by Mx Hill and 
 phenomenalists, is a relation of time, and little else, in the 
 main like the third view above : cause being simply antecedent 
 with certain considerations indeed about it, in some respects 
 similar to those which belong to the fourth view above. And 
 I will observe in connexion with this,, that the viewing of 
 things as much as possible in the relation of time is what, 
 substantially, the phenomenalist view amounts to, and it is 
 because this view of them is felt as a poor and insufficient 
 view that the phenomenalist view is unsatisfactory. The phe- 
 nomenalisms knowledge of nature is the knowledge of the history 
 of nature. In that view, our presence or adstance. as I have 
 called it, is in face of what we are bid to call a series of 
 chancres, without our bein£ able to know what it is that 
 changes, or v:\y the changes take place, in any other sense of 
 the why, than this, what previous change any present change is 
 the result of. The thought of ' cause '", in the fourth view above, 
 
 he asking the question, why the changes take place, in the 
 hope of an answer other than historical. The asking the ques- 
 tion is in reality the theorizing about the change or fact, and 
 the brinorincr it, so far as the theorizincr succeeds, under a 
 
 CO' © * 
 
 broader and more general fact : the quest of cause then, in this 
 fourth view of it, is — as instructed or trained by the advance of 
 knowledge — the desire of c/eneralitv and simplicity, the tendencv 
 towards them in our thought, the looking for them, and expec- 
 
 medium', I cannot enter into Dr "WhewelTs view at all. I vdll append in a future 
 chapter some remarks upon each of them.
 
 X.] PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 223 
 
 tation of finding them, in nature. The tendency to proceed 
 from formal science to physical is the same as that to proceed 
 from knowledge hy way of fact to knowledge of reason, and 
 they are two ways of describing the general 'nisus' towards 
 advance in knowledge. 
 
 The view of 'substance', and these various views of 'cause', 
 seem to me attempts (but I do not think any attempt can be suc- 
 cessful), to exhibit as distinct subjective ideas, that thought which 
 belongs to the upper part of my scale of knowledge. I most 
 thoroughly believe in or think one thing, which appears to me 
 stateable with equal truth in either of two ways : namely, that 
 there is in the universe, besides chemical constitution, besides 
 solidity, shapes, and forces, something more abstract or as I should 
 call it higher than these, I mean order, law, meaning, principle, 
 purpose, however we may describe it : we are present or look on 
 at this as much as at the other things : our thought is as real a 
 sensive power for this purpose as our feeling is for sweetness or 
 bitterness. It appears to me only to represent the same tiiith if 
 we say from the other side, that we have sensations which we call 
 the tasting and smelling things : that we have sensations again 
 more refined about them, by some named ideas, and which we 
 describe as the handling and measuring things : and again that 
 we have thoughts about them (higher sensations or intuitions) 
 certainly to be called ideas, as namely, that they have substance 
 or real existence, that there is final cause or purpose about them, 
 and many more. 
 
 But so far ns these things are to be considered as in the uni- 
 verse, they would be by no means the first things that we should 
 find out: and I do not think therefore that we ought to begin 
 science with laying them down, or even attempting to do so. 
 I think that if this came to affect our Real Logic as an art, i. e. 
 to influence our action for the future, in attempts t<> discover, 
 it would be injurious, as Bacon's method of a very differenl 
 kind would have been injurious. And I think it injures our 
 
 .1 Logic as a science by confusing it. 
 
 Lh- Whewel] prop his boot to us as a Novum Organum 
 
 for our time, it is, looked at simply as an Organum or guide 
 
 to scientific thought, no1 only more suited to our time, bul 
 
 thanth I mian < rganum — I say nothing about the two
 
 224 dr whewell's [chap. 
 
 works in any other point of view. It seems to me to have far 
 more truth in it for all and for any time : no wonder perhaps — 
 there has been not only Bacon, but many others, to learn from. 
 But in reality it is a new ' Traite de la Methode' — I mean the 
 thought of it descends (of its actual suggestion I know nothing) 
 quite as much from the manner of thought of Descartes as from 
 that of Bacon. This is a vast advantage. Bacon and Descartes 
 were two contemporary intellectual reformers with exactly op- 
 posite views, and the looking at them seems to me of the 
 greatest value in regard of all our view of such reform : the 
 general positive recommendations of each were I think in their 
 different lines equally wanted and have been since equally 
 valuable : the more particular recommendations, or more special 
 reform, have been nugatory. The scholastic stagnation of mind, 
 so far as it existed, wanted a Descartes to shake it up quite as 
 much as a Bacon. When Bacon urged attention, still attention, 
 and ever repeated attention, to nature, to fact, to observation, to 
 experiment, he was most right and useful: but so far as he said, 
 You must give less attention, in order for this, to books and to 
 reflection or self-concentrated thought (idle cobwebs of the brain) 
 he spoke without force or meaning. What was wanted in regard 
 of books and thought was exactly the same which was wanted in 
 regard of observation, not at all less attention to the one and the 
 other, but a wiser, better applied, more real attention, which would 
 really leave abundance of time for the utmost amount of observa- 
 tion of nature and fact, and would really help, instead of hinder- 
 ing it. In respect of this wiser and better reflection or thought, 
 Descartes was the apostle of it, as Bacon was of better and more 
 abundant observation. To complete the trio, there should have 
 existed at the same time some man doing in a special way what 
 was being done by many, and was a work quite as important as 
 either of the others, namely, urging the wiser and more thorough 
 study of books, better criticism : the intellectual revival of that 
 time was an awaking at once to more close study of nature — to 
 more accurate and methodical thought — and to better criticism, 
 and each one of them aided the other. The careful criticism 
 and study of what Aristotle really said probably aided the ad- 
 vance of science better than the putting him into the fire would 
 have done, in spite of Bacon's denunciations of him.
 
 X.] PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 225 
 
 Dr Whewell then it seems to me joins with Bacon's view of 
 the important thing about truth being its closeness to fact, 
 Descartes' view of its being clearness and distinctness of thought 
 and is eminently right in doing so 1 . He has mixed with this 
 what seems to me error, but I think it is his view on the whole 
 which is the right and the fruitful one. 
 
 Any discussion of the particulars of his Method of Real Logic 
 does not concern my present purpose, which has only reference 
 to his general principles or view. 
 
 I shall proceed however in another chapter to enter a little 
 inure into detail on some of my points of difference given above, 
 and to examine one or two passages which embody his views. 
 
 1 I am not at all aware that Dr AYhewell thinks as highly of Descartes as 
 I do, and he does not I think say very much ahout him. He himself (Phil, of 
 Discovery, p. 162), attaches the great reform of scientific method to Bacon, 
 considers that Descartes set himself speculatively in opposition to it, but that 
 still he and his disciples did attend very much to experiment and to the known 
 facts, that consequently his physical philosophy (then the most important part 
 of natmal philosophy) was the best then current, and he came to be considered 
 as the great hero of the overthrow of Aristotle. At the same time the de- 
 durtivc character of his philosophy, his rushing to general principles and deducing 
 conclusions from them, his deducing effects from causes rather than causes from 
 effects— this was a wrong side of his doctrine which gave nevertheless to it much 
 of its charm, a 'gratissimus error' to human nature. When one reads this, one 
 asks one's self, what really is the position of the two great controvertists in this 
 matter of our day, Dr Whewell and Mr Mill, as to Bacon and Descartes 1 They 
 both put forward the: name of Bacon, they disagree nevertheless in their view of 
 him, and neither of them really much follow him— do they take- from Descartes' 
 manner of thinking, the one his 'clear ideas', the other his 'deduction' 1 And do 
 they each, more or less, consider that the other is in this ' Betting himself in oppo- 
 sition to the reform which science needs'? I give no opinion about this, only 
 observing how very difficult it is to enter into a controversy and see the real 
 bearing of it. 
 
 15
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 I shall proceed to put Dr WhewelTs view and mine iu 
 conjunction in this way : by quoting various passages from him 
 which indicate his view, and expressing my agreement with 
 some of them, my difference from others. 
 
 At the basis then of all knowledge Dr Whewell considers 
 there is that fundamental antithesis which I have already to 
 a certain degree discussed. It is constant and essential, but 
 without a fixed and permanent line dividing its members : it is 
 variously modifiable, and variously expressible. 
 
 The simplest expression of the antithesis is the opposition of 
 'things' and 'thought'. 
 
 Upon these I begin as Dr Whewell ends : he says, after 
 describing the antithesis, as a conclusion to his description, 
 " Thoughts and things are so intimately combined in our know- 
 " ledge, that we do not look upon them as distinct. One single 
 " act of the mind involves them both, and their contrast dis- 
 " appears in their union. But though knowledge requires the 
 " union of these two elements, Philosophy requires the separa- 
 " tion of them, in order that the nature and structure of know- 
 " ledge may be seen 1 ". The first two sentences I hold : in the 
 third, I do not accept the description of ' things' and 'thoughts' 
 as 'two elements' of knowledge : and so far as Philosophy sepa- 
 rates them, I hold that it presents us with two aspects of know- 
 ledge from different sides, not with two portions of it. It 
 seems to me, that as soon as we begin, in the manner which 
 Dr Whewell here describes, to make the separation he speaks 
 of, his language will no more stand examination than that of 
 Sir William Hamilton and of Mr Mill. 
 
 "Things", says Dr Whewell, "are something different from 
 " ourselves and independent of us ; something which is without. 
 
 « 
 
 1 II Ut. of Scientific Ideas, Vol. I. p. 25.
 
 GH. XI.] THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY. 1^7 
 
 "us: they are; we see them, touch them, and thus know thai 
 " they exist : but we do not make them by seeing or touching 
 "them, as we make our thoughts by thinking them: we are 
 " passive, and Things act upon our organs of perception 1 ". 
 
 Here we have, as before, 'without us' as quasi-synony- 
 mous with 'different from us' and 'independent of us'. But 
 what seems to me the case with Dr Whewell is, that the wrong 
 psychology which we find, carries in a way its antidote with 
 it : I will show how. ' "We see the things, touch them, and thus 
 know that they exist '. This sentence i" should put : we see, 
 touch (so we describe certain sensations), and in so doing know 
 that things exist, which last clause means, we become aware 
 of something to which we attribute an existence like our own. 
 In the wrong psychology the sentence would mean : three 
 steps, instead of my one: first, the things are by us to be 
 seen : next, we see and touch thorn : third, we infer from the 
 seeing and touching that they exist. The first step here is not 
 strongly marked in Dr Whewell : the transition from the second 
 to the third seems more strongly so: though still his 'thus' 
 ('wo thus know that they exist') need not imply an inference 2 . 
 The next clause of the passage quoted, it appears to me, should 
 be put with other passages of Dr Whewell, in which he seems to 
 in- to say that wo do make things the things that tiny are to 
 us by thinking them, that is, by superinducing 'ideas' upon 
 what he calls the sensations (the seeing and touching): when 
 some 'things', viz. the rays of Light, act upon our organs of 
 perception, then, by thinking (as we make our thoughts), by 
 superinducing ideas of space, &c), we make other 'things', viz. 
 a tree or tin- sun, and these are the thin-;- which common 
 language describes us as 'seeing'. 
 
 The antithesis between 'thoughts' and 'things', and the 
 antithesis between 'theories' and 'facts', are in the main similar, 
 and arc- described in very much tin' same language. And I 
 speak of them in particular, because it seems to mo that the 
 
 1 iii. ]•. 24. 
 
 * Of course if it does, the inference must be from a maxim, ' whai w< an I 
 and touch exists': implying, previous to Ihe commi net mi ot of know!* dge, a notii n 
 of exi ti dm indi pi adent of our own, and a sort of pn 11 ii d< i of 1 ur seeing and 
 touchi 
 
 15—2
 
 228 THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS [CHAP. 
 
 'antithesis', so to call it, has really, as Dr Whewell himself 
 puts it sometimes, much more the character of a contrast (or 
 counter-respondence) of view than of a separation of elements. 
 1 That which is a Fact under one aspect, is a Theory under 
 another". So says Dr Whewell in one place, and so say I, 
 and the same of ' thought ' and ' thing ', ' idea ' and ' sensa- 
 tion '. ' Theories ', again he says, ' become facts by becoming 
 certain and familiar'. That is, they become facts as we con- 
 ceive facts : and just in the same manner if we look in the 
 reverse direction, 'facts' become in our mind true theories or 
 conceptions. 
 
 Speaking of theory, I will just comment for a moment on 
 a passage of Dr Whewell's, in which he gives a most interest- 
 ing and fruitful illustration, and falls it seems to me into a 
 mistake as illustrative and important. 
 
 " The scene of nature is a picture without depth of sub- 
 " stance, no less than the scene of art ; and in the one case as 
 " in the other, it is the mind which, by an act of its own, dis- 
 " covers that colour and shape denote distance and solidity. 
 " Most men are unconscious of this perpetual habit of reading 
 " the language of the external world, and translating as they 
 " read. The draughtsman, indeed, is compelled, for his purposes, 
 "to return back in thought from the solid bodies which he has 
 " inferred, to the shapes of surface which he really sees. He 
 " knows that there is a mask of theory over the whole face of 
 " nature, if it be theory to infer more than we see. But other 
 •' men, unaware of this masquerade, hold it to be a fact that 
 " they see cubes and spheres, spacious apartments and winding 
 " avenues. And these things are facts to them, because they 
 " are unconscious of the mental operation by which they have 
 "penetrated nature's disguise 2 ". 
 
 If any one will ponder this passage well, he will see, I 
 think, how the two things which I condemn, the relativism 
 and the wrong psychology, go together, and how they render 
 clear thought impossible. 
 
 What is it that we want to see, or, if we prefer the expres- 
 sion, which ought we to see ? 
 
 It appears to me that Dr Whewell, in the above passage, 
 
 1 Hist, of Scientific Ideas, p. 44. s lb. p. 46.
 
 XI.] OP PHILOSOPHY. 229 
 
 describes exactly the same proceeding on our part, in the earlier 
 part of the passage as 'the seeing, not the face of nature, 
 but a mask of theory over it ', and in the end of the passage 
 as 'the penetrating nature's disguise'. That is, in the same 
 passage, the view of knowledge taken is changed to one exactly 
 the reverse. The draughtsman does not see the cubes and 
 spheres, but the surfaces, and it is this sight which is it ap- 
 pears the real face of nature : we do see the cubes and spheres, 
 and this way of our seeing is described first as seeing nature 
 in masquerade, and then as u/imasquerading her. Which is it ? 
 I may be wrong in my understanding of the sentence, and 
 so far as I am right, I say most unfeignedly that my view of the 
 confusion is as of something which it is almost impossible to 
 avoid, so long as the language about sensation and nature is 
 used, which is almost the received language, and no peculiar 
 language of Dr Whewell. I mean such language as ' the shapes 
 of surface which the draughtsman really sees' , and the language 
 about 'inference', to which however I will return if I can again. 
 And then, supposing the existence of this mask of theory (a 
 most happy expression it seems to me, well understood), what 
 does the mask cover ? The face of nature ? Nature, or fact, is 
 to me, and I should have thought to Dr Whewell, the mask it- 
 self, if we are to call 'mask' what theory presents to us; and 
 what is beneath the mask is not 'the face of nature', but the 
 'unknowable substratum' of the notionalists, the 'nonsense in- 
 contradictory' of Mr Ferrier. The notion of the mask over the 
 face of nature is exactly that which I am sure Dr Whewell does 
 not wish to fall into — it is what I have called 'relativism'. It' 
 'the face of nature' is reality, then the mask over it, which is 
 what theory gives us, is so nun-li deception, and that is what 
 relativism really comes to. Excepl that even the mask is l< 
 deceptive than the relativist's knowledge, for the mask dues 
 give us some features of what is within. If on the other hand, 
 what theory •^'•'•^ "s is r< • o\ fact, then, as 1 said, the mask 
 is the face. And in either case, we have nothing to do with 
 'penetrating nature's disguise'; and this view of knowledge, 
 anyhow out of place here, is not worth much anywhere. If 
 nature dm-^ disguise herself, as the relativists believe, she is 
 likely, as they also believe, to do bo effectually.
 
 1230 THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS [CHAP. 
 
 My view then is precisely expressed by the antithesis as it 
 exists between Theories and Facts. "As our knowledge", says 
 Dr Whew ell, " becomes more sure and more extensive, we are 
 " constantly transferring to the class of facts, opinions which were 
 "at first regarded as theories 1 ". Fact is nature or the uni- 
 verse : and fact here, with Dr Whewell, is described as justified 
 or verified opinion, just as I have described it as Tightness of 
 thought: the growth of our knowledge is the increase of faet 
 for us by the conversion of opinion into it : I have described 
 fact, or phenomenalism, as a deposit from imagination in this 
 same way. 
 
 In my view, the antithesis between thoughts and things 
 is just the same as this between theories and facts. How far 
 they are the same with Dr Whewell, we have seen. 
 
 I will quote rather at length Dr Whewell's language on the 
 antithesis as it exists between 'ideas' and 'sensations'. 
 
 " Space, time, number, are not Sensations or Things. They 
 " are something different from, and opposed to Sensations and 
 " Things. We have termed them Ideas. It may be said they 
 " are Relations of Things, or of Sensations. But granting this 
 " form of expression, still a Relation is not a Thing or a Sensa- 
 "tion; and therefore we must still have another and opposite 
 " element, along with our Sensations. And yet, though we have 
 " thus these two elements in every act of perception, we cannot 
 " designate any portion of the act as absolutely and exclusively 
 " belonging to one of the elements. Perception involves Sen- 
 " sation, along with Ideas of time, space, and the like ; or, if any 
 " one prefers the expression, we may say, Perception involves 
 " Sensations along with the apprehension of Relations. Percep- 
 " tion is Sensation, along with such ideas as make Sensation 
 " into an apprehension of Things or Objects. 
 
 "And as Perception of Objects implies Ideas, — as Obser- 
 " vation implies Reasoning; — so, on the other hand, Ideas cannot 
 " exist where sensation has not been 2 ". 
 
 If we begin, as in the case of the antithesis between things 
 and thoughts, with the latter part of this language, I hold 
 with it, giving my own meaning to 'sensation' and 'percep- 
 tion', and my own meaning to the calling the object of the 
 1 lb. p. 49. 2 lb. p. 46.
 
 XI.] OF PHILOSOPHY. . 231 
 
 one and that of the other, 'two elements': but this meaning 
 is such as does not lead me to say that space is not 'a thing', 
 or that it is not, in another and more proper signification of the 
 term 'sensation', a 'sensation': nor can I understand the lan- 
 guage, that space and time are 'opposed' to sensations or 
 things, and constitute an element 'opposite' to the other. I 
 will not say again what I have said as to 'the scale of sensation 
 or knowledge': I am equally ready (if only we take care which 
 we do) to use the term 'sensation' of all our knowledge, or of 
 knowledge such as our knowledge of secondary qualities : and 
 similarly 'perception' of all our just thought suggesting the 
 presence of phenomena, or of such thought as applied to the 
 primary qualities, united with sensation in the second significa- 
 tion above : and if any one likes to call knowledge such as that 
 of the secondary, and such again as that of the primary qualities 
 (knowledge i.e. at different heights on my scale), different ele- 
 ments, I do not quarrel with him. Only that in this view we 
 have really not two, but many, elements of knowledge : and to 
 me, Dr Whewell's 'Ideas' rise some of them as much above 
 others as any of them rise above his 'sensations'. This we 
 shall see better shortly. 
 
 What I quarrel with is the supposition of the two elements, 
 with the reason for it, viz. thai the one is derived from the 
 mind, the other from things. I have described the extenl to 
 which, in my view, tins may be said justly : but as it is given 
 by Dr Whewell, it seems to me to involve all the wrong psy- 
 chology which it is my chief business to oppose. 'Sensal ions' are 
 defined 'the impressions upon our senses': then these sensa- 
 tions are connected by us ra perception according to relations of 
 Bpace, time, number : these connexions of the sensations contem- 
 plated distinct from the things to which they are applied, con- 
 stitute 'ideas'. The sensations are apprehended by the se] 
 then relations of them by an ad of the mind : the senses furnish 
 
 lething, but these relations go beyond whal they furnish: 
 the mind is passive, as well as active; there are obji cts without 
 a- wi II as faculties within. The mind is always actively applying 
 ideas to the objects which it perceives, bul at the same tirat 
 pa sively perceiving them by means of sensations This ii Dr 
 Whewell's account.
 
 232 THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS [CHAP. 
 
 I do not want here the least to be cavilling about language, 
 and for that reason give a variety of sentences of Dr Whewell's, 
 who is here giving nothing which is peculiarly his own, but only 
 describing vividly and interestingly what a great many would 
 agree with him in. What I want the reader to judge for him- 
 self about, not by any one sentence, but by conceiving, as well 
 as he can, the whole view, is this : Are there here two processes, 
 or as I say, one ? Is the mind's passivity, in so far as it is recep- 
 tivity, or in other words, as there is knowledge, anything other 
 than its activity looked at the other way ? Are objects objects 
 to us any otherwise than as our faculties are exercised upon 
 them ? What is the meaning of ' applying ideas to the objects' ? 
 Are the objects objects to us independently of this application? 
 then we know without ideas : and what do the ideas add ? Or, 
 on the other hand, are they not? then the application of the 
 ideas is the knowing: and till they are applied there is no 
 knowledge of any kind. All I am concerned with is, that there 
 are not two processes, but one described different ways. And 
 when Dr Whewell speaks of anything ' being apprehended by 
 the senses ', is he not doing the very thing which he condemned 
 in the passage which I quoted before, and ' designating a por- 
 tion of the act of perception as exclusively belonging to one of 
 its elements', viz. (his) sensation? 
 
 I will not dwell upon this because what is wanted is thought, 
 and not perhaps very easy thought on the part of the reader, and 
 I speak of it in reference to Dr Whewell, because it seems 
 to me, as I have said, that all that he says here is eminently 
 instructive as to our view of knowledge, and that the wrong 
 psychology is not essential, and has got, as I expressed it, its 
 antidote with it. 
 
 It is chiefly by the aid of the sense of sight that this dis- 
 tinction between what comes from the mind and what from the 
 thing is made out. I will not speak of this now, because I 
 should like to speak a little of this sense shortly by itself. 
 
 Let the reader only weigh such a sentence as this (it is 
 'seeing' that is being spoken of): "Who does not know how 
 " much we, by an act of the mind, add to that which our senses 
 "receive? 1 " What 'our senses 'means here, I cannot understand. 
 
 1 lb. p. 45-
 
 XI.] OF PHILOSOPHY. '233 
 
 Is it the optic nerve ? Then the act of the mind adds every- 
 thing, and we do not apprehend by the sense anything. Is 
 it ourselves as sensitive, so that ' what our senses receive' is the 
 change of consciousness which we describe as 'seeino-'? Then 
 what needs any act of the mind besides this ? Is it not itself 
 an act of the mind, if so we choose to describe it ? 
 
 I have perhaps said enough to make it understood in what 
 manner I consider the antithesis right, and in what wrong. It is 
 right in three ways : (1) as presenting the double view, in the 
 way which I mentioned in speaking about theory and fact : 
 (2) as applied through Dr WhewelTs book, in bringing out pro- 
 perly the manner in which the mind, in the process of learning 
 or increasing knowledge, is active : and (3) in marking the dif- 
 ferent hinds of things which are the objects of our knowledge, 
 though Dr WhewelTs view of these kinds is different in some 
 il'^Tee from mine. 
 
 The antithesis is wrong in one way: that it divides a part of 
 knowledge, as belonging to the mind, from a part as not belong- 
 ing to it : whereas all knoui. -dg.- is right thought, if we look at 
 it so, as on the other hand all knowledge is fact exhibiting itself 
 to us or at which we are present, it' we look at it so. 
 
 The second way in which, as I noticed above, the antithesis is 
 important, gives it probably its main value 
 
 "An inductive truth", says Dr Whewell, " is proved like the 
 "guess which answers a riddle, by its agreeing with the facts 
 " described x ". This account is incomplete, and is commented 
 upon as such very severely by Mr Mill, because it is possible 
 that various theories nii gjree with the facts described, and 
 
 we want one answer, nol several to the riddle of the universe: 
 but the describing the problem as th<- gu.-.sing ••' riddle puts it 
 more aptly than any description of il as 'fad impressing itself 
 upon us', because the real activity is Oil OUT side, and in ail 
 history of the process this is the important thing to bring 
 fully out Dr WnewelTs view Is I think more likely than many 
 others to save us from thai cardinal confusion in the study of 
 the process of knowledge, the considering the things as known 
 before we know them. 
 
 1 /'-. p 39.
 
 234 THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS [CHAP. 
 
 The mass of observed fact at any time, say upon any par- 
 ticular subject as to which knowledge is progressing, presents a 
 double aspect: in reference to its past, and to the thought 
 which has been expended upon it, it is knowledge and is orderly : 
 but on the side opposite to this it is not knowledge but only the 
 inform matter of possible future knowledge, and itself chaos or 
 confusion. The idea or right conception is then applied to it : it 
 becomes knowledge and order. The important thing to observe 
 here is, that it is not to this as to fact that the idea is applied, 
 thereby generating knowledge, but to this as fact as yet unac- 
 counted for, and felt as unaccounted for : it is this, the unac- 
 counted for, which is the matter of knowledge, and wants the idea 
 or conception to make it knowledge : as fact, it is knowledge 
 already, and is orderly, having been generated as Dr Whewell 
 has himself described, from theory : this, the unaccounted for, 
 is Mr Ferrier's non-sense, the not-yet sense. Now it is only in 
 this way, it seems to me, that we can form a notion of this in- 
 form matter of knowledge, and therefore of what it is which the 
 application of the idea effects. To form a notion of it, we must 
 of course to some degree know it, i.e. it must in some way be 
 no longer only matter of knowledge, but knowledge : but we may 
 consider it in another way not yet knowledge, and this is just 
 the state of Dr Whewell's 'fact with the idea as yet unapplied'. 
 It is not therefore that the idea is of any different nature from the 
 fact to which it is applied : it is not that the fact is something 
 generically given to the mind, and the idea something generi- 
 cally proceeding from the mind : the fact, as known fact, does 
 not want the idea, nor is capable of it : it is the fact in that 
 aspect of it in which it is analogous to what I described the 
 logical subject to be — in its aspect of the unaccounted for and 
 undescribed, conceptible but unconceived, in which aspect it has 
 no character but that of capability of the appropriate concep- 
 tion — in which it is waiting for its idea as the subject waits for 
 its predicate — it is the fact in this aspect of it that wants the 
 idea: and it is in this view that Dr Whewell's account of the 
 growth of knowledge is true and valuable. We have epistemo- 
 logy, or the manner in which we make knowledge out of its 
 prae-objectal matter or confusion, exemplified before us in an 
 actual course or progress : and that without even so much of
 
 XI.] OF PHILOSOPHY. 23") 
 
 t eel 1 idealism as I use here, with no cumbrous logical phraseology 
 bringing us into danger of notionalism or mis-realization, but 
 with, when fact is what we are concerned with, what I call a 
 genuine and good phenomenalism, that is, a view of nature as 
 our sensive powers actually communicate with it. 
 
 Such being the manner in which I look at Dr "Whewell's 
 proceeding, of course I set no particular value on his language, 
 as distinguished from other possible language in conjunction 
 with which the same pi-oceeding might go on. This successive 
 application of ideas to the matter of knowledge is a course of 
 thought on our part about the universe, the great and primaeval 
 subject of knowledge, the vast unaccounted for and conceptible, 
 but only one way, in substance, conceptible — capable only of 
 the right account of it and the appropriate conception. Dr 
 "Whewell's ideas are a set of real categories or great predicates, 
 of which the universe, as such a subject, is susceptible. And 
 all this, as I view it, does not prevent our turning the thing the 
 other way, and looking at these ideas as the great facts of the 
 universe, if we like to begin with supposing the universe whal 
 we finally come to find out that it is : then, however, we are 
 merely adstant, presenl a1 it, we must not make the incongruous 
 supposition of ourselves thinking and learning about it. But 
 since we do think and learn about it, and knowledge grows, and 
 the Rationale of its growth is Real Logic, the best method for 
 Real Logic is that of Dr Whewell, where the activity of our 
 mind- Lb fully taken accounl of, or that is the point of view. 
 
 Dr Whewell's ideas are in my view simply knowledge viewed 
 as proceeding from the activity of the mind, in the Bame way as 
 his t'nrts are Bimply knowledge viewed as coming to the mind, 
 or apparent to it. It seems to me thai there is throughoul 
 an inconsistency in Ins language, arising from hifl mixing the 
 notion to me right) of the mind forming its conceptions and 
 applying them to the facts (in the manner jusl described), with 
 the notion to me the wrong one) of the mind having ideas (the 
 relation of which to the above 'conceptions' is confused) as its 
 furniture, in the same way as the universe has things for its 
 
 furniture. I accept, as against Mr Mill, ML". C te, and perhaps 
 
 others, Dr Whewell's view in general of the manner of the 
 growth of knowledge. Bui 1 think thai the notion of the idea
 
 236 THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS [CHAP. 
 
 being the furniture of the mind, so fax from being necessary to 
 what is good in the view, is incongruous with it. The whole 
 purpose of distinguishing anything as belonging to the mind 
 from something else as belonging to the universe, is in order 
 that we may be able to contemplate reflectively the former in- 
 dependent of that continuing change of view which progressive 
 experience or growth of knowledge causes in us. But Dr 
 Whewell's ideas have got nothing fixed or stable about them: 
 even the value of space and time, as necessary and original 
 ideas, is destroyed by the association with them of ideas in 
 regard of which we are in no degree certain that we are really 
 in right possession of them : the ideas cannot warrant any truth 
 to us when so many of them want warranting themselves. 
 
 For the notion of the generic distinction of the idea from 
 the fact, there needs to be substituted the notion which I gave 
 above, that it is not the fact, qua fact, which wants the idea as 
 something to complete it, but the fact as unaccounted for. 
 " We see two trees of different kinds : but we cannot know that 
 " they are so, except by applying to them our idea of the resem- 
 " blance and difference which makes kinds 1 ". The superinduc- 
 tion of the idea upon the fact as fact is just that same relativism 
 and wrong psychology united which makes us suppose the ex- 
 isting universe first, and then speculate how we know it. We 
 then inevitably get the notion that our knowledge of it alters 
 its existence to us, or is not of its true existence, which is what I 
 call ' relativism '. And between the senses feeling and the mind 
 perceiving we make the notion of knowledge utterly disjointed 
 and confused. This is the wrong psychology. In the sentence 
 above, I cannot possibly understand the meaning of 'seeing two 
 trees of different kinds', and yet having still to know that they 
 are of different kinds, by applying to them the idea of kind. 
 When we first see the trees, how do they seem to us ? of the 
 same kind ? then what leads us to apply to them the idea which 
 makes us change our mind about them and think them of dif- 
 ferent kinds ? Or, on the other hand, do we see them of dif- 
 ferent kinds ? then we do know their difference already before 
 the idea is applied. Or, again, do we see them of no kind ? but 
 then we do not see them as trees : they cannot be trees to us 
 
 1 lb. p. 32.
 
 XI.] OF PHILOSOPHY. 237 
 
 without the thought on our part of kind. What I want to uro-e 
 is this : that the idea is not applied to the fact as fact, for, as 
 such, it is complete already, but to the fact as idea (if so for a 
 moment we may speak, following the analogy of some language 
 which I have formerly used), or in other words, to the jagged edge 
 of the fact, to the fact where it is incomplete, suggestive, causing 
 wonder, stirring imagination, leaving something to be accounted 
 for. We see two trees of different kinds : Avhat we want to 
 know is not that they are of different kinds, for that is what we 
 see, and it is very likely this difference which makes us notice 
 them : there wants no fresh idea applying for that : but no doubt 
 there is something we want to know, and a great deal, viz. what 
 I should call the meaning of their being of different kinds, the 
 reason of what we see : are they both the same thing, what 
 ought to be called by the same name, or are they not ? What is 
 the meaning of their being so like each other, and yet so curiously 
 different? The answer to these questions is the development 
 of the idea of kind: whether this idea comes from the mind 
 or whether it is in the thing I do not care to enquire for various 
 reasons, which I have given. What is of consequence is, that 
 there is no seeing till there is the idea : and after there is 
 seeing, the idea is not wanted for that seeing, though it is 
 wanted perhaps abundantly for what that seeing suggests. 
 
 What I agree with Dr Whewell in is the following: "Thus 
 " the Idea is disclosed bul noi fully revealed, imparted bul aol 
 "transfused, by the use we make of it in science. When we 
 "have taken from the fountain so much as serves our purpose, 
 " there still remains behind a deep well of truth, which we have 
 "not exhausted, and which we may easily believe to be in- 
 
 " exhaustible"'. And such an account Of Space as that which he 
 
 gives, where ho describes 'the perception of it as by a sixth 
 
 'sense 2 ' and uses language in which I have cut inly followed 
 him and other,; 'we perceive space by motion': and much 
 
 besides of mosl interesting de cription, Leaving mo quite ; ,t .-i 
 loss why space is described, as we saw in another place, as 
 something opposite to sensations. 
 
 What I dissent from him in is expressed by smh a passage 
 
 1 Ih. p. 75. 3 I''- V- If*
 
 238 THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS [CHAP. 
 
 as the following, surely very different from the description 
 above : "Whether we call the conception of space a Condition 
 " of perception, a Form of perception, or an Idea, or by any 
 " other term, it is something originally inherent in the mind 
 " perceiving, and not in the objects perceived 1 ". 
 
 The putting together the following two passages 2 from the 
 same page may perhaps exactly express my difference with 
 him. The first : " Ideas regulate the active operations of our 
 " minds, without which our passive sensations do not become 
 "knowledge". The second: "Knowledge involves an active as 
 " well as a passive element; knowledge is not possible without 
 " an act of the mind, regulated by certain laws". 
 
 Instead of this last passage, what I should say would be : 
 Knowledge is all active if we like to call it so, or all passive 
 if we prefer that way of expressing ourselves : if we only knew, 
 and did not learn, it would not matter which way we spoke : as 
 it is the former is the better, because in learning we must 
 describe the mind as active, and the description of knowledge 
 as passive only applies to the mind after the knowledge has 
 been gained. 
 
 Is Dr Whewell's latter passage here consistent with the 
 former ? 
 
 If by 'sensations' in the former passage is meant what I 
 have called 'bodily communication', then the former passage 
 exactly expresses my view. But then the sensations, though 
 they may be necessary for some knowledge, are no part or 
 element of knowledge themselves. The knowledge is all super- 
 induced upon them. 
 
 If by ' sensations' is meant consciousness in conjunction with 
 the nervous affection, then it is wrong to say that without 
 the idea superinduced there is not knowledge. This conscious- 
 ness in the sensation is itself knowledge — in fact the idea 
 is superinduced — in the sensation as felt is implied notice, 
 i. e. mental activity — if sensation is more than unfelt bodily 
 communication there is thought in it, and this thought is 
 Dr Whewell's ' idea '. There are not two elements of know- 
 ledge. 
 
 1 lb. p. 94. " lb. p. 69.
 
 XI.] OF PHILOSOPHY. 230 
 
 Dr Whewell's argument that the idea of space is not from 
 experience, but is inherent in the mind, is of the following- 
 character. 
 
 " I assert, then, that space is not a notion obtained by 
 " experience. Experience gives us information concerning things 
 "without us: but our apprehending them as without us, takes 
 " for granted their existence in space. Experience acquaints us 
 " what are the form, position, magnitude of particular objects : 
 "but that they have form, position, magnitude, presupposes that 
 "they are in space. We cannot derive from appearances, by 
 " the way of observation, the habit of representing things to 
 " ourselves as in space ; for no single act of observation is 
 " possible any otherwise than by beginning with such a re- 
 presentation, and conceiving objects as already existing in 
 
 a 1" 
 
 space . 
 What the first three sentences of this passage go to prove 
 is, that the existence of objects in space is a presupposition to 
 any particular experience, on our part, of them. Does this 
 prove in any way that space may not be considered the first, 
 and a general, experience? We cannot apprehend objects with- 
 out apprehending space. How does this show that the space is 
 more in the mind than the objects are? Dr Whewell's sen- 
 tence — 'our apprehending things as without us, takes for 
 granted their existence in space'— seems to me, naturally 
 taken, to express my view rather than his. I say, our appre- 
 hending objects, and that in space, and the objects, to our 
 belief, existing, and that in space, are two ways of expressing 
 the same thing. Both objects and space either belong to the 
 mind, or exist independently of the mind, according as we 
 
 use our language. Space and objects both alike (phe lenal- 
 
 ism, as I fall the union, though not approving the term 'ob- 
 jects') constitute either the first great general experience, <>r 
 represent a way in which we inevitably think, \s lii<li« \ . i- lan- 
 guage we like to use. 
 
 In Whewell's expression 'tin- habit of representing thh 
 to ourselvi in Bpace', seems t" me t<> suggest happily the 
 
 truth ae between thi two parties. Be says, You experientialists 
 
 1 lb. i' 139.
 
 240 THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS [CHAP. 
 
 must then consider that the representing to ourselves things in 
 spaoe is a habit which we learn by experience, and that cannot 
 be, surely : they say, No, the expression ' habit of representing 
 things to ourselves in space' belongs to you: we feel the space 
 as we feel them : it is with lis an object, a part of objects, 
 the first object : it is with you that spatial representation is a 
 mental habit : with us the expression has no significance : space 
 with us is a part of objects. 
 
 I have dwelt upon all this as I have, because I seem quite 
 certain that in what Dr Whewell says about ideas there is a 
 great deal that is true, and because it appears to me that this 
 semi-Kantist or Kantoidic doctrine (of Kantism itself I say 
 nothing) with its almost inevitable results of notionalism and 
 relativism, does not properly belong to the right portion of 
 Dr Whewell's views, however much it may seem inwoven with 
 it. In looking at the ' Scientific Ideas' of which Dr Whewell 
 writes the history, I want to be free to look at them as I please 
 and according to the purpose which I have in view, either as, 
 what certainly they are, so far as we can be certain we have 
 fairly got hold of them, the great constituents, features, realities 
 of the universe, or as, what is all that we can be certain they are 
 till we have a reasonable confidence that we have fairly got 
 hold of them, man's ideas about the universe, the results of the 
 activity of his mind as in his history he comes into contact 
 with one portion of the universe after another, and not only 
 examines the things which offer themselves, but puts them 
 into new circumstances for better examination. To me, the 
 ideas are equally interesting in both aspects. To know, so far 
 as we can, the world we live in, is one most glorious aim. To 
 know the history of man's speculations about it, right and wrong, 
 is to me scarcely less interesting. 
 
 But the saying, in this respect, that the ideas belong to the 
 mind, and that the universe is something to which the ideas do 
 not belong, seems to me to be a tearing in half what ought to 
 go all together, and to spoil the whole view. When this is 
 done, we can make nothing really of either the ideas or the 
 universe. There is a necessary confusion about the ideas, 
 whether they are something which the mind furnishes, ready 
 to its hand from the beginning, or whether they are something
 
 XI.] OF PHILOSOPHY. 241 
 
 which we learn and gradually attain to. And so our notion of 
 the universe must be that confused mis-psychological one which 
 I have so often spoken of — the universe is before us and we can 
 describe it, and yet somehow or other we have yet got to apply 
 the ideas and to know it. 
 
 And besides, this wrong antithesis between the ideas on 
 the one side, and on the other the universe, not as confused 
 matter of knowledge, but as already fact and objects to us, pre- 
 vents any proper examination of the relation of the ideas to 
 each other, and of their relative subordination and importance. 
 Notions most heterogeneous, as 'duty', 'cause', 'space', have to 
 be put into one category as belonging to the mind as against 
 what does not belong to it, and this antithesis is looked at as 
 so important that we are in danger of losing the proper notion 
 of the relations among the things thus put together. 
 
 On Dr WhewelTs book I have perhaps said enough. Space in 
 my view is something higher, more mental, than oxygen or car- 
 bon, time than space, cause and kind than time, and in this way 
 there may be a continued succession, and a continued succession 
 .of antitheses : the mind may go on supplying higher and higher 
 ideas; the universe, or fact, is not anything which receives the 
 idea, but is that which the idea constitutes before us. And 
 this is the same process as thai which may be described as 
 man's finding the ideas in the universe: the history of the ideas 
 is alike the history of man's mental construction of the univ< rse 
 which his mind lives in. and of his analysis, ever evoh ing higher 
 and worthier features, of the universe which he finds himself 
 bodily in. 
 
 16
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 
 
 On the famous metaphor of knowledge being the interpre- 
 tation of nature, of which Dr Whewell speaks — and warms in 
 the speaking of it to the consideration of it as something more 
 than a metaphor 1 — I will say a few words : for this reason, that 
 I think the metaphor rightly employed is a most instructive 
 means of illustrating the wrong psychology, and wrongly used 
 it is a very great support of relativism. 
 
 Let us suppose that I, ignorant of Sanscrit, purchase a 
 Sanscrit book, without the slightest knowledge of its title or 
 subject. It has been the property of other people before me, 
 and they, or some of them, know that it is an account of the 
 campaign of Alexander in India : but this knowledge of theirs 
 is nothing to me. 
 
 The reason why the consideration of this is important in 
 respect of the wrong psychology, is the following: (1) that it 
 gives us a good illustration of what is the meaning of the 
 matter, or inform (unformed) matter, of knowledge, out of which 
 we, by activity of the mind (superinducing form, if we like so to 
 speak), make knowledge in percej>tion : (which matter of know- 
 ledge Dr Whewell erroneously supposes to be things known 
 already to a certain extent by a kind of inferior knowledge or 
 sensation) : and (2) that it is likely to show us the wrongness 
 of the mis-psychological supposition of the independence, first, 
 of the things perceived, and of our then, as such, j)erceiving 
 them, 
 
 A stone lies before me : I see it. This is very well to de- 
 
 1 Jlist. Scient. Ideas, Vol. I. p. 42.
 
 CHAP. XII.] THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 2-13 
 
 scribe what we each of us do now: we know our Sanscrit : but 
 if this manner of expression be used, as we shall find it con- 
 tinually used, in speaking of the manner of our coming to see 
 things, or in giving a history of vision, it is just as if in relation 
 to the book which I spoke of it should be said of me, He has 
 got the history of Alexander's campaign before him : he reads 
 it. He has really got before him a bewildering chaos of lines 
 and characters, out of which, as he learns, he makes out, or in 
 which, if we prefer the expression, he gradually comes to per- 
 ceive, what he then calls, or finds out to be what others call, 
 a history of the campaign of Alexander. This is the manner 
 in which we perceive or know anything, whether rudimentary 
 or advanced: whether the supposed stone lying before us, or 
 the mighty fact equally lying before us, of the earth's revolution 
 round the sun. And the illustration from language is useful, 
 because it is only by means of an illustration that the truth on 
 the subject can come home to us. We cannot unsee the pro- 
 spect before us. Dr Whewel] has well described, in a passage 
 which I lately quoted, how the draughtsman (as /will expi 
 it) unsees to a certain extent, i.e. by effort divests himself of 
 certain habitual ways of vision or inference from vision: bul 
 we have got to unsee and unknow much further back- than 
 this, if we are in anyway to attempt imaginatively to recon- 
 struct our knowledge. The inform matbr of knowledge of 
 course cannot be conceived or imagined as inform, because the 
 conception or imagination is so far giving it form, or making it 
 actual knowledge: but we musl remember thai when we speak 
 of the activity of tin' mind exerting itself in such a manner 
 that there arises knowledge, it is upon this thai we musl Bup- 
 pose it exerting itself, or upon something in >■> tar a- n ha. 
 this character, not upon something which has its term ami 
 character, so a- to be known, already. 
 
 In the book, thai whirl, Lies before me, Lndependenl of my 
 understanding it. is a cha ■■""1 lines: that which 
 
 before me, and I understand (supposing 1 understand i\ . 
 [e the history of Alexander's campaign. Our language, in our 
 Bpeaking of the universe and of our advancing knowledge oi it, 
 should follow this analogy. What lie, before ua men in the 
 universe Lndepend< ul of our or anybody's perci iving, who 
 
 L6— 2
 
 244 THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. [CHAP. 
 
 there tliat shall say ? is there any meaning in saying that any- 
 thing does? What lies before us, and we perceive, is the 
 universe, or what we call the universe, in all its particulars. 
 
 But let it be observed (and the illustration is equally good 
 for the showing us this), what ' we want to know, what is the 
 real thing to be known, is what we do come to know, or advance 
 more and more towards knowing : this inform matter of know- 
 ledge is not the thing in itself, or anything deserving the name of 
 a substratum : knowing is superinducing form upon, i. e. thinking 
 rightly about, this matter of knowledge, and it is merely in- 
 consfi'uous to lament or to feel humbled because it cannot be 
 known otherwise than by being thought rightly about. The 
 characters are our road to the knowledge of the contents of the 
 book. The notion of the thing in itself and the unknowable 
 substratum seems to me to be as if, in the case of the book, 
 instead of learning Sanscrit, I should occupy myself in thinking 
 what the characters are independent of their being Sanscrit or 
 a language. No knowledge lies that road. 
 
 And on the other hand, as the inform matter of knowledge 
 is no thing in itself, so neither is the real thing in itself, the 
 true object of knowledge (in this case the history of Alexander's 
 campaign), something that the characters hide from us, but 
 something which they guide us to. The coming to understand 
 them is the coming to understand what is in them or what they 
 contain — different as the knowledge of them is from the know- 
 ledge of this latter, the attaining to the one of these things 
 is the attaining to the other. 
 
 This same fruitful metaphor may illustrate (for we must 
 remember that it is all but illustration) something more about 
 relativism. Using language similar to that of Sir William 
 Hamilton on which I some time ago commented, we might say 
 that there is a double relativeness in the knowledge which we 
 have from the book of Alexander's campaign (the thing in itself 
 or real existence) : we know not it, but only a modification of it, 
 viz. the knowledge or opinion which the writer of the book had 
 of it: and we know this only through our knowledge of the 
 Sanscrit language, as we know what we know only through our 
 own special faculties. 
 
 Now of course there might exist an account of Alexander's
 
 XII.] THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 245 
 
 campaign in Greek written by a different person from the 
 writer of my account of it, and another person might know that 
 He and I should then know Alexander's campaign, differently, 
 that is, should have, to a certain extent, different opinions about 
 it. And what I want observed is, that there is no meaning in 
 describing this state of things (and the parallel is exact with 
 Sir William Hamilton's language) as our having two different 
 relative knowledges of the history of the campaign, as our not 
 knowing the history itself of the campaign, but only a modifi- 
 cation of it — of course this is so, but it is simply because the 
 knowledge is incomplete; and so far as we do know or as there 
 is knowledge, what we do know is the history itself of the cam- 
 paign, and nothing else. In the one case the one language and 
 the one author's view, in the other case the other language and 
 the other author's view, are successive stages on the road to some 
 knowledge of the actual history, and we pass by them to this. 
 The deceptiveness of the relativist view is in this, that it sug- 
 gests that there is one sort of knowledge proper for people to 
 whom one modification of existence is turned and who have one 
 set of faculties, and another for another. But these, as the 
 illustration illustrates to us, are only stages towards the attain- 
 ment of the knowledge which is beyond them, which, so far 
 as it is knowledge, is necessarily the same for all, and is un- 
 relative.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 SUBSTANCE AND MEDIUM. 
 
 The ideas which Dr Whewell gives seem to go each of them 
 through a very different history. Some are seen with tolerable 
 distinctness almost from the first: some are for a long time 
 without there being any suspicion or glimpse of them: and 
 some are at the first most vaguely apprehended or most strangely 
 misapprehended. 
 
 The supposition that in them is the element of certainty or 
 trustworthiness in our knowledge seems to have arisen from 
 observation of the first of these three kinds, to which belong 
 space and time, the foundations of geometry and arithmetic: 
 and to apply this supposition to the other kinds, seems extraor- 
 dinarily difficult. 
 
 As ' polarity ' belongs to the second kind, so I suppose ' sub- 
 stance ' does to the third. 
 
 Ideas of this third sort appear to pass through three stages, not 
 at all like to, but still something in the manner of, M. Comte's 
 three stages of thought. First a stage of most wild vagueness : 
 second, perhaps, one of logical or philosophical consideration or 
 rendering: third, the clear and developed stage. 
 
 Whether or not 'resemblance' goes through these three 
 stages, I think Dr Whewell's ' substance ' does. 
 
 So far as the first of these stages is of interest and import- 
 ance, it can only be so in a very wide and general consideration- 
 of it, such as with reference, for instance, to the constitution of 
 the universe or of matter, is contained in various portions of Dr 
 Whewell's book. The history of early human speculation about 
 anything is most interesting. But it can go very little way 
 towards helping us to the right idea or portion of truth which 
 such very vague speculations may contain.
 
 CHAP. XIII.] SUBSTANCE AND MEDIUM. L'47 
 
 And what Dr Whewell says about such early speculation 
 at the beginning of his chapter on the idea of 'substance' I 
 cannot enter into at all. It is exceedingly likely that in the 
 minds of some philosophers the 'gigni e nilo nil' — that nothing 
 can be produced of nothing — and views .similar to it, may have 
 represented early speculations about the constitution of matter 
 which chemical investigation will now justify: but surely it is 
 not right to speak of any notion of this kind, in one and a con- 
 sistent sense, as ' current as an axiom among the early philo- 
 sophers of Greece', and to call it 'a steady keeping hold of the 
 Idea of substance'. There is not anything which can be called 
 either currency or tangible idea. 
 
 And so far as there is, it is surely something entirely dif- 
 ferent from the logical notion of the idea of substance to which 
 Dr Whewell then proceeds. The principle that ' nothing can 
 be produced from nothing' of the mat' rial philosophers, and 
 the maxim of the logical philosophers, that every property must 
 be a property of something, or must inhere in a subject or sub- 
 stance, seem to me to have nothing at all in common : and the 
 fact that they may be, and perhaps often have been, brought 
 into relation, appears to me to show that what we are dealing 
 with here is simply the history of human speculation, full of 
 interest, but full of error, and that it is not to this history that 
 we must look in our search for 'idea' as 'certainty' and what 
 we can rest in. 
 
 I have commented on Mr Mill's notion of substratum or 
 substance. That of Dr Whewell here should be, in the view 
 of both of them, worse, as it is decidedly more ' ontologies!', 
 and with both of them 'ontology' appears a term of reproach 1 . 
 
 1 Mr Mill's horror of Ontology we have formerly seen— for Dr Whewell's I 
 refer to such passage* as bis character of Sir William Hamilton {Hut. Seu 
 VoL ii. p. 7,7). " Tins writer is a man of nnqvectionable aenteneu and V( i 
 Hive reading : but b shows itself in barren Ontolo tinctions 
 
 which appear to me to b the speculations of the eminent 
 
 schoolmen of the most sterile p riods of the dark ages. 'I bould ha i 
 
 ption of progri 'inductive sciena ronderfuL when we recollect 
 
 that he holds, as an important part of his philosophy, thai thestndj oi mathematics 
 perverts and obscures the mind." I quote thii ■ just to show how 'ontolo* 
 
 gical' is used as a stone to fl • and in order to mention, that I think 
 
 Sir William Hamilton's en . is*the making too much of logic and the o
 
 248 SUBSTANCE AND MEDIUM. [CHAP. 
 
 " An apple/' says Dr Whewell, " which is red, and round, and 
 " hard, is not merely redness, and roundness, and hardness : 
 " these circumstances may all alter while the apple remains the 
 " same apple. Behind or under the appearances which we see, 
 " we conceive something of which we think : or to use the 
 " metaphor which obtained currency among the ancient philo- 
 " sophers, the attributes and qualities which we observe are 
 " supported by and inherent in something : and this something 
 " is called a substratum or substance — that which stands beneath 
 " the apparent qualities and supports them 1 ". And further on : 
 " The supposition of the existence of substance is so far from 
 " being uncertain, that it carries with it irresistible conviction, 
 " and substance is necessarily conceived as something which 
 "cannot be produced or destroyed 2 ". If this is not 'ontology' 
 I do not know what is : not that its being ontology is any 
 reproach in my eyes, but its being, as I conceive it to be, 
 wrong. 
 
 The conviction which attaches to the supposition of the 
 existence of substances is in Dr Whewell's view of a double 
 nature : (1) " The Axiom of the Indestructibility of Substance 
 " (the principle mentioned a short time since, that nothing can 
 " be produced out of nothing) proves the existence of the Idea 
 " of Substance, just as the axioms of geometry and arithmetic 
 " prove the existence of the ideas of space and number 3 ". 
 And (2), " We unavoidably assume that the qualities and pro- 
 " perties which we observe are properties of things : — that the 
 " adjective implies a substantive : — that there is, besides the 
 " external characters of things, something of which they are the 
 " characters 4 ". 
 
 sional misapplication of it, in the same way as may be readily done, and as I 
 think Dr Whewell in a slight degrees does, with mathematics. I offer no apology 
 for Sir William Hamilton's illiberal depreciation of mathematics. But progressive 
 or inductive science is no more connected with mathematics than it is with logic. 
 Both are alike usefid in their place, and both may be pursued into vain sterilities 
 or misapplied. The best thing for both of them is to be earnestly enlisted in aid of 
 progressive science. Dr Whewell has worked hard so to enlist mathematics — but 
 T think Sir William Hamilton endeavoured to do the same with logic — perhaps not 
 with equal success. Nor am I satisfied that the Scholastic speculations were alto- 
 gether so sterile. 
 
 1 Hist. Sclent. Ideas, Vol. II. p. 30. 
 
 2 lb. p. 32. 3 lb. p. 31. 4 lb. p. 30.
 
 XIII.] SUBSTANCE AND MEDIUM. 249 
 
 It seems to me, that Dr WhewelTs view of substance is 
 ' ontology', while that of Mr Mill and I suppose of Sir William 
 Hamilton is what I call ' notionalism' : and I allude to this, to 
 illustrate the difference between these : the ontology in my 
 view is the better of the two. With Dr Whewell, the f sub- 
 stance' of the apple is something behind and under the appear- 
 ances or apparent qualities which we see, and is also something 
 as to which we necessarily conceive that it cannot be produced 
 or destroyed. With Mr Mill, as I understand, the substance 
 of the apple would be an unknown and unknowable substratum 
 of its qualities. 
 
 The former of these notions seems to me exactly the same 
 as that of the scholastic philosophers who conceived that a thing 
 might be transsubstantiated, or have its substance changed, 
 without any change in its apparent qualities : I call it, as dis- 
 tinct from the other, 'ontology', because this substance is con- 
 ceived as the proper matter, as first matter as yet undrest, and 
 if we do not know it, there seems no reason in the nature of 
 things why we should not. I call the other f notionalism', be- 
 cause it depends solely upon the realizing, in my view quite 
 mis-realizing, of logical terms. Dr WhewelTs view it will be 
 seen depends partly on this, but incorporates with it the view 
 of the substance being the real matter, that of which all thi] 
 consist, which can neither be added to nor diminished : putting 
 together, it seems to me, two things quite incongruous, but 
 giving a kind of reality to the idea of substance, due to this 
 latter incorporated view. For if we do like to call the ultimate 
 • •l'-ment or elements of reality in the universe, so far as we tan 
 discover or imagine them, 'substance', this notion is important 
 and may be mosl fertile: material substance, as a physical 
 notion, is well enough. 
 
 But from every possible point of view, the notion of this sub- 
 stance being the same with substance as the Buppoii of qualities 
 Ls a confusion, ae 1 presume was Been by the better of the school- 
 men : — the substance of a body which supporl 3 its qualities is nol 
 its substantial matter a1 Leasl by itself, bul its substantial form. 
 So Ear as we are nol afraid of ontology, the substantial matter 
 of a thing and it, substantial form may together be conceived 
 to constitute its reality: what is really meant by this lb, as
 
 250 SUBSTANCE AND MEDIUM. [CHAP. 
 
 I should express it and already have expressed it, that ' a thing' 
 consists of various features, characters, or qualities if we like 
 to use the word in our own way, which form a scale from ab- 
 stractness to concreteness, and that the characters of a thing 
 which are in the higher part of the scale which communicate 
 more specially with the intellect may be called its form, while 
 those in the lower part which communicate with the nerves of 
 the body may be called its matter. But to put in the case 
 of the apple the substantial matter, or material substance, as the 
 support of qualities, is as I have said confusion on every view. 
 
 Setting aside this confusion, the difficulty or confusion as to 
 the notion of substance or substratum of any kind has to do 
 with our old enemy, the division of truth or reality between the 
 thing and the mind. " Behind or under the appearances (of the 
 "apple) that we see", says Dr Whewell, "we conceive some- 
 " thing of which we think". This is the same thing we have 
 seen so often before, two views put together which will not go 
 together, while either by itself represents the fact. " Behind 
 "the appearances (which are what we describe ourselves as 
 "seeing), there is something of which we think". That is one 
 view. Or, we see something, and this we describe as appear- 
 ance or sensible quality: but we conceive something as behind 
 this, and this we call — what we will; 'substance', 'form', 'idea'. 
 That is the other view. But ' we conceive something of which 
 we think' is not significant. We may say, We conceive some- 
 thing, with a belief which we call belief in its existence : then 
 there it is for us : that, so far as we are concerned, is its ulti- 
 mate being. Or, from the other side ; there is something, and 
 it so happens that this something presents itself to our thought : 
 its thus presenting itself is what we mean by saying that we 
 think of it or conceive it : and this, so far as it is concerned, is 
 the meaning of its being known. 
 
 The most formal part of the reality of a thing may be what 
 we know first about it, or may be what we know last, or 
 may be what we in fact cannot come at at all : that is matter 
 of accident. To take a plough, as something familiar and at hand : 
 the thinghood of that, that is, the reason of there being such a 
 notion in men's heads and such a word in the dictionary, lies 
 mainly in the purpose of it, viz. to turn up the ground in a par-
 
 XIII.] SUBSTANCE AND MEDIUM. 251 
 
 ticular (say sideways) manner. This 'idea', 'form', 'substance', 
 of a plough is what we in England commonly come to know 
 fiist about it: we are told, there is something used to turn up 
 the ground, and it is called a plough: we have got the sub- 
 stance or idea to make our logical subject of, and we add 
 according to circumstances the qualities or predicates — that is 
 woodenness, redness, going upon wheels, or as the case may be- 
 Supposing a plough abandoned in Australia, and found by 
 savages who wonder at it much : they will clearly call it some- 
 thing, that is, it will be a subject with them for predicates, but 
 probably they will never find out what it was meant for or what 
 work it will do: they will then reason, I suppose, about it much 
 as we do about the universe : they will say that the name which 
 they give it represents something mysterious and unknowable, 
 beyond the reach of human faculties: or they might with more 
 truth, though more ontology, get towards the mystery by con- 
 sidering, perhaps not indeed' that if instead of being wooden, 
 and red, and on wheels, it was iron, and blue, and without 
 wheels, it would be the same plough with one which they had 
 seen of the former character (as the apple might be the same 
 apple 1 ), but that it might be a plough or thai there was some- 
 thing about it tin' same, and in thai '■••I-'' they would have the 
 notion of the genus plough (or whatever they called it), which 
 would be some way towards the meaning or purpose of it. 
 
 I will now speak about Dr Whewell's idea of a medium, the 
 idea which belongs to the secondary mechanical Bciences, as 
 Optics and Acoustics. 
 
 What I have Baid aboui 'sensation' i-, that it involves two 
 facts; one, a corporeal communication with some pari of the 
 universe; the other, a feeling or unit of conscious^ iss contem- 
 poraneous with this. 
 
 This corrrniunicatum, thus widely meant, i- of course ■■> vague 
 term, and in my use it repress nta ■■> n lation of one pari of our 
 body to anotl i r, and of parte of our body with space, as well as 
 : , relation of certain n of our body or certain ally 
 
 nervous surfaces with some independent material substance 
 whose contaci with them Lb accompanied with a feelii 
 
 i DrWheweU has judiciously oho : ""' superficial qualities of 
 
 the apple for hio suhstanoe to QodeffHe.
 
 252 SUBSTANCE AND MEDIUM. [CHAP. 
 
 I have said that for good phenomenalism or physical science 
 what is wanted is as much as possible to put ourselves and 
 our manner of perceiving out of consideration. The physical 
 world is what it is, and it is of the nature of an accident of it 
 that it is known by us through the instrumentality by which we 
 do know it. 
 
 But there are certain physical sciences, in respect of which 
 this seems at first impossible. We seem obliged, in regard of 
 the physical science of light, or optics, to have more or less of 
 that confusion caused by considering the subject and object, or 
 the two sides in the relation of knowledge, independent of each 
 other, and yet modified the one by the other, which is what I 
 have tried as much as possible, in the more general view of 
 knowledge, to prevent. 
 
 The contact between certain sensorially nervous surfaces of 
 our body and certain material substances, as between the retina 
 and light, the ear and vibrating air, the nostrils or palate and 
 that chemical efflux, or whatever it may be, from bodies, which 
 we describe as their smell and taste, is described by Dr Whewell 
 as 'perception through a medium'. It will be readily under- 
 stood, from what I have said, that I do not consider this a good 
 description. There is actual contact in each case between the 
 material substances and the nerves, and in taste or smell the 
 feeling or consciousness accompanying this is of a very simple 
 nature. In the eye, on the other hand, besides the contact 
 between the light and the retina, there is a most complicated 
 process, and the accompanying sensation is most complicated, 
 and is described by us as the perceiving of a perhaps distant 
 object: but the describing this as the perceiving through a 
 medium is a mixture of logic or philosophy on the one side, 
 with physics or phenomenalism on the other, of the kind which 
 I have endeavoured to condemn and to prevent. 
 
 The idea therefore of a medium does not seem to me in any 
 respect a scientific one, nor do I see how it can be in any way 
 even developed into truth. 
 
 I have said that Dr Whewell's parallel consideration of the 
 growth of knowledge in the individual and its growth in the race 
 seems to me interesting and fruitful. Here however, I should 
 think it misleads. I speak with diffidence as to physical science,
 
 XIII.] SUBSTANCE AND MEDim. 253 
 
 but I should question whether the distinction between primary 
 and secondary qualities, which is a matter of our sensation, not of 
 nature considered independently of it, furnished a good principle 
 of classification or arrangement of the latter. The difference be- 
 tween primary aud secondary qualities of matter, or as we might 
 with equal correctness say, primary or secondary sensation on our 
 part, is very mainly in this, that the secondary qualities, looked 
 at in their relation to the physical world, have as compared with 
 the primary, something of an accidental character. To use a word 
 which a short time since, I quoted from Dr Whewell: putting 
 all religious considerations for a moment aside : I look upon it as 
 a thing which only in the very minutest degree possible can be 
 said to happen to be so, that the universe has the qualities which 
 it has, or that, correspondingly, the reason or mind of reasonable 
 beings acts as it does. Coming then to particular qualities: 
 the first portion of the above sentence is still true : it is not a 
 thing that (with more than very slight significance of the word) 
 happens to be so that space exists: but with more significance, 
 though still not with much, it might be said to be a thing which 
 happens to be so that we men perceive it, for we just might 
 have been passive only, without power or notion of movement : 
 and in the same way we may perhaps say, there just might be 
 other primary qualities of the universe which we are Dot consti- 
 tuted in such a manner as to be aware of. In the same manner 
 it is not at all a thing that happens to be so only thai there is 
 this or that secondary quality (as we call them in the univei 
 
 h one of them be I ■ the universe as much as space does: 
 
 but it is a thing which in a very eminenl degree happens to be so 
 that we men, or as we mighl rather say, we terrestrial animals, 
 we the terrestrial zoocosm altogether, are with more or Less 
 of directness aware or percipi< q1 of this or thai secondary quality. 
 In order for this percipience, or sentience) we require, it would 
 appear, to have particular materia] nerves with very special 
 susceptibilities, and an organism, perhaps b mosi complicated 
 instrument, for bringing aboul the contact between the material 
 substance and the nerve. This our special Bensive organization 
 may be called an accident of the universe with a much higher 
 degree of significance of the word than if we called the exist* ace 
 of oxygen, or air, or light, or heat, an accidenl of it: and the
 
 254 SUBSTANCE AND MEDIUM. . [CHAP. 
 
 more so, since we are aware indirectly of various circumstances 
 or qualities in the universe, such as magnetism, for which we 
 might conceivably have had a special sensive organization, an eye 
 or ear, so as to perceive them directly as secondary qualities. 
 
 Physical or phenomenalist knowledge, as I have said, .should 
 involve the notion of knowledge as adstance, that is, it should be 
 independent of the manner, as regards the lower and more con- 
 crete circumstances of knowledge, in which it was known : as 
 regards the higher or more abstract, it could not be so, and this 
 belongs to its being, as I have all along called it, an abstraction, 
 that is, a notion which cannot be carried thoroughly out. In 
 other words, our physical science should be true so far as it had 
 or would have any significance, not for beings with other minds 
 than ours, nor for beings without limbs which they could move 
 (this would be impossible), but for beings with a different set of 
 senses from ours, so far as this is conceivable under the above 
 conditions. Our physical science should be such, that if we lost 
 as a race one of our present senses, and all the mental circum- 
 stances associated with it, yet the secondary quality which it 
 took cognizance of should be still more or less indirectly indi- 
 cated to us : and similarly that if we had a new special nerve 
 and sensive power for some secondary quality now only indi- 
 rectly known by us to exist, our present knowledge should be 
 absorbed indeed but should still be confirmed and hold true so 
 far as it went. 
 
 These principles are difficult perhaps to understand, and 
 certainly to apply, but I think they hold good at least to this 
 extent, that the scheme for arranging physical science should not 
 be made to depend upon our manners of perception. I do not 
 as it is quite understand Dr Whewell's arrangement as he does 
 make it thus to depend : how for instance his secondary me- 
 chanical sciences, or sciences associated with secondary qualities, 
 separate themselves definitely from the mechanics of fluids, &c. 
 on the one side, and from the chemistry of heat, &c. on the 
 other: and there seems no science at all, nor place for one, 
 corresponding to his 'media' in the case of taste and smell 1 . 
 
 1 Of course I am not condemning the use of the term 'medium' for what 
 is between our eye and the thing we say we see (and the same for other senses) if 
 we like to use the term—but on sight, or rather on the use of language in 
 respect of the sense of sight, T should like to say a little in the next part.
 
 XIII.] SUBSTANCE AND MEDIUM. '2oO 
 
 Optics and Acoustics, the latter specially (both of which 
 I speak of very diffidently) do cause I presume some difficult v. 
 But I suppose that the general physical science of light and 
 the physiology of vision may be kept separate: when the 
 former is known, all in the eye that is in front of the retina 
 is simply a self-adjusting optical instrument: the laws of the 
 self-adjustment, and the circumstances of the retina, belong to 
 the physiology of vision ; not to Optics as photology. As to 
 Acoustics, such science in it as is separable from the Phy- 
 siology of Hearing is I suppose of the very delicate vibra- 
 tions of a fluid: the fact of these vibrations we discover by 
 other means than hearing, in fact could not discover them by 
 that, any more than we can now discover by looking or sight 
 whether light is undulation or rectilinear motion : as to Acoustics 
 therefore, what we have besides the Physiology of Hearing is a 
 science which / suppose is a branch of the mechanics of fluids, 
 and which is independent of the aerial vibration coming into 
 contact with our ears, though suggested by its doing so; 
 I will finish by quoting a long passage from l>r Whewell 
 It is as follows: "Though the fundamental principles of 
 " several sciences depend upon the assumption of a Medium 
 " of Perception, these principles do not at all depend upon 
 " any special view of the Process of our perceptions. The 
 "mechanism of that process is a curious subject of considera- 
 " tion : but it belongs to physiology, more properly than either 
 ■• to metaphysics, or to those branches of physics of which we 
 " are now speaking. The general nature of the process is the 
 " same for all the senses. The object affects the appropriate 
 "intermedium; the medium, through the proper organ, the 
 "eye, the ear, the nose, affects the nerves of the particular 
 "sense; and, by these, in some way, the sensation is conveyed 
 " to the mind. But to treat the impression upon the a' I 
 "as the act of sensation which we have to consider, would 1"' 
 "to mistake our object, which is doI the constitution of the 
 " human body, bul of the human mind. It would be to mis- 
 •■ take one link of the chain for the power whicb holds the end 
 •■ of the chain. No anatomical analysis of the corporeal con- 
 ■• ditions of vision, or hearing, <>r feeling warm, is aec< ai 
 '■ the sciences of Optics, or Acoustics, or Thermoti
 
 256 SUBSTANCE AND MEDIUM. [CHAP. 
 
 " Not only is tins physiological research an extraneous part 
 " of our subject, hut a partial pursuit of such a research may 
 " mislead the inquirer. We perceive objects by means of certain 
 " media, and by means of certain impressions on the nerves : 
 " but we cannot with propriety say that we perceive either the 
 " media or the impressions on the nerves. What person in the 
 " act of seeing is conscious of the little coloured spaces on the 
 " retina ? or of the motions of the bones of the auditory ap- 
 " paratus whilst he is hearing ? Surely, no one. This may 
 " appear obvious enough, and yet a writer of no common acute- 
 " ness, Dr Brown," has put forth several very strange opinions, 
 " all resting upon the doctrine that the coloured spaces on the 
 " retina are the objects which we perceive ; and there are 
 " some supposed difficulties and paradoxes on the same sub- 
 "ject which have become quite celebrated (as upright vision 
 " with inverted images), arising from the same confusion of 
 " thought 1 ". 
 
 I have quoted the passage for three reasons. 
 
 First, because, as to the three sciences (so to speak) of Meta- 
 physics, Physiology, and Physics, it seems to me to represent 
 the truth, and almost makes me surprised at Dr Whewell's other 
 language which I have been criticizing. 
 
 Next, because, what more than anything I want the reader 
 to be accustomed to, is to learn from passages like the above 
 what is to be learnt from them, which is often much, without 
 being misled by their language. The tree (to take a particular 
 object), we are told in the passage, affects light, light through 
 the lenses of the eye affects the optic nerve, and by this nerve in 
 some way the sensation is conveyed to the mind. When language 
 like this is used, which itself is no harm, let the reader's mind 
 go with it. We may, if we like it, call the action of the various 
 laws 'of chemistry and light by which light proceeding from the 
 sun is partly (if it is so) intercepted from our eye by the tree, 
 partly absorbed, partly transmitted to our eye, ' the tree affects 
 light'. There is one use then of the word ' affect'. Again we 
 may call the highly complicated process which finishes with 
 what I may term a disturbance of the optic nerve when the light 
 
 1 Hist. Scient. Ideas, Vol. i. p. 300.
 
 XIII.] SUBJECT AND MEDIUM. 257 
 
 reaches the retiua, 'the medium affecting the nerves of the 
 sense': this is another and different use of the word 'affect'. 
 Again, we may call this affecting of the nerve by the medium 
 'a sensation', and we may say that the nerve 'in some way 
 conveys this sensation to the mind'. Here we must dismiss 
 all notion of ' conveying' meaning moving through space, trans- 
 ferring from one thing in space to another thing in space, or 
 anything of that sort : in fact, as I have said, I do not see what 
 the words can mean more than that there is a feeling or con- 
 sciousness contemporaneous with the nervous disturbance. The 
 ' impression' upon the nerve in the next sentence is the second 
 ' affecting' above, and is quite appropriate. 
 
 Third, I quote the passage, because I want the reader to 
 observe that the very same process which Dr Whewell in the 
 first paragraph describes as the object affecting the medium, the 
 medium affecting the nerve, the nerve conveying its affectation 
 (or the sensation) to the mind, he describes in the second para- 
 graph as 'our perceiving the object by means of the medium and 
 by means of the impression on the nerve, while we do not per- 
 ceive either the impression or the medium'. These two ways of 
 putting the matter (if he properly attends, in the way which I 
 have described above, to the language of the first) are exactly 
 the two ways in which I would wish the reader to put it, only 
 that, fur his life, he must avoid mixing them. The ad of his 
 mind is 'perceiving': he perceives the object: between him and 
 the object, in his perception, is much thai he does nol perceive, 
 which is no part of his perception of the object, and which is 
 only matter to him of indirect and subsequent, physiological 
 and physical, knowledge. When physiology and physics take the 
 matter in hand to give him this knowledge, they proceed in a dif- 
 ferent direction: they describe the objecl as affecting a medium, 
 ;,i,,l describe the manner of its affecting it : they describe the 
 medium ae affecting a nerve, and describe the manner of this 
 again: and then wtihwi description, for here thej are brought 
 to a halt, they simply say in some way the nerve conveys the 
 
 sensation to the mind. I cannot c seive language more fitted 
 
 than I>r WheueH's to show clearly the double riew of the 
 
 Bame process. 
 
 But the view which I think will be learnt from a g 1 deal 
 
 17
 
 258 SUBJECT AND MEDIUM. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 of Dr Whewell's book, and from which I dissent, is that by 
 sensation something is given to us from the object : that to this, 
 by perception (or in whatever way it is described) we add some- 
 thing, to wit 'idea', from the mind: that there are thus two 
 processes instead of one : that knowledge is divided into a part 
 from the object and a part from the mind : the former some- 
 times appearing as knowledge, sometimes as not knowledge: 
 this is the putting of the two views together, which I have 
 ufged the reader to avoid. 
 
 But on this I have said enough. 
 
 I will finish with remarking again upon l)r V, T heweH's scien- 
 tific ideas that when the notion is introduced of their being 
 progressive and developable I do not see how. as ideas, the; 
 can preserve any character of being original, universal, necessary, 
 convictions, or in any respect help, as ideas, the certainty of 
 knowledge. But though the notion of them does not seem to 
 me to be of value in this way, I think it is in many others, 
 some of which I have mentioned. 
 
 now close this part of my work, hoping very shortly t 
 pursue the subject. In the interval, I trust to study the book 
 of Mr Hill's to which I have alluded in the Introduction, and if 
 I have done him any injustice, shall have an opportunity of 
 correcting it, and of avowing any error into which 1 may have 
 fallen. I am aware of some imperfections in what I have said 
 about him, more especially obscurities which it might be de- 
 sirable to make clearer — now this will be done better. The 
 next Chapter (or one soon to follow), to which I have alluded 
 by anticipation in page 166, was intended to have reference 
 principally to him. In the other Chapters I shall follow out 
 the scheme indicated in the Introduction, and discuss the re- 
 maining works there mentioned: I may add some others to 
 them: and I hope to finish by putting the views here given 
 in a clearer manner than I have been able to do in the course 
 of the c exploration ', in consequence of the additional hold upon 
 them which I trust this may have given.
 
 
 
 
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