UC-NRLF REESE LIBRARY ' UNIVERSITY OF. CALIFORNIA.. Received ?-t/ y i i <<^ Accessions No. _rf*A __^_ .^- Shelf No. . - . ^ PHILOSOPHY or SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART, PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS IN EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY ; 0. W. WIGHT, TRANSLATOR OF COUSIN'S "HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY." FOR THE OFOloi OLLEGES NoSs !>pj) Kal Noy? aicovet, ra\\a %w0a Kai ru0Xa. Mind it secth, Mind it heareth ; all beside is deaf and blind. EPICHABMUS (?> SIX TH EDITION. NEW-YORK: D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 346 & 348 BROADWAY. M.DCCO.tX. 13 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, BY D. APPLETON & COliPANT, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. TO REV. LAURENS P. HICKOK, D.D., VICK-PBESIDK.NT OF tJNIOX COLLEGE, LATE PKOFESSOK OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY IN ATTBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, AUTHOR OF "RATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY," ETC., ETC., THIS COLLECTION OF BIE WM. HAMILTON'S PHILOSOPHICAL DISCUSSIONS AND DISSERTATIONS, AS A TOKEN OF THE EDITOR'S ADMIRATION OF ONE OF THE VERY ABLEST METAPHYSICIANS AMERICA HAS PRODUCED; AS A TRIBUTE JUSTLY DUE TO THE FAITHFUL TEACHER, WHO HAS DEVOTED MANY YEARS OF HIS LIFE TO PREPARING YOUNG MEN FOB HIGH PUBLIC DUTIES, THUS FULFILLING THE RESPONSIBLE OFFICE OF A "KEEPER OF THE KEEPERS." UNIVERSITY IN this publication we give to the readers and students of philosophy in America all, except part of an unfin- ished Dissertation, that Sir "Wm. Hamilton has pub- lished directly on the subject of metaphysics. The com- pleted supplementary Dissertations on Reid, 1 the foot- notes to Reid that have an enduring interest, and the philosophical portion of the 'Discussions, 2 etc.,' have been used to make up this work. The article on Logic and the Appendix Logical, in the Discussions, might have been added, but these do not properly belong to the metaphysical system of Hamilton, and, moreover, have been reserved for another purpose. The place where each part of this volume may be found in the work from which it is taken, has been designated by a foot-note. In our collection and arrangement of Hamilton's Phi- losophy, we have followed a systematic plan. Any ex- planation or vindication of this plan would be, to those who are unacquainted with Sir Wm.'s system, unintel- 1 The works of Thomas Reid, D. D., now fully collected, with selec- tions from his unpublished letters. Preface, Notes, and Supplementary Dissertations, by Sir Wm. Hamilton, Bart. London and Edinburgh : Third Edition, 1852 : pp. 914 (not completed). 2 Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and University Reform, By Sir Wm. Hamilton, Bart. London and Edinburgh, 1852 : pp. 758. 6 PREFACE. ligible ; to those who have mastered its principles, su- perfluous. Our foot-notes are not very numerous, and consist mostly in references to other parts of the work, where some point indicated is more fully treated ; arid in explanations of a few, more than usually difficult, pas- sages. In a single instance we have expressed our dis- sent from a position taken by Hamilton, the grounds of which we have briefly designated, without entering upon a systematic discussion. A severer study may convince us that Sir "Wm. is right and that we are wrong. Hamilton has promised a General Preface to his Reid, and a Sequel of the Dissertations. "When these appear, they will be added to this work in a separate volume, in which the Indices will be given to the whole. New York, June, 1853. INTRODUCTION WE do not propose to give here a resume of Sir Wm. Hamilton's philosophy. A correct list, in technical language, of the principles of his system, would not be a clear exposition of his metaphysical doctrines. To attempt to put in a brief introduction the substance of several hundred pages of Hamilton's Philosophical Discussions and Dissertations would be presumptuous and preposterous. A philoso- pher, who thinks like Aristotle ; whose logic is as stern as that of Sfc. Thomas, ' the lawgiver of the Church ;' who rivals Muretus as a critic ; whose erudition finds a parallel only in that of the younger Scaliger ; whose subtlety of thought and polemical power remind us of the dauntless prince 1 of Verona ; whose penetrating analysis reaches deeper than that of Kant, rsuch a one, it it our pleasure to introduce to the students of philosophy in America ; who, in a style severely elegant, with accuracy of statement, with precision of definition, in sequence and admirable order, will explain a system in many respects new, a system that will provoke thought, that, consequently, carries in itself the germs of beneficial revolutions in literature and educa- tion, in all those things that are produced and regulated by mind in action. True to our plan of making the work as completely Hamilton's as possible, we shall offer, mostly in the language of our author, a few considerations on the utility of the study of phi- losophy. Philosophy is a necessity. Every man philosophizes as he thinks. The worth of his philosophy will depend upon the value of his think- ing. * If to philosophize be right,' says Aristotle, in his Exhortative, ' we must philosophize to realize the right ; if to philosophize be 1 The elder Scaliger. S INTRODUCTION. wrong, we must philosophize to manifest the wrong : on any alterna tive, therefore, philosophize we must.' 1 No. philosopher can explore the whole realm of truth. No single mind can compass the aggregate of what is possessed by all. Every system must, then, be incomplete ; it cannot be taken as an equiva- lent for all that can be thought. The most that any system can do for us is to aid us, to stimulate our minds, to infuse higher intellectual energy. * If the accomplishment of philosophy,' says Hamilton (Dis. p. 39, et seq.), 'imply a cessation of discussion if the result of specu- lation be a paralysis of itself, the consummation of knowledge is the condition of intellectual barbarism. Plato has profoundly defined man " the hunter of truth ;" for in this chase as in others, the pursuit is all in all, the success comparatively nothing. " Did the Almighty," says Lessing, " holding in his right hand Truth, and in his left, Search after Truth, deign to proffer me the one I might prefer, in all hu- mility, but without hesitation, I should request Search after Truth" We exist only as we energize ; pleasure 1 is the reflex of unimpeded energy ; energy is the mean by which our faculties are developed ; and a higher energy the end which their development proposes. In action is thus contained the existence, happiness, improvement, and perfection of our being ; and knowledge is only previous, as it may afford a stimulus to the exercise of our powers, and the condition of their more complete activity. Speculative truth is, therefore, sub- ordinate to speculation itself; and its value is directly measured by the quantity of energy which it occasions immediately in its dis- covery mediately through its consequences. Life to Endymion was not preferable to death ; aloof from practice, a waking error is better than a sleeping truth. Neither, in point of fact, is there found any proportion between the possession of truths, and the development of the mind in which they are deposited. Every learner in science is now familiar with more truths than Aristotle or Plato ever dreamt of knowing ; yet, compared with the Stagirite or the Athenian, how few among our masters of modern science rank higher than intel- lectual barbarians ! Ancient Greece and modern Europe prove, in- deed, that the " march of intellect" is no inseparable concomitant of 1 Et piv i\offo(f>r)T{ov, T)T{ov' Kal el /j>) $i\oaoi\oao(f>t}Tiov' zdvrtts apa Q not in truth only self that I may philosophically question. In like manner, I am conscious of the memory of a certain past event. Of the contents of this memory, as a phenomenon given in consciousness, skepticism is impossible. But I may by possibility demur to the reality of all beyond these contents and the sphere of present consciousness. " In Eeid's strictures upon Hume, he confounds two opposite things. He reproaches that philosopher with inconsequence, in holding to ' the belief of the existence of his own impressions and ideas.' Now, if, by the existence rf impressions and ideas, Eeid meant their existence as mere phenomena of consciousness, his criticism is inept ; for a disbelief of their existence, as such phenomena, would have been a suicidal act in the skeptic. If, again, he meant by impressions and ideas the hypothesis of representative entities dif- ferent from the mind and its modifications ; in that case the objection is equally invalid. Hume was a skeptic ; that is, he accepted the premises af- forded him by the dogmatist, and carried these premises to their legitimate consequences. To blame Hume, therefore, for not having doubted of his borrowed principles, is to blame the skeptic for not performing a part alto- gether inconsistent with his vocation. But, in point of fact, the hypothesis of such entities is of no value to the idealist or skeptic. Impressions and ideas, viewed as mental modes, would have answered Hume's purpose not a whit worse than impressions and ideas viewed as objects, but not as affections of mind. The most consistent scheme of idealism known in the history of phi- losophy is that of Fichte ; and Fichte's idealism is founded on a basis which excludes that crude hypothesis of ideas on which alone Eeid imagined any doctrine of Idealism could possibly be established. And is the acknowl- edged result of the Fichtean dogmatism less a nihilism than the skepticism of Hume ? ' The sum total,' says Fichte, ' is this : There is absolutely nothing permanent either without me or within me, but only an unceasing change. I know absolutely nothing of any existence, not even of my own. PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 25 happy to find confirmed by the authority of M. Cousin. The fol- lowing passage is from his Lectures on the Scottish School, con- stituting the second volume of his " Course on the History of the Moral Philosophy of the Eighteenth Century," delivered in the years 1819, 1820, but only recently published by M. Vacherot. 1 " It is not (he observes in reference to the preceding strictures of Reid upon Descartes) as a fact attested by consciousness, that Descartes declares his personal existence beyond a doubt ; it is because the negation of this fact would involve a contradiction." And after quoting the relative passage from Descartes : " It is thus by a reasoning that Descartes establishes the existence of the thinking subject ; if he admit this existence, it is not because it is guaranteed by consciousness ; it is for this reason, that when he thinks let him deceive himself or not he exists in so far as he thinks." It is therefore manifest that we may throw wholly out of ac- count the phenomena of consciousness, considered merely in them- selves ; seeing that skepticism in regard to them, under this lim- itation, is confessedly impossible ; and that it is only requisite to consider the argument from common sense, as it enables us to I myself know nothing, and am nothing. Images (Bilder) there are : they constitute all that apparently exists, and what they know of themselves is after the manner of images ; images that pass and vanish without there be- ing aught to witness their transition ; that consist in fact of the images of images, without significance and without an aim. I myself am one of these images ; nay, I am not even thus much, but only a confused image of images. All reality is converted into a marvellous dream, without a life to dream of and without a mind to dream ; into a dream made up only of a dream 01 itself. Perception is a dream ; thought the source of all the existence and all the reality which I imagine to myself of my existence, of my power, 01 my destination is the dream of that dream.' " In doubting the fact of his consciousness, the skeptic must at least af- firm his doubt | but to affirm a doubt is to affirm the consciousness of it ; the doubt would therefore be self-contradictory i. e. annihilate itself." W. 1 Since the above was written, M. Cousin has himself published the Course of 1819-20, and the Lectures on the Scottish School may now bo found, am- plified, in the fourth volume of his first series. The same thing is stated with precision, clearness, and force, here and there in Cousin's second se- ries, the whole of which we have recently translated and p nblished. W, 26 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. vindicate the truth of these phenomena, viewed as attestations of more than their own existence, seeing that they are not, in this respect, placed beyond the possibility of doubt. When, for example, consciousness assures us that, in percep- tion, we are immediately cognizant of an external and extended non-ego ; or that, in remembrance, through the imagination, of which we are immediately cognizant, we obtain a mediate knowl- edge of a real past ; how shall we repel the doubt in the for- mer case, that what is given as the extended reality itself is not merely a representation of matter by mind in the latter, that what is given as a mediate knowledge of the past, is not a mere present phantasm, containing an illusive reference to an unreal past ? We can do this only in one way. The legitimacy of such gratuitous doubt necessarily supposes that the deliverance of con- sciousness is not to be presumed true. If, therefore, it can be shown, on the one hand, that the deliverances of consciousness must philosophically be accepted, until their certain or probable false- hood has been positively evinced ; and if, on the other hand, it cannot be shown that any attempt to discredit the veracity of consciousness has ever yet succeeded ; it follows that, as philoso- phy now stands, the testimony of consciousness must be viewed as high above suspicion, and its declarations entitled to demand prompt and unconditional assent. In the first place, as has been said, it cannot but be acknowl- edged that the veracity of consciousness must, at least in the first instance, be conceded. " Neganti incumbit probatio." Nature is not gratuitously to be assumed to work, not only in vain, but in counteraction of herself; our faculty of knowledge is not, with- out a ground, to be supposed an instrument of illusion ; man, un- less the melancholy fact be proved, is not to be held organized for the attainment, and actuated by the love of truth, only to become the dupe and victim of a perfidious creator. But, in the second place, though the veracity of the primary convictions of consciousness must, in the outset, be admitted, it still remains competent to lead a proof that they are undeserving PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 27 of credit. But how is this to be done ? As the ultimate grounds of knowledge, these convictions cannot be redargued from any higher knowledge ; and as original beliefs, they are paramount in certainty to every derivative assurance. But they are many; they are, in authority, co-ordinate ; and their testimony is clear and precise. It is therefore competent for us to view them in cor- relation ; to compare their declarations ; and to consider whether they contradict, and, by contradicting, invalidate each other. This mutual contradiction is possible, in two ways. 1, It may //^ _ ^ be that the primary data themselves are directly or immediately contradictory of each other ; 2, it may be that they are medi- ately or indirectly contradictory, inasmuch as the consequences to which they necessarily lead, and for the truth or falsehood of which they are therefore responsible, are mutually repugnant. By evincing either of these, the veracity of consciousness will be dis- proved ; for, in either case, consciousness is shown to be inconsist- ent with itself, and consequently inconsistent with the unity of truth. But by no other process of demonstration is this possible. For it will argue nothing against the trustworthiness of conscious- ness, that all or any of its deliverances are inexplicable are in- comprehensible ; that is, that we are unable to conceive through a higher notion, how that is possible, which the deliverance avouches actually to be. To make the comprehensibility of a datum of consciousness the criterion of its truth, would be indeed the climax of absurdity. For the primary data of consciousness, as themselves the conditions under which all else is comprehended, are necessarily themselves incomprehensible. We know, and can j^*** know, only That they are, not How they can be. To ask how an immediate fact of consciousness is possible, is to ask how con- _-.^^^^, * seiousness is possible ; and to ask how consciousness is possible, /^ //,**. is to suppose that we have another consciousness, before and above that human consciousness, concerning whose mode of operation we inquire. Could we answer this, " verily we should be as gods." ' 1 From what has now been stated, it will be seen how far and on what ' ', grounds I hold, at once with Dr. Reid and Mr. Stewart, that our original . J-fri e^. /h HTM- U- 20 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. To take an example : It would be unreasonable in the Cosmo thetic or the Absolute Idealist, to require of the Natural Realist 1 a reason, through which to understand how a self can be conscious of a not-self how an unextended subject can be cognizant of an extended object ; both of which are given us as facts by conscious- ness, and, as such, founded on by the Natural Realist. This is un- reasonable, because it is incompetent to demand the explanation of a datum of consciousness, which, as original and simple, is necessarily beyond analysis and explication. It is still further unreasonable, inasmuch as all philosophy being only a develop- ment of the primaiy data of consciousness, any philosophy, in not accepting the truth of these, pro tanto surrenders its own pos- sibility is felo de se. But at the hasds of the Cosmothetic Ideal- ists and they constitute the great majority of philosophers the question is peculiarly absurd ; for before proposing it, they are themselves bound to afford a solution of the far more insuperable difficulties which their own hypothesis involves difficulties which, so far from attempting to solve, no Hypothetical Realist has ever yet even articulately stated. 2 This being understood, the following propositions are either self-evident, or admit of easy proof: 1. The end of philosophy is truth; and consciousness is the instrument and criterion of its acquisition. In other words, phi- losophy is the development and application of the constitutive and normal truths which consciousness immediately reveals. 2. Philosophy is thus wholly dependent upon consciousness ; the possibility of the former supposing the trustworthiness of the latter. 3. Consciousness is presumed to be trustworthy, until proved mendacious. 4. The mendacity of consciousness is proved, if its data, imme- beliefs are to be established, but their authority not to be canvassed ; and with M. Jouffroy, that the question of their authority is not to be absolutely withdrawn, as a forbidden problem, from philosophy. 1 On these terms see the third and fourth chapters of the second part of this vol. W. * For the illustration of this, see chapter first of the second part.- W. PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 29 diately in themselves, or mediately in their necessary conse- quences, be shown to stand in mutual contradiction. 5. The immediate or mediate repugnance of any two of its ^ *-/*> data being established, the presumption in favor of the general veracity of consciousness is abolished, or rather reversed. For trr ^ while, on the one hand, all that is not contradictory is not there- fore true ; on the other, a positive proof of falsehood, in one in- stance, establishes a presumption of probable falsehood in all ; for the maxim, "falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus" must deter- mine the credibility of consciousness, as the credibility of every other witness. 6. No attempt to show that the data of consciousness are (either in themselves, or in their necessary consequences) mutually contradictory, has yet succeeded ; and the presumption in favor of the truth of consciousness and the possibility of philosophy has, therefore, never been redargued. In other words, an ori- ginal, universal, dogmatic subversion of knowledge has hitherto been found impossible. 7. No philosopher has ever formally denied the truth or dis- claimed the authority of consciousness ; but few or none have been content implicitly to accept and consistently to follow out its dictates. Instead of humbly resorting to consciousness, to draw from thence his doctrines and their proof, each dogmatic specula- tor looked only into consciousness, there to discover his pre- adopted opinions. In philosophy, men have abused the code of natural, as in theology, the code of positive, revelation ; and the epigraph of a great protestant divine, on the book of scripture, is certainly not less applicable to the book of consciousness : " Hie liber est in quo qucerit sua dogmata, quisque ; Invenit, et pariter dogmata quisque sua." 1 8. The first and most obtrusive consequence of this proceedure has been, the multiplication of philosophical systems in every conceivable aberration from the unity of truth. 1 " This is the book where each his dogma seeks ; And this the book where each his dogma finds." 30 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 9. The second, but less obvious, consequence has leen, the vir- tual surrender, by each several system, of the possibility of phi- losophy in general. For, as the possibility of philosophy sup- poses the absolute truth of consciousness, every system which proceeded on the hypothesis, that even a single deliverance of consciousness is untrue, did, however it might eschew the overt declaration, thereby invalidate the general credibility of conscious- ness, and supply to the skeptic the premises he required to sub- vert philosophy, in so far as that system represented it. 10. And yet, although the past history of philosophy has, in a great measure, been only a history of variation and error (vari- asse erroris est) ; yet the cause of this variation being known, we obtain a valid ground of hope for the destiny of philosophy in future. Because, since philosophy has hitherto been inconsistent with itself, only in being inconsistent with the dictates of our natural beliefs " For Truth is catholic, and Nature one ;" it follows, that philosophy has simply to return to natural con- sciousness, to return to unity and truth. In doing this we have only to attend to the three following maxims or precautions : 1, That we admit nothing, not either an original datum 01 consciousness, or the legitimate consequence of such a datum ; 2, That we embrace all the original data of consciousness, and all their legitimate consequences ; and 3, That we exhibit each of these in its individual integrity neither distorted nor mutilated, and in its relative place, whether of pre-eminence or subordination. Nor can it be contended that consciousness has spoken in so feeble or ambiguous a voice, that philosophers have misappre- hended or misunderstood her enouncements. On the contrary, they have been usually agreed about the fact and purport of the deliverance, differing only as to the mode in which they might evade or qualify its acceptance. PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSl^ ^ This I shall illustrate by a memorable example by one in ref- erence to the very cardinal point of philosophy. In the act of sensible perception, I am conscious of two things ; of myself as the perceiving subject, and of an external reality, in relation with my sense, -as the object perceived. Of the existence of both these things I am convinced : because I am conscious of knowing each of them, not mediately, in something else, as represented, but im- mediately in itself, as existing. Of their mutual independence I am no less convinced ; because each is apprehended equally, and at once, in the same indivisible energy, the one not preceding or determining, the other not following or determined ; and because each is apprehended out of, and in direct contrast to the other. Such is the fact of perception as given in consciousness, and as it affords to mankind in general the conjunct assurance they pos- sess, of their own existence, and of the existence of an external world. Nor are the contents of the deliverance, considered as a phenomenon, denied by those who still hesitate to admit the truth of its testimony. As this point, however, is one of principal im- portance, I shall not content myself with assuming the preceding statement of the fact of perception as a truth attested by the in- ternal experience of all ; but, in order to place it beyond the pos- sibility of doubt, quote in evidence, more than a competent num- ber of authoritative, and yet reluctant testimonies, and give articulate references to others. Descartes, the father of modern idealism, acknowledges, that in perception we suppose the qualities of the external realities to be themselves apprehended, and not merely represented, by the mind, in virtue or on occasion of certain movements of the sen- suous organism which they determine. "Putamus nos videre ipsam tcedam, et audire ipsam campanam : non vero solum sen- tire motus qui ab ipsis proveniunt." De Passionibus art. xxiii. This, be it observed, is meant for a statement applicable to our perception of external objects in general, and not merely to our perception of their secondary qualities. De Raei, a distinguished follower of Descartes, frequently ad- 32 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. mits, that what is commonly rejected by philosophers is univer- sally believed by mankind at large " Res ipsas secundum se in sensum incurrere" De Mentis Humanae Facultatibus, Sectio II. 41, 70, 89. De Cognitione Humana, 15, 39, et alibi. In like manner, Berkeley, contrasting the belief of the vulgar, and the belief of philosophers on this point, says : " The former are of opinion that those things they immediately perceive are the real things ; and the latter, that the things immediately perceived are ideas which exist only in the mind." Throe Dialogues, &c., Dial. III. prope finem. His brother idealist, Arthur Collier, might be quoted to the same purport ; though he does not, like Berke- ley, pretend that mankind at large are therefore idealists. Hume frequently states that, in the teeth of all philosophy, ' men are carried by a blind and powerful instinct of nature to suppose the very images presented by the senses to be the external objects, and never entertain any suspicion that the one are nothing but representations of the other." Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, Sect. XII., Essays, ed. 1788, vol. ii. p. 154. Compare also ibid. p. 157 ; and Treatise of Human Nature, vol. i. B. i. P. iv. Sect. 2, pp. 330, 338, 353, 358, 361, 369. Schelling, in many passages of his works, repeats, amplifies, and illustrates the statement, that " the man of common sense be- lieves, and will not but believe, that the object he is conscious of perceiving is the real one" This is from hi? Philosophische Schrif- ten, I. p. 274 ; and it may be found with the context, translated by Coleridge but given as his own in the " Biographia Litera- ria," I. p. 262. See also among other passages, Philos. Schr., I. pp. 217, 238 ; Ideen zu einer Philosophic der Natur, Einleit. pp. xix. xxvi. first edition (translated in Edinb. Rev., vol. Hi. p. 202) ; Philosophisches Journal von Fichte und Niethhammer, vol. vii. p. 244. In these passages Schelling allows that it is only on the believed identity of the object known and of the object existing, and in our inability to discriminate in perceptive consciousness the representation from the thing, that mankind at large believe in the reality of an external world. PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 33 But to adduce a more recent writer, and of a different school. " From the natural point of view," says Stiedenroth, " the repre- sentation (Vorstellung) is not in sensible perception distinguished from the object represented ; for it appears as if the sense actu- ally apprehended the things out of itself, and in their proper space." (Psychologic, vol. i. p. 244.) " The things the actual realities are not in our soul. Nevertheless, from the psychologi- cal point of view on which we are originally placed by nature, we do not suspect that our representation of external things and their relations is naught but representation. Before this can become a matter of consideration, the spatial relations are so far developed, that it seems as if the soul apprehended out of itself as if it did not carry the image of things within itself, but perceived the things themselves in their proper space" (p. 267). "This belief (that our sensible percepts are the things themselves) is so strong and entire, that a light seems to break upon us when we first learn, or bethink ourselves, that we are absolutely shut in within the circle of our own representations. Nay, it costs so painful an effort, consistently to maintain this acquired view, in opposition to that permanent and unremitted illusion, that we need not mar- vel, if, even to many philosophers, it should have been again lost" (p. 270). But it is needless to accumulate confessions as to a fact which has never, I believe, been openly denied ; I shall only therefore refer in general to the following authorities, who, all in like man- ner, even while denying the truth of the natural belief, acknowl- edge the fact of its existence. Malebranche, Recherche, L. iii. c. 1 ; Tetens, Versuche, vol. i. p. 375 ; Fickte, Bestimmung des Menschen, p. 56, ed. 1825 ; and in Philos. Journal, VII. p. 35 ; Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophic, vol. ii. p. 294 (trans- lated in Edinb. Rev., vol. Hi. p. 202) ; Fries, Neue Kritik, Vorr., p. xxviii. sec. ed.; fferbart, Allgemeine Metaphysik, II. Th., 327 ; Gerlach, Fundamental Philosophic, 33 ; Beneke, Das Ver- haeltniss von Seele und Leib, p. 23 ; and Kant und die Philoso- phische Aufgabe unserer Zeit, p. 70 ; Stoeger, Pruefung, &c., p. 2 34 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 504. To these may be added, Jacobi, Werke, vol. i. p. 119 ; and in vol. ii., his " David Hume" passim, of which see a passage quoted infra in Testimonies, No. 87 c. The contents of the fact of perception, as given in conscious- ness, being thus established, what are the consequences to philos- ophy, according as the truth of its testimony (I.) w, or (II.) is not, admitted? I. On the former alternative, the veracity of consciousness, in the fact of perception, being unconditionally acknowledged, we have established at once, without hypothesis or demonstration, the reality of mind, and the reality of matter ; while no concession is yielded to the skeptic, through which he may subvert philoso- phy in manifesting its self-contradiction. The one legitimate doc- trine, thus possible, may be called Natural Realism or Natural Dualism. II. On the latter alternative, Jive great variations from truth and nature may be conceived and all of these have actually found their advocates according as the testimony of conscious- ness, in the fact of perception, (A) is wholly, or (B) partially, rejected. A. If wholly rejected, that is, if nothing but the phenomenal reality of the fact itself be allowed, the result is Nihilism. This may be conceived either as a dogmatical or as a skeptical opinion ; and Hume and Fichte have competently shown, that if the truth of consciousness be not unconditionally recognized, Nihilism is the conclusion in which our speculation, if consistent with itself, must end. B. On the other hand, if partially rejected, four schemes emerge, according to the way in which the fact is tampered with. i. If the veracity of consciousness be allowed to the equipoise of the subject and object in the act, but disallowed to the reality of their antithesis, the system of Absolute Identity (whereof Pan- theism is the corollary) arises, which reduces mind and matter to phenomenal modifications of the same common substance. ii., iii. Again, if the testimony of consciousness be refused to PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 35 the equal originality and reciprocal independence of the subject and object in perception, two Unitarian schemes are determined, according as the one or as the other of these correlatives is sup- posed the prior and genetic. Is the object educed from the sub- ject ? Idealism ; is the subject educed from the object ? Materi- alism, is the result. iv. Finally, if the testimony of consciousness to our Jcnmol- edge of an external world existing be rejected with the Idealist, but with the Realist the existence of that world be affirmed, we have a scheme which, as it by many various hypotheses, endeav- ors, on the one hand, not to give up the reality of an unknown material universe, and on the other, to explain the ideal illusion rf its cognition, may be called the doctrine of Cosmothetic Ideal- ism, Hypothetical Realism, or Hypothetical Dualism. This last, though the most vacillating, inconsequent, and self-contradictory }f all systems, is the one which, as less obnoxious in its acknowl- edged consequences (being a kind of compromise between specu- lation and common sense), has found favor with the immense majority of philosophers. 1 From the rejection of the fact of consciousness in this example of perception, we have thus, in the first place, multiplicity, spec- ulative variation, error ; in the second, systems practically danger- ous ; and in the third, what concerns us exclusively at present, the incompetence of an appeal to the common sense of mankind by any of these systems against the conclusions of others. This last will, however, be more appropriately shown in our special consideration of the conditions of the argument of Common Sense, to which we now go on. 1 See, in connection with this more general distribution of philosophical systems from the whole fact of consciousness in perception, other more spe- cial divisions, from the relation of the object to the subject of perception, in the second part, chapter iii. IF. 36 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. II. CONDITIONS OF THE LEGITIMACY, AND LEGITIMATE APPLI- CATION, OF THE ARGUMENT FROM COMMON SENSE. From what has been stated, it is manifest that the argument drawn from Common Sense, for the truth or falsehood of any given thesis, proceeds on two suppositions : 1. That the proposition to be proved is either identical with, or necessarily evolved out of, a primary datum of consciousness ; and, 2. That the primary data of consciousness are, one and all of them, admitted, by the proponent of this argument, to be true. From this it follows, that each of these suppositions will con- stitute a condition, under which the legitimate application of this reasoning is exclusively competent. Whether these conditions have been ever previously enounced, I know not. But this I know, that while their necessity is so palpable, that they could never, if explicitly stated, be explicitly denied ; that in the hands of philosophers they have been always, more or less violated, implicitly and in fact, and this often not the least obtrusively by those who have been themselves the loudest in their appeal from the conclusions of an obnoxious speculation to the common convictions of mankind. It is not therefore to be marvelled at, if the argument itself should have sometimes shared in the con- tempt which its abusive application so frequently and so justly merited. 1. That the first condition that of originality is indispens- able, is involved in the very conception of the argument. I should indeed hardly have deemed that it required an articulate statement, were it not that, in point of fact, many philosophers have attempted to establish, on the principles of common sense, propositions which are not original data of consciousness ; while the original data of consciousness, from which their propositions were derived, and to which they owed their whole necessity and truth these data the same philosophers were (strange to say !) PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 37 not disposed to admit. Thus, when it is argued by the Cosmo- thetic Idealists " The external world exists, because we naturally believe it to exist ;" the illation is incompetent, inasmuch as it erroneously assumes that our belief of an external world is a pri- mary datum of consciousness. This is not the case. That an outer world exists is given us, not as a " miraculous revelation," not as a " cast of magic," not as an " instinctive feeling," not as a " blind belief." These expressions, in which Jie Cosmothetic Idealists shadow forth the difficulty they create, and attempt to solve, are wholly inapplicable to the real fact. Our belief of a material universe is not ultimate ; and that universe is not un- known. This belief is not a supernatural inspiration ; it is not an infused faith. We are not compelled by a blind impulse to be- lieve in the external world, as in an unknown something ; on the contrary, we believe it to exist only because we are immediately cognizant of it as existing. If asked, indeed How we know that we know it how we know that what we apprehend in sen- sible perception is, as consciousness assures us, an object, external, extended, and numerically different from the conscious subject ? how we know that this object is not a mere mode of mind, illu- sively presented to us as a mode of matter ? then indeed we must reply, that we do not in propriety know that what we arc compelled to perceive as not-self, is not a perception of self, and that we can only on reflection believe such to be the case, in reliance on the original necessity of so believing, imposed on us by our nature, QutB nisi sit vcri, ratio quoque falsa fit omnis. That this is a correct statement of the fact has been already shown ; and if such be the undenied and undeniable ground of the natural belief of mankind, in the reality of external things, the incompetence of the argument from common sense in the hands of the Cosmothetic Idealist is manifest, in so far as it does not fulfil the fundamental condition of that argument. This defect of the argument may in the present example in- 38 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. deed, be easily supplied, by interpolating the medium which has been left out. But this cannot consistently be done by the Cos- mothetic Idealist, who is reduced to this dilemma that if he ad- here to his hypothesis, he must renounce the argument ; and if he apply the argument, he must renounce his hypothesis. 2. The second condition, that of absolute truth, requires that he who applies the argument of common sense, by appealing to the veracity of consciousness, should not himself, directly or indi- rectly, admit that consciousness is evei false ; in other words, he is bound, in applying this argument, to apply it thoroughly, im- partially, agamst himself no less than against others, and not ac- cording to the conveniences of his polemic, to approbate and rep- robate the testimony of our original beliefs. That our immediate consciousness, if competent to prove any thing, must be compe- tent to prove every thing it avouches, is a principle which none have been found, at least openly, to deny. It is proclaimed by Leibnitz : " Si 1'experience interne immediate pouvait nous trom- per, il ne saurait y avoir pour moi aucune verite de fait, j'ajoute, ni de raison. And by Lucretius : Denique ut in fubrica si prava 'st Eegula prima, Omnia mendosa fieri atque obstipa necessum 'st ; Sic igitur Ratio tibi rerum prava necesse 'st, Falsaque sit, falsis quaccunquc ab Sensibus orta 'st. Compare Plotinus, En. V. Lib. v. c. 1 ; Buffier, Pr. Ver., 71 ; Reid, Inq., p. 183, b. I. P. p. 260, b. Yet, however notorious the condition, that consciousness unless held trustworthy in all its revelations cannot be held trustworthy in any ; marvellous to say, philosophers have rarely scrupled, on the one hand, quietly to supersede the data of consciousness, so often as these did not fall in with their preadopted opinions ; and on the other, clamorously to appeal to them, as irrecusable truths, so often as they could allege them in corroboration of their own, or in refutation of a hostile doctrine. I shall again take for an example the fact of perception, and the violation of the present condition by the Cosmothetic Ideal- PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 39 ists 1, in the constitution of their own doctrine ; 2, in theii polemic against more extreme opinions. In the first place, in the constitution of their doctrine, nothing can be imagined more monstrous than the procedure of these philosophers, in attempting to vindicate the- reality of a material world, on the ground of a universal belief in its existence ; and yet rejecting the universal belief in the knoivledge on which the universal belief in the existence is exclusively based. Here the absurdity is twofold. Firstly, in postulating a conclusion though rejecting its premises ; secondly, in founding their doctrine partly on the veracity, and partly on the mendacity, of consciousness. In the second place, with what consistency and effect do the Hypothetical Realists point the argument of common sense against the obnoxious conclusions of the thorough-going Idealist, the Materialist, the Absolutist, the Nihilist ? Take first their vindication of an external world against the Idealist. To prove this, do they, like Dr. Thomas Brown, simply found on the natural belief of mankind in its existence ? But they themselves, as we have seen, admitting the untruth of one natu ral belief the belief in our immediate knowledge of external things have no right to presume upon the truth of any other ; and the absurdity is carried to its climax, when the natural belief, which they regard as false, is the sole ground of the natural be- lief which they would assume and found upon as true. Again, do they like Descartes, allege that God would be a deceiver, were we constrained by nature to believe in the reality of an unreal world ? But the Deity, on their hypothesis, is a deceiver ; for that hypothesis assumes that our natural consciousness deludes us in the belief, that external objects are immediately, and in them- selves perceived. Either therefore maintaining the veracity of God, they must surrender their hypothesis ; or, maintaining their hypothesis, they must surrender the veracity of God. Against the Materialist, in proof of our Personal Identity, can they maintain that consciousness is able to identify self, at one 4:0 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. period, with self, at another ; when, in their theory of percep tion, consciousness, mistaking self for not-self, is unable, they virtually assert, to identify self with self, even at the same mo* ment of existence ? How, again, can they maintain the substantial Individuality and consequent Immateriality of the thinking principle, on the unity of consciousness, when the duality given in consciousness is not allowed substantially to discriminate the object from the subject in perception ? But to take a broader view. It is a maxim in philosophy, That substances are not to be multiplied without necessity ; in other words, That a plurality of principles are not to be assumed, when the phenomena can possibly be explained by one. This regulative principle, which may be called the law or maxim of Parcimony, 1 throws it therefore on the advocates of a scheme of psychological Dualism, to prove the necessity of supposing more than a single substance for the phenomena of mind and matter. Further, we know nothing whatever of mind and mat- ter, considered as substances ; they are only known to us as a twofold series of phenomena : and we can only justify, against the law of parcimony, the postulation of two substances, on the ground, that the two series of phenomena are, reciprocally, so contrary and incompatible, that the one cannot be reduced to the other, nor both be supposed to coinhere in the same common sub- ' '<<(. -stance. Is this ground shown to be invalid ? the presumption rJk-Q^u)) i against a dualistic theory at once recurs, and a Unitarian scheme I f becomes, in the circumstances, philosophically necessary. Now the doctrine of Cosmothetic Idealism, in abolishing the v^^ incompatibility of the two series of phenomena, subverts the only ground on which a psychological Dualism can be maintained. This doctrine denies to mind a knowledge of aught beyond its own modifications. The qualities, which we call material Exten- 1 The rule of philosophizing, which Hamilton felicitously calls the law of parcimony, was often keenly applied by the logical Occam ; hence it it* sometimes designated as " Occam's razor." W. *- PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE 41 sion, Figure, y Jacobi. 5. SUGGESTIONS (Suggestiones, Suggestus). This term with some determining epithet is a favorite word of Reid, and in a similar signification. So also was it of St. Augustin and Tertul- lian. By the vous of Aristotle, the latter says " non aliud quid intelligimus quam suggestum animse ingenitum et insitum et nativitus proprium." De Anima, c. 12. See also Testimonies, infra, No. 12 d ; and, supra, p. Ill a, note. 1 6. FACTS DATA (ultimate primary original, &c.) of Consciousness or Intelligence. These expressions have found 1 The following is the note referred to: "'The word suggest* (says Mr. Stewart, in reference to the preceding passage) 'is much used by Berkeley, in this appropriate and technical sense, not only in his ' Theory of Vision,' but in his ' Principles of Human Knowledge,' and in his 'Minute Philosopher.' It expresses, indeed, the cardinal principle on which his ' Theory of Vision ' hinges, and is now so incorporated with some of our best metaphysical speculations, that one can- not easily conceive how the use of it was so long dispensed with. Locke uses the word excite for the same purpose ; but it seems to imply an hypoth- esis concerning the mechanism of the mind, and by no means expresses the fact in question with the same force and precision. ' It is remarkable, that Dr. Keid should have thought it incumbent on him to apologize for introducing into philosophy a word so familiar to every person conversant with Berkeley's works. ' I beg leave to make use of the word suggestion, because,' &c. ..... ' So far Dr. Reid's use of the word coincides exactly with that of Berke- ley ; but the former will be found to annex to it a meaning more extensive than the latter, by employing it to comprehend, not only those intimations which are the result of experience and habit ; but another class of intima- tions (quite overlooked by Berkeley), those which result from the original frame of the human mind.' Dissertation on the History of Metaphysical and Ethical Science. P. 167. Second edition. " Mr. Stewart might have adduced, perhaps, a higher and, certainly a more proximate authority, in favor, not merely of the term in general, but of Keid's restricted employment of it, as an intimation of what he and others have designated the Common Sense of mankind. The following sentence of Tertullian contains a singular anticipation, both of the philosophy and of the philosophical phraseology of our author. Speaking of the universal belief of the soul's immortality : ' Natura pleraque suggerunfair, quasi de jJuUico sensu quo animam Deus ditare dignatus est.' DE ANIMA, c. 2. " Some strictures on Eeid's employment of the term suggestion may be seen in the ' Versuche' of Tetens, I. p. 508, sqq." W. PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 65 favor with many philosophers, among- whom Fergusson, Fichte, Creuzer, Krug, Ancillon, Gerlach, Cousin, Bautain, may be men- tioned. They are well adapted to denote, that our knowledge reposes upon what ought to be accepted as actually true, though why, or in what manner it is true, be inexplicable. III. The third quality, in reference to which our primary cognitions have obtained certain appellations, is their Originali- ty. Under this head : 1 . FIRST PRIMARY PRIMITIVE PRIMORDIAL ULTIMATE, as epithets applied to truths, principles of thought, laws of intel- ligence, facts or data of consciousness, elements of reason, &c., are- expressions which require no comment. 2. PRINCIPLES ('Ap^cu, Principia, literally commencements points of departure) Principles of Common Sense first, proper, authentic (xupiwrarcu) Principles of thought, reason, judgment, intelligence Initia naturae, &c. Without entering on the various meanings of the term Princi- ple, which Aristotle defines, in general, that from whence any thing exists, is produced, or is known, it is sufficient to say that it is always used for that on which something else depends ; and thus both for an original law, and for an original element. In the former case it is regulative, in the latter a constitutive, prin- ciple ; and in either signification it may be very properly applied to our original cognitions. In this relation, Mr. Stewart would impose certain restrictions on the employment of the word. But admitting the propriety of his distinctions, in themselves, and these are not new it may be questioned whether the limitation he proposes of the generic term be expedient, or permissible. See his Elements, ii. c. 1, particularly pp. 59, 93 of 8vo editions. 3. ANTICIPATIONS PRESUMPTIONS PRENOTIONS (<7rpoX^?^, -Tfpoutfapxouo'a yvwrfij, anticipationes, prcesumptiones, prcenotiones, informationes anteceptce, cognitiones anticipates, &c.), with such attributes as common, natural, native, connate, innate, &c., have been employed to indicate that they are the antecedents, causes, or conditions of all knowledge These are more especially the 4 66 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. terms of ancient philosophy. To this group may be added the expression Legitimate Prejudices, borrowed from the nomencla- ture of theology, but which have sometimes been applied by philosophers in a parallel signification.* 4. A PRIORI truths, principles, cognitions, notions, judg- ments, &c. The term a priori, by the influence of Kant and his school, is now very generally employed to characterize those elements of knowledge which are not obtained a posteriori, are not evolved out of experience as factitious generalizations; but which, as native to, are potentially in, the mind antecedent to the act of experience, on occasion of which as constituting its subjective conditions) they are first actually elicited into consciousness. These like many indeed most others of his technical expres- sions, are old words applied in a new signification. Previously to Kant the terms a priori and a posteriori were, in a sense which descended from Aristotle, properly and usually employed, the former to denote a reasoning from cause to effect the latter, a reasoning from effect to cause. The term a priori came, however, in modern times to be extended to any abstract reason- ing from a given notion to the conditions which such notion involved ; hence, for example, the title a priori bestowed on the ontological and cosmological arguments for the existence of the deity. The latter of these, in fact, starts from experience from the observed contingency of the world, in order to construct the supposed notion on which it founds. Clarke's cosmological demonstration, called a priori, is therefore, so far, properly an argument a posteriori. 5. CATEGORIES of thought, understanding, reason, &c. The Categories of Aristotle and other philosophers were the * As by Trembley of Geneva. It is manifest, though I have not hib trea- tise at hand, that he borrowed this, not over-fortunate, expression from the Prejuges Legitimes contre les Calvinistes of Nicole, the work in which origina- ted the celebrated controversy in which Pajon, Basnage, &c., were engaged. Of this Mr. Stewart does not seem to be aware. PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. highest classes (under Being) to which the objects edge could be generalized. Kant contorted the term Category from its proper meaning of attribution ; and from an objective to a subjective application ; bestowing this name on the ultimate and necessary laws by which thought is governed in its mani- festations. The term, in this relation, has however found accep- tation; and been extended to designate, in general, all the a priori phenomena of mind, though Kant himself limited the word to a certain order of these. 6. TRANSCENDENTAL truths, principles, cognitions, judg- ments, &G. In the Schools transcendentalis and transcendens, were con- vertible expressions, employed to mark a term or notion which transcended, that is, which rose above, and thus contained under it the categories, or summa genera, of Aristotle. Such, for ex- ample, is Being, of which the ten categories are only subdivi- sions. Kant, according to his wont, twisted these old terms into a new signification. First of all, he distinguished them from each other. Transcendent (transcendens) he employed to denote what is wholly beyond experience, being given neither as an a posteriori nor a priori element of cognition what therefore tran- scends every category of thought. Transcendental (transcenden- talis) he applied to signify the a priori or necessary cognitions which, though manifested in, as affording the conditions of, expe- rience, transcend the sphere of that contingent or adventitious knowledge which we acquire by experience. Transcendental is not therefore what transcends, but what in fact constitutes, a category of thought. This term, though probably from another quarter, has found favor with Mr. Stewart ; who proposes to ex- change the expression principles of common sense for, among other names, that of transcendental truths. 7. PURE (rein) is another Kantian expression (borrowed with a modification of meaning from previous philosophers*) for cogni- * Pure knmvledge (cognitio pura) was a term employed by the Cartesians find Leibnitians to denote that knowledge in which there was no mixture ol 68 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. tions, in which there is mingled nothing foreign or adventitious, that is, nothing from experience, and which consequently are wholly native to the mind, wholly a priori.. Such elements, however, are obtained only by a process of sundering and abstraction. In actual, or concrete, thinking, there is given nothing pure ; the native and foreign, the a priori and a posteri- ori are there presented in mutual fusion. IV. The fourth determining circumstance, is that the cogni- tions in question are natural, not conventional, native, not acquired. Hence their most universal denominations : 1. NATURE (yvtfig natura) ; as, common Nature of man light of Nature* primary hypotheses of Nature initia Natures, &c. NATURAL ((pixftxos, naturalis) as conjoined with cognitions, notions, judgments anticipations, presumptions, prenotions, beliefs, truths, criteria, &c. 2. NATIVE, INNATE, CONNATE, IMPLANTED, &c. (svwv, !f*jS, tfec.) PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 85 VI. THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE ; OR ITS GENERAL RECOGNITION, IN REALITY AND IN NAME, SHOWN BY A CHRONOLOGICAL SERIES OF TESTI- MONIES FROM THE DAWN OF SPECULATION TO THE PRESENT DAY.* 1. HESIOD thus terminates his Works and Days: Qrjprj tf oviroTt ifdfnrav aTnJAXurai Sjv rtva iroXXot Aaot AijuKovfft' Olds vv TIS (jrl Kal alrf/. 1 The Word proclaimed by the concordant voice Of mankind fails not ; for in man speaks God.' Hence the adage ? Vox Populi, vox Dei. 2. HERACLITUS. The doctrine held by this philosopher of a Common Reason ($wos Xo'^o?), the source and the criterion of truth, in opposition to individual wisdom (5'a ywws\ the principle of opinion and error, may be regarded as one of Com- mon Sense. Its symbol rot xoiv9j opnri, tyoppt), xpdtyaoig, ahta i-Tovpydj, Aarpi?, lirvpfTis, &c.) Of the Greek interpreter, see Alexander in Top. pp. 12, 47, 48, ed. Aid. (Test n. 10) Themistius in Post. An. if. 2, 14, 15, arid Be An. f. 90, ed. Aid. Philoponus (or Ammonius), in Post. An. f. 100, ed. Aid. and De Anima, Proem. Eustratius in Post. An. f. 63, sq., ed. Aid. in Eth. Nic. f. 89 b, ed. Aid. Of the Latin expositors, among many, Fonseca, in Metaph. L. i. c. 1, q. 4 Conimbricenses, Org. Post. Anal. L. i. c. 1. q. 1 Sonerus in Metaph. L. i. c. 1, p. 67, sq. Of Testimonies infra, sec Nos. 10, 20, 21, 22. On this interpretation, Aristotle justly views our knowledge as chronologically commencing with Sense, but logically originating in Intellect. As one of the oldest of his modern antagonists has incomparably enounced it, ' Cognitio nostra omnis a Mente primam oriyi- nem,o, Sensibus exordium habet primum;' a text on which an appropriate commentary may be sought for in the opening chapter of Kant's Critique of pure Keason, and in the seventeenth Lecture of Cousin upon Locke. The second mode of reconciling the contradiction, and which has not I think been attempted, is that on the supposition of the mind virtually containing, antecedent to all actual experience, certain universal principles of knowledge, in the form of certain necessities of thinking ; still it is only by repeated and comparative experiment, that we compass the certainty on the one hand, that such and such cognitions cannot but be thought, aud are, therefore, as necessary, native generalities, and on the other, that sncli and such cognitions may or may not be thought, and are, therefore, as con- tingent, factitious generalizations. To this process of experiment, analysis, and classification, through which we attain to a scientific knowledge of prin- ciples, it might be shown that Aristotle, not improbably, applies the term Induction. In regard to the passage (De An. L. iii. c. 5) in which the intellect prior to experience is compared to a tablet on which nothing has actually been written, the context shows that the import of this simile is with Aristotle very different from what it was with the Stoics ; to whom, it may be noticed, and not, as is usually supposed, to the Stagirite, are we to refer the first cnounoement of the brocard In Intellectu niHl est, quod nan prwsfuerit in Sctisu. PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 89 But to adduce some special testimonies. These I shall translate. 1 a. Top. L. i. c. 1, 6. ' First truths are such as are believed, not through aught else, but through themselves alone. For in regard to the principles of science we ought not to require the reason Why [but only the fact That they are given] ; for each such principle behooves to be itself a belief in and of itself.' b. Pr. Analyt. L. i. c. 3, 4. Maintaining against one party that demonstrative science is competent to man, and against another, that this science cannot itself be founded on propositions which admit of demonstration, Aristotle says ' We assert not only that science does exist, but also that there is given a certain beginning or principle of science, in so far as [or on another interpretation of the term rj ' by which*] we recognize the im- port of the terms.' On the one interpretation the meaning of the passage is ' We assert not only that [demonstrative] science does exist, but also that there is given a certain [indemonstrable] beginning or principle of science [that is, Intellect which comes into operation], so soon as we apprehend the meaning of the terms.' For example, when we once become aware of the sense of the terms whole and part, then the intellect of itself spontane- ously enounces the axiom The whole is greater than its part. On the other interpretation ; ' We assert not only that [demon- strative] science does exist, but also that there is given a certain [indemonstrable] beginning or principle of science [viz. intellect] by which we recognize the import of the terms,' i. e. recognize them in their necessary relation, and thereupon explicitly enounce the axiom which that relation implies. la making intellect a source of knowledge, Aristotle was preceded by Plato. But the Platonic definition of ' Intellection? is ' The principle of science /' and Aristotle's merit is not the abolition of intellect as such, but its reduction from a sole to a conjunct principle of science. J The original of the more essential points : Zrirttv \byov fyivras rtjv a*aOn- ffiv, a^pwjta r/j fjt fitavoias, A.ristotle. Ylpoof\tiv ov Sei irdvra roif Sia r&v 4AAa iroAAavif /*aAAoj/ rots 0aivo/uvois. Id. T^ aiffOrjasi i*a\\ov JJ ra> Aoyw riov* KOI Tots Aj ofitffatfif ex} tavruv (Laert. x. 39) ; and as in the Epicurean philosophy all our knowledge is merely an educt of Sense, the truth of the derived, depends wholly upon the truth of the original evidence. See L. iv. vv, 480, sq. G. CICERO. a. De Fin. L. iv. c. 19. Speaking of the Stoical paradoxes (' recte facta omnia sequalia, omnia peccata paria,' (fi$, x.n complexo ; et a sensu moto movetur intellectus, et intelligit simplicia, qui est primus actus intellectus. Deinde post -apprehension em simplicium sequitur alius actus, qui est componere simplicia ad invicem ; et post istam compositionem habet intellectus, ex lumine naturali ut assentiat illi veritati complex^, si illud complexum sit primum principium. ' SECUNDUM ; Quod notitia Primorum Principiorum \recte\ dicitur nobis inesse naturaliter, quatenus, ex lumine naturali intellectus, sunt nobis inesse nota, habita notitia simplici termi- norum, quia "principia cognoscimus inquantum terminos cog- noscimus" (ex primo Posteriorum).' To this schoolman we owe the first enouncement of the Princi- ple of Identity. Those who are curious in this matter will find many acute observations on the nature of principles in the other schoolmen ; more especially in Averroes on the Analytics and Metaphysics, in Albertus Magnus on the Predicables and Pr. Analytics, and in Hales, 3d and 4th books of his Metaphysics. 23. BUD^EUS. In Pandectas, Tit. i. ' Ista igitur fere quae juri naturali ascribuntur, id est, quse natura docuisse nos cre- ditur, versantur in Sensu Communi] &c. 24. LUTHER. Weisheit, Th. iii. Abth. 2. 'All things have their root in Belief, which we can neither perceive nor compre- hend. He who would make this Belief visible, manifest, and conceivable, has sorrow for his pains.' 25. MELANCHTHON. a. De Dialectica, ed. Lugd. 1542, p. 90. Speaking of the Dicta de Omni et de Nullo * Neo opus est procul quserere harum regularum interpretationem ; si quis sen- sum communem consuluerit, statim intelliget eas. Nam ut Arith- metica et aliae artes initia sumunt a sensu communi, ita Dialec- ticae principia nobiscum nascuntur.' b. Ibid., p. 103. Speaking of the process in the Expository Syllogism, ' Habet causam hiec consequentia in natura positam quandam xoiv^v gvvoiav, ut vocant, hoc est, sententiam quam om- 104: PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. nis natura docet, de qua satis est sensum communem eonsulere And again, * Est et hujus consequently ratiD sumpta a com muni sensu? c. Erotemata Dialectica L. iv. in Loco, ab Absurdo, p. 1040, ed. 3, Strigelii, 1579 * Absurdum in Philosophia vocatur opinic pugnans cum Sensu Communi, id est vel cum principiis naturae notis, vel cum universal! experientia.' Reid (see n. 79 a) says repeatedly the very same. d. Ibid., p. 853. ' Quare Principia sunt certa ? I. Quia noti- tia principiorum est lumen naturale, insitum humanis mentibus divinitus. II. Quia dato opposito sequitur destructio natural See also pp. 798, 857, and the relative commentary of Strigelius, What Melanchthon states in regard to the cognition of Principles and Light of Nature is borrowed from the schoolmen. See above, Nos. 20, 21, 22. Consult also his treatise De Anima in the chapters De Intellectu ; more especially that entitled Estne verum dictum, notitias aliquas nobiscum nasci ? 26. JULIUS CJESAR SCALIGER. De Subtilitate, Exerc. cccvii. 18. ' Sunt cum anima nostra quredan cognatce notitice, quse idcirco vou dicuntur a philosopho. Nemo enim tarn infans est, quern cognitio lateat pluris et paucioris. Infanti duo poma apponito. Uno recepto, alterum item poscet. Ab his principiis actus Mentis, a sensilibus excitatus.' Such principles, he con- tends, are innate in the human Intellect, precisely as the instincts of the lower animals are innate in their highest power. They may therefore be denominated Intellectual Instincts. Compare 21, 22. The doctrine of this acute philosopher was adopted and illus- trated, among others, by his two expositors Rodolphus Goclenius of Marburg, and Joannes Sperlingius of Wittemberg ; by the for- mer in his Adversaria and Scaligeri Exercitationes, 1594 (qq. 41, 51, 60) ; by the latter, not indeed in his Meditationes ad Scali- geri Exercitationes, but in his Physica Anthropologica, 1668 (L. i. c. 3, 8). In these the arguments of Gassendi and Locke for the counter opinion, are refuted by anticipation ; though, in fact. PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE 105 Locke himself is at last, as we shall see, obliged to appeal to Common Sense, identical with the Intellectus, Mens, and Lumen Naturale of these and other philosophers. (No. 51.) Otto Cas- mann, the disciple of Goclenius, may also be consulted in his Psychologia Anthropologica, 1594. (c. 5, 5.) 27. OMPHALIUS. Nomologia, f. 72 b. 'Non eget his pne- ceptis [dictis scilicet de omni et de nullo] qui Sensum Commu- nem consulit. Natura siquidem plerasque xoiva^ svvo/a^ animis nostris insevit quibus rerum naturam pervidemus.' 28. ANTONIUS GOVEANUS. Pro Aristotele Responsio ad ver- sus Petri Kami Calumnias. Opera Ornnia, ed. Meermanniaria, p. 802 a. 'An non ex hominem communi sensu desumptee enun- ciationum reciprocationes hse videntur ? . . . Sumpta hsec Rame, sunt e communi hominum intelligentia, cujus cum mater natura sit, quid est, quoeso, cur negemus naturae decreta haec et prgecepta esse ?' 29. NUNNESIUS. De Constitutione Dialectics, f. 56 b. ed. 1554. ' Sed cum Dialectica contenta sit Scnsu CommuniJ &c. 30. MURETUS. In Aristotelus Ethica ad Nicomachuni Com- mentarius, 1583. Opera Omnia, Ruhnkenii, t. iii. p. 230. In proof of the immortality of the soul, in general, and in par- ticular, in disproof of an old and ever-recurring opinion one, in- deed, which agitates, at the present moment, the divines and phi- losophers of Germany that the intellect in man, as a merely pas- sing manifestation of the universal soul, the Absolute, can pretend to no individual, no personal, existence beyond the grave ; he addu- ces the argument drawn from the common sense of mankind, in the following noble, though hitherto unnoticed passage: touching the eloquence of which, it should be borne in mind, that what is now read as a commentary was originally listened to by a great, and mingled auditory, as improvisations from the mouth of him, for whose equal as a Latin orator, we must ascend to Cicero himself. ' Neque laborandum est etiamsi hsec [nisi] naturalibus argu- mentis probare nequeamus, neque fortassis dissolvere rationes quasdam, quas afierunt ii, qui contrarias opiniones tuentur. Na- 106 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. turalis enim omnium gentium consensus multo plus ponderis apud nos, quam omnia istorum argumenta, habere debet. Neque quic- quam est aliud gigantum more bellare cum diis, quam repugnare naturae,* et insitas ab ea in omnium animis opiniones acutis ac fallacibus conclusiunculis velle subvertere. Itaque ut senes illi Trojani, apud Homerum, dicebant, pulchram quidam esse Hele- nani, sei tamen ablegandum ad suos, ne exitio esset civitati ; ita nos, si quando afferetur nobis ab istis acutum aliquod argument- urn, quo colligatur .... animos interire una cum corpo- ribus, aut si quid supersit, commune quiddam esse, et ut unum solem,f ita unum esse omnium mentum, ... respondeamus : Ingeniosus quidem es, o bone, et eruditus, et in disputando po- tens ; sed habe tibi istas praeclaras rationes tuas ; ego eas, ne mini exitios sint, admittere in animum meum nolo. Accipite, enim, gravissime viri, . . . studiosissimi adoleseentes, . . prseclaram, et immortali memoria dignam, summi pliilosoplii Aristotelis sententiam, quam in omnibus hujus generis disputa- tionibus teneatis, quam sequamini, ad quam sensus cogitationes- que vestras perpetuo dirigatis. Ex illius enim divini hominis pectore, tanquam ex augustissimo quodam sapientire sacrario, liaec prodierunt, quae primo Etbicorum ad Eudemum leguntur n^oo'g^ejv ou SsT itOMra, roTg Sia, TWV Xoywv, dXXa tfoXXaxj^ /xaXXov TDK: r (p, 52). Our natural Instincts operate irrationally ; that i", they operate without reasoning or discur- sion ; and Reason (Ratio), which is the deduction of these com- mon notions to their lower and lowest applications, has no other appeal, in the last resort, except to them (p. 42). The primary truths, or truths of Instinct, ai\i discriminated PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. Ill from secondary truths (those, to wit, which are not obtained without the intervention of the Discursive faculty) by six charac- ters. 1. By their Priority. For Natural Instinct is the first, Dis- cursion the last of our faculties. 2. By their Independence. For if a truth depend upon a common notion, it is only secondary ; whereas a truth is primary, which itself hanging upon no superior truth, affords dependence to a chain of subordinate propositions. 3. By their Universality. Universal consent is indeed the most unequivocal criterion of an instinctive truth. The Particu- lar is always to be suspected as false, or, at least, as partially erroneous ; whereas Common Notions, drawn, as it were, from the very wisdom of nature, are, in themselves, universal, howbeit, in reasoning, they may be brought down and applied to particulars. 4. By their Certainty. For such is their authority, that he who should call them into doubt, would disturb the whole con- stitution of things, and, in a certain sort, denude himself of his humanity. It is, therefore, unlawful to dispute against these principles, which, if clearly understood, cannot possibly be gain- said. (Compare No. 25, d.) 5. By their Necessity. For there is none which does not conduce to the conservation of man. 6. By the Manner of their Formation or Manifestation. For they are elicited, instantaneously and without hesitation, so soon as we apprehend the significance of the relative objects or words. The discursive understanding, on the other hand, is in its operation slow and vacillating advancing only to recede exposed to innumerable errors in frequent connection with sense attributing to one faculty what is of the province of another, and not observing that each has its legitimate boundaries, transcend- ing which, its deliverances are incompetent or null (pp. 60, 61).* * I was surprised to find an eloquent and very just appreciation of Herbert (for he it is who is referred to), by a learned and orthodox theologian at Cambridge Nathaniel Culverwell, in his ' Discourse of the Light of Nature,' 112 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 36. JOANNES CAMERON, the celebrated theologian. De Ec- clesia iv. Op. ed. 1642, p. . 'Sensus Communis seu Ratio,' &c. 37. DESCARTES proclaims as the leading maxim of philosophy a principle which it would have been well for his own doctrine had he always faithfully applied. ' Certum autem est, nihil rios unquam falsum pro vero admissuros, si tantum iis assen- sum pra^beamus quae dare et distincte percipiemus. Certum, inquam, quia cum Deus non sit faliax, facultas percipiendi, quam nobis dedit [sive Lumen Naturce], non potest tendere in falsum } ut neque etiam facultas assentiendi, cum tantum ad ea, quae clare percipiuntur, se extendit. Et quamvis hoc nulla ratione probare- tur, ita omnium animis a natura impressum est, ut quoties aliquid clare percipimus, ei sponte assentiamur, et nulla modo possimus dubitare quin sit verum.' Princ. i. 43, with 30, 45 ; De Meth. 4 ; Med. iii. iv. ; Resp, ad Obj. ii. passim. What Des- cartes, after the schoolmen, calls the * Light of Nature,' is only another term for Common Sense (see Nos. 20, 21, 22, 25) ; and Common Sense is the name which Descartes' illustrious disciple, Fenelon, subsequently gave it. See No. 60. There are some good observations on Descartes' Light of Nature, &c. in Gravii Specimina Philosophise Veteris, L. ii. c. 16 ; and in Regis, Meta- physique, L. i. P. i. ch. 12, who identifies it with consciousness. That Descartes did not hold the crude and very erroneous doc- trine of innate ideas which Locke took the trouble to refute, I may have another opportunity of more fully showing. ' Nun- quam scripsi vel judicavi (he says) mentem indigere id eis innatis, quae sint aliquid diver sum ab ejus facultate cogitandi." 1 Notae in Programma (Regii) 12. Compare 13 with Responsiones et Objectiones iii. IT. 5, 10. By innate ideas in general, Descartes means simply the innate faculty we possess of forming or eliciting certain manifestations in consciousness (whether of necessary or written in 1646, p. 93. Culverwell does not deserve the oblivion into which lie has fallen ; for he is a compeer worthy of More, Spencer, Smith, Cud- worth, and Taylor the illustrious and congenial band by which that univer- sity was illustrated during the latter half of the seventeenth century. PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 113 contingent truths) on occasion of, but wholly different from, both the qualities of the reality affecting, and the movements of the organism affected ; these manifestations or ideas being nothing else than states of the conscious substance itself. On this ground he occasionally calls the secondary qualities innate ; in so far as they are, actually, mere modes of mind, and, potentially, subjec- tive predispositions to being thus or thus modified. His doctrine in -egard to principles, when fully considered, seems identical with that of Aristotle, as adopted and expounded by the schoolmen ; and I have no doubt that had he and Locke expressed themselves with the clearness and precision of Scotus, their opinions on this subject would have been found coincident both with each other and with the truth. 38. SIR THOMAS BROWN (Religio Medici, First Part, sect. 36) has ' Common Sense] word and thing. 39. BALZAC in Le Barbon (Sallengre Histoire de Pierre de Montmauer, t. ii. p. 88, and (Euvres de Balzac), * Sens Commun,' word and thing. 40. CHANET (Traite de 1'Esprit, p. 15) notices that the term Common Sense had in French a meaning different from its Scho- lastic or Aristotelic signification, ' being equivalent to common or universal reason, and by some denominated natural logic. 1 41. P. IREN^EUS A SANCTO JACOBO, a Thomist philosopher, and Professor of Theology at Rennes. Integra Philosophia, 1655 ; Logica c. iv. sectio 4. 2. In reference to the question, ' Quid sit habitus ille primorum principiorum ? he says ' Proba- bilior apparet sententia dicentium habitum primorum principio- rum esse lumen naturale, sen naturaliter inditum (intellectus sc.) . . . Favet communis omnium sensus, qui diffiteri nequit ali qua esse naturaliter et seipsis cognoscibilia ; ergo principium talis cognitionis debet censeri signatum super nos naturce lu- men 1 42. LESCALOPIER. Humanitas Theologica, &c., L. i. p. 87. 'Quid gravius in sentiendo, quod sequamur, habere possumus, quam constans naturae judicium, setatum omnium cana sapien,- 7 114: PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. tia et perpetuo suffragio confirmatum ? Possunt errare singuli labi possunt viri sapientes sibi suoque arbitrio permissi ; at totam hominis naturam tanta erroris contagio invadere non potest. . . . Quod in communibus hominum sensibus positum, id quoque in ipsa natura situra atque fixum esse, vel ipse Orator corain judice non diffitetur. [Pro Cluentio, c. 6.] Itaque communis ille sensus, naturae certissima vox est ; iinmo, ' vox Populi,' ut trito fertur ada- gio, ' vox Dei.' 43. PASCAL. Pensees ; editions of Bossut and Renouard. a. Partie i. art. x. 4 (ch. 31 old editions), 'Tout notre rai- sonnement se reduit a ceder au Sentiment? This feeling he, be- fore and after, calls ' Sens Commun? Art. vi. 17, (ch. 25) art. xi. 2 (wanting in old editions). b. Partie ii. art. i. 1 (ch 21). Speaking the doctrine of the Skeptics ' Nous n'avous aucun certitude de la verite des princi- pes (hors la foi et la revelation) sinon en ce que nous les sentons naturellement en nous.' .... And having stated their principal arguments why this is not conclusive, he takes up the doctrine of the Dogmatists. ' L'unique fort des Dogmatistes, c'est qu'en parlant de bonne foi et sincerement, on ne peut douter des prindpes naturels. Nous connoissons, disent-ils, la verite, non seulement par rai- sonnement, mais aussi par sentiment, et par une intelligence vive et lumineuse ; et c'est de cette derniere sorte que nous connois- sons les premiers prindpes. C'est en vain que le raisonnement, qui n'y a point de part, essaie de les combattre. Les Pyrrho- niens, qui n'ont que cela pour objet, y travaillent inutilement. Nous savons que nous ne revons point, quelque impuissance ou nous soyons de le prouver par raison [which he uses convertibly with raisonnement]. Cette impuissance ne conclut autre chose que la foiblesse de notre raison, mais non pas 1'incertitude de toutes nos connoissances, comme ils le pretendent : car la connoissance des premiers principes, comme, par exemple, qu'il y a espace, temps, mouvement, nombre, matiere, est aussi ferine qu'aucune de celles que nos raisonnements nous donnent. Et c'est sur ces connois- PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 115 sances d* intelligence et de sentiment qu'il faut que la raison s'ap- puie, et qu'elle fonde tout son discours. Je sens qu'il y a trois dimensions dans 1'espace, et que les norabres sont infinis ; et la raison demontre ensuite qu'il n'y a point deux norabres carres dont 1'un soit double de 1'autre. Les principes se sentent; les propositions se conduent ; le tout avec certitude, quoique par dif- ferentes voles. Et il est aussi ridicule que la raison demande an sentiment et a Tintelligence des preuves de ces premiers principes pour y consentir, qu'il seroit ridicule que V intelligence demandat a la raison un sentiment de toutes les propositions qu'elle de- montre. Cette impuissance ne pent done servir qu'a humilier la raison qui voudroit juger de tout, mais non pas a comlattre no- tre certitude, comme s'il n'y avoit que la raison capable de nous instruire. Plut a Dieu que nous n'en eussions au contraire jamais besoin, et que nous connussions toutes choses par instinct et par sentiment ! Mais la nature nous a refuse ce bien et elle ne nous a donne que tres pen de connoissances de cette sorte ; toutes les an tres ne peuvent e"tre acquises que par le raison ne- ment.' . . . 1 Qui deme"lera cet embrouillement ? La nature confond les Pyrrhoniens, et la raison confond les Dogmatistes. Que devien- drez vous done, 6 Lomme, qui cherchez votre veritable condition par votre raison naturelle ? Vous ne pouvez fuir une de ces sectes, ni subsister dans aucune. Voila ce qu'est I'homme a 1'e- gard de la verite.' 44. LA CHAMBRE. Systeme de 1'Ame, L. ii. c. 3. ' Sens CommunJ word and thing. 45. HENRY MORE. Confutatio Cabbalne : Opera Omnia, p. 528. 'Hoc Externus Sensus, corporeave Luaginatio non dictat, sed Sensus Intellectualis, innataque ipsius mentis sagacitas, inter cujus notiones communes seu axiomata, noematice vel immediate vera, supra numeratum est.' Compare Epistola H. Mori, ad. V. C. 17, Opera, p. 117, and Enchiridion Ethicum, L. i. cc. 4,5. 46. RAPIN. Gomparaison de Platon et d'Aristote, ch. vii. 116 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 11. ' Oe consentement general detous les peuples, estun instinct de la nature qui ne peut estre faux, estant si universe!. 1 47. DUHAMEL. Philosophia Burgundise, t. i. Disp. ii. in Ca- teg. qu. 4, art. 2. ' Communis Sensus," name and thing. 48. MALEBRANCHE. Recherche de la Verite Entretiens sur la Metaphysique Traite de Morale, &c., passim. He holds, 1, that there is a supreme absolute essential Reason or Intelligence, an eternal light illuminating all other minds, con- taining in itself and revealing to them the necessary principles of science and of duty ; and manifesting also to us the contingent existence of an external, extended universe. This Intelligence is the Deity ; these revelations, these manifestations, a: e Ideas. He holds, 2, that there is a natural Reason common to all men an eye, as it were, fitted to receive the light, and to attend to the ideas in the supreme Intelligence ; in so far therefore an infallible and ' Common Sense. 1 But, 3o, at the same time, this Reason i& obnoxious to the intrusions, deceptions, and solicitations of the senses, the imagination, and the passions ; and, in so far, is per- sonal, fallible, and factitious. He opposes objective knowledge, ' par idee,' to subjective knowledge, ' par conscience,' or ' sentiment interieur.' To the latter belong all the Beliefs ; which, when ne- cessary, as determined by Ideas in the Supernal Reason, are always veracious. It could, however, easily be shown that, in so far as regards, the representative perception of the external world, his principles would refute his theory. A similar doctrine in re- gard to the infallibility and divinity of our Intelligence or Com- mon Sense was held by Bossuet. 49. POIRET. The objects of our cognitions are either things themselves realities ; or the representations of realities, their shadows, pictures, ideas. Realities are divided into two classes ; corporeal things, and spiritual things. Each of these species of object has an appropriate faculty by which it is cognized. 1, Corporeal realities are perceived by the animal or sensual Intel- lect in a word by Sense ; this is merely passive. 2, Spiritual realities original truths are perceived by the passive or receptive PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 117 Intellect, which may be called Intelligence ; it is the sense of the su- persensible. [This corresponds not to the passive intellect of Aris- totle, but to his intellect considered as the place of principles and to Common Sense ; it coincides also with the Vernunft of Jacobi and other German philosophers, but is more correctly named.] These two faculties of apprehension are veracious, as God is veracious. 3, The faculty of calling up and complicating Ideas is the active ideal reflective Intellect, or human fieason. [This answers not to the active or efficient, but to the discursive or dianoetic, intel- lect of Aristotle and the older philosophers in general, also to the Verstand of Kant, Jacobi, and the'recent philosophers of Germany, but is more properly denominated.] (De Eruditione Solida, &c., ed. 2. Meth. P. i. 43-50, and Lib. i. 4-7, and Lib. ii. 3-8, and Def. p. 468 sq. Cogitationes Rationales, W. PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 147 third, entitled 'Glaube,' p. 146.) 'All my conviction is only Be- lief, and it proceeds from Feeling or Sentiment (Gesinnung), not from the discursive Understanding (Verstand).' (Ib. p. 147.) 'I possess, when once I am aware of this, the touchstone of all truth and of all conviction. The root of truth is in the Conscience (Ge- wissen) alone.' (Ib. p. 148.) Compare St. Austin, supra, No. 15, b. See also to the same effect Fichte's ' System der Sittenlehre,' p. 18 ; his work * Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre, p. 21, sq., and the ' Philosophische Journal,' vol. x. p. 7. Still more explicit is the recognition of 'internal sense' and 'belief as an irrecusable testimony of the reality of our perception of external realities, subsequently given by Fichte in his lectures at Erlangen in 1805, and reported by Gley in his 'Essai sur les Elements de la Philosophic,' p. 141, sq., and in his 'Philosophia Turonensis,' vol. i. p. 237. I regret that I have not yet seen Fichte's 'Hinter- lassene Schriften,' lately published by his son. After these admissions it need not surprise us to find Fichte confessing, that ' How evident soever may be the demonstration that every object of consciousness (Vorstellung) is only illusion and dream, I am unable to believe it ;' and in like manner main- taining, that Spinoza never could have believed the system which he deduced with so logical a necessity. (Philos. Journ. vii. p. 35.) 93. KRUG. The Transcendental Synthetism of this philoso- pher is a scheme of dualism founded on the acceptance of the ori- ginal datum of consciousness, that we are immediately cognizant, at once, of an internal, and of an external world. It is thus a scheme of philosophy, really, though not professedly, founded on Common Sense. Krug is a Kantian ; and as. originally promul- gated in his 'Entwurf eines neuen Organons,' 1801 ( 5), his system was, like Kant's, a mere Cosmothetic Idealism ; for while he allowed a knowledge of the internal world, he only allowed a belief of the external. The polemic of Schulze against the com- mon theory of sensitive representation, and in professed conform- ity with Reid's doctrine of perception, was published in the same year ; and it was probably the consideration of this that deter- 148 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. mined Krug to a fundamental change in his system. For in his treatise 'Ueber die verschiedenen Methoden,' &c. 1802 (p. 44), and still more explicitly in his 'Fundamental Philosophic,' 1803 ( 68), the mere belief in the unknown existence of external things is commuted into a cognition, and an immediate perception appa- rently allowed, as well of the phenomena of matter, as of the phe- nomena of mind. See also his pamphlet ' Ueber das Verhaelt- niss der Philosophic zum gesunden Menschenverstande,' 1835, in reference to Hegel's paradox, ' That the world of Common Sense, and the world of Philosophy, are, to each other, worlds up- side down.' 94. DEGERANDO. Histoire comparee des Systemes de Philo- sophic, t. iii. p. 343, original edition. * Concluons: la realite de nos connaissances [of the external world] ne se demontre pas ; elle se reconnait. Elle se reconnait, par 1'effet de cette meme conscience qui nous revele notre connaissance elle-me'me. Tel est le privi- lege de 1'inteUigeiice humaine. Elle aperc, oit les objcts, elle s'aper- poit ensuite elle-meme, elle apercoit qu'elle a aper9u. Elle est toute lumiere, mais une lumiere qui reflechit indefiniment sur elle- meme. On nous opposera ce principe abstrait : qu'une sensation ne pent nous insiruire que de notre propre existence. . . . Sans doute lorsqu'on commence par confondre la sensation avec la per- ception, par definir celle-ci une maniere cF&tre du moi, on ne peut leur attribuer d'atitre instruction que celle dont notre propre exis- tence est 1'objet. Mais evitons ici les disputes de mots ; il s'agit seulement de constater un fait ; savoir, si dans certains cas, en re- flechissant sur nos operations, en demelant toutes leurs circons- tances, nous n'y decouvrons pas la perception immediate et primi- tive d'une existence etrangere, perception a la quelle on donnera tel nom qu'on jugera convenable. Si ce fait est exact, constant, universel, si ce fait est primitif, il est non seulement inutile, mais absurde, d'en demander le pourquoi et le comment. Car nous n'avons aucune donnee pour 1'expliquer.' 95. FRIES, a distinguished philosopher of the Kantian school, but whose opinions have been considerably modified by the influ- PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 149 ence of the Jacobian philosophy of belief, professes in his Feeling of Truth (Wahrheitsgefuehl) a doctrine of common sense. This doctrine is in every essential respect the same as Reid's ; for Fries is altogether wrong in the assertion which, in different works, he once and again hazards, that, under Common Sense, Reid had in view a special organ of truth a peculiar sense, distinct from rea- son or intelligence in general. See in particular his Krit. vol. i. 85. Metaph. 17. Gesch. d. Phil. vol. ii. 1?2. Anthr. vol. i. 52. ii. Vorr. p. xvi. Log. 84. 96. KOEPPEN a philosopher of the school of Jacobi. Dars- tellung des Wesens der Philosophic, 11. ' Human knowledge, (Wissen) considered in its totality, exhibits a twofold character. It is either Apprehension (Wahrnehmung) or Conception (Begriff) ; either an immediate conviction, or a mediate insight obtained through reasons. By the former we are said to believe, by the latter to conceive [or comprehend].' After an articulate exposition of this, and having shown, with Jacobi and Hume, that belief as convertible with feeling constitutes the ultimate ground both of action and cognition, he proceeds : ' In a philosophical sense, be- lieved is tantamount to apprehended. For all apprehension is an immediate conviction which cannot be founded upon reflection and conception. In our human individuality we possess a double faculty of apprehension Reason [intelligence, voD"^] and sense. What, therefore, through reason and sense is an object of our apprehension is believed. . . . The belief of reason and the belief of sense, are our guarantees for the certainty of what we appre- hend. The former relies on the testimony of reason, the latter on the testimony of sense. Is this twofold testimony false, there is absolutely no truth of apprehension. The combinations of con- ceptions afibrd no foundation for this original truth. Beliefs thus the first in our cognition, because apprehension is the first ; conception is the second, because it regards the relations of what is given through apprehension. If, then, I exclusively appropriate to the result of conceptions the name of knowledge (Wissen) still all knowledge presupposes belief, and on belief does the truth of 150 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. knowledge repose. Belief lays hold on the originally given knowledge develops the relations of the given, in conformity with the laws of thought,' &c. 97. ANCILLON (the Son). German by birth, French by line- age, writing in either language with equal elegance, and repre- senting in himself the highest and most peculiar qualities of both his nations ; we have still farther to admire in the prime minister of Prussia, at once, the metaphysician and moralist, the historian and statesman, the preacher and man of the world. He philoso- phized in the spirit of Jacobi ; and from his treatise Ueber Glaube (On Belief), one of his later writings, I translate the following passages : P. 36. ' Existences, realities, are given us. We apprehend them by means of an internal mental intuition (geistige Anschau- ung), which, in respect of its clearness, as in respect of its cer- tainty, is as evident as universal, and as resistless and indubitable as evident. ' Were no such internal, immediate, mental intuition given us, there would be given us no existence, no reality. The universe the worlds of mind and matter would then resolve themselves into apparency. All realities would be mere appearances, appear- ing to another mere appearance Man ; whilst no answer could be afforded to the ever-recurring questions What is it that ap- pears ? and To whom is the appearance made ? Even language resists such assertions, and reproves the lie. ' Had we no such internal, immediate, mental intuition, exist- ences would be beyond the reach of every faculty we possess. For neither our abstractive nor reflective powers, neither the anal- ysis of notions, nor notions themselves, neither synthesis nor rea- soning, could ever lead us to reality and existence.'* (Having shown this in regard to each of these in detail, he proceeds : p. 40.) * This root of all reality, this ground of exist- * Fichte says tlio same : ' From cognition to pass out to an object of cog- nition this is impossible ; we must therefore depart from the reality, other- wise we should remain forever unable to reach it.' PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 151 ence, is the Reason (Vernunft), 1 out of which all reasonings pro- ceed, and on which alone they repose. 4 The Reason of which I here speak is not an instrument which serves for this or that performance, but a true productive force, a creative power, which has its own revelation ; which does not show what is already manifested, but, as a primary conscious- ness, itself contemplates existence ; which is not content to collect data, and from these data to draw an inference, but which itself furnishes Reality as a datum. This Reason is no arithmetical machine, but an active principle; it does not reach the truth after toil and time, but departs from the truth, because it finds the truth within itself. 1 This Reason, this internal eye,* which immediately receives the light of existence, and apprehends existences, as the bodily eye the outlines and the colors of the sensuous world, is an im- mediate sense which contemplates the invisible. ' This Reason is the ground, the principle, of all knowledge (Wissen) ; for all knowledge bears reference to reality and exist- ences. ' All knowledge must, first or last, rest on facts (Thatsachen), universal facts, necessary facts, of the internal sense ; on facts which give us ourselves, our own existence, and a conviction of the existence of other supersensible beings. 'These facts are for us mental intuitions. Inasmuch as they give us an instantaneous, clear, objective perception of reality, they are entitled to the name of Intuition (Anscahaung) ; inas- much as this intuition regards the objects of the invisible world, they deserve the attribute of mental. 1 Such an intuition, such a mental feeling (Gefuehl), engenders Philosophical Belief. This belief consists in the immediate ap- prehending of existences wholly concealed and excluded from th 1 On the employment of the word Reason by the German philosophers, su- pra, p. T9, sq. JF. * Plato, Aristotle, and many philosophers after them, say this of Intelli- gence, vovs . 152 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. senses, which reveal themselves to us in our inmost consciousness, and this too with a necessary conviction of their objectivity (reality). 1 Belief, in the philosophical sense, means, the apprehension without proof, reasoning or deduction of any kind, of those higher truths which belong to the supersensible world, and not to the world of appearances.' .... P. 43. ' Philosophical belief apprehends existences which can neither be conceived nor demonstrated. Belief is therefore a knowledge conversant about existences, but it does not know ex- istences, if under knowledge be understood demonstrating, com- prehending, conceiving.' .... P. 44. * The internal intuition which affords us the apprehen- sion of certain existences, and allows us not to doubt in regard to the certainty of their reality, does not inform us concerning their nature. This internal intuition is given us in Feeling and through Feeling.' .... P. 48. * This internal universal sense, this highest power of mental vision in man, seems to have much in it of the instinctive, and may therefore appropriately be styled intellectual Instinct. For on the one hand it manifests itself through sudden, rapid, uniform, resistless promptings; and on the other hand, these promptings relate to objects, which lie not within the domain of the senses, but belong to the supersensible world. 'Let no offence be taken at the expression Instinct. For, &c.' .... P. 50. 'Had man not an intellectual instinct, or a reason giving out, revealing, but not demonstrating, truths rooted in itself, for want of a point of attachment and support, he would move himself in all directions, but without progress ; and on a level, too, lower than the brutes, for he could not compass that kind of perfection which the brute possesses, and would be dis- qualified from attaining any other. ' The immediate Reason elicits internal mental intuitions ; these intuitions have an evidence, which works on us like an intellec- PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 153 tual instinct, and generates in us a philosophical belief, which constitutes the foundation of our knowledge. To which soever of these expressions the preference be accorded, all their notions have a common character, and are so interlinked together, that they all equally result in the same very simple proposition : There is either no truth, or there are fundamental truths, which admit as little of demonstration as of doubt? .... P. 51. 'Had we not in ourselves an active principle of truth, we should have neither a rule, nor a touchstone, nor a standard, of the true. Had we not in ourselves the consciousness of exist- ences, there would be for us no means of knowing, whether what comes from without be not mere illusion, and whether what the mind itself fashions and combines be aught but an empty play with notions. In a word the truth must be in us, as a consti- tutive, and as a regulative, principle ; or we should never attain to truth. Only with determinate points of commencement and termination, and with a central point of knowledge, from which every thing departs, and to which every thing tends to return, are other cognitions possible ; failing this primary condition, nothing can be given us to know, and nothing certain can exist.' And in the Preface (p. xi.) he had said : ' The Reason in- vents, discovers, creates, in propriety, nothing ; it enounces only what it harbors, it only reveals what God himself has deposited within it ; but so soon as it is conscious to itself of this, it speaks out with a force which inspires us with a rational belief, a faith of reason (Yernunftglaube), a belief which takes priority of every other, and which serves to every other as a point of departure and of support. How can we believe the word of God, if we do not already believe that a God exists ?' Compare also his 'Zur Vermittlung der Extreme,' vol. ii. p. 253, sq., and his * Moi Humain' passim. 98. GERLACH. Fundamental Philosophic, 16. 'So soon as a man is convinced of any thing be his conviction of the True, of the Good, or of the Beautiful he rests upon his Con- sciousness ; for in himself and in his Consciousness alone does he 154: PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. possess the elements which constitute the knowledge of things, and it is herein alone that he finds the necessity of all and each of his judgments. In a word, that only has an existence for us of which we are conscious.' 99. HERMES, the late illustrious ornament of the Catholic fac- ulty of Theology in Bonn, a thinker of whom any country may well be proud, is the author of a philosophy of cognition which, in its fundamental principles, is one of Common Sense. It is con- tained in the first volume of his * Introduction to Christian Cath- olic Theology,' a work which, since the author's death, has ob- tained a celebrity, apart from its great intrinsic merits, through the agitation consequent on its condemnation at Rome, for doc- trines, which, except on some notoriously open questions, the Hermesians in Germany, now a numerous and able school strenuously deny that it contains. To speak only of his theoretical philosophy. For the terms Feeling of Truth, JBelief, &c., Hermes substitutes the term Hold- ing-for-true (Fuerwahrhalten) which is only inadequately express- ed by the Latin assensus, assentio, adhcesio,t}iQ Greek tfu/xara^stfjcr, or any English term. Holding-for-tme involves in it a duplicity ; viz : a Holding-for-rwe of the knowledge, and a Holding-for- real (Fuerwirklichhalten) of the thing known. Both of these parts are united in the decision that the knowledge and the thing known coincide. Holding-for-real is not consequent on reflection ; it is not the result of a recognition ; it is the concomitant, not the consequent of apprehension. It is a constituent element of the primary con- sciousness of a perception external or internal ; it is what, in the language of the Scottish philosophers, might be called an instinct- ive belief. ' This holding-for-real (says Hermes) is manifestly given in me prior to all Reflection ; for, with the first conscious- ness, with the consciousness " that I know," from which all Reflec- tion departs, the consciousness is also there, " that I hold the thing known for real," ' Einl., vol. i. p. 182. See Nos. 3, 15* (at end), 16, &c. PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 155 The necessity we find of assenting or holding is the last and highest security we can obtain for truth and reality. The neces- sary holding of a thing for real is not itself reality ; it is only the instrument, the mean, the surrogate, the guarantee, of reality. It is not an objective, it is only a subjective, certainty. It constitutes, however, all the assurance or certainty of which the human mind is capable. ' The [necessary] Holding,' says Hermes, ' of some- thing known [for real], can afford no other certainty of the ob- jective existence of what is known but this that I (the subject) must hold the thing known for objectively existent ; or (meaning always by the word subjective what is in me, in the subject) of the objective existence of a thing known there can possibly be given only the highest subjective certainty. But no one who knows what he would be at, will ever ask after any other certainty ; not merely because it is unattainable, but be- cause it is contradictory for human thought : in other words, can a subject be any otherwise certain than that it is certain than that itself, the subject, is certain ? To be objectively certain (tak- ing the term objective in a sense corresponding to the term sub- jective as here employed) the subject, must, in fact, no longer re- main the subject, it must also be the object, and, as such, be able to become certain ; and yet in conformity to our notion of cer- tainty (Gewissheit) or whatever more suitable expression may be found for it all questions concerning certainty must be re- ferred to the subject (to the Ego) : the attempt to refer them to the object involves a contradiction.' Ibid. p. 186. This is clearly and cogently stated ; and it would seem as if we had only to appeal to the subjective certainty we have, in our being compelled to hold that in perception the ego is immedi- ately cognisant, not only of itself as subject, but of a non-ego as object to prove that the external world being actually known as existing, actually exists. (See above, p. 26, sq.) This Hermes does not, however, do. He seems not, indeed, to have contemplated the possibility of the mind being conscious or im- mediately cognitive of aught but self; and only furnishes us 156 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. with an improved edition of the old and inconclusive reasoning that an external world must be admitted, as the necessary ground or reason of our internal representation of it. 100. COUSIN. Fragmens Philosophiques, Third edition, Vol. i. a. P. 243. * Philosophy is already realized, for human thought is there. ' There is not, and there cannot be, a philosophy absolutely false ; for it would behoove the author of such a philosophy to place himself out of his own thought, in other words out of his humanity. This power has been given to no man. 4 How th^n may philosophy err ? By considering thought only on a single, side, and by seeing, in that single side, the total- ity of thought. There are no false, but many incomplete sys- tems ; systems true in themselves, but vicious in their preten- sions, each to comprise that absolute truth which is only found distributed through all. ' The incomplete, and by consequence, the exclusive this is the one only vice of philosophy, or rather, to speak more correctly, of philosophers, for philosophy rises above all the systems. The f i\\\ portrait of the real, which philosophy presents, is indeed made up of features borrowed from every several system ; for of these each reflects reality ; but unfortunately reflects it under a single angle.* ' To compass possession of reality full and entire, it is requi- site to sist ourselves at the centre. To reconstitute the intellect- ual life, mutilated in the several systems, it behooves us to re- enter Consciousness, and there, weaned from a systematic and exclusive spirit, to analyze thought into its elements, and all its elements, and to seek out in it the characters, and all the charac- ters under which it is at present manifested to the eye of conscious- ness.'' Du Fait de Conscience. b. P, 181. 'The fundamental principle of knowledge and * The like has been said by Leibnitz and Hegel ; but not so finely. PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE 157 intellectual life is Consciousness. Life begins with consciousness, and with consciousness it ends : in consciousness it is that we apprehend ourselves; and it is in and through consciousness that we apprehend the external world. Were it possible to rise above consciousness, to place ourselves, so to speak, behind it, to penetrate into the secret workshop where intelligence blocks out and fabricates the various phenomena, there to officiate, as it were, at the birth, and to watch the evolution of consciousness ; then might we hope to comprehend its nature, and the different steps through which it rises to the form in which it is first actu- ally revealed. But, as all knowledge commences with conscious- ness, it is able to remount no higher. Here a prudent analysis will therefore stop, and occupy itself with what is given.' Other testimonies might easily be quoted from the subsequent writings of M. Cousin were this not superfluous ; for I presume that few who take an interest in philosophical inquiries can now be ignorant of these celebrated works. TOO. DE LA MENNAIS. See No. 2. OMITTED. 9**. ^ELIUS ARISTIDES. Platonic Oration, ii. (Opera, ed. Canter, t. iii. p. 249 ; ed. Jebb. t. ii. p. 150) That the Many are not to be contemned, and their opinion held of no account; but that in them, too, there is a presentiment, an unerring in- stinct, which by a kind of divine fatality, seizes darkling on the truth ; this we have Plato himself teaching, and ages earlier than Plato, this old Hesiod, with posterity in chorus, in these familiar verses sang: ' The Fame, lorn of the many-nation* d voice Of mankind, dies not ; for it lives as God? For Hesiod, see No. 1. These verses are likewise adduced by Aristotle as proverbial. (Eth. Nic. vii. 13 [14]). They may be also rendered thus : ' The Word, forth sent ty the conclamant voice Of mankind, errs not ; for its truth, is God's." 1 158 PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. Fame (Public Opinion) had her temple in Athens. See Pausa- nias. Plato is referred to in the Laws (L. xii. 5, ed. Bekk. t. ii. p. 950, ed. Steph.). Another passage, in the Crito, which Canter indicates, is irrelevant. In the former, Plato attributes to man- kind at large a certain divine sense or vaticination of the truth (QsTw nxai suflVo^ov), by which, in our natural judgments, we are preserved from error. I did not, however, find the statement sufficiently generalized to quote the context as a testimony. 15*. THEODORET. The Curative of Greek Affections, Ser- mon i., on Belief. (Opera, ed. Sirmondi, t. iv. p. 478.) 'Belief [or Faith], therefore, is a matter of the greatest moment. For, according to the Pythagorean Epicharmus, Mind, it seeih / Mind, it Tiearetli / All beside is deaf and llind : and Heraclitus, in like manner, exhorts us to submit to the guidance of belief, in these words : Unless ye hope, ye shall not find the unhopedfor, which is inscrutable and impermeable. . . . And let none of you, my friends, say aught in disparagement of belief. For belief is called by Aristotle the Criterion of Science ; whilst Epicurus says, that it is the Anticipation of Reason, and that anticipation, having indued Knowledge, results in Compre- hension. But, as we define it, Belief is a spontaneous assent or adhesion of the mind, or the intuition of the unapparent, or the talcing possession of the real (itzgl PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 175 surdity, degrade it to the level of a special power. For thus, ic the fast place, consciousness coextensive with all our cognitive faculties, would yet be made co-ordinate with each ; and, in the second, two faculties would be supposed to be simultaneously exercised about the same object, to the same intent. But the alternative which Reid has chosen is, at least, equally untenable. The assertion, that we can be conscious of an act of knowledge, without being conscious of its object, is virtually sui- cidal. A mental operation is only what it is, by relation to its object ; the object at once determining its existence, and specify- ing the character of its existence. But if a relation cannot be comprehended in one of its terms, so we cannot be conscious of an operation, without being conscious of the object to which it exists only as correlative. For example, We are conscious cf a perception, says Reid, but are not conscious of its object. Yet how can we be conscious of a perception, that is, how can we know that a perception exists, that it is a perception, and not another mental state, and that it is the perception of a rose, and of nothing but a rose ; unless this consciousness involve a knowledge (or consciousness) of the object, which at once deter- mines the existence of the act, specifies its kind, and distin- guished its individuality ? Annihilate the object, you annihilate the operation ; annihilate the consciousness of the object, you an- nihilate the consciousness of the operation. In the greater num- ber indeed of our cognitive energies, the two terms of the relation of knowledge exist only as identical ; the object admitting only of a logical discrimination from the subject. I imagine a Hip- pogryph. The Hippogryph is at once the object of the act and the act itself. Abstract the one, the other has no existence : de- ny me the consciousness of the Hippogryph, you deny me the consciousness of the imagination ; ! I am conscious of zero ; I am not conscious at all. 1 'Aristotle and Hobbes call imagination & dying sense; and Descartes is equally explicit.' * Imagining should not "be confounded with Conceiv- 174: PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. A difficulty may here be started in regard to two faculties, Memory and Perception. Memory is defined by Reid ' an immediate knowledge of the past ;' and is thus distinguished from consciousness, which, with all philosophers, he views as ' an immediate knowledge of the pres- ent? We may therefore be conscious of the act of memory as present, but of its object as past, consciousness is impossible. And certainly, if Reid's definition of memory be admitted, this infer- ence cannot be disallowed. But memory is not an immediate knowledge of the past ; an immediate knowledge of the past is a contradiction in terms. This is manifest, whether we look from the act to the object, or from the object to the act. To be known immediately, an object must be known in itself; to be known in itself, it must be known as actual, now existent, present. But the object of memory is past not present, not now existent, not ac- tual ; it cannot therefore be known in itself. If known at all, it must be known in something different from itself i. e. mediate- ly ^ and memory as an ' immediate knowledge of the past,' is thus impossible. Again : memory 2 is an act of knowledge ; an ing, &c. ; though some philosophers, as Gassendi, have not attended to the distinction. The words Conception, Concept, Notion, should not be limited to the thought of what cannot be represented in the imagination, as the thought suggested by the general term. The Leibnitzians call this symbolical, in contrast to intuitive knowledge. This is the sense in which conception and conceptus have been usually and correctly employed. Mr. Stewart, on the other hand, arbitrarily limits conception to the reproduction, in imagination, of an object of sense as actually perceived.' Foot-notes to Eeid, pp. 227, 360. W. 2 ' In memory, we cannot possibly be conscious or immediately cognizant of any object beyond the modifications of the ego itself. In perception (if an immediate 'perception be allowed) we must be conscious, or immediately cognizant, of some phenomenon of the non-ego? ' An immediate knowledge of a, past thing is a contradiction. For we can only know a thing immediately, if we know it in itself, or as existing ; but what is past cannot be known in itself, for it is non-existent.' ' The datum of Memory does not stand upon the same ground as the datum of simple Consciousness. In so far as mem- ory is consciousness, it cannot be denied. We cannot, without contradiction, deny the fact of memory as a present consciousness ; but we may, without contradiction, suppose that the past given therein, is only an illusion of the PHILOSOPHY OF PEKCPJPTION. 175 act exists only as present ; and a present knowledge can be im- mediately cognizant only of a present object. But the object known in memory is past ; consequently, either memory is not an act of knowledge at all, or the object immediately known is present ; and the past, if known, is known only through the me- dium of the present ; on either alternative memory is not ' an immediate knowledge of the past ' Thus, memory, like our other faculties, affords only an immediate knowledge of the present ; and, like them, is nothing more than consciousness variously modi- fied.^ present.' * Whatever is the immediate object of thought, of that we are necessarily conscious. But of Alexander, for example, as existing, we are ne- cessarily not conscious. Alexander, as existing, cannot, therefore, possibly be an immediate object of thought ; consequently, if we can be said to think of Alexander at all, we can only be said to think of him mediately, in and through a representation of which we are conscious ; and that representation is the immediate object of thought. It makes no difference whether this im- mediate object be viewed as a tertium quid, distinct from the existing reality and from the conscious mind ; or whether as a mere modality of the con- scious mind itself as the mere act of thought considered in its relation to something beyond the sphere of consciousness. In neither case- can we be said (be it in the imagination of a possible or the recollection of a past exist- ence) to know a thing as existing that is, immediately ; and, therefore, if in these operations we be said to know aught out the mind at all, we can only be said to know it mediately in other words, as a mediate object. The whole perplexity arises from the ambiguity of the term object, that term being used both for the external reality of which we are here not conscious, and cannot therefore know in itself, and for the mental representation which we know in itself, but which is known only as relative to the other. Eeid chooses to abolish the former signification, on the supposition that it only applies to representative entity different from the act of thought. In this supposition, however, he is wrong | nor does he obtain an immediate knowledge, even in perception, by merely denying the crude hypothesis of representation.' Foot-notes to Keid, pp. 329, 339, 444, 279. W. * The only parallel we know to this misconception of Reid's is the opin- ion on which Fromondus animadverts. ' In primis displicet nobis pluri- morum recentiorum philosophia, qui sensuum interiorum operationes, ut phantasiationem, memorationem, et reminiscentiam, circa imagines, recen- tur aut olim spiritibus vel cerebro impressas, versari negant | sed proximo circa oojecta quceforis sunt, TJt cum quis meminit se vidisse leporem cur- rentem ; memoria, inquiunt, non intuetur et attingit imaginem leporis in cerebro asservatam, sed solum leporem ipsum qui cursu trajidebat campum, &c., &c.' (PJiilcsopHct Christiana, de Anima. Lovanii. 1649. L. iii. o. 8. 176 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. In regard to Perception : Reid allows an immediate knoivledge of the affections of the subject of thought, mind, or self, and an immediate knowledge of the qualities of an object really different from self matter. To the former, he gives the name of conscious- ness, to the latter, that of perception. Is consciousness, as an im- mediate ~kno\v]edge, purely subjective, not to be discriminated from perception, as an immediate knowledge, really objective ? A log- ical difference we admit ; a psychological we deny. Relatives are known only together : the science of opposites is one. Subject and object, mind and matter, are known only in correlation and contrast, and by the same common act : while knowledge, as at once a synthesis and an antithesis of both, may be indifferently defined an antithetic synthesis, or a synthetic an- tithesis of its terms. Every conception of self, necessarily in- volves a conception of not-self : every perception of what is dif- ferent from me, implies a recognition of the percipient subject in contradistinction from the object perceived. In one act of knowl- edge, indeed, the object is the prominent element, in another the subject ; but there is none in which either is known out of rela- tion to the other. The immediate knowledge which Reid allows of things different from the mind, and the immediate knowledge of mind itself, cannot therefore be split into two distinct acts. In perception, as in the other faculties, the same indivisible conscious- ness is conversant about both terms of the relation of knowledge. Distinguish the cognition of the subject from the cognition of the object of perception, and you either annihilate the relation of knowledge itself, which exists only in its terms being comprehend- ed together in the unity of consciousness ; or you must postulate a higher faculty, which shall again reduce to one, the two cogni- tions you have distinguished ; that is, you are at last compelled art. 8.) Who the advocates of this opinion were, we are ignorant; but more than suspect that, as stated, it is only a misrepresentation of the Cartesian doctrine, then on the ascendant. [Lord Monboddo has, how- ever, a doctrine of the sort.] PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 177 to admit, in an unphilosophical complexity, that common con- sciousness of subject and object, which you set out with denying in its philosophical simplicity. Consciousness and immediate knowledge are thus terms universally convertible ; and if there be an immediate knowledge of things external, there is consequently the consciousness of an outer world* Reid's erroneous analysis of consciousness is not perhaps of so much importance in itself, as from causing confusion in its conse- quences. Had he employed this term as tantamount to imme- diate knowledge in general, whether of self or not, and thus dis- tinctly expressed what he certainly [?] taught, that mind and matter are both equally known to us as existent and in them- selves ; Dr. Brown could hardly have so far misconceived his doc- trine, as actually to lend him the very opinion which his whole philosophy was intended to refute, viz. that an immediate and * How correctly Aristotle reasoned on this subject, may be seen from the following passage: 'When we perceive (al6) stands to the Noetic or Archetypal (substantial, permanent, Svrws 3r) in the same relation of comparative unreality in which the shadows of the images of sensible existences themselves, stand to the things of which they are the dim and distant adumbrations. In the language of an illus- trious poet ' An nescis, qutecunque haec sunt, quae hac nocte teguntur, Omnia res prorsus veras non csse, sed umbras, Aut specula, unde ad nos aliena elucet imago ? Terra quidem, et maria alta, atque his circumfluus acr, Et quae consistunt ex iis, haec omnia tenueis Sunt umbrae, humanos quae tanquam somnia qusedam Pertingunt animos, fallaci et imagine ludunt, Nunquam eadem, fluxu semper variata perenni. Sol autem, Lunaeque globus, fulgentiaque astra Caetera, sint quamvis meliori pra?dita vita, Et donata aevo immortali, haec ipsa tamen sunt ^Eterni specula, in quae animus, qui est inde profecttis, Inspiciens, patriae quodam quasi tactus amore, Ardescit. Verum quoniam heic non perstat et ultra Nescio quid sequitur secum, tacitusque requirit, Nosse licet circum haec ipsum consistere verum, Non finem : sed enim esse aliud quid, cujus imago Splendet in iis, quod per se ipsum est, et principium esse Omnibus aeternum, ante omnem numerumque diemque ; In quo alium Solem atque aliam splendescere Lunam Adspicias, aliosque orbes, alia astra manere, Terramque, fluviosque alios, atque sera, et ignem, Et nemora, atque aliis errare animalia silvis.' And as the comparison is misunderstood, so nothing can be conceived more adverse to the doctrine of Plato than the theory it is supposed to elu- cidate. Plotinus, indeed, formally refutes, as contrary to the Platonic, the very hypothesis thus attributed to his master. (Enn. IV., 1. vi. cc. 1. 3.) The doctrine of the Platonists on this point has been almost wholly neglect- ed; and the author among them whose work contains its most articulate PHILOSOPHY OF PEKCEPTION, 203 the sixth, the term ' shadowy film] which here and elsewhere h constantly uses, shows that Dr. Brown confounds the raatterless development has been so completely overlooked, both by scholars and phi- losophers, that his work is of the rarest ; while even his name is mentioned in no history of philosophy. It is here sufficient to state, that the titiwXa, the \6yoi yv(i><}iK ol, the forms representative of external things, and corresponding to the species sensiles expresses of the schoolmen, were not lield T)y tlie Plato- nists to be derived from without. Prior to the act of perception, they have a latent but real existence in the soul ; and, by the impassive energy of the mind itself, are elicited into consciousness, on occasion of the impression (KIVWIS, irddos, lnQaviei) made on the external organ, and of the vital form (^WTIKOV Jos), in consequence thereof, sublimated in the animal life. The verses of Boethius, which have been so frequently misunderstood, contain an accurate statement of the Platonic theory of perception. After refuting the Stoical doctrine of the passivity of mind in this process, he proceeds : * Mens est efficiens magis" 1 Longe causa potentior, Quam quse materiae modo Impressas patitur notas. Pracedit tamen excitans Ac vires animi movens Vivo in corpore passio, Cum vel lux oculos ferit, Vel vox auribus instrepit : Turn mentis vigor excitus Quas intus species tenet, Ad motus similes vocans, Notis applicat exteris, Introrsumque reconditis Formis miscet imagines.' I cannot now do more than indicate the contrast of this doctrine to the Peripatetic (I do not say Aristotelian) theory, and its approximation to the Cartesian and Leibnitzian hypotheses ; which, however, both attempt to explain, what the Platonic did not how the mind, ex liypothesi, above all physical influence, is determined, on the presence of the unknown reality within the sphere of sense, to call into consciousness the representation through which that reality is made known to us. I may add, that not merely the Platonists, but some of the older Peripatetics held that the soul virtually contained within itself representative forms, which were only excited by the external reality ; as Theophrastus and Themistius, to say nothing of the Platonizing Porphyry, Simplicius and Ammonius Hermise ; and the same opinion, adopted, probably from the latter, by his pupil, the Arabian Adelandus, subsequently became even the common doctrine of tho Moorish Aristotelians. 204 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. species of the Peripatetics with the corporeal effluxions of Denioo ritus and Epicurus : ' Quae, quasi membranes, summo do cortice rerum Dereptaj, volitant ultro citroque per auras.' Dr. Brown, in short, only fails in victoriously establishing against Reid the various meanings in which * the old writers' employed the term idea, by the petty fact that the old writers did not employ the term idea at all. Nor does the progress of the attack belie the omen of its out- set. We shall consider the philosophers quoted by Brown in chronological order. Of three of these only (Descartes, Arnauld, Locke) were the opinions particularly noticed by Reid; the others (Hobbes, Le Clerc, Crousaz) Brown adduces as examples of Reid's general misrepresentation. Of the greater number of the philosophers specially criticised by Reid, Brown prudently says nothing. Of these, the first is DESCARTES ; and in regard to him, Dr. Brown, not content with accusing Reid of simple ignorance, con- tends ' that the opinions of Descartes are precisely opposite to the representations which he has given of them.' (Lect. xxvii. p. 172.) Now Reid states, in regard to Descartes, that this philos- opher appears to place the idea or representative object in per- ception, sometimes in the mind, and sometimes in the brain ; and he acknowledges that while these opinions seem to him con- tradictory, he is not prepared to pronounce which of them their author held, if he did not indeed hold both together. 'Des- cartes,' he says, * seems to have hesitated between the two opin- ions, or to have passed from one to the other.' On any alternative, however, Reid attributes to Descartes, either the first or the second form of representation. Now here we must recol- lect, that the question is not whether Reid be rigorously right, but whether he be inexcusably wrong. Dr. Brown accuses him of the most ignorant misrepresentation, of interpreting an author, whose perspicuity he himself admits, in a sense 'exactly the PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 205 reverse' of truth. To determine what Descartes' doctrine of per- ception actually is, would be difficult, perhaps even impossible ; but in reference to the question at issue, certainly superfluous. It here suffices to show, that his opinion on this point is one mooted among his disciples; and that Brown, wholly unac- quainted with the difficulties of the question, dogmatizes on the basis of a single passage nay, of a passage in itself irrele- vant. Reid is justified against Brown, if the Cartesian Idea be proved either a material image in the brain, or an immaterial representation in the mind, distinct from the precipient act. By those not possessed of the key to the Cartesian theory, there are many passages* in the writings of its author, which, taken by themselves, might naturally be construed to import, that Des- cartes supposed the mind to be conscious of certain motions in the brain, to which, as well as to the modifications of the intellect itself, he applies the terms image and idea. Reid, who did not understand the Cartesian philosophy as a system, was puzzled by these superficial ambiguities. Not aware that the cardinal point of that system is that mind and body, as essentially opposed, are naturally to each other as zero, and that their mutual intercourse can only be supernaturally maintained by the concourse of the Deity ; f Reid attributed to Descartes the possible opinion, that * Ex. gr. De Pass. 35 a passage stronger than any of those noticed by De la Forge. t That the theory of Occasional Causes is necessarily involved in Des- cartes' doctrine of Assistance, and that his explanation of the connection of mind and body reposes on that theory, it is impossible to doubt. For while he rejects all physical influence in the communication and conservation of motion between bodies, which he refers exclusively to the ordinary concourse of God (Princ. P. II. Art. 36, etc.} ; consequently he deprives conflicting bodies of all proper efficiency, and reduces them to the mere occasional causes of this phenomenon. But a fortiori, he must postulate the hypothe- sis, which he found necessary in explaining the intercourse of things substan- tially the same, to account for the reciprocal action of two substances, to Mm, of so incompatible a nature as mind and body. De la Forge, Geulinx, Male- branche, Cordemoi, and other disciples of Descartes, only explicitly evolve what the writings of their master implicitly contain. We may observe, 206 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION the soul is immediately cognizant of material images in the brain But in the Cartesian theory, mind is only conscious of itself; the affections of body may, by the law of union, be the proximate occasions, but can never constitute the immediate objects of knowl- edge. Reid, however, supposing that nothing could obtain the name of image which did not represent a prototype, or the name of idea which was not an object of thought, thus misinterpreted Descartes; who applies, abusively, indeed, these terms to the occasion of perception (i. e. the motion in the sensorium, unknown in itself and resembling nothing), ac well as to the object of thought (i. e. the representation of which we are conscious in the mind itself). In the Leibnitio-Wolfian system, two elements, both also denominated ideas, are in like manner accurately to be contradistinguished in the process of perception. The idea in the brain, and the idea in the mind, are, to Descartes, precisely what the * material idea* and the ' sensual idea 1 are to the Wolfians. In both philosophies, the two ideas are harmonic modi- fications, correlative and coexistent ; but in neither is the organic affection or material idea an object of consciousness. It is merely the unknown and arbitrary condition of the mental representa- tion ; and in the hypotheses both of Assistance and of Pre-estab- lished Harmony, the presence of the one idea implies the con- comitance of the other, only by virtue of the hyperphysical deter- mination. Had Reid, in fact, not limited his study of the Car- tesian system to the writings of its founder, the twofold applica- tion of the term idea, by Descartes, could never have seduced him into the belief that so monstrous a solecism had been com- mitted by that illustrious thinker. By De la Forge, the personal friend of Descartes, the verbal ambiguity is, indeed, not only noticed, but removed ; and that admirable expositor applies the term ' corporeal species' to the affection in the brain, and the though we cannot stop to prove, that Tennemann is wrong in denying De la Forge to be even an advocate, far less the first articulate e^pos'tor of the doctrine of Occasional Causes. PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 207 terms ' idea? ' intellectual notion, to the spiritual representation in the conscious mind. De V Esprit, c. 10. But if Eeid be wrong in his supposition, that Descartes admit- ted a consciousness of ideas in the brain ;* is he on the other alternative wrong, and inexcusably wrong, in holding that Des- cartes supposed ideas in the mind not identical with their percep- tions ? Malebranche, the most illustrious name in the school after its founder (and who, not certainly with less ability, may be supposed to have studied the writings of his master with far greater attention than either Reid or Brown), ridicules as ' con- trary to common sense and justice 1 the supposition that Descartes had rejected ideas in ' the ordinary acceptation? and adopted the hypothesis of their being representations, not really distinct from their perception. And while * he is as certain as he possibly can be in such matters,' that Descartes had not dissented from the general opinion, he taunts Arnauld with resting his paradoxical interpretation of that philosopher's doctrine, * not on any passages of his Metaphysic contrary to the common opinion] but on his own arbitrary limitation of * the ambiguous term perception? (Rep. au Livre des Idges, passim ; ARNAULD, (Euv. xxxviii. pp. 388, 389.) That ideas are ''found in the mind, not formed by itj and consequently, that in the act of knowledge the represen- tation is really distinct from the cognition proper, is strenuously asserted as the doctrine of his master by the Cartesian Roell, in the controversy he maintained with the Anti-Cartesian De Vries. (ROELLI Dispp. ; DE VRIES De Ideis innatis.) But it is idle to multiply proofs. Brown's charge of ignorance falls back upon himself; and Reid may lightly bear the reproach of ' exactly reversing 1 the notorious doctrine of Descartes, when thus borne, along with him, by the profoundest of that philosopher's disciples. Had Brown been aware, that the point at issue between him * Eeid's error on this point is, however, surpassed by that of M. Eoyer- Collard, who represents the idea in the Cartesian doctrine of perception as exclusivdy situate in the brain.-- ((Zfcww de Reid, III. p. 334.) 208 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. and Reid was one agitated among the followers of Descartes themselves, he could hardly have dreamt of summarily determin- ing the question by the production of one vulgar passage from the writings of that philosopher. But we are sorely puzzled to account for his hallucination in considering this passage perti- nent. Its substance is fully given by Reid in his exposition of the Cartesian doctrine. Every iota it contains of any relevancy is adopted by Malebranche ; constitutes, less precisely indeed, his famous distinction of perception (idge) from sensation (sentiment) : and Malebranche is one of the two modern philosophers, admit- ted by Brown to have held the hypothesis of representation in its first, and, as he says, its most * erroneous" 1 form. But princi- ples that coalesce, even with the hypothesis of ideas distinct from mind, are not, a fortiori, incompatible with the hypothesis of ideas distinct only from the perceptive act. We cannot, however, enter on an articulate exposition of its irrelevancy. To adduce HOBBES, as an instance of Reid's misrepresentation of the * common doctrine of ideas,' betrays on the part of Brown a total misapprehension of the conditions of the question ; or he forgets that Hobbes was a materialist. The doctrine of represen- tation, under all its modifications, is properly subordinate to the doctrine of a spiritual principle of thought ; and on the supposi- tion, all but universally admitted among philosophers, that the relation of knowledge implied the analogy of existence, it was mainly devised to explain the possibility of a knowledge by an immaterial subject, of an existence so disproportioned to its nature, as the qualities of a material object. Contending, that an imme- diate cognition of the accidents of matter, infers an essential iden- tity of matter and mind, Brown himself admits, that the hypothe- sis of representation belongs exclusively to the doctrine of dual- ism (Lect. xxv. pp. 150, 160) ; whilst Reid, assailing the hypoth- esis of ideas, only as subverting the reality of matter, could hardly regard it as parcel of that scheme, which acknowledges the real- ity of nothing else. But though Hobbes cannot be adduced as a competent witness against Reid, he is however valid evidence PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 209 against Brown. Hobbes, though a materialist, admitted no knowledge of an external world. Like his friend Sorbiere, he was a kind of material idealist. According to him, we know nothing of the qualities or existence of any outward reality. All tiat we know is the ' seeming] the ' apparition] the ' aspect] the ' phenomenon] the 'phantasm] within ourselves ; and this subjective object of which we are conscious, and which is con- sciousness itself, is nothing more than the ' agitation* of our internal organism, determined by the unknown * motions,' which are supposed, in like manner, to constitute the world without. Perception he reduces to sensation. Memory and imagination are faculties specifically identical with sense, differing from it simply in the degree of their vivacity ; and this difference of in- tensity, with Hobbes. as with Hume, is the only discrimination between our dreaming and our waking thoughts. A c'octrine of perception identical with Reid's ! In regard to ARNAULD, the question is not, as in relation to the others, whether Reid conceived him to maintain a form of the ideal theory which he rejects, but whether Reid admits Arnauld's opinion on perception and his own to be identical. ' To these authors,' says Dr. Brown, ' whose opinions on the subject of perception, Dr. Reid has misconceived, I may add one, whom even he himself allows to have shaken off the ideal system, and to have considered the idea and the perception as not distinct, but the same, a modification of the mind, and nothing more. I allude to the celebrated Jansenist writer, Arnauld, who main- tains this doctrine as expressly as Dr. Reid himself, and makes it the foundation of his argument in his controversy with Male- branche.' (Lecture xxvii. p. 173.) If this statement be not untrue, then is Dr. Brown's interpretation of Reid himself correct. A representative perception, under its third and simplest modifi- cation, is held by Arnauld as by Brown ; and his exposition is so clear and articulate, that all essential misconception of his doctrine is precluded. In these circumstances, if Reid avow the identity of Arnauld's opinion and his own, this avowal is tanta- 13 210 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. mount to a declaration that his peculiar doctrine of perception is a scheme of representation ; whereas, on the contrary, if he sig- nalize the contrast of their two opinions, he clearly evinces the radical antithesis, and his sense of the radical antithesis, of the doctrine of intuition, to every, even the simplest form of the hypothesis of representation. And this last he does. It cannot be maintained that Reid admits a philosopher to hold an opinion convertible with his, whom he states 'to profess the doctrine, universally received, that we perceive not material things immediately, that it is their ideas, which are the immediate objects of our thoughts, and that it is in the idea of every thing that we perceive its properties' This fundamental contrast being established, we may safely allow, that the radical misconception, which caused Reid to overlook the difference of our presentative and representative faculties, caused him likewise to believe that Arnauld had attempted to unite two contradictory theories of perception. Not aware, that it was possible to main- tain a doctrine of perception, in which the idea was not really distinguished from its cognition, and yet to hold that the mind had no immediate knowledge of external things : Reid supposes, in the first place, that Arnauld, in rejecting the hypothesis of ideas, as representative entities, really distinct from the contem- plative act of perception, coincided with himself in viewing the material reality as the immediate object of that act ; and in the second, that Arnauld again deserted this opinion, when, with the philosophers, he maintained that the idea, or act of the mind representing the external reality, and not the external reality itself, was the immediate object of perception. But Arnauld's theory is one and indivisible ; and, as such, no part of it is iden- tical with Reid's. Reid's confusion, here as elsewhere, is explained by the circumstance, that he had never speculatively conceived the possibility of the simplest modification of the representative hypothesis. He saw no medium between rejecting ideas as something different from thought, and the doctrine of an immedi- ate knowledge of the material object. Neither does Arnauld, as PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 211 Reid supposes, ever assert against Malebranche, 'that we per- ceive external things immediately,' that is, in themselves.* Maintaining that all our perceptions are modifications essentially representative, Arnauld everywhere avows, that he denies ideas, only as existences distinct from the act itself of perception.f * This is perfectly clear from Arnaitld's own uniform statements ; and it is justly observed by Malebranche, in his Reply to the Treatise on True and False Ideas, (p. 123, orig. edit.) that, 'it reality, according to M. Arnauld, 1 ive do not perceive bodies, we perceive only cur selves.'' t (Euvres, t. xxxviii. pp. 187, 198, 199, 389, et passim. It is to be recol- lected that Descartes, Malebranche, Arnauld, Locke, and philosophers in general before Reid, employed the term Perception as coextensive with Con- sciousness. By Leibnitz, Wolf, and their followers, it was used in a peculiar sense, as equivalent to Representation or Idea proper, and as contradistin- guished from Apperception, or consciousness. Reid's limitation of the term, though the grounds on which it is defended are not of the strongest, is con- venient, and has been very generally admitted. 1 On this point may be added the following (Reid, p. 296) : ' Arnauld did not allow that perception and ideas are really or numerically distinguished i. e. as one thing from another thing; not even that they are mortally distinguished i. e. as a thing from its mode. He maintained that they are really identical, and only rationally dis- criminated as viewed in different relations ; the indivisible mental modification being called a perception, by reference to the mind or thinking subject an idea, by refer- ence to the mediate object or thing thought Arnauld everywhere avows that he denies ideas only as existences distinct from the act itself of perception. See (Euvres, t. xxxviii. pp. 187, 198, 199, 389.' ' The opinion of Arnauld in regard to the nature of ideas was by no means over- looked by subsequent philosophers. It is found fully detailed in almost every systema- tic course or compend of philosophy, which appeared for a long time after its first pro- mulgation, and in many of these it is the doctrine recommended as the true. Arnaukrs was indeed the opinion which latterly prevailed in the Cartesian school. From this it passed into other schools. Leibnitz, like Arnauld, regarded Ideas, Notions, Represen- tations, as mere modifications of the mind (what by his disciples were called material ideas, like the cerebral ideas of Descartes, are out of the question), and no cruder opinion than this has ever subsequently found a footing in any of the German systems. "I don't know," says Mr. Stewart, "of any author who, prior to Dr. Reid, has ex- pressed himself on the subject with so much justness and precision as Father Buffier, in the following passage of his Treatise on ' First Truths :' '"If we confine ourselves to what is intelligible in our observations on ideas, we will say they are nothing but mere modifications of the mind as a thinking being. They are called ideas with regard to the object represented ; and perceptions with regard to the faculty representing. It is manifest that our ideas, considered in this sense, are not more distinguished than motion is from a body moved.' (P. 311, English Translation.}"' 1 Idem. iii. Add. to vol. i. p. 10. ' In this passage, Buffier only repeats tiie doctrine of Arnauld, in Arnauld's own words. Dr. Thomas Brown, on the other hand, has endeavored to show that this doctrine 212 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. Reid was therefore wrong, and did Ariiauld less than justice, in viewing his theory 'as a weak attempt to reconcile two incon- sistent doctrines :' he was wrong, and did Arnauld more than justice, in supposing that one of these doctrines is not incompat- ible with his own. The detection, however, of this error only tends to manifest more clearly, how just, even when under its influence, was Reid's appreciation of the contrast subsisting be- tween his own and Arnauld's opinion, considered as a ivholc ; and exposes more glaringly Brown's general misconception of Reid's philosophy, and his present gross misrepresentation, in affirming that the doctrines of the two philosophers were identi- cal, and by Reid admitted to be the same. Nor is Dr. Brown more successful in his defence of LOCKE. Supposing always, that ideas were held tc be something distinct from their cognition, Reid states it, as that philosopher's opinion, * that images of external objects were conveyed to the brain ; but whether he thought with Descartes [erratum for Dr. Clarke ?] and Newton, that the images in the brain are perceived by the mind, there present, or that they are imprinted on the mind itself, is not so evident.' This Dr. Brown, nor is he origi- nal in the assertion, pronounces a flagrant misrepresentation. Not only does he maintain, that Locke never conceived the idea to be substantially different from the mind, as a material image in the brain ; but, that he never supposed it to have an existence apart from the mental energy of which it is the object. Locke, he asserts, like Arnauld, considered the idea perceived and the percipient act, to constitute the same indivisible modification of the conscious mind. We shall see. In his language, Locke is, of all philosophers, the most figura- tive, ambiguous, vascillating, various, and even contradictory; (which he identifies with Reid's) had been long the catholic opinion ; and that Eeid, in his attack on the Ideal system, only refuted what had been already almost universally exploded. In this attempt he is, however, singularly unfortunate ; for, with the ex- ception of Crousaz, all the examples he adduces to evince the prevalence of Arnauld's doctrine are only so many mistakes, so many instances, in fact, which might be alleged to confirmation of the very opposite conclusion.' W. PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 213 as has been noticed by Reid, and Stewart, and Brown himself, indeed, we believe by every author who has had occasion to com- ment on this philosopher. The opinions of such a writer are not, therefore, to be assumed from isolated arid casual expressions, which themselves require to be interpreted on the general analo- gy of his system ; and yet this is the only ground on which Dr. Brown attempts to establish his conclusions. Thus, on the mat- ter under discussion, though really distinguishing, Locke verbally confounds, the objects of sense and of intellect, the operation and its object, the objects immediate and mediate, the object and its relations, the images of fancy and the notions of the understanding. Consciousness is cor verted with Perception, Perception with Idea, Idea with Ideatum, and with Notion, Conception, Phantasm, Representation, Sense, Meaning, &c. Now, his language identifying ideas and perceptions, appears conform- able to a disciple of Arnauld ; and now it proclaims him a fol- lower of Digby, explaining ideas by mechanical impulse, and the propagation of material particles from the external reality to the brain. The idea would seem, in one passage, an organic affection, the mere occasion of a spiritual representation ; in another, a representative image, in the brain itself. In employ- ing thus indifferently the language of every hypothesis, may we not suspect, that he was anxious to be made responsible for none ? One, however, he has formally rejected ; and that is the very opinion attributed to him by Dr. Brown, that the idea, or object of consciousness in perception, is only a modification of the mind itself. We do not deny, that Locke occasionally employs expressions, which, in a writer of more considerate language, would imply the identity of ideas with the act of knowledge ; and, under the cir- cumstances, we should have considered suspense more rational than a dogmatic confidence in any conclusion, did not the follow- ing passage, which has never, we believe, been noticed, appear a positive and explicit contradiction of Dr. Brown's interpretation. It is from Locke's Examination of Malebranche^s Opinion, which 214 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. as subsequent to the publication of the Essay, must be held au- thentic, in relation to the doctrines of that work. At the same time, the statement is articulate and precise, and possesses all the authority of one cautiously made in the course of a polemical discussion. Malebranche coincided with Arnauld, and conse- quently with Locke, as interpreted by Brown, to the extent of supposing, that sensation proper is nothing but a state or modifi- cation of the mind itself ; and Locke had thus the opportunity of expressing, in regard to this opinion, his agreement or dissent. An acquiescence in the doctrine, that the secondary qualities, ol which we are conscious in sensation, are merely mental states, by no means involves an admission that the primary qualities of which we are conscious in perception, are nothing more. Male- branche, for example, affirms the one and denies the other. But if Locke be found to ridicule, as he does, even the opinion which merely reduces the secondary qualities to mental states, a fortiori, and this on the principle of his own philosophy, he must be held to reject the doctrine, which would reduce not only the non- resembling sensations of the secondary, but even the resembling, and consequently extended, ideas of the primary qualities of matter, to modifications of the immaterial unextended mind. In these circumstances, the following passage is superfluously con- clusive against Brown, and equally so, whether we coincide or not in all the principles it involves : ' But to examine their doc- trine of modification a little further. Different sentiments (sensa- tions) are different modifications of the mind. The mind, or soul, that perceives, is one immaterial indivisible substance. Now I see the white and black on this paper, I hear one singing in the next room, I feel the warmth of the fire I sit by, and I taste an apple I am eating, and all this at the same time. Now, I ask, take modification for what you please, can the same unextended, indivisible substance have different, nay, inconsistent and opposite (as these of white and black must be) modifications at the same time ? Or must we suppose distinct parts in an indivisible sub- stance, one for black, another for white, and another for red ideas, PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 215 and so of the rest of those infinite sensations, which we have in sorts and degrees ; all which we can distinctly perceive, and so are distinct ideas, some whereof are opposite, as heat and cold, which yet a man may feel at the same time ? I was ignorant before how sensation was performed in us : this they call an explanation of it ! Must I say now I understand it better ? If this be to cure one's ignorance, it is a very slight disease, and the charm of two or three insignificant words will at any time remove it ; pro- batum est? (Sec. 39.) This passage, as we shall see, is corre- spondent to the doctrine held on this point by Locke's personal friend and philosophical follower, Le Clerc. (But, what is curi- ous, the suppositions which Locke here rejects, as incompatible with the spirituality of mind, are the very facts on which Ammo- nius Hermise, Philoponus, and Condillac, among many others, found their proof of the immateriality of the thinking subject.) But if it be thus evident that Locke held neither the third form of representation, that lent to him by Brown, nor even the second y it follows that Reid did him any thing but injustice, in supposing him to maintain that ideas are objects, either in the brain, or in the mind itself. Even the more material of these alternatives has been the one generally attributed to him by his critics,* and the one adopted from him by his disciples.f Nor is this to be deemed an opinion too monstrous to be entertained by so enlightened a philosopher. It was, as we shall see, the com- mon opinion of the age ; the opinion, in particular, held by the most illustrious of his countrymen and contemporaries by New- ton, Clarke, Willis, Hook, &c.J The English psychologists have indeed been generally very mechanical. * To refer only to the first and last of his regular critics : see Solid Phi- losophy asserted against the fancies of the Ideists, by J, S. [JOHN SERGEANT.] Lond. 1697, p. 161, a very curious book, absolutely, we may say, unknown; and COUSIN, Cours de Philosophic, t. ii. 1829 ; pp. 330, 357, 325, 365 the most important work on Locke since the Nbuveaux I&sais of Leibnitz. t TUCKER'S Light of Nature, i. pp. 15, 18, ed. 2. * On the opinion of Newton and Clarke, see DCS Maizeaux's Eecueil, L pp. 7, 8, 9, 15, 22, 75, 127, 169, &c. Genovesi notices the crudity of New- 216 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. Dr. Brown at length proceeds to consummate his imagined victory by ' that most decisive evidence, found not in treatises read only by a few, but in the popular elementary works of science of the time, the general text-books of schools and colleges.' He quotes, however, only two : the Pneumatology of Le Clerc, and the Logic of Crousaz. ' LE CLERC,' says Dr. Brown, 4 in his chapter on the nature of ideas, gives the history of the opinions of philosophers on this subject, and states among them the very doctrine which is most forcibly and accurately opposed to the ideal system of perception. " Alii putant ideas et perceptiones idearum easdem esse, licet rela- tionibus differ ant. Idea, uti censent, proprie ad objectum refer- tur, quod niens considerat ; perceptio, vere ad mentem ipsam quae percipit : sed duplex ilia relatio ad imam modificationem mentis pertinet. Itaque, secundum hosce philosophos, nullse sunt, proprie, loquendo, ideas a mente nostra distinctse." What is it, I may asJc, which Dr. Reid considers himself as having added to this very philosophical view ofpercepticn ? and if he added noth- ing, it is surely too much to ascribe to him the merit of detect- ing errors, the counter statement of which had long formed a part of the elementary works of the schools. 1 In the first place, Dr. Reid certainly ' added 1 nothing ' to this ton's doctrine, ' Mentem in cerebro prsesidere atquc in eo, stio scilicet senso- rio, rerum imagines cernereSOn. Willis, see his work De Anima Brutorum, p. 64, alibi, ed. 1672. On Hook, see his Lect. on Light, 7. We know not whether it has been remarked that Locke's doctrine of particles and impulse, is precisely that of Sir Kenelm Digby ; and if Locke adopts one part of so gross an hypothesis, what is there improbable in his adoption of the other? that the object of perception is, a ' material participation of the bodies that work on the outward organs of the senses' (Digby, Treatise of Bodies, c. 32). As a specimen of the mechanical explanations of mental phenomena then considered satisfactory, we quote Sir Kenelm's theory of memory. ' Out of which it followeth, that the little similitudes which are in the caves of the brain, wheeling and swimming about, almost in such sort as you see in the washing of currants or rice by the winding about and circular turning of the cook's hand, divers sorts of bodies do go their course for a pretty while ; so that the most ordinary objects cannot but present themselves quickly,' &c., &c. (ibidem). PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 217 very philosophical view of perception,' but he exploded it alto (/ether. In the second, it is false, either that this doctrine of perception 1 had long formed part of the elementary works of the schools? or that Le Clerc affords any countenance to this assertion. On the contrary, it is virtually stated by him to be the novel paradox of a single philosopher ; nay, to carry the blunder to hyperbole, it is already, as such a singular opinion, discussed and referred to its author by Reid himself. Had Dr. Brown proceeded from the tenth paragraph, which he quotes, to the fourteenth, which he could not have read, he would have found, that the passage extracted, so far from containing the statement of an old and familiar dogma in the schools, was neither more nor less, than a statement of the contemporary hypothesis of ANTONY AR- NAULD ! and of Antony Arnauld alone ! ! In the third place, from the mode in which he cites Le Clerc, his silence to the contrary, and the general tenor of his statement, Dr. Brown would lead us to believe that Le Clerc himself coin- cides in * this very philosophical view of perception.' So far, however, from coinciding with Arnauld, he pronounces his opin- ion to be false ; controverts it on very solid grounds ; and in delivering his own doctrine touching ideas, though sufficiently cautious in telling us what they are, he has no hesitation in assuring us, among other things which they cannoft be, that they are not modifications or essential states of mind. * Non est (idea sc.) modificatio aut essentia mentis : nam praeterquam quod sen- timus ingens esse discrimen inter ideas perceptionem et sensatio- nem ; quid habet mens nostra simile monti, aut innumeris ejus- modi ideis ?' (Pneumat., sect. i. c. 5, 10.) On all this no observation of ours can be either so apposite or authoritative, as the edifying reflections with which Dr. Brown himself concludes his vindication of the philosophers against Reid. Brown's precept is sound, but his example is instructive. One word we leave blank, which the reader may himself supply. * That a mind so vigorous as that of Dr. should have 218 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. been capable of the series of misconceptions which we have traced, may seem wonderful, and truly is so ; and equally, or rather still more wonderful is the general admission of his merit in this respect. I trust it will impress you with one important lesson to consult the opinions of authors in their own works, and not in the works of those who profess to give a faithful account of them. From my own experience I can most truly assure you, that there is scarcely an instance in which I have found the view I had received of them to be faithful. There is usually some- tiling more, or something less, which modifies the general result ; and by the various additions and subtractions thus made, so much of the spirit of the original doctrine is lost, that it may, in some cases, be considered as having made a fortunate escape, if it be not at last represented as directly opposite to what it is? (Lect. xxvii. p. 175.) The cause must, therefore, be unconditionally decided in favor of Reid, even on that testimony, which Brown triumphantly pro- duces in court as ' the most decisive evidence 1 against him : here then we might close our case. To signalize, however, more completely the whole character of the accusation, we shall call a few witnesses ; to prove, in fact, nothing more than that Brown's own ' most decisive evidence' is not less favorable to himself, than any other that might be cited from the great majority of the learned. MALEBRANCHE, in his controversy with Arnauld, everywhere assumes the doctrine of ideas, really distinct from their percep- tion, to be the one ' commonly received ;' nor does his adversary venture to dispute the assumption. (Rep. an Livre des Idees. ARNAULD, CEuv. t. xxxviii. p. 388.) LEIBNITZ, on the other hand, in answer to Clarke, admits, that the crude theory of ideas held by this philosopher, was the com- mon. 'Je ne demeure point d'accord des notions vulgaires, comme si les Images des choses Violent transports, par les organes, jusqtfa Tame. Cette notion de la Philosophie Vulgaire n'est point intelligible, comme les nouveaux Cartesiens 1'ont PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 219 montre. L'on ne sauroit expliquer comment la substance imma- terielle est affectee par la mature : et soutenir une chose non intelligible la-dessus, c'est recourir a la notion scholastique chime- rique de je ne sai quelles espdces intentionelles inexpliquable, qui passent des organes dans 1'ame.' (Opera, II. p. 161.) Nor does Clarke, in reply, disown this doctrine for himself and others. (Ibid. p. 182). BRUCKER, in his Historia Philosophica Doctrince de Idcis (1723), speaks of Arnauld's hypothesis as a ' peculiar opinion j rejected by ' philosophers in general (plerisque eruditis),' and as not less untenable than the paradox of Malebranche. (P. 248.) Dr. Brown is fond of text-books. Did we condescend to those of ordinary authors, we could adduce a cloud of witnesses against him. As a sample, we shall quote only three, but these of the very highest authority. CHRISTIAN THOMASIUS, though a reformer of the Peripatetic and Cartesian systems, adopted a grosser theory of ideas than either. In his Introductio ad Philosophiam aulicam (1702), he defines thought in general, a mental discourse * about images, by the motion of external bodies, and through the organs of sense, stamped in the substance of the brain. 1 (c. 3. 29. See also his Inst. Jurispr. Div., L. i. c. 1, and Introd. in Phil, ration., c.3.) S'GRAVESANDE, in his Introductio ad Philosophiam (1736), though professing to leave undetermined, the positive question concerning the origin of ideas, and admitting that sensations are ' nothing more than modifications of the mind itself;' makes no scruple, in determining the negative, to dismiss, as absurd, the hypothesis, which would reduce sensible ideas to an equal sub- jectivity. ' Mentem ipsam has Ideas efficere, et sibi ipsi repre- sentare res, quarum his solis Ideis cognitionem acquirit, nullo modo concipi potest. Nulla inter causam et effectum relatio dare- tur.' ( 279, 282.) GENOVESI, in his Elementa Mctaphysicce (1748), lays it down 220 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. as a fundamental position of philosophy, that ideas and the act cognitive of ideas are distinct (' Prop. xxx. Idece et Pcrceptio- nes non videntur esse posse una eademque res 1 ) ; and he ably refutes the hypothesis of Arnauld, which he reprobates as a paradox, unworthy of that illustrious reasoner. (Pars II. p. 140.) VOLTAIRE'S Dictionaire Philosophique may be adduced as rep- resenting the intelligence of the age of Reid himself. ' Qu'est ce qu'une Idee ? C'est une Image qui se peint dans mon cerveau Toutes vos penstes sont done des images ? AssurementJ &c. (voce Idee.) What, in fine, is the doctrine of the two most numerous schools of modern philosophy the LEIBNITIAN and KANTIAN ?* Both maintain that the mind involves representations of which it is not, and never may be, conscious ; that is, both maintain the second form of the hypothesis, and one of the two that Reid understood and professedly assailed. [This statement requires qualification.] In Crousaz, Dr. Brown has actually succeeded in finding one example (he might have found twenty), of a philosopher, before Reid, holding the same theory of ideas with Arnauld and him- self * LEIBNITZ; Opera, Dutensii, torn. ii. pp. 21, 23, 38, 214, pars ii. pp. 137, 145, 146. (Euvres PUlos. par Easpe, pp. 66, 67, 74, 96, ets. WOLF ; Psychol. Eat. 10, ets. PsycJwl. Emp. 48. KANT CrUik d. r. V. p. 376, ed. 2. Anthropologie, 5. With one restriction, Leibnitz's doctriue is that of the lower Platonists, who maintained that the soul actually con- tains representations of every possible substance and event in the world during the revolution of the great year ; although these cognitive reasons are not elicited into consciousness, unless the reality, thus represented, be itself brought within the sphere of the sensual organs. (Plotimts, Enn. V, lib. mi. cc. 1, 2, 3.) t In speaking of this author, Dr. Brown, who never loses an opportunity to depreciate Eeid, goes out of his way to remark, ' that precisely the same distinction of sensations and perceptions, on which Dr. Eeid founds so much, is stated and enforced in the different works of this ingenious writer,' and expatiates on this conformity of the two philosophers, as if he deemed its de- tection to be something new and curious. Mr. Stewart had already noticed it in his Essays. But neither he nor Brown seem to recollect, that Crousaa PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 221 The reader is now in a condition to judge of the correctness of Brown's statement, 'that with the exception of Malebranche and Berkeley, who had peculiar and very erroneous notions on the subject, ALL the philosophers whom Dr. Reid considered him- self as opposing' (what ! Newton, Clarke, Hook, Norris, Porter field, &c. ? these, be it remembered, ALL severally attacked by Reid, Brown has neither ventured to defend, nor to acknowledge that he eould not), * would, if they had been questioned by him, have admitted, before they heard a single argument on his part, that their opinions with respect to ideas were precisely the same as his own. 1 (Lect. xxvii. p. 174.) We have thus vindicated our original assertion : BROWN HAS NOT SUCCEEDED IN CONVICTING- REID, EVEN OF A SINGLE ERROR. Brown's mistakes regarding the opinions on perception, enter- tained by Reid and the philosophers, are perhaps, however, even less astonishing, than his total misconception of the purport of Hume's reasoning against the existence of matter, and of the argument by which Reid invalidates Hume's skeptical conclusion, We shall endeavor to reduce the problem to its simplicity. Our knowledge rests ultimately on certain facts of conscious- ness, 1 which as primitive, and consequently incomprehensible, are only copies Malebranche, re et verbis, and that Reid had himself expressly assigned to that philosopher the merit of first recognizing the distinction. This is incorrect. But M. Koyer-Collard (Iteid, (Euvres, t. iii. p. 329) is still more inaccurate in thinking that Malebranche and Leibnitz (Leibnitz !) were perhaps the only philosophers before Eeid, who had discriminated per- ception from sensation. The distinction was established by Descartes ; and after Malebranche, but long before Keid, it had become even common ; and so far is Leibnitz from having any merit in the matter, his criticism of Male- branche shows, that with all his learning he was strangely ignorant of a dis- crimination then familiar to philosophers in general, which may indeed be traced under various appellations to the most ancient times. [A contribu- tion 2 towards this history, and a reduction of the qualities of matter to thret classes, under the names of Primary, Secundo-primary, and Secondary, is given in the Supplementary Dissertations appended to Reid's "Works (p. 825-875.)] 1 See Part First, Philosophy of Common Sense. W. 2 It forms the fifth chapter of the second part of this voL W. 222 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. given less in the form of cognitions than of beliefs. But if con sciousness in its last analysis in other words, if our primary experience, be a faith ; the reality of our knowledge turns on the veracity of our constitutive beliefs. As ultimate, the quality of these beliefs cannot be inferred ; their truth, however, is in the first instance to be presumed. As given and possessed, they must stand good until refuted ; ' neganti incumbit probatioS It :s not to be presumed, that intelligence gratuitously annihilates itself; that Nature operates in vain ; that the Author of na- lure creates only to deceive. ' SVTTOTE Tra'jWTrav air6\\VT C Qcov vv TI ivrl KOJ aur//. But though the truth of our instinctive faiths must in the first instance be admitted, their falsehood may subsequently be estab- lished : this, however, only through themselves only on the ground of their reciprocal contradiction. Is this contradiction proved, the edifice of our knowledge is undermined ; for ' no lie is of the truth. 1 Consciousness is to the philosopher, what the Bible is to the theologian. Both are professedly revelations of divine truth ; both exclusively supply the constitutive principles of knowledge, and the regulative principles of its construction. To both we must resort for elements and for laws. Each may be disproved, but disproved only by itself. If one or other reveal facts, which, as mutually repugnant, cannot but be false, the authenticity of that revelation is invalidated ; and the criticism which signalizes this self-refutation, has, in either case, been able to convert assurance into skepticism, ' to turn the truth of God into a lie,' ' Et violoTG Jidem primam, et convcllere tota Fundamenta quibus nixatur vita salusque.' 1 LUCR. As psychology is only a developed consciousness, that is, a scientific evolution of the facts of which consciousness is the guar- antee and revelation ; the positive philosopher has thus a primary PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 223 presumption in favor of the elements out of which his system is constructed ; whilst the skeptic, or negative philosopher, must be content to argue back to the falsehood of these elements, from the impossibility which the dogmatist may experience, in combining them into the harmony of truth. For truth is one ; and the end of philosophy is the intuition of unity. Skepticism is not an ori- ginal or independent method ; it is the correlative and consequent of dogmatism ; and so far from being an enemy to truth, it arises only from a false philosophy, as its indication and its cure. * Alte dubitat, qui altius credit? The skeptic must not himself estab- lish, but from the dogmatist accept, his principles ; and his con- clusion is only a reduction of philosophy to zero, on the hypothe- sis of the doctrine from which his premises are borrowed. Are the principles which a particular system involves, convicted of contradiction ; or, are these principles proved repugnant to others, which, as facts of consciousness, every positive philosophy must admit ; there is established a relative skepticism, or the conclusion, that philosophy, in so far as realized in this system, is groundless. Again, are the principles, which, as facts of consciousness, philos- ophy in general must comprehend, found exclusive of each other ; there is established an absolute skepticism / the impossibility of all philosophy is involved in the negation of the one criterion of truth. Our statement may be reduced to a dilemma. Either the facts of consciousness can be reconciled, or they cannot. If they cannot, knowledge absolutely is impossible, and every system of philosophy therefore false. If they can, no system which supposes their inconsistency can pretend to truth. As a legitimate skeptic, Hume could not assail the foundations of knowledge in themselves. His reasoning is from their subse- quent contradiction to their original falsehood ; and his premises, not established by himself, are accepted only as principles univer- sally conceded in the previous schools of philosophy. On the assumption, that what was thus unanimously admitted by phi- losophers, must be admitted of philosophy itself, his argument against the certainty of knowledge was triumphant. Philosophers 224: PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. agreed in rejecting certain primitive beliefs of consciousness as false, and in usurping others as true. If consciousness, however, were confessed to yield a lying evidence in one particular, it could not be adduced as a credible witness at all : ' Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus? But as the reality of our knowledge necessa- rily rests on the assumed veracity of consciousness, it thus rests on an assumption implicitly admitted by all systems of philosophy to be illegitimate. ' Faciunt, nee, intdligendo, tit nihil intelligant P Reid (like Kant) did not dispute Hume's inference, as deduced from its antecedents. He allowed his skepticisms, as relative, to be irrefragable ; and that philosophy could not be saved from absolute skepticism, unless his conceded premises could be dis- allowed, by refuting the principles universally acknowledged by modern philosophers. This he applied himself to do. He sub- jected these principles to a new and rigorous criticism. If his analysis be correct (and it was so, at least, in spirit and intention), it proved them to be hypotheses, on which the credulous sequa- city of philosophers, ' philosophorum credula natio ' had bestowed the prescriptive authority of self-evident truths ; and showed, that where a genuine fact of consciousness had been sur- rendered, it had been surrendered in deference to some groundless assumption, which, in reason, it ought to have exploded. Philos- ophy was thus again reconciled with Nature ; consciousness was not a bundle of antilogies ; certainty and knowledge were not evicted from man. All this Dr. Brown completely misunderstands. He compre- hends neither the reasoning of skepticism, in the hands of Hume, nor the argument from common sense, in those of Reid. Retro- grading himself to the tenets of that philosophy, whose contra- dictions Hume had fairly developed into skepticism, he appeals against this conclusion to the argument of common sense ; albeit that argument, if true, belies his hypothesis, and if his hypothesis be true, is belied by it. Hume and Reid he actually represents us maintaining precisely the same doctrine, on precisely the same ffrr 3 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. ft "^* E R S I T grounds ; and finds both concurring with himself, in that very opinion, which the one had resolved into a negation all knowledge, and the other exploded as a baseless hypothesis. Our discussion, at present, is limited to a single question, to the truth or falsehood of consciousness in assuring us of the reality of a material world. In perception, consciousness gives, as an ultimate fact, a belief of the knowledge of the existence of something different from self. As ultimate, this belief cannot be reduced io a higher principle ; neither can it be truly analyzed into a double element. We only believe that this something exists, be- cause we believe that we know (are conscious of) this something as existing ; the belief of the existence is necessarily involved in the belief of the knowledge of the existence. Both are original, or neither. Does consciousness deceive us in the latter, it neces- sarily deludes us in the former ; and if the former, though a fact of consciousness, be false ; the latter, because a fact of conscious- ness, is not true. The beliefs contained in the two propositions : 1, / believe that a material world exists ; 2, / believe that I immediately know a material world existing, (in other words, / believe that the external reality itself is the object of which I am conscious in perception ) : though distinguished by philosophers, are thus virtually iden- tical. The belief of an external world, was too powerful, not to com- pel an acquiescence in its truth. But the philosophers yielded to nature, only in so far as to coincide in the dominant result. They falsely discriminated the belief in the existence, from the belief in the knowledge. With a few exceptions, they held fast by the truth of the first ; but, on grounds to which it is not here neces- sary to advert, they concurred, with singular unanimity, in ab- juring the second. The object of which we are conscious in per- ception, could only, they explicitly avowed, be a representative image present to the mind; an image which, they implicitly confessed, we are necessitated to regard as identical with the un- known reality itself. Man, in short, upon the common doctrine 14 226 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. of philosophy, was doomed by a perfidious nature to realize the fable of Narcissus ; he mistakes self for not-self, ' corpus putat esse quod umbra est.' To carry these principles to their issue was easy ; and skepti- cism in the hands of Hume was the result. The absolute veracity of consciousness was invalidated by the falsehood of one of its facts ; and the belief of the knowledge, assumed to be delusive, was even supposed in the belief of the existence, admitted to be true. The uncertainty of knowledge in general, and in particu- lar, the problematical existence of a material world, were thus legitimately established. To confute this reduction on the con- ventional ground of the philosophers, Reid saw to be impossible ; and the argument which he opposed, was, in fact, immediately subversive of the dogmatic principle, and only mediately of the skeptical conclusion. This reasoning was of very ancient appli- cation, and had been even long familiarly known by the name of the argument from Common Sense. To argue from common sense is nothing more than to render available the presumption in favor of the original facts of con- sciousness, that what is by nature necessarily BELIEVED to be, truly is. Aristotle, in whose philosophy this presumption ob- tained the authority of a principle, thus enounces the argument : ' What appears to all, that we affirm to be ; and he who rejects this belief, will, assuredly, advance nothing better worthy of cred it.' (Eih. NIC. L. x. c. 2.) As this argument rests entirely on a presumption ;' the fundamental condition of its validity is, that this presumption be not disproved. The presumption in favor of the veracity of consciousness, as we have already shown, is redar- gued by the repugnance of the facts themselves, of which con- sciousness is the complement ; as the truth of all can only be vindicated on the truth of each. The argument from common 1 There is,' says Hamilton (Reid p. 447), * a presumption in favor of the varacity of the primary data of consciousness. This can only be rebutted by showing that these facts are contradictory. Skepticism attempts to show ihis oil the principles which the dogmatism postulates.' W. PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 227 sense, therefore postulates, and founds on the assumption THAT OUR ORIGINAL BELIEFS BE NOT PROVED SELF-CONTRADIC- TORY. The harmony of our primary convictions being supposed, and not redargued, the argument from common sense is decisive against every deductive inference not in unison with them. For as every conclusion is involved in its premises, and as these again must ultimately be resolved into some original belief; the conclu- sion, if inconsistent with the primary phenomena of consciousness, must, ex hypothesi, be inconsistent with its premises, i. e. be logi- cally false. On this ground, our convictions at first hand, per- emptorily derogate from our convictions at second. t If we know and believe,' says Aristotle, ' through certain original principles, we must know and believe these with paramount certainty, for the very reason that we know and believe all else through them ;' and he elsewhere observes, that our approbation is often rather to be accorded to what is revealed by nature as actual, than to what can be demonstrated by philosophy as possible : ' ou SsT rtavTO, PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 343 ness and Softness in both. But these five qualities are not only not to be ascribed to the list of primary qualities by Locke ; they ought not to be viewed as co-ordinate with Extension, Solidity (which Reid more rigorously than Locke limits to the ultimate in- compressibility of matter), Figure, Mobility, and Divisibility, i. e. not as primary qualities at all. Of these five qualities, the last three, as he himself states (p. 314 a), are only different degrees of Cohesion ; and the first two are only modifications of Figure and Cohesion combined. But Cohesion, as will be shown ( ii.), is not a character necessarily involved in our notion of body ; for though Cohesion (and we may say the same of Inertia), in all its modes, necessarily supposes the occupation of space, the occupa- tion of space while it implies a continuity does not necessarily imply a cohesion of the elements (whatever they may be) of that which occupies space. At the same time, the various resistances of cohesion and of inertia cannot be reduced to the class of Sec- ondary qualities. It behooves us therefore, neither with Locke and others, to overlook them ; nor to throw them in without qualification or remark, either with Descartes among the Second- ary, or with Reid among the Primary, qualities. But of this again. Independently of these minor differences, and laying also out of account Reid's strictures on the cruder forms of the represen- tative hypothesis, as held by Descartes and Locke, but which there is no sufficient ground to suppose that Descartes, at least, adopted; Reid's doctrine touching the present distinction cor- responds, in all essential respects, with that maintained by these two philosophers. He does not adopt, and even omits to notice, the erroneous criterion of inseparability in thought, by which Locke attempts to discriminate the primary qualities from the secondary. Like Descartes, he holds that our notions of the pri- mary qualities are clear and distinct ; of the secondary, obscure and confused ; and, like both philosophers, he considers that the former afford us a knowledge of what the corresponding qualities are (or, as Descartes cautiously interpolates, may be) in themselves, 344 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. while the latter only point to the unknown cause or occasion of sensations of which we are conscious ourselves. Reid therefore calls the notion we have of the primary qualities, direct ; of the secondary, relative. (I. P. 313 b.) On this subject there is, thus, no important difference of opinion between the three philoso- phers. For if we modify the obnoxious language of Descartns and Locke ; and, instead of saying that the ideas or notions of the primary qualities resemble, merely assert that they truly rep- resent, their objects, that is, afford us such a knowledge of their nature as we should have were an immediate intuition of the ex- tended reality in itself competent to man, and this is certainly all that one, probably all that either philosopher, intended, Reid's doctrine and theirs would be found in perfect unison. The whole difficulty and dispute on this point is solved on the old distinction of similarity in existences and similarity in representation, which Reid and our more modern philosophers have overlooked. Touch- ing this, see, as stated above, the doctrine of those Schoolmen who held the hypothesis of species (p. 257 a b) ; and of those others who, equally with Reid, rejected all representative entities different from the act itself of cognition (p. 257 b. note). But much more than this was called for at Reid's hands. His philosophy, if that of Natural Realism, founded in the common sense of mankind, made it incumbent on him to show, that we have not merely a notion, a conception, an imagination, a sub- jective representation of Extension, for example, ' called up or suggested] in some incomprehensible manner to the mind, on oc- casion of an extended object being presented to the sense ; but that in the perception of such an object, we really have, as by nature we believe we have, an immediate knowledge or conscious- ness of that external object, as extended. In a word, that in sen- sitive perception the extension, as known, and the extension, as existing, are convertible ; known, because existing, and existing, since known. Reid, however, unfortunately, did not accomplish did not at- tempt this. lie makes no articulate statement, even, that in per- PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 345 ception we have an immediate knowledge an objective conscious- ness, of an extended non-ego, actually existing ; as in imagina- tion we have a subjective consciousness of a mode of the ego, rep- resenting such an extended non-ego, and thereby affording us a mediate knowledge of it as possibly existing. On the contrary were we to interpret his expressions rigidly, and not in liberal con- formity with the general analogy of his philosophy, we might, as repeatedly noticed, found on the terms in which he states his doc- trine of the primary qualities, and, in particular, his doctrine con- cerning our cognition of extension, a plausible argument that his own theory of perception is as purely subjective, and therefore as easily reducible to an absolute Idealism, as that of any of the philosophers whom he controverts. Thus when Reid, for example (Inq. 123 b), states 'that Exten- sion l is a quality suggested to us by certain sensations,' i. e. by certain merely subjective affections ; and when (324 b) he says ' that Space [Extension] whether tangible or visible, is not so properly an object of sense as a necessary concomitant 2 of the objects both of sight and touch ;' he apparently denies us all im- mediate perception of any extended reality. But if we are not percipient of any extended reality, we are not percipient of body as existing ; for body exists, and can only be known immediately and in itself, as extended. The material world, on this supposi- tion, sinks into something unknown and problematical ; and its existence, if not denied, can, at best, be only precariously affirmed, as the occult cause, or incomprehensible occasion, of certain sub- jective affections we experience in the form, either of a sensation of the secondary quality, or of a perception of the primary. 1 'According to Keid, Extension (Space) is a notion a posteriori, the result of experience. According to Kant, it is a priori ; experience only affording the occasions required by the mind to exert the facts, of which the intuition of space is a condition. To the former it is thus a contingent: to the latter, a necessary mental possession.' W. 1 ' It seemingly requires but little to rise to Kant's view of the conception of space as an a priori or native form of thought.' W. 34:6 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. Thus interpreted, what is there to distinguish the doctrine of Reid from the undeveloped idealism of Descartes or of Kant ? l Having noticed the manifest incongruity of Reid's doctrine on this point with the grand aim of his philosophy, an incongruity which I am surprised has not been long ago adverted to either by friend or foe, I may take this opportunity of modifying a former statement (p. 123 b, note*), 2 that, according to Reid, Space is a notion a posteriori, the result of experience. On re- considering more carefully his different statements on this subject (Inq. 123 sq. I. P. 324 sq.), I am now inclined to think that his language implies no more than the chronological posteriority of this notion ; and that he really held it to be a native, necessary, a priori form of thought, requiring only certain prerequisite condi- tions to call it from virtual into manifest existence. I am con- firmed in this view by finding it is also that of M. Royer-Collard. Mr. Stewart is however less defensible, when he says, in opposi- tion to Kant's doctrine of Space ' I rather lean to the common theory which supposes our first ideas of Space or Extension to be formed by other qualities of matter.' (Dissertation, &c. p. 281, 2d ed.) Passing over the less important observations of several inter- mediate philosophers in the wake of Reid, I proceed to the most distinguished of his disciples. 24. STEWART, while he agrees with his master in regard to the contrast of Primary and Secondary Qualities, proposes the following subdivision, and change of nomenclature in reference to the former. ' I distinguish.' he says, * Extension and Figure by the title of mathematical affections of matter; restricting the phrase primary qualities to Hardness and Softness, Roughness an$ Smoothness, and other properties of the same description. The line which I would draw between primary and secondary qualities is this ; that the former necessarily involve the notion of 1 See above, chapter iii. ii. p. 270, sq. W. 1 See note 1, on the preceding page. W. PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 347 extension, and consequently of externality or outness ; whereas the latter are only conceived as the unknown causes of known sensations *, and when first apprehended by the mind do not im- ply the existence of any thing locally distinct from the subjects of its own self-consciousness.' (Essays, p. 94.) The more radical defects of this ingenious reduction are, as they appear to me, the following : 1. That it does not depart from the central notion of body from Solidity Absolute, the occupying of space. (See p. 334 c, note *.) In logical propriety Extension and Figure are not prox- imately attributes of body but of space ; and belong to body only as filling space. Body supposes them ; they do not suppose body ; and the inquiry is wholly different in regard to the nature of extension and figure as space, and of the extended and figured as body. 2. This original defect in the order of- evolution, has led, how- ever, to more important consequences. Had Mr. Stewart looked at Extension (Solidity Mathematical), as a property of body, in virtue of body filling space, he would not only not have omitted, but not have omitted as an attribute co-ordinate with extension, the Ultimate Incompressibility or Impenetrability of body (Sol- idity Physical). 3. But while omitting this essential property, the primary qualities which, after Reid, he enumerates (Hardness, Softness, Roughness, Smoothness), are, as already noticed, and to be here- after shown, not primary, not being involved in the necessary notion of body. For these are all degrees or modifications of Cohesion ; but a Cohesion of its ultimate elements it is not ne- cessary to think as a condition or attribute of matter at all. See ii. Moreover, Roughness and Smoothness, as more than the causes of certain sensations in us, therefore only secondary quali- ties, are modifications, not only of Cohesion, but of Figure, and would, therefore, on Mr. Stewart's distribution, fall under the cat- egory of the Mathematical Affections of Body. As regards the great problem of Natural Realism, to prove \ 348 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. that we have an immediate perception of the primary qualities of body, this was left by Mr. Stewart where it was left by Reid. 25. The last philosopher to be adduced is the illustrious founder of the Scoto-Gallican School, M. ROYER-COLLARD. The sum of his doctrine touching the Primary Qualities is given in the following passage, which I translate from the Fragments of his Lectures, published by M. Jouffroy as Appendices to his ver- sion of the Works of Reid (Vol. iii. p. 429 sq.) ; Fragments which, with M. Jouffroy's general Preface, I have reason to hope will be soon given to the British public by a translator eminently qualified for the task. My observations I find it most convenient to subjoin in the form of notes ; and admiring as I do both the attempt itself and the ability of its author, I regret to differ here so widely, not only from the doctrines which M. Royer-Collard holds in common with other philosophers, but from those which are peculiar to himself. On the former, however, in so far as, with his more immediate predecessors, he confounds in one class qualities which I think ought to be discriminated into two, I deem it unnecessary to make any special comment ; as this mat- ter, which has been already once and again adverted to, is to be more fully considered in the sequel. ( ii.) As to the latter, it will be seen that the more important differences arise from the exclusive point of view from which M. Royer-Collard has chosen to consider the Qualities in question. * Among the Primary Qualities, that of Number is peculiar to Locke.* It is evident that Number, far from being a quality of matter, is only an abstract notion, the work of intellect and not of sense.f * Number is, with Locke, common to Aristotle and the Aristotelians, Galileo, Descartes, and the Cartesians, &c. t Number, as an abstract notion, is certainly not an object of sense. But it was not as an abstract notion intended by the philosophers to denote an attribute of Body. This rnisprision was expressly guarded against by the Aristotelians. Sec Toletus in Aristotclem Do Anima, L. ii. c. 6. qu. 15. Number may be said to correspond to Divisibility ; see p. 315 a, and p. 834 a. If it cannot be said that sense is percipient of objects as many, it can- PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 349 ' Divisibility is proper to Reid.* On this quality and Mobility I will observe, that neither ought to have been placed among the qualities manifested through sense ; and yet this is what Reid un- derstands by the Primary Qualities, for he distinguishes them from the Secondary by this that we have of the former a direct notion.f Divisibility is known to us by division ; and a body divided is known to us, as such, by memory. For did we not recollect that it had previously been one, we should not know that it is at present two ; we should be unable to compare its present with its past state ; and it is by this comparison alone that we become aware of the fact of division. Is it said that the notion of Divisibility is not acquired by the fact of division, but that it presents itself immediately to the mind prior to experience ? In this case it is still more certain that it is not a cognition proper to sense.J not be said to be percipient of an object as one. Perception, moreover, is a consciousness, and consciousness is only realized under the condition of plu- rality and difference. Again, if we deny that through sense we perceive a plurality of colors, we must deny that through sense we perceive a figure or even a line. And if three bodies are not an object of sense, neither is a tri- angle. Sense and intellect cannot thus be distinguished. * Sundry philosophers preceded Reid in making Divisibility (which cor- responds also to Number) one of the Primary Qualities. See Nos. 20, 21, 22. t M. Royer-Collard not only takes his point of view exclusively from Sense ; but sense he so limits, that, if rigorously carried out, no sensible perception, as no consciousness, could be brought to bear. The reason he gives why Keid must be held as of the same opinion, I do not understand. Psychologically speaking, an attribute would not be primary if it could be thought away from body ; and the notion of body being supposed given, every primary quality is to be evolved out of that notion, as necessarily in- volved in it, independently altogether of any experience of sense. In this respect, such quality is an object of intellect. At the same time, a primary quality would not be an attribute of body, if it could not, contingently, to some extent, at least, be apprehended as an actual phenomenon of sense. In this respect, such quality is an object of perception and experience. t I am afraid that this, likewise, is a misapprehension of the meaning of the philosophers. Divisibility, in their view, has nothing to do with the pro- cess of dividing. It denotes either the alternative attribute, applicable to all body, of unity or plurality ; or the possibility that every single body may, as extended, be sundered into a multitude of extended parts. Every material object being thus, though actually one, always potentially many, it is thua convertible with Number ; see foot-note t. 350 PHILOSOPHY OF PEECEPTION. 4 As to the notion of Mobility it is evidently posterior to that of motion ;* that of motion supposes not less evidently the exer- cise of memory and the idea of time ; it is thus not derived exclu- sively from sense.f As Divisibility also supposes motion, this again is an additional proof that the notion of divisibility is not immediate. * Figure is a modification of Extension. * Solidity, Impenetrability, Resistance, are one and the same thing ;J Hardness, Softness, Fluidity, are modifications of Solid- ity and its different degrees ; while the Roughness and Smooth- ness of surfaces express only sensations attached to certain per- ceptions of Solidity. * The Primary Qualities may be thus generalized, if I may so express myself, into Extension and Solidity? The distinction of these different classes of material qualities has, as already noticed, no real importance, no real foundation, on the hypothesis of Idealism, whether absolute or cosmothetic, in no philosophy, indeed, but that of Natural Realism ; and its recognition, in the systems of Descartes and Locke, is, therefore, with them a superficial observation, if not a hors d'ceuvre. It was, accordingly, with justice formally superseded, because virtu- ally null, in the philosophy of Leibnitz, the complement of the Cartesian, and in the philosophy of Condillac, the complement * Mobility, as applied in this relation, is merely a compendious expression for the alternative attributions of motion or rest; and both of these, as possi- ble attributes, are involved in the notion of body. See ii. of this Excursus. t Compare above pp. 312-314. But Perception can no more be separated from all memory than from all judgment ; for consciousness involves both. \ This is only correct from M. Koyer-Collard's exclusive point of view from sense alone. On the various meanings of the term Solidity, see p. 334, note *. The confusion also resulting from the ambiguity of the word Impen- etrability as denoting both a resistance absolute and insuperable, and a resist- ance relative and superable, both what is necessary, and what is contingent to body, is here shown, either in the reduction to a single category of quali- ties of a wholly heterogeneous character, or in the silent elimination of the nigher. PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 351 of the Lockian. The Kantian system, again, is built on its pos- itive negation, or rather its positive reversal. For Kant's tran- scendental Idealism not only contains a general assertion of the subjectivity of all our perceptions ; its distinctive peculiarity is, in fact, its special demonstration of the absolute subjectivity of Space or Extension, and in general of the primary attributes of matter ; these constituting what he calls the Form, as the Second- ary constitutes what he calls the Matter, of our Sensible intuitions. (See, in particular, Proleg., 13, Anm. 2.) This, I repeat, may enable us to explain why the discrimination in question has, both in the intcllectualism of Germany and in the sensualism of France, been so generally overlooked ; and why, where in rela- tion to those philosophers by whom the distinction has been taken, any observations on the point have been occasionally hazarded (as by Tetens with special reference to Reid), that these are of too perfunctory a character to merit any special commem- oration.* Such, then, are the forms under which the distinction of the * To this also are we to attribute it, that the most elaborate of the recent histories of philosophy among the Germans, slur over, if they do not positive- ly misconceive, the distinction in question. In the valuable expositions of the Cartesian doctrine by the two distinguished Hegelians, Feuerbfich and Erdtnann, it obtains from the one no adequate consideration, from the other no consideration at all. In the Lectures on the History of Philosophy by their illustrious master, a work in which the erudition is often hardly less remarkable than the force of thought', almost every statement in reference to the subject is, to say the least of it, inaccurate. Hegel, as he himself em- ploys, apparently makes Aristotle and Descartes employ, the terra Solidity simply for Hardness. This, however, neither one nor other ever does ; while by Locke, the terms are even expressly distinguished. (Vol. iii. pp. 360, 431.) He confounds Descartes' distinction (baptized by Locke that) of the Primary and Secondary qualities, with Descartes' distinction of the Primi- tive and Derivative attributes of body ; distinctions not coincident, though not opposed. Figure, for example, in the one is primary, but not in the other primitive. In regard to his criticism of Locke (p. 481), suffice it to say, that Locke, so far from opposing, in fact follows Descartes in making ' Figure and so forth' primary qualities ; nor does Descartes denominate any class of qualities ' secondary.' (pp. 359, 430.) Finally Aristotle's dis- tinction of ' external qualities' into primary and secondary, if this be re- ferred to, corresponds with that so styled by Locke only in theuame. 352 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. Primary and Secondary Qualities of the Body has been pre- sented, from its earliest promulgation to its latest development. In this historical survey, I have to acknowledge no assistance from the researches of preceding inquirers ; for what I found already done in this respect was scanty and superficial, even when not positively erroneous. Every thing had thus anew to be explored and excavated. The few who make a study of philos- ophy in its sources, can appreciate the labor of such a research ; and from them, at least, I am sure of indulgence for the imper- fections of what I offer not as a history, but as a hasty collection of some historical materials. II. DISTINCTION OF THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES OF BODY CRITICALLY CONSIDERED. From what has been said in the foregoing section, it will be seen that I am by no means satisfied with the previous reduction of the Qualities of Body to two classes of Primary and Secondary. Without preamble, I now go on to state what I deem their true and complete classification ; limiting the statement, however, to little more than an enouncement of the distribution and its princi- ples, not allowing myself to enter on an exposition of the correla- tive doctrine of perception, and refraining, in general, from much that I might be tempted to add, by way of illustration and support. The Qualities of body I divide into three classes. Adopting and adapting, as far as possible, the previous nomen- clature the first of these I would denominate the class of Pri- mary, or Objective, Qualities ; the second, the class of Secundo- Primary, or Subjective- Objective, Qualities ; the third, the class of Secondary, or Subjective, Qualities. The general point of view from which the Qualities of Matter are here considered is not the Physical, but the Psychological. But, under this, the ground of principle on which these qualities are divided and designated is, again, two-fold. There are, in PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 353 fact, within the psychological, two special points of view ; that of Sense, and that of Understanding. Both of these ought to be taken, but taken separately, into account in a classification like the present ; and not, as has been often done, either one only adopted, or both fortuitously combined. Differing, however, as these widely do from each other, they will be found harmonious- ly to conspire in establishing the three-fold distribution and no- menclature of the qualities in question which I have ventured to propose. The point of view chronologically prior, or first to us, is that of Sense. The principle of division is here the different circum- stances under which the qualities are originally and immediately apprehended. On this ground, as apprehensions or immediate cognitions through Sense, the Primary are distinguished as objective, not subjective,* as percepts proper, not sensations proper ; the Secundo-primary, as objective and subjective, as per- cepts proper and sensations proper ; the Secondary, as subjective, not objective, cognitions, as sensations proper, not percepts proper. The other point of view chronologically posterior, but first in nature, is that of Understanding. The principle of division is here the different character under which the qualities, already apprehended, are conceived or construed to the mind in thought. On this ground, the Primary, being thought as essential to the notion of Body, are distinguished from the Secundo-primary and Secondary, as accidental ; while the Primary and Secundo-pri- mary, being thought as manifest or conceivable in their own nature, are distinguished from the Secondary, as in their own * All knowledge, in one respect, is subjective ; for all knowledge is an energy of the Ego. Bat when I perceive a quality of the Non-Ego, of the object-object, as in immediate relation to my mind, I am said to have of it an objective knowledge ; in contrast to the subjective knowledge, I am said tc have of it when supposing it only as the hypothetical or occult cause of an affection of which I am conscious, or thinking it only mediately through a subject-object or representation in, and of, the mind. But see below, in foot-note to Par. 15, and first foot-note to Par. 18. 22 354 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. nature occult and inconceivable. For the notion of Matter having been once acquired, by reference to that notion, the Primary Qualities are recognized as its a priori or necessary constituents ; and we clearly conceive how they must exist in bodies in know- ing what they are objectively in themselves ; the Secundo-primaiy Qualities, again, are recognized as a posteriori or contingent modifications of the Primary, and we clearly conceive how they do exist in bodies in knowing what they are objectively in their conditions; finally, the Secondary Qualities are recognized as a posteriori or contingent accidents of matter, but we obscurely surmise how they may exist in bodies only as knowing what they are subjectively in their effects. It is thus apparent that the primary qualities may be deduced a priori, the bare notion of matter being given ; they being, in fact, only evolutions of the conditions which that notion neces- sarily implies : whereas the Secundo-primary and Secondary must be induced a posteriori ; both being attributes contingent- ly superadded to the naked notion of matter. The Primary Qualities thus fall more under the point of view of understand- ing, the Secundo-primary and Secondary more under tho point of view of Sense. Deduction of the Primary Qualities. Space or extension is a necessary form of thought. We cannot think it as non-existent ; we cannot but think it as existent. But we are not so necessi- tated to imagine the reality of aught occupying space ; for while unable to conceive as null the space in which the material uni- verse exists, the material universe itself we can, without difficulty, annihilate in thought. All that exists in, all that occupies space, becomes, therefore, known to us by experience : we acquire, we construct, its notion. The notion of space is thus native, or a priori ; the notion of what space contains, adventitious, or a pos- teriori. Of this latter class is that of Body or Matter. But on the hypothesis, always, that body has been empirically apprehended, that its notion has been acquired ; What are the a priori characters in and through which we must conceive that PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 355 notion, if conceived it be at all, in contrast to the a posteriori characters under which we may, and probably do, conceive it, but under which, if we conceive it not, still the notion itself stands unannihilated ? In other words, what are the necessary or essen- tial, in contrast to the contingent or accidental properties of Body, as apprehended and conceived by us ? The answer to this question affords the class of Primary, as contradistinguished from the two classes of Secundo-primary and Secondary Qualities. Whatever answer may be accorded to the question How do we come by our knowledge of Space or trinal extension ? it will be admitted on all hands, that whether given solely a priori as a native possession of the mind, whether acquired solely a posteri- ori as a generalization from the experience of sense, or whether, as I would maintain, we at once must think Space as a necessary notion, and do perceive the extended in space as an actual fact ; still, on any of these suppositions, it will be admitted, that we are only able to conceive Body as that which (I.) occupies space, and (II.) is contained in space. But these catholic conditions of body, though really simple, are logically complex. We may view them in different aspects or relations, which, though like the sides and angles of a triangle, incapable of separation, even in thought, supposing as they do each other, may still, in a certain sort, be considered for them- selves, and distinguished by different appellations. I. The property of filling space (Solidity in its unexclusive signification, Solidity Simple) implies two correlative conditions : (A) the necessity of trinal extension, in length, breadth, and thick- ness (Solidity geometrical) ; and (B) the corresponding impossi- bility of being reduced from what is to what is not thus extended (Solidity Physical, Impenetrability). A. Out of the absolute attribute of Trinal Extension may be again explicated three attributes, under the form of necessary re lations : (i.) Number or Divisibility ; (ii.) Size, Bulk, or Mag- nitude ; (iii.) Shape or Figure. i. Body necessarily exists, and is necessarily known, either as 356 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. one body or as many bodies. Number, i. e. the alternative attri- bution of unity or plurality, is thus, in a first respect, a primary attribute of matter. But again, every single body is also, in dif- ferent points of view, at the same time one and many. Consid- ered as a whole, it is, and is apprehended, as actually one ; con- sidered as an extended whole, it is, and is conceived, potentially many. Body being thus necessarily known, if not as already divided, still as always capable of division, Divisibility or Num- ber is thus likewise, in a second respect, a primary attribute of matter. (Seep. 314 a.) ii. Body (multo majus this or that body) is not infinitely ex tended. Each body must therefore have a certain finite exten- sion, which by comparison with that of other bodies must be less, or greater, or equal ; in other words, it must by relation have a certain Size, Bulk, or Magnitude ; and this, again, as estimated both (a) by the quantity of space occupied, and (b) by the quan- tity of matter occupying, affords likewise the relative attributes of Dense and Rare. iii. Finally, bodies, as not infinitely extended, have, conse- quently, their extension bounded. But bounded extension is ne- cessarily of a certain Shape or Figure. B. The negative notion the impossibility of conceiving the compression of body from an extended to an unextended, its elim- ination out of space affords the positive notion of an insupera- ble power in body of resisting such compression or elimination. This force, which, as absolute, is a conception of the understand- ing, not an apprehension through sense, has received no precise and unambiguous name; for Solidity, even with the epithet Physical, and Impenetrability and Extreity are vague and equiv- ocal. (See p. 334 c, note *.) We might call it, as I have said, Ultimate or Absolute Incompressibility. It would be better, however, to have a positive expression to denote a positive no- tion, and we might accordingly adopt, as a technical term, Autan- titypy. This is preferable to Antitypy (dvrie only possible under condition of a sensation ; still, that above a certain limit the more intense the sensation or subjective consciousness, the more indistinct the perception or object- ive consciousness, On this, which is a special case of a still higher law, I have already inci- dentally spoken, and shall again have occasion to speak. 1 1. That we are only conscious of the existence of our organism as a phys- ical body, under our consciousness of its existence as an animal body, and are only conscious of its existence as an animal body under our conscious- ness of it as somehow or other sensitively affected. 2 . That though the sensation of our organism as animally affected, is, as it were, the light by which it is exhibited to our perception as a physically extended body ; still, if the affection be too strong, the pain or pleasure too intense, the light blinds by its very splendor, and the perception is lost in . the sensation. Accordingly, if we take a survey of the senses, we shall find, that exactly in proportion as each affords an idiopathic sensation more or less capable of being carried to an extreme either of pleasure or of pain, does it afford, but in an inverse ratio, the condition of an objective perception more cr less distinct. In the senses of Sight and Hearing, as contrasted with those See the next chapter. W. PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 38U no perception of a primary at all. Thus prominent in themselves, and prominently contrasted as mutual extremes, neither class can be overlooked, neither class can be confounded with the other. of Taste and Smell, the counter-proportions are precise and manifest ; and precisely as in animals these latter senses gain in their objective character as means of knowledge, do they lose in their subjective character as sources of pleasurable or painful sensations. To a dog, for instance, in whom the sense of smell is so acute, all odors seem, in themselves, to be indifferent. In Touch or Feeling the same analogy holds good, and within itself; for in this ease, where the sense is diffused throughout the body, the subjective and ob- jective vary in their proportions at different parts. The parts most subject- ively sensible, those chiefly susceptible of pain and pleasure, furnish precisely the obtusest organs of touch ; and the acutest organs of touch do not possess, if ever even that, more than an average amount of subjective sensibility. I am disposed, indeed, from the analogy of the other senses, to surmise, that the nerves of touch proper (the more objective) and of feeling proper (the more subjective) are distinct ; and distributed in various proportions to different parts of the body. I should also surmise, that the ultimate fibrils of the former run in isolated action from periphery to centre, while the ultimate fibrils of the latter may, to a certain extent, be confounded with each other at their terminal expansion in the skin ; so that for this reason, likewise, they do not, as the former, supply to consciousness an opportunity of so precisely discriminating the reciprocal outness of their sensations. The experiments of Weber have shown, how differently in degree different parts of the skin possess the power of touch proper; this power, as measured by the smallness of the interval at which the blunted points of a pair of compasses, brought into contact with the skin, can be discriminated as double, varying from the twentieth of an En- glish inch at the tip of the tongue, and a tenth on the volar surface of the third finger, to two inches and a half over the greater part of the neck, back, arms, and thighs. (De Pulsu, &c., p. 44-81, in particular, p. 58. An ab- stract, not altogether accurate, is given by Mueller, Phys. p. 700). If these experiments be repeated with a pair of compasses not very obtuse, and ca- pable, therefore, by a slight pressure, of exciting a sensation in the skin, it will be found, that while Weber's observations, as to the remarkable differ- ence of the different parts in the power of tactile discrimination, are correct ; that, at the same time, what he did not observe, there is no corresponding difference between the parts in their sensibility to superficial pricking, scratching, &c. On the contrary, it will be found that, in the places where objectively, touch is most alive, subjectively feeling is, in the first instance at least, in some degree deadened ; and that the parts the most obtuse in discriminating the duplicity of the touching points, are by no means the least acute to the sensations excited by their pressure. For example ; the tip of the tongue has fifty, the interior surface of the third finger twenty-five, times the tactile discrimination of the arm. But it will be found, on trial, that the arm is more sensitive to a sharp point ap- plied, but not strongly, to the skin, tt?n either the tongue or the finger, 390 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. The Secundo-primary qualities, on the contrary, are, at once, complex and confusive. For, on the one hand, as perceptions approximating to the primary, on the other, as sensations identi- and (depilated of course) at least as alive to the presence of a very light body, as a hair, a thread, a feather, drawn along the surface. In the several places the phenomena thus vary : In those parts where touch proper prevails, a subacute point, lightly pressed upon the skin, determines a sensation of which we can hardly predicate either pain or pleasure, and nearly limited to the place on which the pressure is made. Accordingly, when two such points are thus, at the same time, pressed upon the skin, we are conscious of two distinct impressions, even when the pressing points approximate pretty closely to each other. In those parts, on the other hand, where feel ing proper prevails, a subacute point, lightly pressed upon the skin, deter- mines a sensation which we can hardly call indifferent ; and which radiates, to a variable extent, from the place on which the pressure is applied. Ac- cordingly, when two such points are thus, at the same time, pressed upon the skin, we arc not conscious of two distinct impressions, unless the pres- sing points are at a considerable distance from each other ; the two impres- sions, running, as it were, together and thus constituting one indivisible sensation. The discriminated sensations in the one case, depend manifest- ly on the discriminated action, through the isolated and unexpanded termi- nation of the nervous fibrils of touch proper; and the indistinguishable sen- sation in the other, will, I have no doubt, be ultimately found by microsco- pic anatomy to depend, in like manner, on the nervous fibrils of feeling proper being, as it were, fused or interlaced together at their termination, or rather, perhaps, on each ultimate fibril, each primary sentient unit being expanded through a considerable extent of skin. The supposition of such expansion seems, indeed, to be necessitated by these three facts : 1, that every point of the skin is sensible ; 2, that no point of the skin is sensible except through the distribution to it of nervous substance ; and, 3, that the ultimate fibrils, those minima, at least, into which anatomists have, as yet, been able to analyze the nerves, are too large, and withal too few, to carry sensation to each cutaneous point, unless by an attenuation and diffusion of the finest kind. Within this superficial sphere of cutaneous apprehension, the objective and subjective, perception and sensation, touch proper and feeling proper, are thus always found to each other in an inverse ratio. But take the same places, and puncture deejay. Then, indeed, the sense of pain will be found to be intenser in the tongue and finger than in the arm ; for the tongue and finger are endowed with comparatively more nu- merous nerves, and consequently with a more concentrated sensibility, than the arm ; though these may either, if different, lie beneath the termination of the nerves of touch, or, if the same, commence their energy as feeling only at the pitch where their energy as touch concludes. Be this, however, as it may, it will be always found, that in proportion as the internal feeling of a part becomes excited, is it incapacitated for the time, as an organ of ex- ternal touch. PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 391 fied with the secondary, they may, if not altogether overlooked, lightly be, as they have always hitherto been, confounded with the one or with the other of these classes. (See pp. 361 b, 363 a.) 24. In the same relation a Primary or a Secondary quality, as simple, has its term univocal. A Secundo-primary, on the contrary, being complex, its term, as one, is necessarily equivocal. For, viewed on one side, it is the modification of a primary ; on the other, it is, in reality, simply a secondary quality. (How, in a more general point of view, the Secondary qualities are no less complex, and their terms no less ambiguous than the Secundo- primary, see par. 6.) 25. All the senses, simply or in combination, afford conditions for the perception of the Primary qualities (par. 22, note) ; and all, of course, supply the sensations themselves of the Secondary. As only various modifications of resistance, the Secundo-primary qualities are all, as percepts proper, as quasi-primary qualities, ap- prehended through the locomotive faculty,* and our conscious- I do not therefore assert, without a qualification, that touch and feeling jvre everywhere manifested in an inverse ratio ; for both together may be higher, both, together may be lower, in one place than another. But whilst 1 diffidently hold that they are dependent upon different conditions that the capacity of pain and pleasure, and the power of tactual discrimination, which a part possesses, are not the result of the same nervous fibres | I maintain, with confidence, that these senses never, in any part, coexist in exercise in any high degree, and that wherever the one rises to excess, there the other will be found to sink to a corresponding deficiency. In saying, in the present note, that touch is more objective than feeling, I am not to be supposed to mean, that touch is, in itself, aught but a subject- ive affection a feeling a sensation. Touch proper is here styled objective, not absolutely, but only in contrast and in comparison to feeling proper ; 1, inasmuch as it affords in the cycle of its own phenomena a greater amount of information ; 2, as it affords more frequent occasions of perception or objec- tive apprehension ; and, 3, as it is feebly, if at all, characterized by the sub- jective affections of pain and pleasure. * I. On the Locomotive Faculty and Muscular Sense, in relation to Percep- tion. I say that the Secundo-primary qualities, in their quasi-primary pha- eis, are apprehended through the locomotive faculty, and not the muscular sense ; for it is impossible that the state of muscular feeling can enable us to be immediately cognizant of the existence and degree of a resisting force. On the contrary, supposing all muscular feeling abolished, the power of mov- ing the muso.es at will remaining, however, entire, I hold (as will anon be 392 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. ness of its energy ; as sensations, as secondary qualities, they are apprehended as modifications of touch proper, and of cutaneous and muscular feeling.* shown) that the consciousness of the mental motive energy, and of the greater or less intensity of such energy requisite, in different circumstances, to accomplish our intention, would of itself enable us always to perceive the fact, and in some degree to measure the amount, of any resistance to our voluntary movements ; howbeit the concomitance of certain feelings with the different states of muscular tension, renders this cognition not only easier, but, in fact, obtrudes it upon our attention. Scaliger, therefore, in re- ferring the apprehension of weight, &c., to the locomotive faculty, is, in my opinion, far more correct than recent philosophers, in referring it to the muscular sense. (See II. of this foot-note.) We have here to distinguish three things : 1. The still immanent or purely mental act of will : what for distinction's sake I would call the Jiyperorganic volition to move ; the actio elicita of the schools. Of this volition we are conscious, even though it do not go out into overt action. 2. If this volition become transcunt, be carried into effect, it passes into the mental effort or nisus to move. This I would call the enorganic volition, or, by an extension of the scholastic language, the actio imperans. Of this we are immediately conscious. For we are conscious of it, though by a nar- cosis or stupor of the sensitive nerves we lose all feeling of the movement of the limb; though by a paralysis of the motive nerves, no movement in the limb follows the mental effort to move; though by an abnormal stimu- lus of the muscular fibres, a contraction in them is caused even in opposi- tion to our will. 8. Determined by the enorganic volition, the cerebral influence is trans- mitted by the motive nerves ; the muscles contract or endeavor to contract, so that the limb moves or endeavors to move. This motion or effort to move I would call the organic movement, the organic nisus ; by a limitation of the scholastic term, it might be denominated the actio imperata. It might seem at first sight, 1, that the organic movement is immediate- ly determined by the enorganic volition ; and, 2, that we are immediately conscious of the organic nisus in itself. But neither is the case. Not the former : for even if we identify the contraction of the muscles and the overt movement of the limb, this is only the mediate result of the enorganic voli- tion, through the action of the nervous influence transmitted from the brain. The mind, therefore, exerts its effort to move, proximately in determining this transmission ; but we are unconscious not only of the mode in which this operation is performed, but even of the operation itself. Not the lat- ter : for all muscular contraction is dependent on the agency of one set of nerves, all feeling of muscular contraction on another. Thus, from the ex- clusive paralysis of the former, or the exclusive stupor of the latter, the one function may remain entire, while the other is abolished ; and it is only be- cause certain muscular feelings are normally, though contingently, associated vith the different muscular states, that, independently of the consciousness PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. &) As in Thought ; as in relation to Intellect. 26. As modes of matter, the Primary qualities are thought as necessary and universal ; the Secundo-primary, as contingent and common ; the Secondaiy, as contingent and peculiar. of the enorganic volition, we are indirectly made aware of the various de- grees of the organic nisus exerted in our different members.* But though indirect, the information thus forced upon us is not the less valuable. By the associated sensations our attention is kept alive to the state of our mus- cular movements ; by them we are enabled to graduate with the requisite accuracy the amount of organic effort, and to expend in each movement pre- cisely the quantum necessary to accomplish its purpose. Sir Charles Bell records the case of a mother who, while nursing her infant, was affected with paralysis or loss of muscular motion on one side of her body, and by stupor or loss of sensibility on the other. With the arm capable of movement she could hold her child to her bosom ; and this she continued to do so long as her attention remained fixed upon the infant. But if surrounding objects withdrew her observation, there being no admonitory sensation, the flexor muscles of the arm gradually relaxed, and the child was in danger of falling. (The Hand, p. 204.) These distinctions in the process of voluntary motion, especially the two last (for the first and second may be viewed as virtually the same), are of importance to illustrate the double nature of the secundo-primary qualities, each of which is, in fact, the aggregate of an objective or quasi-primary qual- ity, apprehended in a perception, and of a secondary or subjective quality caused by the other, apprehended in a sensation. Each of these qualities, each of these cognitions, appertains to a different part of the motive process. The quasi-primary quality and its perception, depending, on the enorganic volition and the nerves of motion; the secondary quality and its sensation, depending on the organic nisus and the nerves of sensibility. * I must here notice an error of inference, which runs through the experiments by Professor Weber of Leipsic, in regard to the shares which the sense of touch proper and the consciousness of muscular effort have in the estimation of weight, as detailed in his valuable ' Annotationes de Pulsu, Eesorptione, Auditu etTactu, 1 1834, pp. 81-113, 134, 159-161. Weight he supposes to be tested by the Touch alone, when objects are laid upon the hand, reposing, say, on a pillow. Here there appears to me a very palpa- ble mistake. For without denying that different weights, up to a certain point, produce different sensations on the nerves of touch and feeling, and that consequently an expe- rience of the difference of such sensation may help us to an inference of a difference of weight; it is manifest, that if a body be laid upon a muscular part, that we estimate its weight proximately and principally by the amount of lateral pressure on the muscles, and this pressure itself, by the difficulty we find in lifting the body, however imper- ceptibly, by a contraction or bellying out of the muscular fibres. When superincum- bent bodies, however different in weight, are all still so heavy as to render this contrac- tion almost or altogether impossible; it will be found, that our power of measuring their comparative weights becomes, in the one case feeble and fallacious, in the othet null. 394 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 27. Thought as necessary, and immediately apprehended as actual, modes of matter, we conceive the Primary qualities in what they objectively are. The Secundo-primary, thought in The quasi-primary quality is, always, simply a resistance to our enorganic volition, as realized in a muscular effort. But, be it remembered, there may be muscular effort, even if a body weighs or is pressed upon a part of our muscular frame apparently at rest. (See foot-note * of page 293.) And how is the resistance perceived ? I have frequently asserted, that in perception we are conscious of the external object immediately and in itself. This is the doctrine of Natural Eealism. But in saying that a thing is known in itself, I do not mean that this object is known in its absolute existence, that is, out of relation to us. This is impossible; for our knowledge is only of the relative. To know a thing in itself or immediately, is an expression I use merely in contrast to the knowledge of a thing in a representation, or mediately. 1 On this doctrine an external quality is said to be known in it- self, when it is known as the immediate and necessary correlative of an in- ternal quality of which I am conscious. Thus, when I am conscious of the exertion of an enorganic volition to move, and aware that the muscles are obedient to my will, but at the same time aware that my limb is arrested in its motion by some external impediment ; in this case I cannot be conscious of myself as the resisted relative without at the same time being conscious, being immediately percipient, of a not-self as the resisting correlative. In this cognition there is no sensation, no subjective-organic affection. I sim- ply know myself as a force in energy, the not-self as a counter force in ener- gy. So much for the quasi-primary quality, as dependent on the euorganic volition. But though such pure perception may be detected in the simple appre- hension of resistance, in reality it does not stand alone ; for it is always ac- companied by sensations, of which the muscular nisus or quiescence, on the one hand, and the resisting, the pressing body, on the other, are the causes. Of these sensations, the former, to wit, the feelings connected with the states of tension and relaxation, lie wholly in the muscles, and belong to what has sometimes been distinguished as the muscular sense. The latter, to wit the sensations determined by the foreign pressure, lie partly in the skin, and belong to the sense of touch proper and cutaneous feeling, partly in the flesh, and belonging to the muscular sense. These affections, sometimes pleasur- able, sometimes painful, are, in either case, merely modifications of the sen- sitive nerves distributed to the muscles and to the skin ; and, as manifested to us, constitute the secondary quality, the sensation of which accompanies the perception of every secundo-primary. Although the preceding doctrine coincide, in result, with that which M. Maine de Biran, after a hint by Locke, has so ably developed, more espe- cially in his 'Nouvelles Considerations surles Eapports du Physique et du Moral de i'llomme ;' I find it impossible to go along with his illustrious ed- 1 See chapter ii. above. W. PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 395 their objective phasis, as modifications of the Primary, and, in both their objective and subjective phases, immediately appre- hended, we conceive them in what they objectively, as well as in jtor, M. Cousin (p. xxv. of Preface), in thinking that his examination of Hume's reasoning against the deduction of our notion of Power from the consciousness of efficacy in the voluntary movement of our muscles, 'leaves nothing to desire, and nothing to reply.' On the contrary, though always dissenting with diffidence from M. Cousin, I confess it does not seem to me, that in any of his seven assaults on Hume, has De Biran grappled with the most formidable objections of the great skeptic. The second, third, and sev- enth, of Plume's arguments, as stated and criticised by Biran, are not pro- posed, as arguments, by Hume at all ; and the fourth and fifth in Biran's array constitute only a single reasoning in Hume's. Of the three arguments which remain, the first and sixth in Biran's enumeration are the most im- portant. But, under the first, the examples alleged by Hume, from cases of sudden palsy, Biran silently passes by ; yet these present by far the most perplexing difficulties for his doctrine of conscious efficacy. In another and subsequent work (Reponses, &c., p. 386) he, indeed, incidentally considers this objection, referring us back for its regular refutation to the strictures on Hume, where, however, as stated, no such refutation is to be found. Nor does he in this latter treatise relieve the difficulty. For as regards the argu- ment from our non-consciousness of loss of power, prior to an actual attempt to move, as shown in the case of paralysis supervening during sleep, this> it seems to me, can only be answered from the fact, that we are never con- scious of force, as unexerted or in potentia (for the ambiguous term power, unfortunately after Locke employed by Hume in the discussion, is there equivalent to force, vis, and not to mare potentiality as opposed to actuality), but only of force, as in actu or exerted. For in this case, we never can pos- sibly be conscious of the absence of a force, previously to the effort made to put it forth. The purport of the sixth argument is not given, as Hume, not- withstanding the usual want of precision in his language, certainly intended it; which was to this effect: Volition to move a limb, and the actual moving of it, are the first and last in a series of more than two 'successive events ; and cannot, therefore, stand to each other, immediately, in the re- lation of cause and effect. They may, however, stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect, mediately. But, then, if they can be known in consciousness as thus mediately related, it is a necessary condition of such knowledge, that the intervening series of causes and effects, through which the final movement of the limb is supposed to be mediately dependent on the primary volition to move, should be known to consciousness immediate- ly under that relation. But this intermediate, this connecting series is, con- fessedly, unknown to consciousness at all, far less as a series of causes and effects. It follows therefore, a fortiori, that the dependency of the last on the first of these events, as of an effect upon its cause, must be to conscious- ness unknown. In other words : having no consciousness that the volition to move is the efficacious force (power) by which even the event immediately 396 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. what they subjectively are. The Secondary being neither thought as necessary, nor immediately apprehended in their ex- ternal reality, we conceive adequately what they are in their consequent on it (say the transmission of the nervous influence from brain to muscle) is produced, such event being in fact itself to consciousness, oc- cult ; inulto minus can we have a consciousness of that volition being the efficacious force, by which the ultimate movement of the limb is mediately determined ? This is certainly the argument which Hume intended, and as a refutation of the doctrine, that in our voluntary movements at least, we have an apprehension of the causal nexus between the mental volition as cause and the corporeal movement as effect, it seems to me unanswerable. But as stated, and easily refuted, by Do Biran, it is only tantamount to the reasoning That as we are not conscious 'how we move a limb, we cannot be conscious of the feeling that we do exert a motive force. But such a feeling of force, action, energy, Hume did not deny. II. Historical notices touching the recognition of the Locomotive Faculty as a medium of perception, and of the Muscular Sense. That the recognition of the Locomotive Faculty, or rather, the recognition of the Muscular Sense as a medium of apprehension, is of a recent date, and by psychologists of this country, is an opinion in both respects erroneous. As far as I am aware, this distinction was originally taken by two Italian Aristotelians, some three centuries ago ; and when the observation was again forgotten, both France and Germany are before Scotland in the merit of its modern revival. It was first promulgated by Julius Caesar Scaliger about the middle of the sixteenth century (1557). Aristotle, followed by philosophers in general, had referred the perception of weight (the heavy and light) to the sense of Touch; though, in truth, under Touch, Aristotle seems to have compre- hended both the Skin and Muscular senses. See Hist. An. i. 4. De Part. An. ii. 1. 10. De Anima, ii. 11. On this particular doctrine, Scaliger, inter alia, observes : 'Et sane sic videtur. Namque gravitas et le vitas tangendo de- prehenditur. Ac nemo est, qui non putet, attrectatione sese cognoscere gra- vitatem et levitatem. Mihi tamen haud persuadetur. Tactu motum depre- hendi fateor, gravitatcm nego. Est autem maximum argumentum hoc. Gravitas est objectum motivse potestatis : cui sane competit actio. At tactus non fit, nisi patiendo. Gravitas ergo percipitur a motiva potestate, non a tactu. Nam duo cum sint instrumenta (de nervis atque spiritibus loquor), ad sensum et ob motum, a se invicem distincta : male confunderemus, quod est motricis objectum, cum objccto motse. Movetur cmm tactus, non agit. Motrix autem movet grave corpus, non autem movetur ab eo. Idque rnani- festum est in paralysi. Sentitur calor, non sentitur gravitas Motrici namque instrumenta sublata sunt. An vero sentitur gravitas ? Sentitur quidem a motrice, atque ab ea judicatur : quemadmodum difficile quippiam enunciatu [enunciatur ?] ab ipsa intellectus vi : quao tamen agit, non patitur, cum enun- ciat. Est enhn omnibus commune rebus nostratibus hisce, quee pendent a materia: ut agendopatiantur. Poterit aliquid objici de compressione. Nam etc Sunt praeterea duse rationes. Quando et sine tactu sentimus gravita- PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 397 subjective effects, but inadequately what they are as objective causes. 28. Our conceptions of the Primary are clear and distinct ; of tern, et qiiia tactu non sentimus. Nempe cuipiam gravi corpori manus im- poslta contingit illud : at non sentitgravitatem. Sine tactu, vero, virtus motrix sentiet. Appensum filo plumbum grave sentitur. Manus tamen filum, non plumbum tanget. Deinde hoc. Brachium suo pondere cumdeorsum fertur, sentitur grave. At nihil tangit.' (De Subtilitate, contra Cardanum, ex. 109.) It should, however, be noticed, that Scaliger may have taken the hint for the discrimination of this and another sense, from Cardan. This philosopher makes Touch fourfold. One sense apprehending the four primary qualities, the Hot and Cold, the Dry and Humid ; a second the Pleasurable and Pain- ful ; a third the Venereal sensations ; a fourth the Heavy and Light. (De Subtilitate, L. xiii.) This doctrine did not excite the attention it deserved. It was even redar- gued by Scaliger's admiring expositor Goclenius. (Adversaria, p. 75-89) ; nor do I know, indeed, that previous to its revival in very recent times, with the exception to be immediately stated, that this' opinion was ever countenanced by any other philosopher. Towards the end of the seventeenth ceutury it is indeed commemorated by Chauvin, no very erudite authority, in the first edition of his Lexicon Philosophicum (vv. Tactile and (rravitas), as an opin- ion that had found supporters ; but it is manifest from the terms of the statement, for no names are given, that Scaliger and Scaliger only is referred to. In the subsequent edition the statement itself is omitted. By another philosophical physician, the celebrated Csesalpinus of Arezzo, it was afterwards (in 1569) still more articulately shown, that only by the ex- ercise of the motive power are we percipient of those qualities which I de- nominate the Secundo-Primary ; though he can hardly be said, like Scaliger, to have discriminated that power as a faculty of perception or active appre- hension, from touch as a capacity of sensation or mere consciousness of pas- sion. It does not indeed appear that Ctesalpinus was aware of Scaliger's speculation at all. ' Tactus igit'or si unus est sensus, circa unam erit contrarietatem, reliquss autem ad ipsam reducentur. [Compare Aristotle, De Anima, ii. 11.] Patet autem Calidum et Frigidum maxime proprie ipsius tactus esse ; solum enim tangendo comprehenduntur. Humidum autem et Siccum (Fluid and Solid), Durum et Molle, Grave et Leve, Asperum et Lene, Earurn et Densum, alia- que hujusmodi, ut tactu comprehendantur, non satis est ea tangere, sednecesse est motum quendam adhibere, aut comprimendo, aut impellendo, aut trahendo, aut alia ratione patiendi potentiam experiendo. Sic enim quod proprium terminurn non retinet, et quod facile dividitur, Humidum esse cognoscimus ; quod autem opposito modo se habet, Siccum : et quod cedit comprimenti, Molle, quod non cedit, Durum. Similiter autem et reliquae tactivaa qualitates sine motu non percipiuntur. Idcirco et a reliquis sensibus cognosci possunt, ut a visu. [But not immediately.] Motus enim inter communia scrisibilia ponitur. [There is here through ambiguity a mutatio elenchi.] Nihil autem 398 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. the Secundo-primary, both as secondary and quasi-primary qual- ities, clear and distinct ; of the Secondary, as subjective affec- tions, clear and distinct, as objective, obscure and confused. For refert, an motus in organo an in re fiat.' [?] (Quaestiones Peripatetic, L. iv. qu. 1.) In more recent times, the action of the voluntary motive faculty and its rel- ative sense in the perception of Extension, Figure, Weight, Resistance, &c., was in France brought vaguely into notice by Condillac, and subsequently about the commencement of the present century more explicitly developed, among others, by his distinguished follower M. Destutt de Tracy, who estab- lished the distinction between active and passive touch. The speculations of M. Maine de Biran on muscular effort (from 1803) I do not here refer to ; as these have a different and greatly higher significance. (Condillac, Traite" des Sensations, P. ii. cc. 3, 12. De Tracy, Ideologic, t. i. cc. 9-13 ; t. iii. cc. 5, 9. Compare Deyerando, Histoire des Systemes, t. iii. p. 445, sq. orig. ed., and Labouliniere, Precis, p. 322, sq.) In Germany, before the conclusion of the last century, the same analysis was made, and the active touch there first ob- tained the distinctive appellation of the Muscular Sense (Muskel Sinn.) The German physiologists and psychologists not only what had been previously done professedly demonstrated the share it had in the empirical apprehen- sion of Space, &c., and established its necessity as a condition even of the perceptions of Touch proper the Skin Sense ; they likewise for the first time endeavored to show how in vision we are enabled to recognize not only figure, but distance, and the third dimension of bodies, through the conscious ad- justment of the eye. (Tittel, Kantische Denkformen (1787), p. 188, sq. Tiedemann, in Hessische Beytracge (1789), St. i. p. 119, sq.; Theaetet (1794), passim; Idealistische Briefe (1798), p. 84, sq. ; Psychologic (1804), p. 405, sq. Schulz, Pruefung (1791), i. p. 182, sq. Engel, in Memoires de 1' Academic de Berlin (18Q2).Gruithuisen, Anthropologie (1810), pp. 130, sq. 361, sq. and the subsequent works of Herbart, Hartmann, Lenhossek, Tourtual, Bendce, and a host of others.) But see Eeid, 188, b. Britain has not advanced the inquiry whic \ if we discount some result- less tendencies by Hartley, Wells, and Darwin, she was the last in taking up ; and it is a curious instance of the unacquaintance with such matters preva- lent among us, that the views touching the functions of the will, and of the muscular sense, which constitute, in this relation certainly, not the least val- uable part of Dr. Brown's psychology, should to the present hour be regarded as original, howbeit these views, though propounded as new, are manifestly derived from sources with which all interested in psychological disquisitions might reasonably be presumed familiar. This is by no means a solitary in- stance of Brown's silent appropriation ; nor is he the only Scottish metaphy- sician who has borrowed, without acknowledgment, these and other psycho- logical analyses from the school of Condillac. De Tracy may often equally reclaim his own at the hands of Dr. John Young, Professor of Philosophy in Belfast College, whose frequent coincidences with Brown are not the mar- vels he would induce us to believe, when we know the common sources from PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 399 the Primary, Secundo-primary, and Secondary, as subjective affec- tions, we can represent in imagination ; the Secondary, as objec- tive powers, we cannot. which the resembling doctrines are equally derived. It must be remembered, however, that the Lectures of both Professors were posthumously published ; and are therefore not to be dealt with as works deliberately submitted tc general criticism by their authors. Dr. Young, it should likewise be noticed, was a pupil of the late Professor Mylne of Glasgow, whose views of mental philosophy are well known to have closely resembled those of M. De Tracy. I see from M. Mignet's eloquent doge that this acute philosopher was, like Kant, a Scotsman by descent, and ' of the clan Stutt,' (Stott ?) These notices of the gradual recognition of the sense of muscular feeling, as a special source of knowledge, are not given on account of any importance it may be thought to possess as the source from which is derived our notion of Space or Extension. This notion, I am convinced, though first manifest- ed in, cannot be evolved out of, experience ; and what was observed by Eeid (Inq. p. 126, a), by Kant (Cr. d. r. V. p. 38), by Schulz (Pruef. i. p. 114), and Stewart (Essays, p. 564), in regard to tho attempts which had previously been made to deduce it from the operations of sense, and in particular, from the motion of the hand, is equally true of those subsequently repeated. In all these attempts, the experience itself is only realized through a substitution of the very notion which it professes to generate ; there is always a conceal- ed petitio principii. Take for example the deduction so laboriously essayed by Dr. Brown, and for which he has received such unqualified encomium. (Lectt. 23 and 24). Extension is made up of three dimensions; but Brown's exposition is limited to length and breadth. These only, therefore, can bo criticised. As far as I can find his meaning in his cloud of words, he argues thus : The notion of Time or succession being supposed, that of longitudinal ex- tension is given in ths succession of feelings which accompanies the gradual contraction of a muscle ; the notion of this succession constitutes, ipso facto, the notion of a certain length ; and the notion of this length [he quietly takes for granted] is the notion of longitudinal extension sought (p. 146 a). The paralogism here is transparent. Length is an ambiguous term ; and it is length in space, extensive length, and not length in time, protensive length, whose notion it is the problem to evolve. To convert, therefore, the notion of a certain kind of length (and that certain kind being also confessedly only length in time) into the notion of a length in space, is at best an idle begging of the question. Is it not ? Then I would ask, whether the series of feelings of which we are aware in the gradual contraction of a muscle, involve the consciousness of being a succession or length (1), in time alone? or (2) in space alone ? or (3) in time and space together ? These three cases will be allowed to be exhaustive. If the first be affirmed, if the succession appear to consciousness a length in time exclusively, then nothing has been accom- plished ; for the notion of extension or space is in no way contained in tha notion of duration or time. Again, if the second or the third be affirmed, 400 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 29. Finally The existential judgments are of the Primary assertory ; of the Secundo-primary, in both their aspects, assert- ory ; of the Secondary, as modes of mind, assertory, as modes of matter, problematic. (See par. 11, 12, 13.) if the series appear to consciousness a succession of length, either in space alone, or in space and time together, then is the notion it behooved to generate employed to generate itself. In the deduction of the notion of superficial extension he is equally illog- ical; for here, too, his process of evolution only in the end openly extracts what in the commencement it had secretly thrown in. The elements, out of which he constructs the notion of extension, in the second dimension, he finds in the consciousness we have of several contemporaneous series of muscular feelings or lengths, standing in relation to each other, as proximate, distant, intermediate, &c. Proximate! In what? In time? No; for the series are supposed to be in time coexistent ; and were it otherwise, the pro- cess would be unavailing, for proximity in time does not afford proximity in space. In space, then ? Necessarily. On this alternative, however, the no- tion of space or extension is already involved doubly deep in the elements themselves, out of which it is proposed to construct it ; for when two or more things are conceived as proximate in space, they are not merely con- ceived as in different places or out of each other, but over and above this elementary condition in which extension simply is involved, they are con- ceived as even holding under it a secondary and more complex relation. But it is needless to proceed, for the petition of the point in question is even more palpable if we think the series under the relations of the distant, the intermediate, &c. The notion of Space, therefore, is not shown by this ex- planation of its genesis to be less a native notion than that of Time, which it admits. Brown's is a modification of De Tracy's deduction, the change being probably suggested by a remark of Stewart (1. c.) ; but though both involve a paralogism, it is certainly far more shrewdly cloaked in the original. III. Historical notices in regard to the distinction of Nerves and nervous Filaments into Motive and /Sensitive ; and in regard to the peculiarity of func- tion, and absolute isolation, of the 'ultimate nervous Filaments. The important discovery of Sir Charles Bell, that the spinal nerves are the organs of motion through their anterior roots, of sensation through their posterior; and the recognition by recent physiologists, that each ultimate nervous filament is distinct in function, and runs isolated from its origin to its termination ; these are only the last of a long series of previous observations to the same effect, observations, in regard to which (as may be inferred from the recent discussions touching the history of these results) the medical world is, in a great measure, uninformed. At the same time, as these are the physiolog- ical facts with which psychology is principally interested; as a contribution towards this doctrine and its history, I shall throw together a few notices, which have for the most part fallen in my way when engaged in researches for a different purpose. The cases of paralysis without narcosis (stupor), and of narcosis without PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 401 c) As both in Sensitive Apprehension and in Thought ; as in relation both to Sense and Intellect. 30. In the order of nature and of necessary thought, the Pri- paralysis for the ancient propriety of these terms ought to be observed that is, the cases in which either motion or sensibility, exclusively, is lost, were too remarkable not to attract attention even from the earliest periods ; and at the same time, too peremptory not to necessitate the conclusion, that the several phenomena are, either the functions of different organs, or, if of the same, at least regulated by different conditions. Between these alterna- tives all opinions on the subject are divided ; and the former was the first, as it has been the last, to be adopted. No sooner had the nervous system been recognized as the ultimate organ of the animal and vital functions, and the intracranial medulla or encephalos (encephalon is a modern misnomer) ascertained to be its centre, than Erasis- tratus proceeded to appropriate to different parts of that organism the func- tions which, along with Herophilus, he had distinguished, of sensibility and voluntary motion. He placed the source of the former in the meninges or membranes, of the latter in the substance, of the encephalos in general, that is, of the Brain-proper and After-brain or Cerebellum. And while the nerves were, mediately or immediately, the prolongations of these, he viewed the nervous membranes as the vehicle of sensation, the nervous substance as the vehicle of motion. (Kufus Ephesius, L. i. c. 22 ; L. ii. cc. 2, 17.) This the- ory which is remarkable, if for nothing else, for manifesting the tendency from an early period to refer the phenomena of motion and sensation to dis- tinct parts of the nervous organism, has not obtained the attention which it even Intrinsically merits. In modern times, indeed, the same opinion has been hazarded, even to my fortuitous knowledge, at least thrice. Firstly by Fernelius (1550, Physiologia, v. 10, 15) ; secondly by Eosetti (1722, Kaccolta d'Opuscoli, &c., t. v. p. 272 sq.) ; thirdly by Le Cat (1740, Traite" des Sensa- tions, (Euv. Phys. t. i. p. 124, and Diss. sur la Sensibilite des Meninges, i.) By each of these the hypothesis is advanced as original. In the two last this is not to be marvelled at; but it is surprising how the opinion of Era- sistratus could have escaped the erudition of the first. I may observe, that Erasistratus also anticipated many recent physiologists in the doctrine, that the intelligence of man, and of animals in general is always in proportion to the depth and number of the cerebral convolutions, that is, in the ratio ol the extent of cerebral surface, not of cerebral mass. The second alternative was adopted by Galen, who while he refutes ap parently misrepresents the doctrine of Erasistratus ; for Erasistratus did not, if we may credit Kufus, an older authority than Galen, derive the nerves from the membranes of the encephalos, to the exclusion of its substance ; or if Galen be herein correct, this is perhaps the early doctrine which Erasis- tratus is by him said in his maturer years to have abandoned ; a doctrine, however, which, under modifications, has in modern times found supporter* in Kondeletius and others. (Laurentii Hist. Anat. iv. qu. 13.) Kecognizing, 25 402 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. mary qualities are prior to the Secundo.-primary and Secondary ; but in the order of empirical apprehension, though chronologi- cally simultaneous, they are posterior to both. For it is only what has always indeed been done, the contrast of the two phenomena of sensibility and motion, Galen did not, however, regard them as necessarily the products of distinct parts of the nervous system, although, de facto, dif- ferent parts of that system were often subservient to their manifestation. As to the problem Do the nerves perform their double function by the con- veyance of a corporeal fluid, or through the irradiation of an immaterial power? Galen seems to vacillate ; for texts may be adduced in favor of each alternative. He is not always consistent in the shares which he assigns to the heart and to the brain, in the elaboration of the animal spirits ; nor is he even uniform in maintaining a discrimination of origin, between the animal spirits and the vital. Degrading the membranes to mere envelopments, he limits every peculiar function of the nervous organism to the enveloped sub- stance of the brain, the after-brain, the spinal chord and nerves. But as the animal faculty is one, and its proximate vehicle the animal spirits is homo- geneous, so the nervous or cerebral substance which conducts these spirits is in its own nature uniform and indifferently competent to either function ; it being dependent upon two accidental circumstances, whether this sub- stance conduce to motion, to sensation, or to motion and sensation together. The first circumstance is the degree of hardness or softness ; a nerve being adapted to motion, or to sensation, in proportion as it possesses the former quality or the latter. Nerves extremely soft are exclusively compe- tent to sensation. Nerves extremely hard are pre-eminently, but not exclu- sively, adapted to motion ; for no nerve is wholly destitute of the feeling of touch. The soft nerves, short and straight in their course, arise from the anterior portion of the encephalos (the Brain proper) ; the hard, more devi- ous in direction, spring from the posterior portion of the brain where it joins the spinal chord (Medulla oblongata?) the spinal chord being a contin- uation of the After-brain, from which no nerve immediately arises ; the hardest originate from the spinal chord itself, more especially towards its in- ferior extremity. A nerve soft in its origin, and, therefore, fitted only for sense, may, however, harden in its progress, and by this change become suitable for motion. The second circumstance is the part to which a nerve is sent ; the nerve being sensitive or motive as it terminates in an organ of sense, or in an or- gan of motion a muscle ; every part being recipient only of the virtue appropriate to its special function. This theory of Galen is inadequate to the phenomena. For though loss of motion without the loss of sense may thus be accounted for, on the sup- position that the innervating force is reduced so low as not to radiate the stronger influence required for movement, and yet to radiate the feebler influ- ence required for feeling ; still this leaves the counter case (of which, though less frequently occurring, Galen has himself recorded some illustrious ex- amples) not only unexplained, but even renders it inexplicable. In this the- PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 403 under condition of the Sensation of a Secondary, that we are per- cipient of any Primary quality. 31. The apprehension of a Primary quality is principally an ory Galen is, likewise, not always consistent with himself. The distinction of hard and soft, as corresponding with the distinction of motory and sensi- tive, nerves, though true in general, is, on his own admission, not absolutely through-going. (I must observe, however, that among other recent anat- omists this is maintained by Albinus, Malacarne, and Reil.) And to say noth- ing of other vacillations, Galen, who in one sentence, in consistency with his distinction of. cerebral and (mediately) cerebellar nerves, is forced to accord exclusively to those of the spine the function of motion; in another finds himself compelled, in submission to the notorious fact, to extend to these nerves the function of sensation likewise. But if Galen's theory be inade- quate to their solution, it never leads him to overlook, to dissemble, or to distort, the phenomena themselves ; and with these no one was ever more familiarly acquainted. So marvellous, indeed, is his minute knowledge of the distribution and functions of the several nerves, that it is hardly too much to assert, that, with the exception of a few minor particulars, his pa- thological anatomy of the nervous system is practically on a level with the pathological anatomy of the present day. (De Usu Partium, i. 7, v. 9, 7, 14, viii. 3, 6, 10, 12, ix. 1, xii. 10, 11, 15, xiii. 8, xvi. 1, 3, 5, xvii. 2, 3. De Causis Sympt., i. 5. De Motu Muse., i. 13. De Anat. Adm., vii. 8. Ars parva, 10, 11. De Locis Aff., i. 6, 7, 12, iii. 6, 12. De Diss. Nerv., 1. Do Plac. Hipp, et Plat. ii. 12, vii. 3, 4, 5, 8.) The next step was not made until the middle of the fourteenth century, subsequent to Galen's death ; when Rondeletius (c. 1550), reasoning from the phenomena of paralysis and stupor, enounced it as an observation never previously made, that ' All nerves, from their origin in the brain, are, even in the spinal marrow itself, isolated from each other. The cause of paraly- sis is therefore not so much to be sought for in the spinal marrow, as in the encephalic heads of the nerves ; Galen himself having indeed, remarked, that paralysis always supervenes, when the origin of the nerve is obstructed or diseased.' (Curandi Methodus, c. 32.) This observation did not secure the attention which it deserved ; and some thirty years later (1595), another French physiologist, another cele- brated professor in the same university with Rondelet, I mean Laurentius of Montpellier, advanced this very doctrine of his predecessor, as 'a new and hitherto unheaul-of observation.' This anatomist has, however, the merit of first attempting a sensible demonstration of the fact, by resolving, under water, the spinal chord into its constituent filaments. ' This new and admira- ble observation,' he says, 'explains one of the obscurest problems of nature; why it is that from a lesion, say of the cervical medulla, the motion of the thigh may be lost, while the motions of the arms and thorax shall remain entire. In the second edition of his Anatomy, Dulaurens would seem, how- e.ver, less confident, not only of the absolute originality, but of the absolute accuracy, of the observation. Nor does he rise above the Galenic- doctrine, 404 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. intellectual cognition, in so far as it is, in itself, a purely mental activity, and not the mere sensation of an organic passion ; and secondarily, a sensible cognition, in so far as it is the perception that sensibility and motion may be transmitted by the same fibre. In fact, rejecting the discrimination of hard and soft nerves, he abolishes even the accidental distinction which had been recognized by Galen. (Compare Hist. Anat., later editions, iv. c. 18, qq. 9, 10, 11 ; x. c. 12, with the relative places in the first.) The third step was accomplished by Varoll'ms (1572) who showed Galen to be mistaken in holding that the spinal chord is a continuation of the After-brain alone. He demonstrated, against all previous anatomists, that this chord is made up of four columns, severally arising from four ence- phalic roots ; two roots or trunks from the Brain-proper being prolonged into its anterior, and two from the After-brain into its posterior columns. (Anatomia, L.iii: De Nervis Opticis Epistolae.) At the same time the fact was signalized by other contemporary anato- mists (as Colter, 1572, Laurentlus, 1595), that the spinal nerves arise by double roots ; one set of filaments emerging from the anterior, another from the posterior, portion of the chord. It was in general noticed, too (as by Goiter, and 0. Bauhinus, 1590), that these filaments, on issuing from the chord, passed into a knot or ganglion ; but, strange to say, it was reserved for the second Monro (1783), to record the special observation, that this gan- glion is limited to the fibres of the posterior root alone. Such was the state of anatomical knowledge touching this point at the close of the sixteenth century ; and it may now seem marvellous, that aware of the independence of the motory and sensitive functions, aware that of these functions the cerebral nerves were, in general, limited to one, while the spinal nerves were competent to both, aware that the spinal nerves, the nerves of double function, emerged by double roots and terminated in a two- fold distribution, and, finally, aware that each nervous filament ran dis- tinct fro/.- its peripheral extremity through the spinal chord to its central origin ; aware, I say, of all these correlative facts, it may now seem marvel- lous that anatomists should have stopped short, should not have attempted to lay fact and fact together, should not have surmised that in the spinal nerves difference of root is correspondent with difference of function, should not have instituted experiments, and anticipated by two centuries the most remarkable physiological discovery of the present day. But our wonder will be enhanced, in finding the most illustrious of the more modern schools of medicine teaching the same doctrine in greater detail, and yet never pro- posing to itself the question May not the double roots correspond with the double function of the spinal nerves ? But so has it been with all the most momentous discoveries. When Harvey proclaimed the circulation of the blood, he only proclaimed a .doctrine necessitated by the discovery of the venous valves ; and the Newtonian theory of the heavens was but a final generalization, prepared by foregone observations, and even already partially enounced. PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. of an attribute of matter, and, though not co not realized without, the sensation of an organic p apprehension of a Secondary quality is solely a sensible cogni The school I refer to is that of Leyden the school of Boerhaave and his disciples. Boerhaave held with Willis that the Brain-proper is the organ of animality; a distinct part thereof being destined to each of its two func- tions, sense and voluntary motion; that the After-brain is the organ of vitality, or the involuntary motions : and that the two encephalic organs are prolonged, the former into the anterior, the latter into the posterior, columns of the spinal chord. In his doctrine all nerves are composite, being made up of fibrils of a tenuity, not only beyond our means of ob- servation, but almost beyond our capacity of imagination. Some nerves are homogeneous, their constituent filaments being either for a certain kind of motion alone, or for a certain kind of sensation alone ; others are heterogeneous, their constituent fibrils being some for motion, some for sensation; and of this latter class are the nerves which issue from the spine. On Boerhaave's doctrine, however, the spinal nerves, in so far as they arise from the anterior column, are nerves both of the sensation and voluntary motion of animality ; in so far as they arise from the poste- rior column, are nerves of involuntary motion of vitality. A homoge- neous nerve does not, as a totality, perform a single office ; for every ele- mentary fibril of which it is composed runs from first to last isolated from every other, and has its separate sphere of exercise. As many dis- tinct spheres of sensation and motion, so many distinct nervous origins and terminations ; and as many different points of local termination in the body, so many different points of local origin in the brain. The Senso- rium Commune, the centre of sensation and motion, is not therefore an indivisible point, not even an undivided place ; it is, on the contrary, the aggregate of as many places (and millions of millions there may be) as there are encephalic origins of nervous fibrils. No nerve, therefore, in pro- priety of speech, gives off a branch ; their sheaths of dura mater alone are ramified; and there is no intercourse, no sympathy between the ele- mentary fibrils, except through the sensorium commune. That the nerves are made up of fibrils is shown, though inadequately, by various anatom- ical processes ; and that these fibrils are destined for distinct and often different purposes, is manifested by the phenomena of disjoined paralysis and stupor. (De Morbis Nervorum Praelectiones, by Van Eems. pp. 261, 490-497, 696, 713-717. Compare Kaau Boerkaave, Impetum faciens, 197 -200.) The developed doctrine of Boerhaave on this point is to be sought for, neither in his Aphorisms nor in his Institutions and his Prelections on the Institutions the more prominent works to which his illustrious disci- ples, Hatter and Van Swieten, appended respectively a commentary. The latter adopts, but does not advance the doctrine of his master. (Ad Aph. 701, 711, 774, 1057, 1060.) The former, who in his subsequent writings silently abandoned the opinion that sensation and motion are conveyed 406 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. tion ; for it is nothing but the sensation of an organic passion. The apprehension of a Secundo-primary quality is, equally and at once, an intellectual and sensible cognition; for it involves by different nervous fibrils, in two unnoticed passages of his annotations on Boerhaave (1740), propounds it as a not improbable conjecture that a total nerve may contain within its sheath a complement of motory and of sensitive tubules, distinct in their origin, transit, and distribution, but which at their peripheral extremity communicate ; the latter, like veins, carrying the spirits back to the brain, which the former had, like arteries, carried out. (Ad. Boerh. Instit. 288, n. 2, 293, n. 2.) The doctrine of the school of Leyden, on this point, was however still more articulately evolved by the younger (Bernard Siegfried) AlUnus not in any of his published works, but in the prelections he delivered for many years, in that university, on physiology. From a copy in my possession of his dictata in this course, very fully taken after the middle of the century, by Dr. William Grant (of Rothiemurcus), subsequently a distinguished medical author and practical physician in London, compared with another very accurate copy of these dictata, taken by an anonymous writer in the year 1741 ; I am enabled to present the following general abstract of the doctrine taught by this celebrated anatomist, though obliged to retrench both the special cases, and the reasoning in detail by which it is illustrated and confirmed. The nerves have a triple destination as they minister (1.) to voluntary motion, (2.) to sensation, (3.) to the vital energies secretion, digestion, &c. Albinus seems to acquiesce in the doctrine, that the Brain-proper is the ultimate organ of the first and second function, the After-brain ot the third. Nerves, again, are of two kinds. They are either such in which the func- tion of each ultimate fibril remains isolated in function from centre to peri- phery (the cerebro-spinal nerves) ; or such in which these are mutually confluent (the ganglionic nerves). To speak only of the cerebro-spinal nerves, and of these only in relation to the functions of motion and sensation ; they are to be distinguished into three classes according as destined, (1.) to sense, (2.) to motion, (3.) to both motion and sensation. Examples of the first class are the olfactory, the optic, the auditory, of which last he considers the portio mollis and the portio dura to be, in propriety, distinct nerves ; of the second class, are the large portion of those passing to muscles, aa the fourth and sixth pairs: of the third class are the three lingual nerves, especially the ninth pair, fibrils of which he had frequently traced, partly to the muscles, partly to the gustatory papillae of the tongue, and the subcutaneous nerves, which are seen to give off branches, first to the muscles, and thereafter to the tac- tile papillae of the skin. The nervous fibres which minister to motion are distinct in origin, in transit, in termination, from those which minister to sensation. This is manifest, in the case of those nerves which run from their origin in separate sheaths, either to an organ of sense (as the olfactory and PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 407" both the perception of a quasi-primary quality, and the sensation of a secondary. (See par 15, sq. 1 ) optic), or to an organ of motion (as the fourth and sixth pairs, which go to the muscles of the eye) ; but it is equally, though not so obtrusively true, in the case where a nerve gives off branches partly to muscles, partly to the cutaneous papillae. In this latter case, the nervous fibrils, or fistulse, are, from their origin in the medulla oblongata to their final termination in the skin, perfectly distinct. The Medulla Oblongata is a continuation of the encephalos ; made up of two columns from the Brain-proper, and of two columns from the After-brain. Immediately or mediately, it is the origin, as it is the organ, of all the nerves. And in both respects it is double ; for one part, the organ of sense, affords an origin to the sensative fibrils ; v/hilst another, the organ of motion, does the same by the motory. In their pro- gress, indeed, after passing out, the several fibrils, whether homogeneous or not, are so conjoined by the investing membranes as to exhibit the appear- ance of a single nerve ; but when they approach their destination they separate, those for motion ramifying through the muscles, those for sensa- tion going to the cutaneous papillae or other organs of sense. Examples of this are afforded in the ninth pair, the fibres of which (against more mod- ern anatomists), he holds to arise by a double origin in the medulla, and which, after running in the same sheath, separate according to their differ- ent functions and destinations ; and in the seventh pair, the hard and soft portions of which are respectively for motion and for sensation, though these portions, he elsewhere maintains, ought rather to be considered as two distinct nerves than as the twofold constituents of one. The proof of this is of various kinds. In the first place, it is a theory forced upc-n us by the phenomena; for only on this supposition can we ac- count for the following facts: (1) That we have distinct sensations trans- mitted to the brain from different parts of the same sensitive organ (as the tongue) through which the same total nerve is diffused. (2) That we can send out from the brain a motive influence to one, nay, sometimes to a part of one muscle out of a Plurality, among which the same total nerve (e. g. the ischiatic) is distributed. (3) That sometimes a part is either, on the one hand, paralyzed, without any loss of sensibility ; or, on the other, stupefied, without a diminution of its mobility. In the second place, we can demonstrate the doctrine, proceeding both from centre to periphery, and from periphery to centre. Though ultimately divid- ing into filaments beyond our means of observation, we can still go far in following out a nerve both in its general ramifications, and in the special dis- tribution of its filaments, for motion to the muscles and for sensation to the skin, &c. ; and how far soever we are able to carry our investigation, we al- ways find the least fibrils into which we succeed in analyzing a nerve, equally distinct and continuous as the chord of which they were constituent. And again, in following back the filaments of motion from the muscles, the fila- 1 And the next chapter, 1. W. 4:08 PHILOSOPHY OF PEKCEPTION. ments of sensation from the skin, we find them ever collected into larger and larger bundles within the same sheath, but never losing their individu- ality, never fused together to form the substance of a larger chord. The nerves are thus not analogous to arteries, which rise from a common trunk, convey a common fluid, divide into branches all similar in action to each other and to the primary trunk. For every larger nerve is only a comple- ment of smaller nerves, and every smallest nerve only a fasciculus of nervous fibrils ; and these not only numerically different, but often differing from each other in the character of their functions. In the third place, that in the nerves for both motion and sensation are en- veloped distinct nerves or fibrils for these several functions this is an infer- ence supported by the analogy of those nerves which are motive or sensitive, exclusively. And in regard to these latter, it becomes impossible, in some cases, to conceive why a plurality of nerves should have been found neces- sary, as in the case of the two portions of the seventh pair, in reality distinct nerves, if we admit the supposition that each nerve, each nervous fibril, is competent to the double office. \n.i\\Q fourth place, the two species of nerve are distinguished by a differ- ence of structure. For he maintains the old Galenic doctrine, that the nerves of motion are, as compared with those of sensation, of a harder and more fibrous texture ; a diversity which he does not confine to the homogeneous nerves, but extends to the counter filaments of the heterogeneous. This opinion, in modern times, by the majority surrendered rather than refuted, has been also subsequently maintained by a small number of the most accu- rate anatomists, as Malacarne and Keil ; and to this result the recent observa- tians of Ehrenberg and others seem to tend. (See memoirs of the Berlin Academy for 1836, p. 605, sq. ; Mueller's Phys. p. 598.) Finally, to the objection Why has nature not, in all cases us in some, in- closed the motive and the sentient fibrils in distinct sheaths ? as answer, and fifth argument, he shows, with great ingenuity, that nature does precisely what, in the circumstances, always affords the greatest security to both, more especially to the softer, fibrils ; and he might have added, as a sixth reason and second answer with the smallest expenditure of means. The subtil ty of the nervous fibres is much greater than is commonly sus- pected; and there is probably no point of the body to which they are not distributed. What is the nature of their peripheral terminations it is, how- ever, difficult to demonstrate ; and the doctrines of Euysch and Malpighi in this respect are, as he shows, unsatisfactory. The doctrine of Albinus, indeed, of the whole school of Boerhaave, in re- gard to the nervous system, and, in particular, touching the distinction and the isolation of the ultimate nervous filaments, seems during a century cf interval not only to have been neglected but absolutely forgotten ; and a coun- ter opinion of the most erroneous character, with here and there a feeble echo of the true, to have become generally prevalent in its stead. For, strange to say, this very doctrine is that recently promulgated as the last con- summation of nervous physiology by the most illustrious physiologist in Europe. ' That the primitive fibres of all the cerebro-spinal nerves are to be regarded as isolated and distinct from their orign to their termination, and as radii issuing from the axis of the nervous system,' is the grand result, as PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 409 stated by himself, of the elaborate researches of Johann Mueller ; and to the earliest discovery of this general fact he carefully vindicates his right against other contemporary observers, by stating that it had been privately commu- nicated by him to Van der Kolk, of Utrecht, so long ago as the year 1830. (Phys. p. 596-603.) In conclusion, I may observe that it is greatly to be regretted that these Prelections of Albinus were never printed. They present not only a full and elegant digest of all that was known in physiology at the date of their deliv- ery (and Albinus was celebrated for the uncommon care which he bestowed on the composition of his lectures) ; but they likewise contain, perdue, many original views, all deserving of attention, and some which have been subse- quently reproduced to the no small celebrity of their second authors. The speculation, for example, of John Hunter and Dr. Thomas Young, in regard to the self-contractile property of the Crystalline lens is here anticipated ; and that pellucidity and fibrous structure are compatible, shown by the anal- ogy of those gelatinous mollusca, the medusae or sea-blubbers, which are not more remarkable for their transparency, than for their contractile and dila- tive powers. As I have already noticed, the celebrity of the Leyden School far from commanding acceptance, did not even secure adequate attention to the doc- trine of its illustrious masters ; and the Galenic theory, to which Haller lat- terly adhered, was, under the authority of Cullen and the Monros, that which continued to prevail in this country, until after the commencement of the present century. Here another step in advance was then made by Mr. Alex- ander Walker, an ingenious Physiologist of Edinburgh ; who, in 1809, first started the prolific notion, that in the spinal nerves the filaments of sen- sation issue by the one root, the filaments of motion by the other. His attri- bution of the several functions to the several roots sensation to the anterior, motion to the posterior with strong presumption in its favor from general analogy, and its conformity with the tenor of all previous, and much subse- quent observation, is, however, opposed to the stream of later and more pre- cise experiment. Anatomists have been long agreed that the anterior col- umn of the spinal marrow is in continuity with the brain-proper, the poste- rior, with the after-brain. To say nothing of the Galenic doctrine, Willis and the School of Boerhaave had referred the automatic, Hoboken and Pou- teau the automatic and voluntary, motions to the cerebellum. Latter!)', the experiments of Eolando, Flourens, and other physiologists, would show that to the after-brain belongs the power of regulated or voluntary motion ; while the parallelism which I have myself detected, between the relative develop- ment of that part of the encephalos in young animals and their command over the action of their limbs, goes, likewise, to prove that such motion is one, at least, of the cerebellic functions. (See Munro's Anatomy of the Brain, 1831, p. 4-9.) In contending, therefore, that the nervous filaments of sensation ascend in the anterior rachitic column to the brain-proper, and the nervous filaments of motion in the posterior, to the after-brain ; Mr. Walker origin- ally proposed, and still maintains, the alternative which, independently of precise experiment, had the greatest weight of general probability in its favor. (Archives of Science for 1809 ; The Nervous System, 1834, p. 50, sq.) In 1811, Sir Charles Bell, holding always the connection of the brain- 410 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. proper with the anterior, of the after-brain with the posterior, column oi the spinal chord, proceeding, however, not on general probabilities, but on experiments expressly instituted on the roots themselves of the spinal nerves, first advanced the counter doctrine, that to the filaments ascending by the posterior roots belongs exclusively the function of sensation ; and thereafter, but still, as is now clearly proved, previously to any other physiologist, he further established by a most ingenious combination of special analogy and experiment, the correlative fact, that the filaments descending by the ante- rior roots are the sole vehicles of voluntary motion. These results, con- firmed as they have been by the principal physiologists throughout Europe, seem now placed above the risk of refutation. It still, however, remains to reconcile the seeming structural connection, and the manifest functional op- position, of the after-brain and posterior rachitic column ; for the decussation in the medulla oblongata, observed, among others, by Eolando and Solly, whereby the cerebellum and anterior column are connected, is apparently too partial to reconcile the discordant phenomena. (Bell's Nervous System ; Shaufs Narrative; Mueller's Physiology, &c.) As connected with the foregoing notices, I may here call attention to a re- markable case reported by M. Key Regis, a medical observer, in his ' Histoire Naturelle de 1'Ame.' This work, which is extremely rare, I have been un- able to consult, and must therefore rely on the abstract given by M. de Biran in his ' Nouvelles Considerations,' p. 96, sq. This case, as far as I am aware, has escaped the observation of all subsequent physiologists. In its phe- nomena, and in the inferences to which they lead, it stands alone ; but whether the phenomena are themselves anomalous, or that experiments, with the same intent, not having been made, in like cases, they have not in these been brought in like manner into view, I am unable to determine. A man lost the power of movement in one half of his body (one lateral half, proba- bly, but in De Biran's account the paralysis is not distinctly stated as hemi- plegia) ; while the sensibility of the parts affected remained apparently en- tire. Experiments, various and repeated, were, however, made to ascertain with accuracy, whether the loss of the motive faculty had occasioned any alteration in the capacity of feeling ; and it was found that the patient, though as acutely alive as ever to the sense of pain, felt, when this was secretly in- flicted, as by compression of his hand under the bed-clothes, a sensation of suffering or uneasiness, by which, when the pressure became strong, he was compelled lustily to cry out; but a sensation merely general, he being alto- gether unable to localize the feeling, or to say from whence the pain pro- ceeded. It is unfortunately not stated whether he could discriminate one pain from another, say the pain of pinching from the pain of pricking ; but had this not been the case, the notice of so remarkable a circumstance could hardly, I presume, have been overlooked. The patient, as he gradually re- covered the use of his limbs, gradually also recovered the power of localizing his sensations. It would be important to test the value of this observation by similar experiments, made on patients similarly affected. Until this bo done, it would be rash to establish any general inferences upon its facts. PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 411 I may notice also another problem, the solution of which ought to engage the attention of those who have the means of observation in their power. Is the sensation of heat dependent upon a peculiar set of nerves ? This to me seems probable ; 1, because certain sentient parts of the body are in- sensible to this feeling ; and, 2, because I have met with cases recorded, in which, while sensibility in general was abolished, the sensibility to heat re- mained apparently undiminished. 1 1 Hero may be added a curious item, from the foot-notes to Eeid (p. 246) : 'However astonishing, it is now proved beyond all rational doubt, that, in certain abnormal states of the nervous organism, perceptions are possible througl* other than the ordinary channels of the senses.' W. CHAPTER VI. PERCEPTION PEOPER AND SENSATION PROPER.* I. PRINCIPAL MOMENTA OF THE EDITOR'S DOCTRINE OF PERCEPTION. A) In itself: i. Perception in general. I. Sensitive Perception, or Perception simply, is that act of Consciousness whereby we apprehend in our body, * A word as t* the various meanings of the terms here prominent Perception, Sensation, Sense. i. Perception, (Perceptio ; Perception ; Percezione ; Perception, Wahrneh- mung) has different significations ; but under all and each of these, the term has a common ambiguity, denoting as it may, either 1 the perceiving Facul- ty, or 2 the Perceiving Act, or 3 the Object perceived. Of these the only ambiguity of importance is the last ; and to relieve it I would propose the employment, in this relation, of Percept, leaving Perception to designate both the faculty and its act ; for these it is rarely necessary to distinguish, as what is applicable to the one is usually applicable to the other. But to the significations of the term, as applied to different faculties, acts, and objects ; of which there are in all four 1. Perceptio which has been naturalized in all the principal languages of modern Europe, with the qualified exception of the German, in which the indigenous term "Wahrnehmung has again almost superseded it Perceptio, in its primary philosophical signification, as in the mouths of Cicero and Quintilian, is vaguely equivalent to Comprehension, Notion, or Cognition in general. 2. From this first meaning it was easily deflected to a second, in which it corresponds to an apprehension, a becoming aware of, in a word, a conscious- ness. In this meaning, though long thus previously employed in the schools, it was brought more prominently and distinctively forward in the writings of Des-cartes. From him it passed, not only to his own disciples, but, liko the term Idea, to his antagonist, Gassendi, and, thereafter, adopted equally by Locke and Leibnitz, it remained a household word in every subsequent philosophy, until its extent was further limited, and thus a third signification given to it. Under this second meaning it is, however, proper to say a word in regard PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 413 a.) Certain special affections, whereof as an animated organism it is contingently susceptible ; and b.) Those general relations of extension under which as a ma- terial organism it necessarily exists. to the special employment of the term in the Cartesian and Leibuitzio-Wol- fian philosophies. Perception the Cartesians really identified with Idea (usicg this term in its unexclusive universality, but discounting Descartes' own abusive application of it to the organic movement in the brain, of which the mind has, ex hypothesi, no consciousness) and allowed them only a logical distinction ; the same representative act being called Idea, inasmuch as we regard it as a representation, i. e. view it in relation to what through it, as represented, is mediately known, and Perception, inasmuch as we regard it as a consciousness of such representation, i. e. view it in relation to the knowing mind. The Leibnitzio-Wolfians, on the other hand, distinguished three acts in the process of representative cognition : 1 the act of repre- senting a (mediate) object to the mind ; 2 the representation, or, to speak more properly, representamen, itself as an (immediate or vicariqus) object exhibited to the mind ; 3 the act by which the mind is conscious, immedi- ately of the representative object, and, through it, mediately of the remote object represented. They called the first Perception ; the last Apperception ; the second Idea sensual, to wit, for what they styled the material Idea was only an organic motion propagated to the brain, which, on the doctrine of the pre-established harmony, is in sensitive cognition the arbitrary concom- itant of the former, and, of course, beyond the sphere of consciousness or apperception. 3. In its third signification, Perception is limited to the apprehensions of Sense alone. This limitation was first formally imposed upon the word by Eeid, for no very cogent reason besides convenience (222 b) ; and thereafter by Kant. Kant, again, was not altogether consistent ; for he employs ' Per- ception? in the second meaning, for the consciousness of any mental presenta- tion, and thus in a sense corresponding to the Apperception of the Leibnitz- ians, while its vernacular synonym ' Wcihrnehmung* he defines in conform- ity with the third, as the consciousness of an empirical intuition. Imposed by such authorities, this is now the accredited signification of these terms, in the recent philosophies of Germany, Britain, France, Italy, &c. 4. But under this third meaning it is again, since the time and through the authority of Eeid, frequently employed in a still more restricted accep- tation, viz. as Perception (proper) in contrast to Sensation (proper). The import of these terms, as used by Eeid and other philosophers on the one hand, and by myself on the other, is explained in the text. ii. Sensation (Sensatio ; Sensation, Sentiment; Sensazione; Empfindung) has various significations ; and in all of these, like Perception, Conception, Imagination, and other analogous terms in the philosophy of mind, it is am- biguously applied ; 1, for a Faculty 2* 1 , for its Act 3, for its Object. Here there is no available term like Percept, Concept, &c., whereby to dis- criminate the last. 414 PHILOSOPHY OF PEECEPTION. Of these Perceptions, the former, which is thus conversant about a subject-object, is Sensation proper ; the latter, which is thus conversant about an object-object, is Perception proper. 1 2. All Perception is an act of Consciousness ; no Perception, therefore, is possible, except under the conditions under which Consciousness is possible. The eight following conditions are partly common to perception with the other acts of Consciousness ; partly proper to it as a special operation. 3. The first is a certain concentration of consciousness on an ob- ject of sense ; an act of Attention, however remiss.* 4. The second is (independently of the necessary contrast of a subject and an object), a plurality, alteration, difference on the part of the perceived object or objects, and of a recognition or There are two principal meanings in which this term has been employed. 1. Like the Greek cesihesis, it was long and generally used to comprehend the process of sensitive apprehension both in its subjective and its objective relations. 2. As opposed to Idea, Perception, &c., it was limited, first in tLs Carte- sian school, and thereafter in that of Eeid, to the subjective phasis of our sensitive cognitions ; that is, to our consciousness of the affections of our animated organism, or on the Neo-Platonic, Cartesian, and Leibnitzian hy- potheses, to the affections of the mind corresponding to, but not caused by, the unknown mutations of the body. Under this restriction, Sensation may, both in French and English, be employed to designate our corporeal or lower feelings, in opposition to Sentiment, as a term for our higher, i. e. our intellectual and moral, feelings. iii. Sense (Sensus 5 Sens ; Senso | Sinn) is employed in a looser and in a stricter application. Under the former head it has two applications ; 1, a psychological, as a popular term for Intelligence : 2, a logical, as a synonym for Meaning. Under the latter head, Sense is employed ambiguously ; 1, for the Fac- ulty of sensitive apprehension ; 2, for its Act ; 3, for its Organ. In this relation, Sense has been distinguished into External and Internal ; but under the second term, in so many vague and various meanings, that I cannot here either explain or enumerate them. On the analogical employments of the word, see above, p. 378 sq. * St. Jerome 'Quod mens videat et mens audiat, et quod nee audiro quidpiam ncc videre possumus, nisi sensus in ea quae cernimus et audimus intentus, vetus sententia.' (Adv. Jovin. ii. 9.) See Aristotle (Probl. xi. 33), whom Jerome manifestly had in his eye ; Strato Physicus, as quoted by Plutarch (De Sol. An. Opera, t. ii. p. 961) ; and Plutarch himself (ibid.) 1 See p. 380. W. PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 415 discrimination thereof on the part of the perceiving subject.* .This supposes the following : Quality proper ; Quantity, Pro- tensive (Time), Extensive (Space), Intensive (Degree) ; and Rela- tion. Therefore 5. The third is Quality, quality strictly so called. For one affection is distinguished from another as it is, or is not, such and such ; in other words, as it has, or has not, this or that quality (suchness). 6. The fourth is Time ; which supposes Memory, or, to speak more correctly, a certain continuous representation of the late and latest past, known with and in contrast to our apprehension of the passing present. For without such continuity of conscious- ness, no consciousness is possible. 7. The fifth is Space. For we are only conscious of perceiv- ing, as we are conscious of perceiving something as discriminated from other coexistent things. But this in perception is to be conscious of one thing as out of another, that is, as extended, that is, as in space. 8. The sixth is Degree. For all sensations are, though possi- bly of any, actually of one definite intensity ; and distinguished not only by differences in Quality, Time, Space, but also by differ- ences in Degree. 9. The seventh is Relation. For discrimination, which all per- ception supposes, is a recognition of a relation, the relation of contrast ; and differences in Quality, Time, Space, Degree, are only so many various kinds of such relativity. 1 0. Finally, the eighth is an Assertory Judgment, that within the sphere of sense an object (a) exists, and (b) exists thus or thus conditioned. f All consciousness is realized in the enunciation * It has been well said by Hobbes, in regard to the former, ' Sentire sem- per idem, et non sentire, ad idem recidunt' (Eleni. Philos. P. iv. c. 25, 5); and by Galen and Nemesius in reference to the latter, ' Sensation is not an alteration (affection, modification), but the recognition of an alteration.' t Aristotle in various passages- asserts that Sensitive perception is a dis- crimination or a judgment. (Anal. Post. L. ii. c. 19, 5. Top. L. ii. c, 4, 416 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. That is there (or This is here). All Perception consequently enounces That is there ; but in this case, there is especially understood by the That an object manifested through one or more qualities, Secondary, Secundo-primary, Primary ; and by the is there apprehended in, or in immediate relation to, our organism.* 11. Such being the general conditions of Perception, it is man^ ifestly impossible to discriminate with any rigor Sense from Intel- ligence. Sensitive apprehension is, in truth, only the recognition by Intelligence of the phenomena presented in or through its or- gans.f 2. De An. L. iii. c. 1, 10 ; c. 10, 1; alibi.) And the Aphrodisian : < Al- though sensation be only brought to bear through certain corporeal passions, yet Sensation itself is not a passion, but & judgment.' 1 (On the Soul, f. 138 b, ed. Aid.) Reid has the merit among modern philosophers of first approxi- mating to the recognition of judgment as an element or condition of con- sciousness in general, in laying it at the root of Perception, Sensation, Mem- ory, and [Self] Consciousness | though he unfortunately fell short of the truth in refusing an existential judgment also to the acts of the representative fac- ulty, his Conception, Imagination, or Simple Apprehension. * In this qualitative judgment there is only the consciousness of the qual- ity perceived in itself as a distinct object. The judgment, again, by which it is recognized of such a class or such a name, is a higher energy, and ought not, as is sometimes done, to be etyled Perception ; it is Judgment, emphati- cally so called, a simple act of, what I would call, the elaborative, or diano- etic, or discursive faculty, the faculty of relations, or comparison. t Tertullian : ' Non enim et sentire intelligere est, et intelligere, sentire. At quid erit Sen^us, nisi ejus rei quce sentitur intelleclus ? Quid erit intellec- tus, nisi ejus rei quoe intelligitur sensus? Unde ista tormenta cruciandse simplicitatis, et suspendendce veritatis "? Quis mihi exhibebit sensum non in- telligeutem quod sentit ; aut intellectum non sentientem quod intelligit?' (De Anima, c. 18 ; compare De Came Christi, c. 12.) To the same effect St. Gregory of Nyssa. (De Opif. Horn. cc. 6, 10; and De Anima et Eesur., Opera, t. ii. p. 623 ed. Paris, 1615.) See also St. Jerome as quoted in note * 414. But this doctrine we may trace back to Aristotle and his school, and even higher. ' There is extant,' says Plutarch, 'a discourse of Strato Phys- icus, demonstrating That a, sensitive apprehension, is wholly impossible with- out an act of Intellect: (Op. Mor. p. 961.) And as to Aristotle "himself: ' To divorce (he says) Sensation from Understanding, is to reduce Sensation to an insensible process ; wherefore it has been said Intellect sees, and In- tellect hears: (Probl. xi. 83.) This saying, as recorded by Aristotle, constitutes in the original (a differ- PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 417 12. All perception is an immediate or presentative cognition : and has, therefore, in either form, only one univocal object ; that, to wit, which it apprehends as now and here existent. 1 ence of dialect discounted) the first hemistich of the famous verse of Epi- charmus : NoCj bptj KUI Niwj Aicovet, raXXa Kw(f>u aal rv\d. Mind it seeth, Mind it heareth ; att beside is deaf and blind ; or less literally What sees is Mind, what hears is Mind ; The ear and eye are deaf and Hind. Though overlooked as a quotation, by both the commentators on the Prob- lems, by Erasmus, and many others, it has never been suspected that these words, as quoted, are not a quotation from the Syracusan poet. This nega- tive I, however, venture to maintain, at least, as a probable thesis ; for I am inclined to think that the line, however great its merit, does not ascend to Epicharmus, but was forged and fathered on him in an age considerably later than Aristotle's. My reasons are these : 1. Epicharmus was a Pythagorean philosopher and a Doric poet. But to fabricate Pythagorean treatises in the Doric dialect seems to have become in the latter ages a matter of exercise and emulation among the Greek So- phistae and Syncretists. In fact, of the numerous fragments under the names of Pythagoras, Theano, Timams, Ocellus, Archytas, Hippodamus, Euryphamus, Hipparchus, Theages, Metopus, Clinias, Crito, Polus, Lysis, Melissa, Mya, &c. ; there are hardly any to a critical eye not manifestly spu- rious, and none whatever exempt from grave suspicion. On general grounds, therefore, forgeries on Epicharmus are not only not improbable, but likely. 2. And that such were actually committed we are not without special evi- dence. We know from Athenseus (L. xiv.), that there were many Pseudcb- picharmia in circulation. Besides Apollodorus, he cites, as authorities for this, Aristoxenus (who was a scholar of Aristotle) in the eighth book of his Polity, and Philochorus (who lived about a century later) in his treatise on Divination. Among the more illustrious fabricators, the former of these commemorates Chrysogonus the flute-player ; the latter, Axiopistus of Lo- crus or Sicyon, with the names of his two supposititious works, the Canon and the Gnomes. Of either of these, judging from their title, the line in question may have formed a part ; though it is not improbably of a still more recent origin. 3. The words (and none could be more direct and simple) which make up the first hemistich of the verse, we find occasionally quoted as a proverbial philosopheme, subsequently to the time of Plato. To Plato's doctrine, and his language, I would indeed attribute its rise ; for it is idle to suppose, with Jacobs, that Sophocles ((Ed. T. 389) and Euripides (Hel. 118) had either the verso or dogma in their eye. Aristotle, at least, the author of the Problems, i Sec chapter iii. i. 4, S, 11. W. 26 i!8 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 13. All Perception is a sensitive cognition : it, therefore, appro- bends the existence of no object out of its organism, or not in immediate correlation to its organism ; for thus only can an ob- ject exist, now and here, to sense. is the oldest testimony for such a usage ; and long after Aristotle, after, in- deed, the line had been already fathered on Epicharmus, we have Pliny (H. N. xi. 87), Cassius Felix (Pr. 22), St. Jerome (Adv. Jovin. ii. 9), the manu- scripts of Stobaeus (iv. 42), and the Scholiast of Aristophanes (PI. 43), all ad- ducing it only as an adage. It is not, however, till nearly six centuries after Epicharmus, .and considerably more than four centuries after Aristotle, that we find the saying either fully cited as a verse, or the verse ascribed to the Syracusan. But from the time of Plutarch, who himself thrice alleges it, its quotation in either fashion becomes frequent ; as by Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Maximus Tyrius, Julian, Theodoret, Olympiodorus (twice), and Tzetzes (four times). Porphyry (thrice) records it but as a saying of Py- thagoras ; and lamblichus, as a dictum of the Pythagorean School. These authors both had learning, though neither, certainly, was ever critical in its application. Their statements can only, therefore, be held to favor the opin- ion that they were unaware of any decisive evidence to vindicate the verse to Epicharmus. 4. But if improbable, even at first sight, that such a verse of such an au- thor, should not, if authentic, have been adduced by any writer now extant, during the long period of six hundred years, the improbability is enhanced when we come to find, that during that whole period it is never quoted, even under circumstances when, had it been current as aline of Epicharmus, it could not but have been eagerly appealed to. Plato, as observed by Alci- mus and Laertius, was notoriously fond of quoting Epicharmus ; and there were at least two occasions in the Thesetetus ( 102, sq.), and in the Phsedo ( 25 [11 Wytt.]) when this gnome of his favorite poet would have confirmed and briefly embodied the doctrine he was anxiously inculcating. Could he fail to employ it ? In fact, it comes to this ; these passages must either be held tc follow, or to found, the philosopheme in question. In like manner Cicero, in his exposition of the first passage (Tusc. i. 20), could hardly have avoided as- sociating Epicharmus with Plato, as Tertullian and Olympiodorus have done in their expositions of the second had the line been recognized in the age of the farmer, as it was in the age of the two latter. Nor could such an apothegm of such a poet have been unknown to Cicero, to Cicero, so generally conver- sant with Hellenic literature, and who, among other sayings of Epicharmus himself, adduces in Greek, as his brother Quintus paraphrases in Latin, the no less celebrated maxim fie sober, and to doubt inclined : These are. the very joints of mind, ; Of on the other reading Be cool, and eke to doubt propense : PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 419 ii. Sensation proper and Perception proper, in correlation. 14. In perception proper there is a higher energy of intelli- gence, than in Sensation proper. For though the latter be the apprehension of an affection of the Ego, and therefore, in a certain sort, the apprehension of an immaterial quality ; still it is only the apprehension of the fact of an organic passion ; whereas the former, though supposing Sensation as its condition, and though only the apprehension of the attributes of a material Non-ego, is, however, itself without corporeal passion, and, at the same time, the recognition not merely of a fact, but of relations. (See 22, 29, and p. 379 notef.) 15. Sensation proper is the conditio sine qua non of a Percep- tion proper of the Primary qualities. For we are only aware of the existence of our organism, in being sentient of it, as thus or thus affected ; and are only aware of it being the subject of exten- sion, figure, division, motion, &c., in being percipient of its affec- tions, as like or as unlike, and as out of, or locally external to, each other. 16. Every Perception proper has a Sensation proper as its con- dition ; but every Sensation has not a Perception proper as its conditionate unless, what I think ought to be done, we view the general consciousness of the locality of a sensorial affection as a Perception proper. In this case, the two apprehensions will be always coexistent. 17. But though the fact of Sensation proper, and the fact of Perception proper imply each other, this is all, for the two cog- nitions, though coexistent, are not proportionally coexistent. On the contrary, although we can only take note of, that is perceive, the special relations of sensations, on the hypothesis that these sensations exist ; a sensation, in proportion as it rises above a low degree of intensity, interferes with the perception of its relations, by concentrating consciousness on its absolute affection alone. It may accordingly be stated as a general rule That, above a cer- tain point, the stronger the Sensation, the weaker the Perception ; 420 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. and the distincter the perception the less obtrusive the sensation ; in other words Though Perception proper and Sensation proper exist only as they coexist, in the degree or intensity of their exist- ence, they are always found in an inverse ratio to each other. (See 387 b, sq.) 18. The organism is the field of apprehension, both to Sensa- tion proper and Perception proper ; but with this difference, that the former views it as of the Ego, the latter, as of the Non- ego ; that the one draws it within, the other shuts it out from the sphere of self. As animated, as the subject of affections of which I am conscious, the organism belongs to me ; r.nd of these affec- tions, which I recognize as mine, Sensation proper is the appre- hension. As material, as the subject of extension, figure, divisi- bility, and so forth, the organism does not belong to me, the con- scious unit ; and of these properties, which I do not recognize as mine, Perception proper is the apprehension.* (See 38, 39, and p. 379 af.) 19. The affections in Sensation proper are determined, (a) by certain intra-organic, or (b) by certain extra-organic causes. The * It may appear, not a paradox merely, but a contradiction to say, that tlio organism is, at once, within and without the mind ; is, at once, subjective and objective ; is, at once, Ego and Non-ego. But so it is ; and so we must admit it to be, unless on the one hand, as Materialists, we identify mind with matter, or, on the other, as Idealists, we identify matter with mind. The organism, as animated, as sentient, is necessarily ours; and its affec- tions are only felt as affections of the indivisible Ego. In this respect, and to this extent, our organs are not external to ourselves. But our organism is not merely a sentient subject, it is at the same time an extended, figured, divisible, in a word, a material, subject ; and the same sensations which are reduced to unity in the indivisibility of consciousness are in the divisible or- ganism recognized as plural and reciprocally external, and, therefore, as ex- tended, figured, and divided. Such is the fact : but how the immaterial can be united with matter, how the uhextended can apprehend extension, how the indivisible can measure the divided, this is the mystery of mysteries to man. ' Modus (says the Fseudo-Augustin) Modus quo corporibus adhse- rent spiritus, omnino mirus est, nee comprehendi ab hominibus potest ; et hoc ipse homo est.' Thus paraphrased by Pascal : ' Man is, to himself, the mightiest prodigy of nature. For he is unable to conceive what is Body, still less what is Mind, and, least of all, how there can be united a body and a mind. This is the climax of his difficulties ; yet this is his peculiar nature.' PHILOSOPHY OF PEECEPTION. latter, as powers in bodies, "beyond the sphere of perception, and their effects in us, the objects of Sensation, are both (therefore ambiguously) denominated, either, in the language of modern philosophers, the Secondary Qualities of Matter, or, in the lan- guage of Aristotle and his school, the Proper Sensibles. 1 20. Sensation proper has no object but a subject-object, i. e. the organic affection of which we are conscious. The cause of that affection, whether without organism or within, that is, whether or not a secondary quality of body, is immediately or in its own nature unknown ; being known only, if known it ever be, me- diately, by observation, induction, inference, conjecture. Even in the perception of the Secundo-primary qualities, where there is the perception proper of a quasi-primary quality, in some degree of resistance, and the sensation proper of a secondary quality, in some affection of the sentient organism, its effect ; still to Sensa- tion proper there is no other object but the subjective affection ; and even its dependence, as an effect, upon the resistance, as a cause, is only a conclusion founded on. the observed constancy of their concomitance. (See 36, 37, and p. 376 b, sq.) 21. Nay, the Perception proper, accompanying a sensation proper, is not an apprehension, far less a representation, of the external or internal stimulus, or concause, which determines the affection whereof the sensation is the consciousness. Not the former; for the stimulus or concause of a sensation is always, in itself, to consciousness unknown. Not the latter ; for this would turn Perception into Imagination reduce it from an immediate, and assertory, and objective, into a mediate, and problematic, and subjective cognition. In this respect, Perception proper is an apprehension of the relations of sensations to each other, prima- rily in Space, and secondarily in Time and Degree. (See 31.) iii. Sensation proper. 22. Sensation proper, viewed on one side, is a passive affection 1 See previous chapter. W. 422 PHILOSOPHY OP PERCEPTION. of the organism ; but viewed on the other, it is an active apper- ception, by the mind, of that affection. And as the former only exists for us, inasmuch as it is perceived by us; and as it is only perceived by us, inasmuch as it is apprehended, in an active concentration, discrimination, judgment, of the mind ; the latter, an act of intelligence, is to be viewed, as the principal factor in the percipient process, even in its lower form, that of Sensation proper.* (See 4, 10, 11, 14, with notes.) iv. Perception proper. 23. In Perception proper, the object-object perceived is, always, either a Primary quality, or the quasi-Primary phasis of a Secundo-primary. (See p. 376 b, sq.) 24. The primary qualities are perceived as in our organism ; the Quasi-primary phasis of the Secundo-primary as in correla- tion to our organism. (See 394 a.) 25. Thus a perception of the Primary qualities does not, * This is the true doctrine of Aristotle and his school, who are, however, not unfrequently misrepresented by relation to the extreme counter-opinion of the Platonists, as viewing in the cognitions of Sense a mere passion a mis- representation to which, undoubtedly, a few of the Latin Schoolmen have afforded grounds. It is, indeed, this twofold character of the Sensitive pro- cess that enables us to reconcile the apparent confliction of those passages of Aristotle, where (as De Anima, L. ii. c. 4, 8; c. 5, 2; c. 11, 14; c. 12, 1 ; De Sensu et Sensili, c. 1, 5 ; Physica, L. vii. c. 3, 12, Pacian division) he calls Sensation a passion or alteration of the Sentient ; and those others where (as De Anima, L. iii. c. 8, 2) he asserts that in Sensation the Sen- tient is not passively affected. In the former passages the sentient faculty is regarded on its organic side, in the latter on its mental. Compare De Somno et Vigilia, c. 1, 6, where it is said, that 'Sensation is a process belonging exclusively neither to the soul nor to the body, but, as energy, a motion of the soul, through the [medium of the] body;' a text which, however, may still be variously expounded. See Alexander, in note f, p. 415 ; who, with the other Greek interpreters, Ammonius, Simplicius, Philoponus, solves the difficulty by saying, that it is not the sentient mind that suffers, but the sen- tient organ. To the same effect are Galen and Nemesius, as quoted in note *, p. 415. Eeid is partly at one with the Peripatetics ; with whose doctrine, indeed, he is more frequently in accordance than he is always himself aware. (Inq. 114 a.) PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION, 423 originally and in itself, reveal to us the existence, and qualitative existence, of aught beyond the organism, apprehended by us as extended, figured, divided, &c. 26. The primary qualities of things external to our organism we do not perceive, i. e. immediately know. For these we only learn to infer, from the affections which we come to find that they determine in our organs ; affections which, yielding us a perception of organic extension, we at length discover, by obser- vation and induction, to imply a corresponding extension in the extra-organic agents. 27. Further, in no part of the organism have we any apprehen- sion, any immediate knowledge of extension in its true and abso- lute magnitude ; perception noting only the fact given in sensa- tion, and sensation affording no standard, by which to measure the dimensions given in one sentient part with those given in another. For, as perceived, extension is only the recognition of one organic affection in its outness from another ; as a minimum of extension is thus to perception the smallest extent of organism in which sensations can be discriminated as plural : and as in one part of the organism this smallest extent is, perhaps, some million, certainly some myriad times smaller than in others ; it follows that, to perception, the same real extension will appear, in this place of the body, some million or myriad times greater than in that.* JSTor does this difference subsist only as between sense and sense ; for in the same sense, and even in that sense which has very commonly been held exclusively to afford a * This difference in the power of discriminating affections, possessed by different parts of the body, seems to depend partly on the minuteness and isolation of the ultimate nervous fibrils, partly on the sensation being less or more connected with pleasure and pain. In this respect the eye greatly transcends all the other organs. For we can discriminate in the retina sen- sations, as reciprocally external, more minutely than we can in touch as over the greater part of the body two million five hundred thousand fold as at the most sensitive place of the hand, a hundred thousand fold as at the tip of the tongue, where tactile discrimination is at its maximum, fifty thousand fold. I am, however, inclined to think, for reasons already given, that we must reduce millions to myriads. (See p. 387, note.) 424: PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. knowledge of absolute extension, I mean Touch proper, the min- imum, at one part of the body, is some fifty times greater than it is at another. (See p. 389 ab, note.) 28. The existence of an extra-organic world is apprehended, not in a perception of the Primary qualities, but in a perception of the quasi-primary phasis of the Secundo-primary ; that is, in the consciousness that our locomotive energy is resisted, and not resisted by aught in our organism itself. For in the conscious- ness of being thus resisted is involved, as a correlative, the con- sciousness of a resisting something external to our organism. Both are, therefore, conjunctly apprehended. (See p. 394 a, note.) This experience presupposes, indeed, a possession of the notions of space and motion in space. 29. But on the doctrine that space, as a necessary condition, is a native element of thought ; and since the notion of any one of its dimensions, as correlative to, must inevitably imply the others ; it is evident that every perception of sensations out of sensations will afford the occasion, in apprehending any one, of conceiving all the three extensions ; that is, of conceiving space. On the doctrine, and in the language of Reid, our original cogni- tions of space, motion, &c., are instinctive ; a view which is con- firmed by the analogy of those of the lower animals, which have the power of locomotion at birth. It is truly an idle problem to attempt imagining the steps by which we may be supposed to have acquired the notion of extension ; when, in fact, we are unable to imagine to ourselves the possibility of that notion not being always in our possession. 30. We have, therefore, a twofold cognition of space : a) an a priori or native imagination of it, in general, as a necessary con- dition of the possibility of thought ; and b) under that, an a posteriori or adventitious percept of it, in particular, as contin- gently apprehended in this or that actual complexus of sensations.* * This doctrine agrees with that of Kant and Keid in the former ; it dif- fers certainly from that of Kant, and probably from that of Reid, in the lat> ter. But see chapter i. PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 425 B.) Editor's doctrine of Perception, in contrast to that of Reid, Stewart, Royer-Collard, and other philosophers of the Scottish School* 31. Perception (proper) is the Notion or Conception of an object, instinctively suggested, excited, inspired, or, as it were, conjured up, on occasion or at the sign of a Sensation (proper). f Reid, Inq. Ill b, 121 a, 122 a, 123 b, 128 b, note, 130 b, 159 a, 183 a, 188 a. I. P. 258 ab, 259 b, 260 b, 318 ab, 327 a; Stewart, El. vol. i. pp. 92, 93 ; Roycr-Collard, in Jouffroy's Reid, vol. iii. pp. 402, 403. * I here contrast my own doctrine of perception with that of the philosophers in question, not because their views and mine are those at farthest variance on the point, but, on the contrary, precisely because they thereon approxi- mate the nearest. I have already shown that the doctrine touching Percep- tion held by Eeid (and in the present relation he and his two illustrious fol- lowers are in almost all respects at one) is ambiguous. For while some of its statements seem to harmonize exclusively with the conditions of natural presentationism, others, again, appear only compatible with those of an ego- istical representationism. Maintaining, as I do, the former doctrine, it is, of course, only the positions conformable to the latter, which it is, at present, necessary to adduce. f This is not the doctrine, at least not the language of the doctrine of real presentationism. It is the language, at best, of an egoistical representa- tionism; and, as a doctrine, it coincides essentially with the theory of mediate perception held by the lower Platonists, the Cartesians, and the Leibnitzians as properly understood. The Platonizing Cudworth, in differ- ent parts of his works, gives, in fact, nearly in the same terms, the same account of the process of Sensitive Perception. He signalizes, firstly, the bodily aflection, determined by the impression of an external something [precisely as Keid] ; secondly, the sympathetic recognition thereof by the soul [Keid's Sensation] ; thirdly, to quote his expressions, ' whereby accord- ing to nature's instinct, it hath several Seemings or Appearances begotten in it of those resisting objects, without it at a distance, in respect of color, mag- nitude, figure, and local motion.' [Eeid's Conceptions or Notions of which Perception is made up.] (Imm. Mor. B. v. ch. 2, 3. Compare B. iii. ch. 1, 5.) See also above, the Neoplatonic doctrine as stated, p. 387 b, note ; the Cartesian Sylvain Eegis, as quoted, p. 275 a; and the Cartesian Andala, as quoted, p. 377 b, note; and to these may be added the Aristotelian Compton Carlton (who did not reject the doctrine of a representative percep- tion of the Common Sensibles), as quoted, p. 318 a. But that Keid might possibly employ the terms notion and conception in a vague and improper sense, for cognition in general, see p. 318, b, 4. 426 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. On the contrary, I hold, in general, that as Perception, in eithei form, is an immediate or presentative, not a mediate or represent ative cognition, that a Perception proper is not, and ought not to be called a Notion or Conception. And, I hold in particular, that, on the one hand, in the consciousness of sensations, out of each other, contrasted, limited, and variously arranged, we have a Perception proper, of the primary qualities, in an externality to the mind, though not to the nervous organism, as an immediate cognition, and not merely as a notion or concept of something extended, figured, &c. ; and on the other, as a correlative contain- ed in the consciousness of our voluntary motive, energy resisted, and not resisted by aught within the limits of mind and its subservient organs, we have a Perception proper of the secundo- primary quality of resistance, in an extra-organic force, as an imme- diate cognition, and not merely as a notion or concept, of a resisting something external to our body, though certainly in either case, there may be, and probably is, a concomitant act of imagi- nation, by which the whole complex consciousness on the occasion is filled up, (See 2 1.) 1 32. On occasion of the Sensation (proper), along with the notion or conception which constitutes the Perception (proper), of the ex- ternal object, there is blindly created in us, or instinctively determin- ed, an invincible belief in its existence. (Reid, Inq. 159 a, 122 ab, 1 83 a, I. P. 258 a, 327 a, alibi ; Stewart and Royer-Collard, 11. cc.) On the contrary, I hold, that we only believe in the existence of what we perceive, as extended, figured, resisting, &c., inasmuch as we believe that we are conscious of these qualities as existing ; consequently, that a belief in the existence of an extended world external to the mind, and even external to the organism, is not a faith blindly created or instinctively determined, in supplement of a representative or mediate cognition, but exists in, as an integral constituent of, Perception proper, as an act of intuitive or imme diate knowledge. 1 And chapter ii. ii. W. PHILOSOPHY OF PEECEPTION. 427 33. The object of Perception (proper) is a conclusion, or infer- ence, or result (instinctive, indeed, not ratiocinative), from a Sen- sation proper. (Reid, Inq. 125 a, 186 b, I. P. 310 ab, 319 a- Royer-Collard, 1. c.) On the contrary, I hold, that the object of Perception proper is given immediately in and along with the object of Sensation proper. 34. Sensation (proper) precedes, Perception (proper) follows. (Reid, Inq. 186 b, 187 b. I. P. 320 b ; Stewart and Royer- Collard, 11. cc.) On the contrary, I hold, that though Sensation proper be the condition of, and therefore anterior to, Perception proper in the order of nature, that, in the order of time, both are necessarily co- existent, the latter being only realized in and through the pres- ent existence of the former. Thus visual extension cannot be perceived, or even imagined, except under the sensation of color ; while color, again, cannot be apprehended or imagined, without, respectively, a concomitant apprehension or phantasm of exten- sion. 35. Sensation (proper) is not only an antecedent, but an arbi- trary antecedent, of Perception (proper.) The former is only a sign on occasion of which the latter follows ; they have no neces- sary or even natural connection ; and it is only by the will of God that we do not perceive the qualities of external objects indepen- dently of any sensitive affection. This last, indeed, seems to be actually the case in the perception of visible extension and figure. (Reid, Inq. Ill b, 121 a, 143 b, 122 a, 123 b, 187 b, 188 a. I. P. 257 b, 260 b, alibi ; Stewart and Royer-Collard, 11. cc.) On the contrary, I hold that Sensation proper is the universal condition of Perception proper. We are never aware even of the existence of our organism except as it is somehow affected ; and are only conscious of extension, figure, and the other objects of Perception proper, as realized in the relations of the affections of our sentient organism, as a body extended, figured, ~== Principia, pp. 45, 48, alibi, et supra 328 a) ; Rohault (Physique, passim) ; Malebranche (Recherche, L. iii. P. ii. ch. 6 and 7, with Ecclairc. on last, et supra 330 b) ; Silvain Regis (Cours, t. i. pp. 60, 61, 72, 145); Bossuet (Con- naisance de Dieu, ch. iii. art. 8) ; while Buffier, ' Gravesande, Crousaz, Sinsert, Keranflech, Genovesi, with a hundred others, might be adduced as showing that the same distinction had been very generally recognized before Reid ; who, far from arrogating to himself the credit of its introduction, remarks that it had been first accurately established by Malebranche. As already noticed (330 b), it is passing strange that Locke, but truly marvellous that Leibnitz, should have been ignorant of the Cartesian distinction of Sensation and Idea (Sentiment, Idee). Locke's unacquaintance is shown in his * Essay,' besides other places, in B. ii. ch. 13, 25, but, above all, in his 'Examination of P. Malebranche's Opinion ;' and that of Leibnitz, elsewhere, and in L. ii. ch. 8 of his ' Nouveaux Essais,' but more particularly 436 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. in the ' Examen du Sentiment du P. Malebranche,' both of which works he wrote in opposition to the relative treatises of Locke. As for Locke, he seems wholly unaware that any difference sub- sisted in the Cartesian school, between Idea and Sensation; while Leibnitz actually thinks that Malebranche ' entend par sen- timent une perception d'imagination !' In his own philosophy, Leibnitz virtually supersedes the discrimination. I am, therefore, doubly surprised at the observation of M. Royer-Collard, that * Malebranche is the first among modern philosophers, and, with Leibnitz, perhaps the only one before Reid, who accurately dis- tinguished perception from the sensation which is its forerunnei and sign.' (Jouffroy's Reid, iii. 329.) In the Kantian school, and generally in the recent philosophy of Germany, the distinction is adopted, and marked out by the terms Anschauung or Intuitio for the one apprehension, and Empfindung or Sensatio for the other. In France and Italy, on the other hand, where the distinction has been no less universally recognized, Reid's expressions, Perception and Sensation, have become the prevalent; but their ambiguity, I think, ought to have been avoided, by the addition of some such epithet as proper. Since generalizing the Law of the coexistence, but the coexist- ence in an inverse ratio, of Sensation and Perception, of the sub- jective and objective, and, in general, of feeling and cognition ; I have noticed, besides those adduced above from Aristotle and Galen, other partial observations tending to the same result, by sundry modern philosophers. Sulzer, in a paper published in 1759 (Vermischte Schriften, vol. i. p. 113), makes the remark, that 'a representation manifests itself more clearly in proportion as it has less the power of exciting in us emotion ;' and confirms it by the analogy observed in the gradation of the agreeable and disagreeable sensations. Kant in his Anthropologie (1798, 14), in treating of the determinate or organic senses (Sensus fixi), says : ' Three of these are rather objective than subjective i. e. as empirical intuitions, they conduce more to the cognition of the PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. 437 external object, than they excite the consciousness of the affected organ ; but two are rather subjective than objective i. e. the representation they mediate is more that of enjoyment [or suffer- ing] than of the cognition of the external object. . . . The senses of the former class are those 1) of Touch (tactus), 2) of Sight (visus), 3) of Hearing (auditus) ; of the latter, those a) of Taste (gustus), b) of Smell (olfactus).' This and the Galenic arrangement will appear less connective, if we nacollect, that under Touch Galen comprehends Feeling proper, whereas Feeling proper is by Kant relegated to his vital sense or sensus vagus, the ccenaesthesis or common sense of others. See also Meiners, Untersuchungen, i. p. 64 ; Wetzel, Psychologic, i. 225 ; Fries, N. Kritik, i. 14-19 ; Anthropologie, i. 27, 28, &c., &c. M. Ravaisson, in an article of great ability and learning on the 1 Fragments de Philosophic' which M. Peisse did me the honor to translate, when speaking of the reform of philosophy in France, originating in Maine de Birarfs recoil against the Sensualistic doctrine, has the following passage : c Maine de Biran commence par separer profondement de la passion 1'activite, que Condillac avait confondue avec elle sous le titre commun de Sensation. La sensation proprement dite est une affection tout passive ; 1'etre qui y serait reduit irait se perdre, s'absorber dans toutes ses modifications ; il deviendrait successivement chacune d'elles, il ne se trouverait pas, il ne se distinguerait pas, et jamais ne se connaitrait lui-meme. Bien loin que la connaissance soit la sen- sation seule, la sensation, en se melant a elle, la trouble et 1'ob- scurcit, et elle eclipse a son tour la sensation. De la, la loi que M. Hamilton a signalee dans son remarquable article sur la theo- rie de la perception : la sensation et la perception, quoique instpa- rdbles, sont en raison inverse Vune de Vautre. Cette loi fonda- mentale, Maine de Biran 1'avait decouverte pres de trente ans auparavant, et en avait suivi toutes les applications ; il en avait surtout approfondi le principe, savoir, que la sensation resulte de la passion, et que la perception resulte de Faction.' (Revue des Deux Mondes, Nov. 1840.) It is perhaps needless for me to say, 438 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION. that when I enounced the law in question (in 1830), I had never seen the printed memoir by De Biran, which, indeed, from the circumstances of its publication, was, I believe, inaccessible through the ordinary channels of the trade, and to be found in no library in this country ; and now I regret to find that, through procrastination, I must send this chapter to press before having obtained the collective edition of his earlier works, which has recently appeared in Paris. All that I know of De Biran is comprised in the volume edited in 1834 by M. Cousin, from whose kindness I received it. In this, the ' Nouvelles Conside- rations sur les Rapports du Physique et du Moral de 1'Homme,' the treatise in which, as his editor informs us, the full and final development of his doctrine is contained, was for the first time published. But neither in that, nor in any other of the accom- panying pieces, can I discover any passage besides the following, that may be viewed as anticipating the law of coexistence and inversion : ' Souvent une impression percue a tel degre cesse de 1'etre a un degre plus eleve ou lorsqu'elle s'avive au point d'ab- sorber la conscience ou le moi lui-meme qui la dement. Ainsi plus la sensation serait eminemment animale, moins elle aurait le caractere vrai d'une perception humaine.' PART THIRD. PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. "Laudabilior cst animus, cui nota est infirmitas propria, quam qui, ea non respecta, mcenia mundi, vias siderum, fundamenta terrarum et fastigia coelorum, etiam cogniturtis, scrutatur." ST. AuoraxiNE, (De Unttate, proem to the fourth book.) CHAPTER I. 1 REFUTATION OF THE VARIOUS DOCTRINES OF THE UNCONDI- TIONED, ESPECIALLY OF COUSIN'S DOCTRINE OF THE INFI- NITO-ABSOLUTE.* THE delivery of these Lectures 2 excited an unparalleled sensa- tion in Paris. Condemned to silence during the reign of Jesuit ascendency, M. Cousin, after eight years of honorable retirement, 1 This was originally published in the Edinburgh Review, for October, 1829. It has since been republished in the Discussions, pp. 1-87. W. a Hamilton is reviewing a work entitled, ' Court de Philosophic, par M. Victor Cousin, Professeur de Philosophie a la Faculte des Lettres de Paris. Introduction a VHistoire de la Philosophic, Svo. Paris, 182S.' See our trans- lation of * Cousin's History of Philosophy,' vol. i. W. * [Translated into French, by M. Peisse ; into Italian, by S. Lo Gatto: also in Cross's Selections from the Edinburgh Review. This article did not originate with myself. I was requested to write it by my friend, the late accomplished Editor of the Review, Professor Napier. Personally I felt averse from the task. I was not unaware, that a discussion of the leading doctrine of the book would prove unintelligible, not only to che general reader,' but, with few exceptions, to our British metaphysi- cians at large. But, moreover, I was still farther disinclined to the undertak- ing, because it would behoove me to come forward in overt opposition to a certain theory, which, however powerfully advocated, I felt altogether una- ble to admit ; whilst its author, M. Cousin, was a philosopher for whose genius and character I already had the warmest admiration, an admiration which every succeeding year has only augmented, justified, and confirmed. Nor, in saying this, need I make any reservation. For I admire, even where I dissent ; and were M. Cousin's speculations on the Absolute utterly abol- ished, to him would still remain the honor, of doing more himself, and of contributing more to what has been done by others, in the furtherance of an enlightened philosophy, than any other living individual in France I might say in Europe. Mr. Napier, however, was resolute ; it was the first number of the Review under his direction ; and the criticism was hastily written. In this country the reasonings were of course not understood, and naturally, for a season, declared incomprehensible. Abroad, in France, Germany, Italy, and latterly in America, the article has been rated higher than it de- serves. The illustrious thinker, against one of whose doctrines its argument 4:4:2 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. not exempt from persecution, had again ascended the chair of Philosophy ; and the splendor with which he recommenced his academical career, more than justified the expectation which his recent celebrity as a writer, and the memory of his earlier prelec- tions, had inspired. Two thousand auditors listened, all with ad- miration, many with enthusiasm, to the eloquent exposition of doctrines intelligible only to the few ; and the oral discussion of philosophy awakened in Paris, and in France, an interest unex- ampled since the days of Abelard. The daily journals found it necessary to gratify, by their earlier summaries, the impatient cu- riosity of the public ; and the lectures themselves, taken in short- hand, and corrected by the Professor, propagated weekly the influence of his instruction to the remotest provinces of the king- dom. Nor are the pretensions of this doctrine disproportioned to the attention which it has engaged. It professes nothing less than to be the complement and conciliation of all philosophical opinion ; and its author claims the glory of placing the key-stone in the arch of science, by the discovery of elements hitherto unobserved among the facts of consciousness. Before proceeding to consider the claims of M. Cousin to ori- ginality, and of his doctrine to truth, it is necessary to say a few words touching the state and relations of philosophy in France. After the philosophy of Descartes and Malebranche had sunk is directed, was the first to speak of it in terms which, though I feel their generosity, I am ashamed to quote. I may, however, state, that maintaining always his opinion, M. Cousin (what is rare, especially in metaphysical dis- cussions) declared, that it was neither unfairly combated nor imperfectly understood. In connection with this criticism, the reader should compare what M. Cousin has subsequently stated in defence and illustration of his system, in his Preface to the new edition of the Introduction a VHistoire dt la, Philosophic, and Appendix to the fifth lecture (CEuvres, Serie II. Tome i. pp. vii. ix., and pp. 112-129) ; in his Preface to the second edition, and his Advertisement to the third edition of the Fragments Philosophiques (CEuvres S. III.T. iv.) and in his Prefatory Notice to the Pens'ets de Pascal (CEuvres, S. IV. T. i.) On the other hand, M. Peisse has ably advocated the counter- view, in his Preface and Appendix to the Fragments de Philosophic, &c.] PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 443 into oblivion, and from the time that Condillac, exaggerating the too partial principles of Locke, had analyzed all knowledge into sensation, Sensualism (or, more correctly, Sensuism), as a psycho- logical theory of the origin of our cognitions, became, in France, not only the dominant, but almost the one exclusive opinion. It was believed that reality and truth were limited to experience, and experience was limited to the sphere of sense ; while the very highest faculties of mind were deemed adequately explained when recalled to perceptions, elaborated, purified, sublimated, and transformed. From the mechanical relations of sense with its object, it was attempted to solve the mysteries of will and intelligence ; the philosophy of mind was soon viewed as cor- relative to the physiology of organization. The moral nature of man was at last formally abolished, in its identification with his physical : mind became a reflex of matter ; thought a secre- tion of the brain. A doctrine so melancholy in its consequences, and founded on principles thus partial and exaggerated, could not be perma- nent : a reaction was inevitable. The recoil which began about twenty years ago, has been gradually increasing ; and now it is perhaps even to be apprehended, that its intensity may become excessive. As the poison was of foreign growth, so also has been the antidote. The doctrine of Condillac was, if not a corruption, a development of the doctrine of Locke ; and in returning to a better philosophy, the French are still obeying an impulse com- municated from without. This impulsion may be traced to two different sources, to the philosophy of Scotland, and to the philosophy of Germany. In Scotland, a philosophy had sprung up, which, though pro- fessing, equally with the doctrine of Condillac, to build only on experience, did not, like that doctrine, limit experience to the relations of sense and its objects. Without vindicating to man more than a relative knowledge of existence, and restricting the science of mind to an observation of the fact of consciousness, it, however, analyzed that fact into a greater number of more im- 444: PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. portant elements than had been recognized in the school of Con- dillac. It showed that phenomena were revealed in thought which could not be resolved into any modifications of sense, external or internal. It proved that intelligence supposed prin- ciples, which, as the conditions of its activity, cannot be the results of its operation ; that the mind contained knowledges, which, as primitive, universal, necessary, are not to be explained as generalizations from the contingent and individual, about which alone all experience is conversant. The phenomena of mind were thus distinguished from the phenomena of matter ; and if the impossibility of materialism were not demonstrated, there was, at least, demonstrated the impossibility of its proof. This philosophy, and still more the spirit of this philosophy was calculated to exert a salutary influence on the French. And such an influence it did exert. For a time, indeed, the truth operated in silence, and Reid and Stewart had already modified the philosophy of France, before the French were content to acknowledge themselves their disciples. In the works of Dege- rando and Laromiguiere, may be traced the influence of Scottish speculation ; but it is to Royer-Collard, and, more recently, to Jouffroy, that our countrymen are indebted for a full acknowl- edgment of their merits, and for the high and increasing estima- tion in which their doctrines are now held in France. M. Royer- Collard, whose authority has, in every relation, been exerted only for the benefit of his country, and who, once great as a professor, is now not less illustrious as a statesman, in his lectures, advo- cated with distinguished ability the principles of the Scottish school ; modestly content to follow, while no one was more entitled to lead. M. Jouffroy, by his recent translation of the works of Dr. Reid, and by the excellent preface to his version of Mr. Dugald Stewart's ' Outlines of Moral Philosophy,' has like- wise powerfully co-operated to the establishment, in France, of a philosophy equally opposed to the exclusive Sensualism of Con- dillac, and to the exclusive Rationalism of the new German school. PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 44:5 Germany may be regarded, latterly at least, as the metaphysi- cal antipodes of France. The comprehensive and original genius of Leibnitz, itself the ideal abstract of the Teutonic character, had reacted powerfully on the minds of his countrymen ; and Ra- tionalism (more properly Intellectualism*), has, from his time, always remained the favorite philosophy of the Germans. On the principle of this doctrine, it is in Reason alone that truth and reality are to be found. Experience affords only the occasions on which intelligence reveals to us the necessary and universal notions of which it is the complement ; and these notions con- stitute at once the foundation of all reasoning, and the guaran- tee of our whole knowledge of reality. Kant, indeed, pro- nounced the philosophy of Rationalism a mere fabric of delusion. He declared that a science of existence was beyond the compass of our faculties ; that pure reason, as purely subjective,! and con- * [On the modern commutation of Intellect or Intelligence (No5? , Mens, In- tettectus, Verstand), and Reason, (Adyoy, Ratio, Vernunft), see Dissertations on Keid, pp. 668, 669, 693. (This has nothing to do with the confusion of Rea- son and Reasoning. ) Protesting, therefore, against the abuse, I historically employ the terms as they were employed by the philosophers here commem- orated. This unfortunate reversal has been propagated to the French philos- ophy, and also adopted in England by Coleridge and his followers. I may here notice that I use the term Understanding, not for the noetic faculty, intellect proper, or place of principles, but for the dianoetic or discursive fac- ulty, in its widest signification, for the faculty of relations or comparison ; and thus in the meaning in which Verstand is now employed by the Ger- mans. In this sense I have been able to be uniformly consistent.] t In the philosophy of mind, subjective denotes what is to be referred to the thinking subject, the Ego ; objective what belongs to the object of thought, the Non-Ego. It may be safe, perhaps, to say a few words in vindication of our employment of these terms. By the Greeks the word faoKtinevov was equivocally employed to express either the object of knowledge (the materia circa quarri), or the subject of existence (the materia- in qua}. The exact distinction of subject and object was first made by the schoolmen ; and to the schoolmen the vulgar languages are principally indebted for what precision and analytic subtilty they possess. These correlative terms cor- respond to the first and most important distinction in philosophy ; they em- body the original antithesis in consciousness of self and not-self, a distinc- tion which, in fact, involves the whole science of mind; for psychology is nothing more than a determination of the subjective and the objective, in themselves, and in their reciprocal relations. Thus significant of the prima- ry and most extensive analysis in philosophy, these terms, in their substan- 446 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. scious of nothing but itself, was therefore unable to evince the reality of aught beyond the phenomena of its personal modifica- tions. But scarcely had the critical philosopher accomplished the recognition of this important principle, the result of which was, to circumscribe the field of speculation by narrow bounds ; than from the very disciples of his school there arose philoso- phers, who, despising the contracted limits and humble results of a philosophy of observation, re-established, as the predomi- nant opinion, a bolder and more uncompromising Rationalism than any that had ever previously obtained for their countrymen the character of philosophic visionaries ' Gens ratione ferox, et rnentem pasta chimaeris.'* (' Minds fierce for reason, and on fancies fed.') tive and adjective forms, passed from the schools into the scientific language of Telesius, Campanella, Berigardus, Gassendi, Descartes, Spinosa, Leib- nitz, Wolf, &c. Deprived of these terms, the Critical philosophy, indeed the whole philosophy of Germany, would be a blank. In this country, though familiarly employed in scientific language, even subsequently to the time of Locke, the adjective forms seem at length to have dropt out of the English tongue. That these words waxed obsolete was perhaps caused by the ambiguity which had gradually crept into the signification of the sub- stantives. Object, besides its proper signification, came to be abusively applied to denote motive, end, final cause (a meaning not recognized by John- son). This innovation was probably borrowed from the French, in whose language 'the word had been similarly corrupted after the commencement of the last century (Diet, de Trevoux, voce olyet). Subject in English, as sujet in French, had been also perverted into a synonym for object, taken in its proper meaning, and had thus returned to the original ambiguity of the cor- responding term in Greek. It is probable that the logical application of the word (subject of attribution or predication) facilitated or occasioned this con- fusion. In using the terms, therefore, we think that an explanation, but no apology, is required. The distinction is of paramount importance, and of infinite application, not only in philosophy proper, but in grammar, rheto- ric, criticism, ethics, politics, jurisprudence, theology. It is adequately expressed by no other terms ; and if these did not already enjoy a prescrip- tive right, as denizens of the language, it cannot be denied, that, as strictly analogical, they would be well entitled to sue out their naturalization. [Not that these terms were formerly always employed in the same signification and contrast which they now obtain. For a history of these variations, see Part II. chapter ii. p. 243 sq. Since this article was written, the words have in this country re-entered on their ancient rights ; they are now in common use.] * [This line, which was quoted from memory, has, I find, in the original, PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 4:47 Founded by Fichte, but evolved by Schelling, this doctrine re- gards experience as unworthy of the name of science ; because, as only of the phenomenal, the transitory, the dependent, it is only of that which, having no reality in itself, cannot be established as a valid basis of certainty and knowledge. Philosophy must, therefore, either be abandoned, or we must be able to seize the One, the Absolute, the Unconditioned, immediately and in itself. And this they profess to do by a kind of intellectual vision* In this act, reason, soaring above the world of sense, but beyond the sphere of personal consciousness, boldly places itself at the very centre of absolute being, with which it claims to be, in fact, identified ; and thence surveying existence in itself, and in its re- lations, unveils to us the nature of the Deity, and explains, from first to last, the derivation of all created things. M. Cousin is the apostle of Rationalism in France, and we are willing to admit that the doctrine could not have obtained a more eloquent or devoted advocate. For philosophy he has suffered ; 1 furens ;' therefore translated 'Minds mad with reasoning and fancy-fed.' The author certainly had in his eye the ' ratione insanias ' of Terence. It is from a satire by Abraham Kemi, who in the former half of the seventeenth century, was professor Koyal of Eloquence in the University of Paris ; and it referred to the disputants of the Irish College in that illustrious school. The ' Hibernian Logicians' were, indeed, long famed over the continent of Europe, for their acuteness, pugnacity, and barbarism ; as is recorded by Patin, Bayle, Le Sage, and many others. The learned Menage was so de- lighted with the verse, as to declare that he would give his best benefice (and he enjoyed some fat ones) to have written it. It applies, not only with real, but with verbal accuracy, to the German Rationalists / who in Philosophy (as Aristotle has it), ' in making reason omnipotent, show their own impotence of reason,' and in Theology (as Charles II. said of Isaac Vossius), ' believe every thing but the Bible.'] * [' Intellectuette Anschauung." 1 This is doubly wrong. 1, In grammatical rigor, the word in German ought to have been * intellectual.' 2, In phi- losophical consistency the intuition ought to have been called by its authors (Fichte and Schelling), intellectual. For, though this be, in fact, absolutely more correct, yet relatively it is a blunder; for the intuition, as intended by them, is of their higher faculty, the Reason (Vernunft), and not of their lower, the Understanding or Intellect (Verstand). In modern Geiman Philosophy, Verstand is always translated by Intellect ; and this again cor- responds to NoB?.] 448 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. to her ministry he has consecrated himself devoted without reserve his life and labors. Neither has he approached the sanctuary with unwashed hands. The editor of Proclus and Descartes, the translator and interpreter of Plato, and the prom- ised expositor of Kant, will not be accused of partiality in the choice of his pursuits ; while his two works, under the title of Philosophical Fragments, bear ample evidence to the learning, elegance, and distinguished ability of their author. Taking him all in all, in France M. Cousin stands alone : nor can we contem- plate his character and accomplishments, without the sincerest admiration, even while we dissent from the most prominent prin- ciple of his philosophy. The development of his system, in all its points, betrays the influence of German speculation on his opin- ions. His theory is not, however, a scheme of exclusive Ra- tionalism ; on the contrary, the peculiarity of his doctrine con- sists in the attempt to combine the philosophy of experience, and the philosophy of pure reason, into one. The following is a con- cise statement of the fundamental positions of his system. Reason, or intelligence, has three integrant elements, affording three regulative principles, which at once constitute its nature, and govern its manifestations. These three ideas severally sup- pose each other, and, as inseparable, are equally essential and equally primitive, They are recognized by Aristotle and by Kant, in their several attempts to analyze intelligence into its principles ; but though the categories of both philosophers com prise all the elements of thought, in neither list are these elements naturally co-arranged, or reduced to an ultimate simplicity. The first of these ideas r elements, or laws, though funda- mentally one, our author variously expresses, by the terms unity, identity, substance, absolute cause, the infinite, pure thought, &c. ; (we would briefly call it the unconditioned.) The second, he denominates plurality, difference, phenomenon, relative cause, the finite, determined thought, &c. ; (we would style it the con- ditioned.) These two elements are relative and correlative. The first, though absolute, is not conceived as existing absolutely in PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 449 itself; it is conceived as an absolute cause, as a cause which can- not but pass into operation ; in other words, the first element must manifest itself in the second. The two ideas are thus con- nected together as cause and effect ; each is only realized through the other ; and this their connection, or correlation, is the third integrant element of intelligence. / Reason, or intelligence, in which these ideas appear, and which, in fact, they make up, is not individual, is not ours, is not even ( human ; it is absolute, it is divine. What is personal to us, is our free and voluntary activity ; what is not free and not volun- tary, is adventitious to man, and does not constitute an integrant part of his individuality. Intelligence is conversant with truth ; truth, as necessary and universal, is not the creature of my voli- tion ; and reason, which, as the subject of truth, is also universal and necessary, is consequently impersonal. > We see, therefore, by a light which is not ours, and reason is a revelation of God in man. The ideas of which we are conscious, belong not to us, but to ab- solute intelligence. They constitute, in truth, the very mode and manner of its existence. For consciousness is only possible under plurality and difference, and intelligence is only possible through consciousness. The divinejiature is essentially comprehensible. For thejhree^ ideas constitute the nature of the Deity ; and the very nature of ideas is to be conceived. God, in fact, exists to us, only in so far as he is known ; and the degree of our knowledge must always determine the measure of our faith. The relation of God to the universe is therefore manifest, and the creation easily understood. To create, is not to make something out of nothing, for this is contradictory, but to originate from self. We create so often as we exert our free causality, and something is created by us, when something begins to be by virtue of the free causality which belongs to us. To create, is, therefore, to cause, not with nothing, but with the very essence of our being with our force, our will, our personality. The divine creation is of the same character. God, as he is a cause, is able to create ; as he is an absolute cause, 28 450 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. he cannot but create. In creating the universe, he does not draw it from nothing ; he draws it from himself. The creation of the universe is thus necessary ; it is a manifestation of the Deity, but not the Deity absolutely in himself; it is God passing into activ- ity, but not exhausted in the act. The universe created, the principles which determined the cre- ation are found still to govern the worlds of matter and mind. Two ideas and their connection explain the intelligence of God ; two laws in their counterpoise and correlation explain the material universe. The law of Expansion is the movement of unity to variety ; the law of Attraction is the return of variety to unity. In the world of mind the same analogy is apparent. The study of consciousness is psychology. Man is the microcosm of existence ; consciousness, within a narrow focus, concentrates a knowledge of the universe and of God ; psychology is thus the abstract of all science, human and divine. (As in the external world, all phenomena may be reduced to the two great laws of Action and Reaction ; so, in the internal, all the facts of con- sciousness may be reduced to one fundamental fact, comprising, in like manner, two principles and their correlation ; and these principles are again the One or the Infinite, the Many or the \ Finite, and the Connection of the infinite and finite. ^/ In every act of consciousness we distinguish a Self or Ego, and something different from self, a Non-ego / each limited and mod- ified by the other. These, together, constitute the finite element. But at the same instant, when we are conscious of these exist- ences, plural, relative, and contingent, we are conscious, likewise, of a superior unity in which they are contained, and by which they are explained ; a unity absolute as they are conditioned, substantive as they are phenomenal, and an infinite cause as they are finite causes. This unity is GOD. The fact of consciousness is thus a complex phenomenon, comprehending three several terms: 1, The idea of the Ego and Non-ego as Finite; 2, The idea of something else as Infinite; and, 3, The idea of the Rela- PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 451 tion of the finite element to the infinite. These elements are revealed in themselves and in their mutual connection, in every act of primitive or Spontaneous consciousness. They can also be reviewed by Reflection in a voluntary act; but here reflection distinguishes, it does not create. The three ideas, the three cate- gories of intelligence, are given in the original act of instinctive apperception, obscurely, indeed, and without contrast. Reflection analyzes and discriminates the elements of this primary synthesis ; and as will is the condition of reflection, and will at the same time is personal, the categories, as obtained through reflection, have consequently the appearance of being also personal and subjective. It was this personality of reflection that misled Kant : caused him to overlook or misinterpret the fact of spontaneous consciousness ; to individualize intelligence ; and to collect under this personal reason all that is conceived by us as necessary and universal. But as, in the spontaneous intuition of reason, there is nothing voluntary, and consequently nothing personal ; and as the truths which intelligence here discovers, come not from our- selves ; we have a right, up to a certain point, to impose these truths on others as revelations from on high ; while, on the con- trary, reflection being wholly personal, it would be absurd to impose on others what is the fruit of our individual operations. Spontaneity is the principle of religion ; reflection of philosophy. Men agree in spontaneity ; they differ in reflection. The former is necessarily veracious ; the latter is naturally delusive. The condition of Reflection is separation : it illustrates by dis- tinguishing ; it considers the different elements apart, and while it contemplates one, it necessarily throws the others out of view. Hence, not only the possibility, but the necessity of error. The primitive unity, supposing no distinction, admits of no error; reflection in discriminating the elements of thought, and in con- sidering one to the exclusion of others, occasions error, and a variety in error. He who exclusively contemplates the element of the Infinite, despises him who is occupied with the idea of the Finite ; and vice versa. It is the wayward development of the 452 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. various elements of intelligence, which determines the imperfec- tions and varieties of individual character. Men under this par- tial and exclusive development, are but fragments of that human- ity which can only be fully realized in the harmonious evolution of all its principles. What Reflection is to the individual, History is to the human race. The difference of an epoch consists exclu- sively in the partial development of some one element of intelli- gence in a prominent portion of mankind ; and as there are only three such elements, so there are only three grand epochs in the history of man. A knowledge of the elements of reason, of their relations and of their laws, constitutes not merely Philosophy, but is the con- dition of a History of Philosophy. The history of human rea- son, or the history of philosophy, must be rational and philo sophic. It must be philosophy itself, with all its elements, in all their relations, and under all their laws, represented in striking characters by the hands of time and of history, in the manifested progress of the human mind. The discovery and enumeration of all the elements of intelligence enable us to survey the progress of speculation from the loftiest vantage ground ; it reveals to us the laws by which the development of reflection or philosophy is determined ; and it supplies us with a canon by which the approximation of the different systems to the truth may be finally ascertained. And what are the results ? Sensualism, Idealism, Skepticism, Mysticism, are all partial and exclusive views of the elements of intelligence. But each is false only as it is incom- plete. They are all true in what they affirm, all erroneous in what they deny. Though hitherto opposed, they are, conse- quently, not incapable of coalition ; and, in fact, can only obtain their consummation in a powerful Eclecticism a system which shall comprehend them all. This Eclecticism is realized in the doctrine previously developed; and the possibility of such a catholic philosophy was first afforded by the discovery of M. Cousin, made so long ago as the year 1817, ' that consciousness contained laany more phenomena than had previously been suspected.' PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 453 The present course is at once an exposition of these principles, as a true theory of philosophy, and an illustration of the mode in which this theory is to be applied, as a rule of criticism in the history of philosophical opinion. As the justice of the applica- tion must be always subordinate to the truth of the principle, we shall confine ourselves exclusively to a consideration of M. Cousin's system, viewed absolutely in itself. This, indeed, we are afraid will prove comparatively irksome ; and, therefore, soli- cit indulgence, not only for the unpopular nature of the discus- sion, but for the employment of language which, from the total neglect of these speculations in Britain, will necessarily appear abstruse not merely to the general reader. Now, it is manifest that the whole doctrine of M. Cousin is involved in the proposition, that the Unconditioned, the Abso- lute, the Infinite, is immediately known in consciousness, and this by difference, plurality, and relation. The unconditioned, as an original element of knowledge, is the generative principle of his system, but common to him with others ; whereas the mode in which the possibility of this knowledge is explained, affords its discriminating peculiarity. The other positions of his theory, as deduced from this assumption, may indeed be disputed, even if the antecedent be allowed ; but this assumption disproved, every consequent in his theory is therewith annihilated. The recogni- tion of the absolute as a constitutive principle of intelligence, OUT author regards as at once the condition and the end of philoso phy ; and it is on the discovery of this principle in the fact of consciousness, that he vindicates to himself the glory of being the founder of the new eclectic, or the one catholic, philosophy. The determination of this cardinal point will thus briefly satisfy us touching the claim and character of the system. To explain the nature of the problem itself, and the sufficiency of the solu- tion propounded by M. Cousin, it is necessary to premise a state- ment of the opinions which may be entertained regarding the Unconditioned, as an immediate object of knowledge and of thought. 454 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. These opinions may be reduced to four. 1, The Uncondi- tioned is incognizable and inconceivable ; its notion being only negative of the conditioned, which last can alone be positively known or conceived. 2, It is not an object of knowledge ; but its notion, as a regulative principle of the mind itself, is more than a mere negation of the conditioned. 3, It is cognizable, but not conceivable ; it can be known by a sinking back into identity with the absolute, but is incomprehensible by conscious- ness and reflection, which are only of .he relative and the dif- ferent. 4, It is cognizable and conceivable by consciousness and reflection, under relation, difference, and plurality. The first of these opinions we regard as true ; the second is held by Kant ; the third by Schelling ; and the last by our author. 1. In our opinion the mind can conceive, and consequently can know, only the limited, and the conditionally limited. The unconditionally unlimited, or the Infinite, the unconditionally limited, or the Absolute, cannot positively be construed to the mind ; they can be conceived, only by a thinking away from, or abstraction of, those very conditions under which thought itself is realized ; consequently the notion of the Unconditioned is only negative, negative of the conceivable itself. For example, on the one hand we can positively conceive, neither an absolute whole, that is, a whole so great, that we cannot also conceive it as a relative part of a still greater whole ; nor an absolute part, that is, a part so small, that we cannot also conceive it as a rela- tive whole, divisible into smaller parts. On the other hand, we cannot positively represent, or realize, or construe to the mind (as here understanding and imagination coincide),* an infinite whole, * [The Understanding, thought proper, notion, concept, &c., may coincide or not with Imagination, representation proper, image, &c. The two facul- ties do not coincide in a general notion ; for we cannot represent Man or Horse in an actual image without individualizing the universal ; and thus contradiction emerges. But in the individual, say, Socrates or Bucephalus, they do coincide ; for I see no valid ground why we should not tHnk, in the strict sense of the word, or conceive the individuals which we represent. In PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 455 for this could only be done by the infinite synthesis in thought of finite wholes, which would itself require an infinite time for its accomplishment ; nor, for the same reason, can we follow out in thought an infinite divisibility of parts. The result is the same, whether we apply the process to limitation in space, in time, or in degree. 1 The unconditional negation, and the uncondition- al affirmation of limitation ; in other words, the infinite and the absolute, properly so called* are thus equally inconceivable to us. dke manner there is no mutual contradiction between the in f^e and the concept of the Infinite or Absolute, if these be otherwise possible ; for there is not necessarily involved the incompatibility of the one act of cognition with the other.] * It is right to observe, that though we are of opinion that the terms, Infinite and Absolute, and Unconditioned, ought not to be confounded, and accurately distinguish them in the statement of our own view; yet, in speaking of the doctrines of those by whom they are indifferently employed, we have not thought it necessary, or rather, we have found it impossible, to adhere to the distinction. The Unconditioned in our use of language de- notes the genus of which the Infinite and Absolute are the species. [The term Absolute is of a twofold (if not threefold) ambiguity, correspond- ing to the double (or treble) signification of the word in Latin. 1. Absolutum means what is freed or loosed ; in which sense the Absolute will be what is aloof from relation, comparison, limitation, condition, depen- dence, &c., and thus is tantamount to rb Hir6\vTov of the lower Greeks. In this meaning the Absolute is not opposed to the Infinite. 2. Absolutum means finished, perfected, completed ; in which sense the Ab- solute will be what is out of relation, &c., as finished, perfect, complete, total, and thus corresponds to T& 6\ov and T& riXttov of Aristotle. In this acceptation, and it is that in which for myself I exclusively use it, the Ab- solute is diametrically opposed to, is contradictory of, the Infinite. Besides these two meanings, there is to be noticed the use of the word, for the most part in its adverbial form ; absolutely (absolute) in the sense of simply, simpliciter (v*rU #>va/ / }u^The second is equally inadmissible : that God, passing into the universe, passes from a state of comparative imperfection, into a state of comparative perfection. The divine nature is identical with the most perfect nature, and is also identical with the first cause. If the first cause be not identical with the most PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 4:81 perfect nature, there is no God, for the two essential conditions of his existence are not in combination. Now, on the present supposition, the most perfect nature is the derived ; nay the uni- verse, the creation, the yivojxsvov, is, in relation to its cause, the real, the actual, the ovrug ov. It would also be the divine, but that divinity supposes also the notion of cause, while the uni- verse, ex hypotkesi^ is only an effect. It is no answer to these difficulties for M. Cousin to say, that the Deity, though a cause which cannot choose but create, is not however exhausted in the act ; and though passing with all the elements of his being into the universe, that he remains ec tire in his essence, and with all the superiority of the cause over the effect. The dilemma is unavoidable : Either the Deity is in- dependent of the universe for his being or perfection ; on which -^t-r-JL &+ 6 alternative our author must abandon his theory of God, and the necessity of creation : Or the Deity is dependent on his manifes- tation in the universe for his being or perfection ; on which alter- native, his doctrine is assailed by the difficulties previously stated. The length to which the preceding observations have extended, #3 prevents us from adverting to sundry other opinions of our author, which we conceive to be equally unfounded. For exam- ple (to say nothing of his proof of the impersonality of intelligence, because, forsooth, truth is not subject to our will), what can be conceived more self-contradictory than his theory of moral liber- ty ? Divorcing liberty from intelligence, but connecting it with personality, he defines it to be a cause which is determined to act by its proper energy alone. But (to say nothing of remoter difficulties) how liberty can be conceived, supposing always a plurality of modes of activity, without a knowledge of that plu- rality ; how a faculty oan resolve to act by preference in a par- ticular manner, and not determine itself by final causes ; how intelligence can influence a blind power, without operating as an efficient cause ; or how, in fine, morality can be founded on a liberty which, at best, only escaues necessity by taking refuge 4:82 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. with chance : these are problems which M. Cousin, in none of his works, has stated, and which we are confident he is unable to solve. After the tenor of our previous observations, it is needless to say that we regard M. Cousin's attempt to establish a general peace among philosophers, by the promulgation of his Eclectic theory, as a failure. But though no converts to his Uncondi- tioned, and viewing with regret what we must regard as the mis- application of his distinguished talents, we cannot disown a strong feeling of interest and admiration for those qualities, even in their excess, which have betrayed him, with so many other aspiring philosophers, into a pursuit which could only end in disappoint- ment : we mean his love of truth, and his reliance on the pow- ers of man. Not to despair of philosophy is ' a last infirmity of noble minds.' The stronger the intellect, the stronger the confi- dence in its force ; the more ardent the appetite for knowledge, the less are we prepared to canvass the uncertainty of the frui- tion. ' The wish is parent to the thought.' Loth to admit that our science is at best the reflection of a reality we cannot know, we strive to penetrate to existence in itself; and what we have labored intensely to attain, we at last fondly believe we have accomplished. But, like Ixion, we embrace a cloud for a divinity. Conscious only of, conscious only in and through, lim- itation, we think to comprehend the infinite ; and dream even of establishing the science the nescience of man, on an identity with the omniscience of God. It is this powerful tendency of the most vigorous minds to transcend the sphere of our faculties, which makes a ' learned ignorance' the most difficult acquire- ment, perhaps, indeed, the consummation of knowledge. In the words of a forgotten, but acute philosopher, ' Magna, immo maxima pars sapicntice est, qucedam cequo animo nescire veiled ' 1 See the next chapter, 2, for testimonies in regard to the limitation of our knowledge. W. PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 483 ['INFINITAS! INFINITAS! Hie mundus est infinitas. Secare mens at pergito, Infinitas et totus est, (Nam mente numquam absolveris ;) Infinitas et illius Pars quaelibet, partisque pars. Quod tangis est infinitas ; Quod cernis est infinitas ; Quod non vides corpusculum, Sed mente sola concipis, Corpusculi et corpuscnlum, Hujusque pars corpusculi, Partisque pars, hujusque pars, In hacque parte quicquid est, Infinitatem continet. INFINITAS ! INFINITAS ! Proh, quantus heic aceryus est ! Et quam nihil quod nostra mens Ex hoc acervo intelligit ! At ilia Mens vah, qualis est, Conspecta cui stant omnia ! In singulis quae perspicit Quaecunque sunt in singulis Et singulorum singulis !'] Numquam secare desine ; In sectione qualibet Infinitates dissecas. Quiesce mens heic denique, Arctosque nosce limites Queis contineris undique ; Quiesce mens, et limites In orbe cessa quserere. Quod quaeris in te repperis : In mente sunt, in mente Bunt, Hi, quos requiris, termiri; A rebus absunt limites, In hisce tantum infinitas, CHAPTER II. LIMITATION OF THOUGHT AND KNOWLEDGE. I. A DOCTRINE OF THE RELATIVE : THE CATEGORIES OF THOUGHT. THINKING (employing that term as comprehending all our cog- nitive energies 1 ) is of two kinds. It is either A) Negative or B) Positive. A.) Thinking is NEGATIVE (in propriety, a negation of thought), when Existence is not attributed to an object. It is of two kinds ; inasmuch as the one or the other of the conditions of positive thinking is violated. In either case, the result is Nothing. I.) If the condition of Non-contradiction be not fulfilled, there emerges The really Impossible, what has been called in the schools, Nihil purum. II.) If the condition of Relativity be not purified, there results The Impossible to thought ; that is, what may exist, but what we are unable to conceive existing. This impossible, the schools have not contemplated ; we are, therefore, compelled, for the sake of symmetry and precision, to give it a scholastic appellation in the Nihil cogitabile. B.) Thinking is POSITIVE (and this in propriety is the only real thought), when Existence is predicated of an object. By ex- istence is not, however, here meant real or objective existence, but 1 ' Thought and thinking are used in a more, and in a less, restricted signi- fication. In the former meaning they are limited to the discursive energies alone ; in the latter, they are co-extensive with consciousness. In the Car- tesian language, the term thought included all of which we are conscious.' Reid, pp. 222, 270. W. PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 485 only existence subjective or ideal. Thus, imagining a Centaur or a Hippogryph, we do not suppose that the phantasm has any being beyond our imagination ; but still we attribute to it an ac- tual existence in thought. Nay, we attribute to it a possible ex- istence in creation ; for we can represent nothing, which we do not think, as within the limits of Almighty power to realize. Positive thinking can be brought to bear only under two condi- tions ; the condition of I) Non-contradiction, and the condition of II) Relativity. If both are fulfilled, we think Something. I. NON-CONTRADICTION. This condition is insuperable. We think it, not only as a law of thought, but as a law of things ; and while we suppose its violation to determine an absolute im- possibility, we suppose its fulfilment to afford only the Not-im- possible. Thought is, under this condition, merely explicative or analytic ; and the condition itself is brought to bear under three phases, constituting three laws : i.) the law of Identity ; ii.) the law of Contradiction ; iii.) the law of Excluded Middle. The science of these laws is Logic ; and as the laws are only ex- plicative, Logic is only formal. (The principle of Sufficient JRea- son 1 should be excluded from Logic. For, inasmuch as this prin- ciple is not material (material = non-formal), it is only a deriva- tion of the three formal laws ; and inasmuch as it is material, it coincides with the principle of Causality, and is extra-logical.) Though necessary to state the condition of Non-contradiction, there is no dispute about its effect, no danger of its violation. When I, therefore, speak of the Conditioned, I use the term in 1 Sufficient Reason=Sum of Causes. 1 The principle of the Sufficient Rea- son (p. rationis sufficient'^}. called, likewise, by Leibnitz, that of the Deter- mining Reason (p. rationis determinantis} of Convenience (p. convenientioe,) of Perfection (p. perfectionis} and of the Order of Existences (p. existentia- rum) is one of the most extensive, not to say ambiguous, character. For it is employed to denote, conjunctly and severally, the two metaphysical or real principles 1, Why a thing is ( principium or ratio essendi}\ 2, "Why a thing becomes or is produced (p. or r.fiendi) ; and, 3, the logical or ideal principle, Why a thing is known or conceived (p. or r. cognoscendi}.'' Reid, p. 464. W. 486 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. special reference to Relativity. By existence conditioned, is meant, emphatically, existence relative, existence thought under relation. Relation may thus be understood to contain all the categories and forms of positive thought. II.) RELATIVITY. This condition (by which, be it observed, is meant the relatively or conditionally ' relative, and, therefore, not even the relative, absolutely or infinitely) this condition is not insuperable. We should not think it as a law of things, but merely as a law of thought ; for we find that there are contradic- tory opposites, one of which, by the rule cf Excluded Middle, must be true, but neither of which can by us be positively thought, as possible. Thinking, under this condition, is ampliative or syn- thetic. Its science, Metaphysic (using that term in a comprehen- sive meaning) is therefore material, in the sense of non-formal. The condition of Relativity, in so far as it is necessary, is brought to bear under three principal relations ; the first of which springs from the subject of knowledge the mind thinking (the relation of Knowledge) ; the second and third from the object of knowl- edge the thing thought about (the relations of Existence). (Besides these necessary and original relations, of which alone it is requisite to speak in an. alphabet of human thought, there are many relations, contingent and derivative, which we frequently employ in the actual applications of our cognitive energies. Such for example (without arrangement), as True and False, Good and Bad, Perfect and Imperfect, Easy and Difficult, Desire and Aversion, Simple and Complex, Uniform and Various, Singular and Universal, Whole and Part, Similar and Dissimilar, Congru- 1 We can know, we can conceive, only what is relative. Our knowledge of qualities or phenomena is necessarily relative ; for these exist only as they exist in relation to our faculties. The knowledge or even the conception, of a substance in itself, and apart from any qualities in relation to, and therefore cognizable or conceivable by, our minds, involves a contradiction. Of such we can form only & negative notion ; that is, we can merely conceive it as incon- ceivable. But to call this negative notion a relative notion, is wrong ; 1, be- cause all our (positive) notions are relative ; and 2, because this is itself a negative notion i. e. no notion at all simply because there is no relation. Reid, p. 323. W. PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 487 ent and Incongruent, Equal and Unequal, Orderly and Disorderly, Beautiful and Deformed, Material and Immaterial, Natural and Artificial, Organized and Inorganized, Young and Old, Male and Female, Parent and Child, &c., &c. These admit of classification from different points of view ; but to attempt their arrangement at all, far less on any exclusive principle, would here be manifestly out of place.) i.) The relations of Knowledge are those which arise from the reciprocal dependence of the subject and of the object of thought, SELF AND NOT-SELF (Ego and Non-ego, Subjective and Object- ive]. Whatever comes into consciousness, is thought by us, either as belonging to the mental self, exclusively (subjective-subjective), or as belonging to the not-self, exclusively (objective-objective), or as belonging partly to both (subjective-objective). It is diffi- cult, however, to find words to express precisely all the complex correlations of knowledge. For in cognizing a mere affection of self, we objectify it ; it forms a subject-object or subjective object, or subjective-subjective object : and how shall we name and dis- criminate a mode of mind, representative of and relative to a mode of matter ? This difficulty is, however, strictly psycholo- gical. In so far as we are at present concerned, it is manifest that all these cognitions exist for us, only as terms of a correlation. The relations of Existence, arising from the object of knowledge, are twofold ; inasmuch as the relation is either Intrinsic or Ex- trinsic. ii.) As the relation of Existence is Intrinsic, it is that of SUB- STANCE AND QUALITY (form, accident, property, mode, affection, phenomenon, appearance, attribute, predicate, &c.) It may be called qualitative. Substance and Quality are, manifestly, only thought as mutual relatives. We cannot think a quality existing absolutely, in or of itself. We are constrained to think it, as inhering in some basis, substratum, hypostasis, or substance; but this substance cannot be conceived by us, except negatively, that is, as the un- 488 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. apparent the inconceivable correlative of certain appearing qual ities. If we attempt to think it positively, we can think it only by transforming it into a quality or bundle of qualities, which, again, we are compelled to refer to an unknown substance, now supposed for their incogitable basis. Every thing, in fact, may be conceived as the quality, or as the substance of something else. But absolute substance and absolute quality, these are both in- conceivable, as more than negations of the conceivable. It is hardly requisite to observe, that the term substance is vulgarly applied, in the abusive signification, to a congeries of qualities, denoting those especially which are more permanent, in contrast to those which are more transitory. (See the treatise De Mundo, attributed to Aristotle, c. iv.) What has now been said, applies equally to Mind and Matter. As the relation of Existence is Extrinsic, it is threefold ; and as constituted by three species of quantity, it maybe called quan- titative. It is realized in or by: 1. Protensive quantity, Pro- tension or Time ; 2. Extensive quantity, Extension or Space ; 3. Intensive quantity, Intension or Degree. These quantities may be all considered either as Continuous or as Discrete ; and they constitute the three last great relations which we have here to signalize. iii.) TIME, Pretension or protensive quantity, called likewise Duration, is a necessary condition of thought. It may be consid- ered both in itself and in the things which it contains. Considered in itself. Time is positively inconceivable, if we attempt to construe it in thought ; either, on the one hand, as absolutely commencing or absolutely terminating, or on the other, as infinite or eternal, whether ab ante or a post ; and it is no less inconceivable, if we attempt to fix an absolute minimum or to follow out an infinite division. It is positively conceivable : if conceived as an indefinite past, present, or future ; and as an indeterminate mean between the two unthinkable extremes of an absolute least and an infinite divisibility. For thus it is relative. PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 489 In regard to Time Past and Time Future there is compara- tively no difficulty, because these are positively thought as pro- tensive quantities. But Time Present, when we attempt to realize it, seems to escape us altogether to vanish into nonen- tity. The present cannot be conceived as of any length, of any quantity, of any protension, in short, as any thing positive. It is only conceivable as a negation, as the point or line (and these are only negations) in which the past ends and the future begins, in which they limit each other. ' Le moment ou je parle, est deja loin de moi.* In fact, we are unable to conceive how we do exist ; and, specu- latively we must admit, in its most literal acceptation ' Victuri semper, vivimus nunquam.' The Eleatic Zeno's demonstration of the impossibility of Motion, is not more insoluble than could be framed a proof, that the Present has no reality ; for however certain we may be of both, we can positively think neither. So true is it as said by St. Augustin : * What is Time, if not asked, I' know ; but attempting to explain, I know not.' Things in Time are either co-inclusive or co-exclusive. Things co-inclusive if of the same time are, pro tanto, identical, appa- rently and in thought ; if of different times (as causes and effect, causce et causatum), they appear as different, but are thought as identical. Things co-exclusive are mutually, either prior and pos- terior, or contemporaneous. The impossibility we experience of thinking negatively or as non-existent, non-existent, consequently in time (either past or future), aught, which we have conceived positively or as existent, this impossibility affords the principle of Causality, &c. (Spe- cially developed in the sequel.) Time applies to both Substance and Quality ; and includes the other quantities, Space and Degree. iv.) SPACE, Extension or extensive quantity is, in like man- ner, a necessary condition of thought ; and may also be consid- ered, both in itself, and in the things which it contains. 490 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. Considered in itself. Space is positively inconceivable : as a whole, either infinitely unbounded, or absolutely bounded ; as a part, either infinitely divisible, or absolutely indivisible. Space is positively conceivable : as a mean between these extremes ; in other words, we can think it either as an indefinite whole, or as an indefinite part. For thus it is relative. The things contained in Space may be considered, either in relation to this form, or in relation to each other. In relation to Space : the extension occupied by a thing is called its place ; and a thing changing its place, gives the relation of motion in space, space itself being always conceived as immovable, ' stabilise ue manens dat cuncta inoveri.' Considered in relation to each other. Things, spacially, are either inclusive, thus originating the relation of containing and contained ; or co-exclusive, thus determining the relation of posi- tion or situation of here and there. Space applies, proximately, to things considered as Substance ; for the qualities of substances, though they are in, may not oc- cupy, space. In fact, it is by a merely modern abuse of the term, that the affections of Extension have been styled Qualities. It is extremely difficult for the human mind to admit the possibility of unextended substance. Extension, being a condition of posi- tive thinking, clings to all our conceptions ; and it is one merit of the philosophy of the Conditioned, that it proves space to be only a law of thought, and not a law of things. The difficulty of thinking, or rather of admitting as possible, the immateriality of the soul, is shown by the tardy and timorous manner in which the inextension of the thinking subject was recognized in the Christian Church. Some of the early Councils and most of the Fathers maintained the extended, while denying the corporeal, nature of the spiritual principle ; and, though I cannot allow, that Descartes was the first by whom the immateriality of mind was fully acknowledged, there can be no doubt that an assertion PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 491 of the inextension and illegality of the soul, was long and very generally eschewed, as tantamount to the assertion that it was a mere nothing. On space are dependent what are called the Primary Qualities of body, strictly so denominated, and Space combined with De- gree affords, of body, the Secundo-primary Qualities. 1 Our inability to conceive an absolute elimination from space of aught, which we have conceived to occupy space, gives the law of what I have called Ultimate Incompressibility, &c. 2 v.) DEGREE, Intension or intensive quantity, is not, like Time and Space, an absolute condition of thought. Existences are not necessarily thought under it ; it does not apply to Substance, but to Quality, and that in the more limited acceptation of the word. For it does not apply to what have (abusively) been called by modern philosophers the Primary Qualities of body ; these being merely evolutions of Extension, which, again, is not thought un- der Degree. 3 Degree may, therefore, be thought as null, or as existing only potentially. But thinking it to be, we must think it as a quantity ; and, as a quantity, it is positively both incon- ceivable and conceivable. It is positively inconceivable : abso- lutely^ either as least or as greatest; infinitely, as without limit, either in increase or in diminution. On the contrary, it is posi- tively conceivable ; as indefinitely high or higher, as indefinitely low or lower. The things thought under it ; if of the same in- tension are correlatively uniform, if of a different degree, are cor- relatively higher or lower. Degree affords the relations of Actuality and Potentiality, of Action and Passion, of Power active, and Power passive, &c., &c. Degree is, likewise, developed into what, in propriety, are called the Secondary Qualities of body ; and combined with Space, into the Secundo-primary. 4 1 On this distinction, see Part Second, chapter iii. pp. 352, 370. W. 2 Ib. p. 356. W. Ib. p. 354. W. * Ib. p. 370, p. 858, sq. W. 492 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. So much for the Conditions of Thinking, in detail. If the general doctrine of the Conditioned be correct, it yields as a corollary, that Judgment, that Comparison is implied in every act of apprehension ; and the fact, that consciousness can- not be realized without an energy of judgment, is, again, a proof of the correctness of the theory, asserting the Relativity of Thought. The philosophy of the Conditioned even from the preceding outline, is, it will be seen, the express converse of the philosophy of the Absolute, at least, as this system has been latterly evolved in Germany. For this asserts to man a knowledge of the Uncon- ditioned, of the Absolute and Infinite ; while that denies to him a knowledge of either, and maintains, all which we immediately know, or can know, to be only the Conditioned, the Relative, the Phenomenal, the Finite. The one, supposing knowledge to be only of existence in itself, and existence in itself to be appre- hended, and even understood, proclaims ' Understand that you may believe' (' Intellige ut credas') ; the other, supposing that existence, in itself, is unknown, that apprehension is only of phe- nomena, and that these are received only upon trust, as incompre- hensibly revealed facts, proclaims, with the prophet, ' Believe that ye may understand' (' Crede ut intelligas.' Is. vii. 9, sec. Ixx.) But extremes meet. In one respect, both coincide ; for both agree, that the knowledge of Nothing is the principle or re- sult of all true philosophy : ' Sdre NiMl, studium, quo nos Itetamur utrique.' But the one doctrine, openly maintaining that the Nothing must yield every thing, is a philosophic omniscience ; whereas the other, holding that Nothing can yield nothing, is a philosophic nescience. In other words : the doctrine of the Unconditioned is a philosophy confessing relative ignoranfce, but professing ab- solute knowledge ; while the doctrine of the Conditioned is a phi- PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 493 losophy professing relative knowledge, but confessing absolute ig- norance. Thus, touching the absolute : the watchword of the one is, * Noscendo cognoscitur, ignorando ignoratur ;' the watch- word of the other is, ' Noscendo ignoratur, ignorando cognosci- tur.' But which is true ? To answer this, we need only to examine our own consciousness ; there shall we recognize the limited ' ex tent of our tether.' ' Tecum habita, ct n6ris quam sit tibi curta supellex.' But this one requisite is fulfilled (alas ! ) by few ; and the sam< philosophic poet has to lament : ' Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere, nemo ; Sed praocedenti spectatur mantica tergo !' To manifest the utility of introducing the principle of the Con- ditioned into our metaphysical speculations, I shall (always in outline) give one only, but a signal illustration of its importance. Of all questions in the history of philosophy, that concerning the origin of our judgment of Cause and Effect is, perhaps, the most celebrated ; but strange to say, there is not, so far as I am aware, to be found a comprehensive view of the various theories, proposed in explanation, not to say, among these, any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon itself. The phenomenon is this : When aware of a new appearance, we are unable to conceive that therein has originated any new existence, and are, therefore, constrained to think, that what now appears to us under a new form, had previously an existence under others. These others (for they are always plural) are called its cause ; and a cause (or more properly causes) we cannot but suppose 5 for a cause is simply every thing without which the effect would not result, and all such concurring, the effect cannot but result. We are utterly unable to construe it in thought as possible, that the complement of existence has been either increased or diminished. We cannot conceive, either, on the one hand, nothing becoming something, or, on the other, something becoming 494 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. nothing. When God is said to create the universe out of nothing, we think this, by supposing, that he evolves the universe out of himself; and in like manner, we conceive annihilation, only by conceiving the creator to withdraw his creation from actuality into power. ' Nil posse creari Do Nihilo, ncque quod genitu 'st ad Nil revocari ;' Gigni De Nihilo Nihil, in Nihilum Nil posse reverti :' these lines of Lucretius and Persius enounce a physical axiom of antiquity ; which, when interpreted by the doctrine of the Con- ditioned, is itself at once recalled to harmony with revealed truth, and expressing, in its purest form, the conditions of human thought, expresses also, implicitly, the whole intellectual phenomenon of causality. The mind is thus compelled to recognize an absolute identity of existence in the effect and in the complement of its causes, between the causatum and the causa. "We think the causes to contain all that is contained in the effect ; the effect to contain nothing but what is contained in the causes. Each is the sum of the other. ' Omnia mutantur, nihil interitj is what we think, what we must think ; nor can the change itself be thought without a cause. Our judgment of causality simply is : We necessarily deny in thought, that the object which we apprehend as begin- ning to be, really so begins ; but, on the contrary, affirm, as we must, the identity of its present sum of being, with the sum of its past existence. And here, it is not requisite for us to know, under what form, under what combination this quantum previously ex- isted ; in other words, it is unnecessary for us to recognize the particular causes of this particular effect. A discovery of the determinate antecedents into which a determinate consequent may be refunded, is merely contingent, merely the result of experience ; but the judgment, that every event should have its causes, is necessary, and imposed on us, as a condition of our human intelligence itself. This necessity of so thinking, is the only phenomenon to be explained. PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. Now, throwing out of account the philosophers, who, like Dr. Thomas Brown,* quietly eviscerate' the problem of its sole diffi- culty, and enumerating only the theories which do not accommo- date the phenomenon to be explained to their attempts at expla- nation, these are, in all, seven. 1, And, in the first place, they fall into two supreme classes. The one (A) comprehends those theories which consider the causal judgment as adventitious, empirical, or a posteriori, that is, as derived from experience ; the other (B) comprehends those which view it as native, pure, or a priori, that is, as a condition of intel- ligence itself. The twq primary genera, are, however, severally subdivided into various species. 2, The former class (A) falls into two subordinates ; inas- much as the judgment is viewed as founded either on an original (a) or on a derivative (b) cognition. 3, Each of these is finally distributed into two ; according as the judgment is supposed to have an objective or a subjective ori- gin. In the former case (a) it is objective, perhaps objectivo- objective, (1) when held to consist in an immediate apprehension of the efficiency of causes in the external and internal worlds ; and subjective, or rather subjectivo-objective, (2) when viewed as given through a self-consciousness alone of the efficiency of our own volitions. In the latter case (b) it is regarded, if objective (3), as a product of induction and generalization j if subjective (4), as a result of association and custom. 4, In like manner, the latter supreme class (B) is divided into two, according as the opinions under it, view in the causal judgment, a law of thought : either ultimate, primary (c) ; or secondary, derived (d). * The fundamental vice of Dr. Brown's theory has been, with great acute- ness, exposed by his successor, Professor Wilson. (See Blackwood's Maga- zine, July 1836, vol. xl. p. 122, sq.) 1 ' In this theory, the phenomenon to be saved is silently or in effect evac- uated of its principal quality the quality of Necessity ; for the real problem is to explain how it is that we 'cannot but think that'all which begins to be has not an absolute but only a relative commencement. These philosophers do not anatomize but truncate." 1 Keid, p. 604. W. 496 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 5, It is a corollary of the former doctrine (c), (which is not subdivided), that the judgment is a positive act, an affirmative deliverance of intelligence (5). The latter doctrine (d), on the other hand, considers the judgment as of a negative character ; and is subdivided into two. For some maintain that the princi- ple of causality may be resolved into the principle of Contradic- tion, or, more properly, non-contradiction (6); whilst, though not previously attempted, it may be argued that the judgment of causality is a derivation from the Condition of Relativity in Time (7). First and Second theories. Of these seven opinions, the first has always been held in combination with the second ; whereas, the second has been frequently held by those who abandon the first. Considering them together, that is, as the opinion, that we immediately apprehend the efficiency of causes external or inter- nal ; this is obnoxious to two fatal objections. The first is, that we have no such apprehension, no such ex- perience. It is now, indeed, universally admitted, that we have no perception of the causal nexus in the material world. Hume it was, who decided the opinion of philosophers upon this point. But though he advances his refutation of the vulgar doctrine as original, he was, in fact, herein only the last of a long series of metaphysicians, some of whom had even maintained their thesis not less lucidly than the Scottish skeptic. I cannot indeed be- lieve, that Hume could have been ignorant of the anticipation. But whilst surrendering the first, there are many philosophers who still adhere to the second opinion ; a theory which has been best stated and most strenuously supported by the late M. Maine de Bi- ran, one of the acutest metaphysicians of France. I will to move my arm, and I move it. When we analyze this phenomenon, says De Biran, the following are the results : 1, the consciousness of an act of will; 2, the consciousness of a motion produced; 3, the consciousness of a relation of the motion to the volition. And what is this relation ? Not one of simple succession. The will is not for us an act without efficiency ; it is a productive energy ; PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 497 so that, in a volition, there is given to us the notion of cause ; and this notion we subsequently project out from our internal activities into the changes of the external world. But the empirical fact, here asserted, is incorrect. For between the overt fact of corpo- real movement, which we perceive, and the internal act of the will to move, of which we are self-conscious, there intervenes a series of intermediate agencies, of which we are wholly unaware ; consequently, we can have no consciousness, as this hypothesis maintains, of any causal connection between the extreme links of this chain, that is, between the volition to move and the arm moving. 1 But independently of this, the second objection is fatal to the theory which would found the judgment of causality on any em- pirical apprehension whether of the phenomena of mind or of the phenomena of matter. Admitting the causal efficiency to be cog- nizable, and perception with self-consciousness to be competent for its apprehension, still as these faculties can inform us only of individual causations, the quality of necessity and consequent universality by which this judgment is characterized remains wholly unexplained. (See Cousin on Locke.) So much for the two theories at the head of our enumeration. As the first and second opinions have been usually associated, so also have been the third and fourth. Third theory. In regard to the third opinion it is manifest, that the observation of certain phenomena succeeding certain other phenomena, and the generalization, consequent thereon, that these are reciprocally causes and effect, it is manifest that this could never of itself have engendered, not only the strong, but the irresistible, conviction, that every event must have its causes. Each of these observations is contingent, and any num- ber of observed contingencies will never impose upon us the con- sciousness of necessity, that is, the consciousness of an inability to think the opposite. This theory is thus logically absurd. For it 31 'See p. , above. W. 498 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. would infer as a conclusion, the universal necessity of the causal judgment, from a certain number of actual consecutions ; that is, it would collect that all must be, because some are. Logically absurd, it is also psychologically false. For we find no difficulty in conceiving the converse of one or of all observed consecutions , and yet, the causal judgment which, ex hypothesi, is only the re- sult of these observations, we cannot possibly think, as possibly unreal. We have always seen a stone returning to the ground when thrown into the air ; but we find no difficulty in represent- ing to ourselves some or all stones rising from the earth ; nay, we can easily suppose even gravitation itself to be reversed. Only, we are unable to conceive the possibility of this or of any other event, without a cause. Fourth opinion. Nor does the fourth theory afford a better solution. The necessity of so thinking, cannot be derived from a custom of so thinking. The force of custom, influential as it may be, is still always limited to the customary ; and the custom- ary never reaches, never even approaches, to the necessary. As- sociation may explain a strong and special, but it can never ex- plain a universal and absolutely irresistible belief. On this theory, also, when association is recent, the causal judgment should be weak, and rise only gradually into full force, as custom becomes inveterate. But we do not find that this judgment is feebler in the young, stronger in the old. In neither case, is there less and more ; in both cases the necessity is complete. Mr. Hume pat- ronized the opinion, that the causal judgment is an offspring of experience engendered upon custom. But those have a sorry in- sight into the philosophy of that great thinker who suppose, like Brown, that this was a dogmatic theory of his own, or one con- sidered satisfactory by himself. On the contrary, in his hands it was a reduction of the prevalent dogmatism to palpable absurd- ity, by showing out the inconsistency of its results. To the Lockian sensualism, Hume proposed the problem, to account for the phenomenon of necessity in our thought of the causal That philosophy afforded no other principle than the PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 499 custom of experience, through which even the attempt at a solu tion could be made ; and the principle of custom Hume shows could never account for the product of any real necessity. The alternative was plain. Either the doctrine of sensualism is false ; or our nature is a delusion. Shallow thinkers admitted the latter alternative, and were lost ; profound thinkers, on the contrary, were determined to build philosophy on a deeper foundation than that of the superficial edifice of Locke ; and thus it is, that Hume has, immediately or mediately, been the cause or the occasion of whatever is of principal value in the subsequent speculations of Scotland, Germany, and France. Fifth theory. In regard to the second supreme genus (B), the first of the three opinions which it contains (the fifth in gen- eral) maintains that the causal judgment is a primary datum, a positive revelation of intelligence. To this are to be referred the relative theories of Leibnitz, Reid, Kant, Stewart, Cousin, and the majority of recent philosophers. To this class Brown like- wise belongs ; inasmuch as he idly refers what remains in his hands of the evacuated phenomenon to an original belief. Without descending to details, it is manifest in general, that against the assumption of a special principle, which this doctrine makes, there exists a primary presumption of philosophy. This is the law of parsimony ; which prohibits, without a proven ne- cessity, the multiplication of entities, powers, principles, or causes ; above all, the postulation of an unknown force where a known impotence can account for the phenomenon. We are, therefore, entitled to apply ' Occam's razor' to this theory of causality, unless it be proved impossible to explain the causal judgment at a cheaper rate, by deriving it from a common, and that a negative, principle. On a doctrine like the present is thrown the burden of vindicating its necessity, by showing that unless a special and positive principle be assumed, there exists no competent mode to save the phenomenon. The opinion can therefore only bo admitted provisorily ; and it falls, of course, if what it would explain can be explained on less onerous conditions* 500 PHILOSOPHY OF THK CONDITIONED. Leaving, therefore, this theory, which certainly does account for the phenomenon, to fall or stand, according as either of the two remaining opinions be, or be not, found sufficient, I go on to this consideration. Sixth opinion. Of these, the former, that is, the sixth theory, lias been long exploded. It attempts to establish the causal judg- ment upon the principle of Contradiction. Leibnitz was too acute a metaphysician to attempt the resolution of the principle of Sufficient Reason or Causality, which is ampliative or syn- thetic, into the principle of Contradiction, which is merely ex- plicative or analytic. But his followers were not so wise. Wolf, Baumgarten, and many other Leibnitians, paraded demonstrations of the law of Sufficient Reason on the ground of the law of Con- tradiction; but the reasoning always proceeds on a covert as- sumption of the very point in question. The same argument is, however, at an earlier date, to be found in Locke, while modifi- cations of it are also given by Hobbes and Samuel Clarke. Hume, who was only aware of the demonstration, as proposed by the English metaphysicians, honors it with a refutation which has obtained even the full approval of Reid ; whilst by foreign phi- losophers, the inconsequence of the reduction, at the hands of the Wolfian metaphysicians, has frequently been exposed. I may therefore pass it in silence. Seventh opinion. The field is thus open for the last theory, which would analyze the judgment of causality into a form of the mental law of the Conditioned. This theory, which has not hitherto been proposed, comes recommended by its cheapness and simplicity. It postulates no new, no express, no positive princi- ple. It merely supposes that the mind is limited ; the law of limitation, the law of the Conditioned constituting, in one of its applications, the law of Causality. The mind is astricted to think in certain forms ; and, under these, thought is possible only in the conditioned interval between two unconditioned contradic- tory extremes or poles, each of which is altogether inconceivable, but of which, on the principle of Excluded Middle, the one or the PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 501 other is necessarily true. In reference to the present question, it need only be recapitulated, that we must think under the condi- tion of Existence, Existence Relative, and Existence Relative in Time. But what does existence relative in time imply ? It implies, 1, that we are unable to realize in thought : on the one pole of the irrelative, either an absolute commencement, or an absolute termination of time; as on the other, either an infinite non-commencement, or an infinite non-termination of time. It implies, 2, that we can think, neither, on the one pole, an abso- lute minimum, nor, on the other, an infinite divisibility of time. Yet these constitute two pairs of contradictory propositions; which, if our intelligence be not all a lie, cannot both be true, whilst, at the same time, either the one or the other necessarily must. But, as not relatives, they are not cogitables. Now the phenomenon of causality seems nothing more than a corollary of the law of the conditioned, in its application to a thing thought under the form or mental category of existence relative in time. We cannot know, we cannot think a thing, ex- cept under the attribute of existence ; we cannot know or think a thing to exist, except as in time ; and we cannot know or think a thing to exist in time, and think it absolutely to commence. Now this at once imposes on us the judgment of causality. And thus : An object is given us, either by our presentative, or by our representative, faculty. As given, we cannot but think it ex- istent, and existent in time. But to say, that we cannot but think it to exist, is to say, that we are unable to think it non-existent, to think it away, to annihilate it in thought. And this we cannot do. We may turn away from it ; we may engross our attention with other objects ; we may, consequently, exclude it from our thought. That we need not think a thing is certain : but thinking it, it is equally certain that we cannot think it not to exist. So much will be at once admitted of the present ; but it may probably be denied of the past and future. Yet if we make the experiment, we shall find the mental annihilation of an object, equally impossible under time past, and present, and fu- 502 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. ture. To obviate, however, misapprehension, a very simple observation may be proper. In saying that it is impossible to annihilate an object in thought, in other words, to conceive aL non-existent, what had been conceived as existent, it is of course not meant, that it is impossible to imagine the object wholly changed in form. We can represent to ourselves the elements of which it is composed, divided, dissipated, modified in any way ; we can imagine any thing of it, short of annihilation. But the complement, the quantum, of existence, thought as constituent of an object, that we cannot represent to ourselves, either as in : creased, without abstraction from other entities, or as diminished, without annexation to them. In short, we are unable to construe it in thought, that there can be an atom absolutely added to, or absolutely taken away from, existence in general. Let us make the experiment. Let us form to ourselves a concept of the uni- verse. Now, we are unable to think, that the quantity of exist- ence, of which the universe is the conceived sum, can either be amplified or diminished. We are able to conceive, indeed, the creation of a world ; this indeed as easily as the creation of an atom. But what is our thought of creation ? It is not a thought of the mere springing of nothing into something. On the con- trary, creation is conceived, and is by us conceivable, only as the evolution of existence from possibility into actuality, by the fiat of the deity. Let us place ourselves in imagination at its very crisis. Now, can we construe it to thought, that the moment after the universe flashed into material reality, into manifested being, that there was a larger complement of existence in the universe and its author together, than, the moment before, there subsisted in the deity alone ? This we are unable to imagine. And what is true of our concept of creation, holds of our concept of anni- hilation. We can think no real annihilation, no absolute sink- ing of something into nothing. But, as creation is cogitable by us, only as a putting forth of divine power, so is annihilation by us only conceivable, as a withdrawal of that same power. All that is now actually existent in the universe, this we think and PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 503 must think, as having, prior to creation, virtually existed in the creator ; and in imagining the universe to be annihilated, we can only conceive this, as the retractation by the deity of an overt energy into latent power. In short, it is impossible for the human mind to think what it thinks existent, lapsing into non-existence, either in time past or in time future. Our inability to think what we have once conceived existent in time, as in time becoming non-existent, corresponds with our inability to think, what we have conceived existent in space, as in space becoming non-existent. We cannot realize it to thought, that a thing should be extruded, either from the one quantity or from the other. Hence, under extension, the law of ultimate incompressibility ; under protension, the law of cause and effect. I have hitherto spoken only of one inconceivable pole of the conditioned, in its application to existence in time, of the absolute extreme, as absolute commencement and absolute termination. The counter or infinite extreme, as infinite regress or non-com- mencement and infinite progress or non-termination, is equally unthinkable. With this latter we have, however, at present nothing to do. Indeed, as not obtrusive, the Infinite figures far less in the theatre of mind, and exerts a far inferior influence in the modification of thought, than the Absolute. It is, in fact, both distant and delitescent ; and in place of meeting us at every turn, it requires some exertion on our part to seek it out. It is the former and more obtrusive extreme it is the Absolute alone which constitutes and explains the mental manifestation of the causal judgment. An object is presented to our observation which has phenominally begun to be. But we cannot construe it to thought, that the object, that is, this determinate complement of existence, had really no being at any past moment ; because, in that case, once thinking it as existent, we should again think it as non-existent, which is for us impossible. What then can we must we do ? That the phenomenon presented to us, did, as a phenomenon, begin to be this we know by experience ; but that the elements of its existence only began, when the phenome- 504: PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. non which they constitute came into manifested being this we are wholly unable to think. In these circumstances how do we proceed ? There is for us only one possible way. "We are com- pelled to believe that the object (that is, the certain quale and quantum of being), whose phenomenal rise into existence we have witnessed, did really exist prior to this rise, under other forms. But to say, that a thing previously existed under different forms, is only to say, in other words, that a thing had causes. (It would be here out of place to refute the error of philosophers, in supposing that any thing can have a single cause ;* meaning always by a cause that without which the effect would not have been. I speak of course only of second causes, for of the divine causation we can form no conception.) I must, however, now cursorily observe, that nothing can be more erroneous in itself, or in its consequences more fertile in delusion than the common doctrine, that the causal judgment is elicited, only when we apprehend objects in consecution, and uni- form consecution. No doubt, the observation of such succession prompts and enables us to assign particular causes to particular effects. But this assignation ought to be carefully distinguished from the judgment of causality absolutely. This consists, not in the empirical and contingent attribution of this phenomenon, as cause, to that phenomenon, as effect ; but in the universal neces- sity of which we are conscious, to think causes for every event, whether that event stand isolated by itself, and be by us referable to no other, or whether it be one in a series of successive phe- nomena, which, as it were, spontaneously arrange themselves ' There is no reason why whatever is conceived as necessarily going to the constitution of the phenomenon called the effect in other words, why al] rind each of its coefficients may not be properly called causes, or rather con- causes ; for there must always be more causes than one to an effect. This would be more correct than to give exclusively the name of Cause to any partial constituent or coefficient, even though proximate and principal. In this view, the doctrine of Aristotle and other ancients, is more rational than that of our modern philosophers.' Reid, p. 607. W. PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 505 under the relation of effect and cause. On this, not sunken, rock, Dr. Brown and others have been shipwrecked. The preceding doctrine of causality seems to me the one pref- erable, for the following, among other reasons. In the first place, to explain the phenomena of the casual judgment, it postulates no new, no extraordinary, no express principle. It does not even proceed on the assumption of a posi- tive power ; for while it shows, that the phenomenon in nuestion is only OLfe of a class, it assigns, as their common cause, only a negative impotence. In this respect, it stands advantageously contrasted with the only other theory which saves the phenome- non, but which saves it, only on the hypothesis of a special prin- ciple, expressly devised to account for this phenomenon alone. But nature never works by more, and more complex instruments than are necessary ^rfisv rtspirrus : and to excogitate a particu- lar force to perform what can be better explained on the ground of a general imbecility, is contrary to every rule of philoso- phizing. But, in the second place, if there be postulated an express and positive affirmation of intelligence, to account for the mental deliverance, that existence cannot absolutely commence; we must equally postulate a counter affirmation of intelligence, posi- tive and express, to explain the counter mental deliverance, that existence cannot infinitely not commence. The one neces- sity of mind is equally strong as the other ; and if the one be a positive datum, an express testimony of intelligence, so likewise must be the other. But they are contradictories ; and, as con- tradictories they cannot both be true. On this theory, therefore, the root of our nature is a lie. By the doctrine, on the contrary, which I propose, these contradictory phenomena are carried up into the common principle of a limitation of our faculties. In- telligence is shown to be feeble, but not false ; our nature is, thus, not a lie, nor the author of our nature a deceiver. In the third place, this simpler and easier doctrine, avoids a most serious inconvenience which attaches to the more difficult 506 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED and complex. It is this. To suppose a positive and special prin- ciple of causality, is to suppose that there is expressly revealed to us, through intelligence, an affirmation of the fact, that there exists no free causation ; that is, that there is no cause which is not itself merely an effect, existence being only a series of deter- mined antecedents and determined consequents. But this is an assertion of Fatalism. Such, however, many of the partisans of that doctrine will not admit. An affirmation of absolute neces- sity is, they are aware, virtually the negation of a moral universe, consequently of the moral governor of a moral universe. But this is Atheism. Fatalism and Atheism are, indeed, convertible terms. 1 The only valid arguments for the existence of a God, and for the immortality of the human soul, rest on the ground of man's moral nature ; consequently, if that moral nature be anni- hilated, which in any scheme of thorough-going necessity it is, every conclusion, established on such a nature, is annihilated like- wise. Aware of this, some of those who make the judgment of causality a positive dictate of intelligence, find themselves com- pelled, in order to escape from the consequences of their doctrine, to deny that this dictate, though universal in its deliverance, should be allowed to hold universally true ; and accordingly, they would exempt from it the facts of volition. Will, they hold to be a free cause, a cause which is not an effect ; in other words, they attribute to it the power of absolute origination. But here their own principle of causality is too strong for them. They say, that it is unconditionally promulgated, as an express and positive law of intelligence, that every origination is an apparent only, not a real, commencement. Now to exempt certain phe- nomena from this universal law, on the ground of our moral con- sciousness, cannot validly be done. For, in the first place, this 1 ' It can easily be proved to those who are able and not afraid to reason, that the doctrine of Necessity is subversive of religion, natural and reveal- ed ; and, Fatalism involving Atheism, the Necessitarian who intrepidly fol- lows out his scheme to its consequences, however monstrous, will consist- ently reject every argument which proceeds upon the supposition of a Deity and divine attributes.' Eeid, p. 617. W. PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 507 would be an admission, that the mind is a complement of con- tradictory revelations. If mendacity be admitted of some of our mental dictates, we cannot vindicate veracity to any. If one be delusive, so may all. ' Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.' Ab- solute skepticism is here the legitimate conclusion. But, in the second place, waving this conclusion, what right have we, on this doctrine, to subordinate the positive affirmation of causality to our consciousness of moral liberty, what right have we, for the interest of the latter, to derogate from the former? We have none. If both be equally positive, we are not entitled to sacri- fice the alternative, which our wishes prompt us to abandon. But the doctrine which I propose is not obnoxious to these objections. It does not maintain, that the judgment of causality is dependent on a power of the mind, imposing, as necessary in thought, what is necessary in the universe of existence. On the contrary, it resolves this judgment into a mere mental impotence, an impotence to conceive either of two contradictories. And as the one or the other of contradictories must be true, whilst both cannot ; it proves that there is no ground for inferring a certain fact to be impossible, merely from our inability to conceive it possible. At the same time, if the causal judgment be not an express affirmation of mind, but only an incapacity of thinking the opposite ; it follows that such a negative judgment cannot counterbalance the express affirmative, the unconditional testi- mony, of consciousness, that we are, though we know not how, the true and responsible authors of our actions, not merely the worthless links in an adamantine series of eifects and causes. It appeai-s to me, that it is only on such a doctrine, that we can philosophically vindicate the liberty of the human will, that we can rationally assert to man * fatis avolsa voluntas.' How the will can possibly be free, must remain to us, under the present limitation of our faculties, wholly incomprehensible. 1 We are 1 ' To conceive a free act, is to conceive an act which, being a cause, is not itself an effect ; in other words, to conceive an absolute commencement. But is such by us conceivable ?' Keid, p 602. W. 508 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. unable to conceive an absolute commencement ; we cannot, therefore, conceive a free volition. A determination by motives, cannot, to our understanding, escape from necessitation. 1 Nay, I ' A motive, abstractly considered, is called ;m ctud urinal cause. It was well denominated in the Greek philosophy, rd Zveica oH that for the sake of which. A motive, however, in its concrete reality, is nothing apart from the mind ; only a mental tendency.' ' If Motives "influence to action," they must co-operate in producing a certain effect upon the agent ; and the determination to act, and to act in a certain manner is that effect. They are thus, on Eeid's own view, in this relation, causes, and efficient causes. It is of no consequence in the argu- ment whether motives be said to determine a man to act or to influence (that is to determine) him to determine himself to act. It does not, therefore, seem consistent to say that motives are not causes, and that they do not act? I 1 shall now,' says Leibnitz, in his controversy with Clark, ' come to an objection raised here, against my comparing the Aveights of a balance with the motives of the Will. It is objected, that a balance is merely passive, and moved by the weights ; whereas agents intelligent; and endowed with will, are active. To this I answer, that the principle of the want of a suffi- cient reason, is common both to agents and patients. They want a sufficient reason of their action, as well as of their passion. A balance does not only not act when it is equally pulled on both sides, but the equal weights like- wise do not act when they are in an equilibrium, so that one of them cannot go down without the other rising up as much. 4 It must also be considered that, properly speaking, motives do not act upon the mind as weights do upon a balance ; but it is rather the mind that acts by virtue of the motives, which are its dispositions to act. And, there- fore, to pretend, as the author does here, that the mind prefers sometimes weak motives to strong ones, and even that it prefers that which is indiffer- ent before motives this, I say, is to divide the mind from the motives, as if they were without the mind, as the weight is distinct from the balance, and as if the mind had, besides motives, other dispositions to act, by virtue of which it could reject or accept the motives. Whereas, in truth, the motives comprehend all the dispositions which the mind can have to act voluntarily ; for they include not only the reasons, but also the inclinations arising from passions or other preceding impressions. Wherefore, if the mind should prefer a weak inclination to a strong one, it would act against itself, and oth- erwise than it is disposed to act. Which shows that the author's notions, contrary to mine, are superficial, and appear to have no solidity in them, when they are well considered. ' To assert, also, that the mind may have good reasons to act, when it has no motives, and when things are absolutely indifferent, as the author ex- plains himself here this, I say, is a manifest contradiction ; for, if the mind has good reasons for taking the part it takes, then the things are not indif- ferent to the mind.' Collection of Papers, tc., Leibnitz's Fifth Paper, 14-16. PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 509 were we even to admit as true, what we cannot think as possible, still the doctrine of a motiveless volition would be only casual- ism ; and the free acts of an indifferent, are, morally and ration- ally, as worthless as the pre-ordered passions of a determined will. How, therefore, I repeat, moral liberty is possible in man or God, we are utterly unable speculatively to understand. 1 But ' The death of Leibnitz terminated his controversy with Clarke ; but a de- fence of the fifth and last paper of Leibnitz against the answer of Clarke, by Thummig, was published, who, in relation to the poiut in question, says " The simile of the balance is very unjustly interpreted. No resemblance is intended between scales and motives It is of no consequence whether, in their reciprocal relations, the scales are passive, while the mind is active, since, in this respect, there is no comparison attempted. But, in so far as the principle of Sufficient Eeason is concerned, that principle ap- plies equally to actions and passions, as has been noticed by Baron Leibnitz. . . . . . . It is to philosophize very crudely concerning mind, and to image every thing in a corporeal manner, to conceive that actuating reasons are something external, which make an impression on the mind, and to dis- tinguish motives from the active principle (principio actionis) itself." (In KoeKUr^i German Translation of t7iese Papers.} * On the supposition that the sum of influences (motives, dispositions, ten- dencies) to volition A, is equal to 12, and the sum of influences to counter volition B, equal to 8 can we conceive that the determination of volition A should not be necessary ? We can only conceive the volition B to be deter- mined by supposing that the man creates (calls from non-existence into ex- istence) a certain supplement of influences. But this creation as actual, or, in itself, is inconceivable, and even to conceive the possibility of this incon- ceivable act, we must suppose some cause by which the man is determined to exert it. We thus, in thought, never escape determination and necessity. It will be observed, that I do not consider this inability to the notion, any disproof of ihefact of Free Will.' Keid, pp. 607, 610-11. W. 1 Is the person an original undetermined cause of the determination of his will ? If he be not, then is he not a free agent, and the scheme of Necessity is admitted. If he be, in the first place, it is impossible to conceive the pos- sibility of this ; and, in the second, if the fact, though inconceivable, be al- lowed, it is impossible to see how a cause, undetermined by any motive, can be a rational, moral, and accountable, cause. There is no conceivable medium between Fatalism and Casualism ; and the contradictory schemes of Liberty and Necessity themselves are inconceivable. For, as we cannot compass in thought an undetermined cause an absolute commencement the fundamental hypothesis of the one ; so we can as little think an infinite series of determined causes of relative commencements the fundamental hypothesis of the other. The champions of the opposite doctrines, are thus at once resistless in as- sault, and impotent in defence. Each is hewn down, and appears to die 510 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. practically, the fact, that we are free, is given to us in the con sciousness of an uncompromising law of duty, in the conscious- ness of our moral accountability ; and this fact of liberty cannot be redargued on the ground that it is incomprehensible, for the philosophy of the conditioned proves, against the necessitarian, that things there are, which may, nay must be true, of which the understanding is wholly unable to construe to itself the pos- sibility. 1 But this philosophy is not only competent to defend the fact of our moral liberty, possible though inconceivable, against the as- under the home-thrusts of his adversary ; but eacli again recovers life from the very death of his antagonist, and, to borrow a simile, both are like the heroes in Valhalla, ready in a moment to amuse themselves anew in the same bloodless and interminable conflict. The doctrine of Moral Liberty cannot be made conceivable, for we can only conceive the determined and the relative. As already stated, all that can be done, is to show 1, That for the fact of Liberty, we have, immediately or mediately, the evidence of con- sciousness; and, 2, That there are, among the phenomena of mind, many facts which we must admit as actual, but of whose possibility we are wholly unable to form any notion. I may merely observe, that the fact of Motion can be shown to be impossible, on grounds not less strong than those on which it is attempted to disprove the fact of Liberty ; to say nothing of many contradictories, neither of which can be thought, but one of which must, on the laws of Contradiction and Excluded Middle, necessarily "be? Keid, p. 602. W. 1 We must be unable to conceive the possibility of the fact of Liberty. But, though inconceivable, this fact is not therefore false. For there are many contradictories (and, of contradictories, one must, and one only can, be true) of which, we are equally unable to conceive the possibility of either. The philosophy, therefore, which I profess, annihilates the theoretical problem- How is the scheme of Liberty, or the scheme of Necessity, to be rendered comprehensible ? by showing that both schemes are equally inconceivable ; but it establishes Liberty practically as a fact, by showing that it is either itself an immediate datum, or is involved in an immediate datum of con- sciousness. Homrnel, certainly one of the ablest and most decided fatalists, says, 'I have a feeling of Liberty even at the very moment when I am writing against Liberty, upon grounds which I regard as incontrovertible. Zeno was a fatal- ist only in theory ; in practice, he did not act in conformity to that convic- tion.' Among others, Reid's friend, Lord Kames, in the first edition of his { Es- says on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion,' admitted this natu- ral conviction of freedom from necessity, mainlaining it to be illusive. On this melancholy doctrine, PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 511 sault of the fatalist ; it retorts against himself the very objection of incomprehensibility by which the fatalist had thought to tri- umph over the libertarian. It shows, that the scheme of free- dom is not more inconceivable than the scheme of necessity. For whilst fatalism is a recoil from the more obtrusive inconceivability of an absolute commencement, on the fact of which commence- ' Man fondly dreams that he is free in act: Naught is he but the powerless, worthless plaything Of the blind force that in his Will itself Works out for him a dread necessity.' All necessitarians do not, however, admit the reality of this deceitful expe- rience, or fallacious feeling of liberty. ' Dr. Hartley,' says Mr. Stewart, ' was I believe, one of the first, if not the first, who denied that our consciousness is in favor of free agency ;' and in this assertion, he observes, ' Hartley was followed by Priestley and Belsham.' Speaking of the latter, ' We are told,' he says, ' by Mr. Belsham, that the popular opinion that, in many cases, it was in the power of the agent to have chosen diiferently, the previous cir- cumstances remaining exactly the same, arises either from a mistake of the question, or from a forgetfulness of the motives by which our choice was deter- mined? (Philosophy of the Active Powers, ii. p. 510.) To deny, or rather to explain away, the obnoxious phenomenon of a sense of liberty, had, however, been attempted by many Necessitarians before Hartley, and with far greater ingenuity than either he or his two followers displayed. Thus Leibnitz, after rejecting the Liberty of Indifference, says, 'Quamobrem ratio ilia, quam Cartesius adduxit, ad probandum actionum nos- trarum liberarum independentiam, ex jactato quodam mvido sensu interne, vim nullam habet. Non possumus proprie experiri independentiam nostram, nee causas a quibus electio nostra pendet semper percipimus, utpote ssepe sen- sum omnem fugientes. [He here refers to his doctrine of latent mental modifications.] Et perinde est ac si acus magnetica versus polum converti laetaretur ; putaret enim, se illuc converti independenter a qvacunque alia causa, cum non perciperet motus insensibiles materice magnetic-*}.' 1 But, previously to Leibnitz, a similar solution and illustration, I find, had been proposed by Bayle his illustration is a conscious weather-cock , but both philosophers are, in argument and example, only followers of Spinoza. Spinoza, after supposing that a certain quantity of motion had been communicated to a stone, proceeds ' Porro concipe jam si placet, lapidem dum moveri pcrgit cogitare et scire, se quantum potest conari ut moveri pergat. Hie lapis sane, quando quidem sui tantummodo conatus est conscius et minime indifferens, se liberrimum esse et nulla alia de causa in motu perseverare credet quam quia vult. Atque hcec Jiumana iUa libertas est quam omnes habere jactant, et qua, in hoc solo comistit quodnomines sui appetitus sunt conscii, et c^usarum a quibus determinants ignari.' 1 Chrysippus's Top or Cylinder is the source. Reid, pp. 599, 616, 617. W. 512 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. ment the doctrine of liberty proceeds ; the fatalist is shown to overlook the equal, but less obtrusive, inconceivability of an in- finite non-commencement, on the assertion of which non-com- mencement his own doctrine of necessity must ultimately rest. As equally unthinkable, the two counter, the two one-sided, schemes are thus theoretically balanced. But practically, our consciousness of the moral law, which, without a moral liberty in man, would be a mendacious imperative, gives a decisive pre- ponderance to the doctrine of freedom over the doctrine of fate. We are free in act, if we are accountable for our actions. Such ((pwvavra tfuvsror^iv) are the hints of an undeveloped phi- losophy, which, I am confident, is founded upon truth. To this confidence I have come, not merely through the convictions of my own consciousness, but by finding in this system a centre and conciliation for the most opposite of philosophical opinions. Above all, however, I am confirmed in my belief, by the harmony be- tween the doctrines of this philosophy, and those of revealed truth. ' Credo equidem, nee vana fides.' The philosophy of the Condi- tioned is indeed pre-eminently a discipline of humility ; a * learn- ed ignorance,' directly opposed to the false ' knowledge which puf- feth up.' I may indeed say with St. Chrysostom : ' The founda- tion of our philosophy is humility.' (Homil. de Perf. Evang.) For it is professedly a scientific demonstration of the impossibility of that ' wisdom in high matters' which the Apostle prohibits us even to attempt ; and it proposes, from the limitation of the hu- man powers, from our impotence to comprehend what, however, we must admit, to show articulately why the * secret things of God' cannot but be to man ' past finding out.' Humility thus becomes the cardinal virtue, not only of revelation but of reason. This scheme proves, moreover, that no difficulty emerges in the- ology which had not previously emerged in philosophy ; that, in fact, if the divine do not transcend what it has pleased the Deity to reveal, and wilfully identify the doctrine of God's word with some airogant extreme of human speculation, philosophy will be PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 513 found the most useful auxiliary of theology. For a world of false, and pestilent, and presumptuous reasoning, by which philosophy and theology are now equally discredited, would be at once abol- ished, in the recognition of this rule of prudent nescience ; nor could it longer be too justly said of the code of consciousness, as by reformed divines it has been acknowledged of the Bible : ' This is the book, where each his dogma seeks ; And this the book, where each his dogma finds.' Specially ; in its doctrine of causality this philosophy brings us back from, the aberrations of modern theology, to the truth and simplicity of the more ancient church. It is here shown to be as irrational as irreligious, on the ground of human understanding, to deny, either, on the one hand, the foreknowledge, predestina- tion, and free grace of God, or, on the other, the free will of man ; that we should believe both, and both in unison, though unable to comprehend either even apart. This philosophy proclaims with St. Augustin, and Augustin in his maturest writings : * If there be not free grace in God, how can He save the world ; and if there be not free will in man, how can the world by God be judged ?' (Ad Valentinum, Epist. 214.) Or, as the same doctrine is per- haps expressed even better by St. Bernard : 'Abolish free will, and there is nothing to be saved ; abolish free grace, and there is nothing wherewithal to save.' (De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio. c. i.) St. Austin repeatedly declares, the conciliation of the fore- knowledge, predestination, and free grace of God with the free will of man, to be ' a most difficult question, intelligible only to a few.' Had he denounced it as a fruitless question, and (to un- derstanding) soluble by none, the world might hare been spared a large library of acrimonious and resultless disputation. This conciliation is of the things to be believed, not understood. The futile attempts to harmonize these antilogies, by human reasoning to human understanding, have originated conflictive systems of theology, divided the Church, and, as far as possible, dishonored 32 514: PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. religion. It must however be admitted, that confessions of the total inability of man to conceive the union, of what he should believe united, are to be found ; and they are found, not, per- haps less frequently, and certainly in more explicit terms among Catholic than among Protestant theologians. Of the former, I shall adduce only one testimony, by a prince of the Church ; and it is the conclusion of what, though wholly overlooked, appears to me as the ablest and truest criticism of the many fruitless, if not futile, attempts at conciliating * the ways of God' to the understanding of man, in the great articles of divine foreknowledge and predestination (which are both embarrassed by the self-same difficulties), and human free-will. It is the testimo- ny of Cardinal Cajetan, and from his commentary on the Sum- ma Theologiae of Aquinas. The criticism itself I may take another opportunity of illustrating. ' Thus elevating our mental eye to a loftier range [we may suppose that], God, from an excellence supernally transcending human thought, so foresees events and things, that from his providence something higher follows than evitability or inevitability, and that his passive prevision of the event does not determine the alternative of either combination. And can we do so, the intellect is quieted ; not by the evidence of the truth known, but by the in- accessible height of the truth concealed. And this to my poor intellect seems satisfactory enough, both for the reason above stated, and because, as Saint Gregory expresses it, " The man has a low opinion of God, who believes of Him only so much as can be measured by human understanding." Not that we should deny aught, that we have by knowledge or by faith of the immutability, actuality, certainty, universality, and similar attributes of God ; but I suspect that there is something here lying hid, either as regards the rela- tion between the Deity and event foreseen, or as regards the connection be- tween the event itself and its prevision. Thus, reflecting that the intelli- gence of man [in such matters] is as the eye of the owl [in the blaze of day (he refers to Aristotle)], I find its repose in ignorance alone. For it is more consistent, both with Catholic faith and with philosophy, to confess our blindness, than to assert, as things evident, what afford no tranquillity to the intellect ; for evidence is tranquillizing. Not that I would, therefore, accuse all the doctors of presumption | because, stammering, as they could, they have all intended to insinuate, with God's immutability, the supreme and eternal efficiency of His intellect, and will, and power, through the infalli- ble relation between the Divine election and whatever comes to pass. Noth- ing of all this is opposed to the foresaid suspicion that something too deep for us lies hid herein. And assuredly, if it were thus promulgated, no Chris- tian would err in the matter of Predestination, as no one errs in the doctrine PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 515 of the Trinity ;* because of the Trinity the truth is declared orally and in writing, that this is a mystery concealed from human intellect, and to which faith alone is competent. Indeed, the best and most wholesome counsel in this matter is : To begin with those things which we certainly know, and have experience of in ourselves ; to wit, that all proceeding from our free- will may or may not be performed by us, and therefore arc we amenable to punishment or reward ; but how, this being saved, there shall be saved the providence, predestination, &c., of God, to believe what holy mother Church believes. For it is written, "Altiora te ne qusesieris" ("Be not wise in things above thee") ; there being many things revealed to man above thy human comprehension. And this is one of those.' (Pars. I. q. xxii., art. 4.) Averments to a similar effect, might be adduced from the writ- ings of Calvin ; and, certainly, nothing can be conceived more contrary to the doctrine of that great divine, than what has lat- terly been promulgated as Calvinism (and, in so far as I know, without reclamation), in our Calvinistic Church of Scotland. For it has been here promulgated, as the dogma of this Church, by pious and distinguished theologians, that man has no will, agency, moral personality of his own, God being the only real agent in every apparent act of his creatures ; in short (though quite the opposite was intended), that the theological scheme of the abso- lute decrees implies fatalism, pantheism, the negation of a moral governor, and of a moral world. For the premises, arbitrarily assumed, are atheistic ; the conclusion, illogically drawn, is Chris- tian. Against such a view of Calvin's doctrine, 1 for one must humbly though solemnly protest, as not only false in philosophy, but heterodox and ignorant in theology. * This was written before 1507; consequently long before Servetus and Campanus had introduced their Unitarian heresies. 516 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. g pajs ^gg S^-- *3^.H !l|.jt ?.sf^|??si1l PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 517 II. PHILOSOPHICAL TESTIMONIES TO THE LIMITATION OF OUR KNOWLEDGE, FROM THE LIMITATION OF OUR FACULTIES. THESE, which might be indefinitely multiplied, I shall arrange under three heads. I omit the Skeptics, adducing only speci- mens from the others. I. Testimonies to the general fact that the highest knowledge is a consciousness of ignorance. There are two sorts of ignorance : we philosophize to escape ignorance, and the consummation of our philosophy is ignorance ; we start from the one, we repose in the other; they are the goals from which, and to which, we tend ; and the pursuit of knowledge is but a course between two ignorances, as human life is itself only a travelling from grave to grave. ' "IYs jStof ; 'E rvn(3oto Bopuv, hi Tvpftov &<5etfw.' The highest reach of human science is the scientific recognition of human ignorance ; * Qui nescit ignorare, ignorat scire.' This ' learned ignorance' is the rational conviction by the human mind of its inability to transcend certain limits : it is the knowl- J > ' edge of ourselves, the science of man. This is accomplished by a demonstration of the disproportion between what is to be known, and our faculties of knowing, the disproportion, to wit, between the infinite and the finite. In fact, the recognition of human ignorance, is not only the one highest, but the one true, knowledge ; and its first fruit, as has been said, is humility. Simple nescience is not proud ; consummated science is positively humble. For this knowledge it is not, which * pufteth up ;' but its opposite, the conceit of false knowledge, the conceit in truth, as the Apostle notices, of an ignorance of the very nature of knowledge : ' Nam nesciens quid scire sit, Te scire cuncta jactitas.' 518 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. But as our knowledge stands to Ignorance, so stands it also to Doubt. Doubt is the beginning and the end of our efforts to know ; for as it is true, * Alte dubitat qui altius credit,' so it is likewise true, ' Quo magis quserimus magis dubitamus.' The grand result of human wisdom, is thus only a consciousness that what we know is as nothing to what we know not (' Quan- tum est quod nescimus !') an articulate confession, in fact, by our natural reason of the truth declared in revelation, that ' now we see through a glass, darkly.' 1. DEMOCRITUS (as reported by Aristotle, Cicero, Sextus Empiricus, KUI plpos fiij StivaaOai, St]\o1 rb xaAdrdi/ aiiTrjs-) As difficulty, however, arises in two ways ; [in this case] its cause may lie, not in things [as the objects known], but in us [as the subjects knowing]. For as the eye of the bat holds to the light of day, so the intellect [ V0 vs, which is, as it were (Etb, Nic. i. 1), the eye] of our soul, holds to what in nature are of all most manifest.' * * In now translating this passage for a more general purpose, I am strong- ly impressed with the opinion, that Aristotle had in view the special doc- trine of the Conditioned. For it is not easy to see what he could mean by saying, that ' we are unable to have [compass, realize the notions of] Whole and Part,' or of ' some Whole and Part ;' except to say, that we are unable to conceive (of space, or time, or degree) a whole, however large, which is not conceivable as the part of a still greater whole, or a part, however small, which we may not always conceive as a whole, divisible into parts. But this would be implicitly the enouncement of a full doctrine of the Conditioned PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 519 4. PLINY. (Historia Naturalis, L. ii. c. 32.) Ornnia incerta ratione, et in naturae majestate abdita.' 5. TERTULLIAN. (Adversus Haereticos, K iv.) ' Cedat curiositas fidei, ce- dat gloria saluti. Certe, aut non obstrepant, aut quiescant ad versus regulam 'Nihil scire omnia scire est' (De Anima, c. 1.) 'Quis revelabit quod Deus texit ? Unde scitandum ? Quare ignorare tutissimum est. Praes- tat enim per Deum nescire quia non revelaverit, quam per hominem scire quia ipse praesumpserit.' 6. ARNOBIUS. (Contra Gentes, L. ii.) ' Quae nequeunt sciri, nescire nos confiteamur ; neque ea vestigare curemus, quae non posse compre- hendi liquidissimum est.' 7. ST. AUGUSTIW. (Sermo xxvii. Benedictine Edition, vol. v.) ' Quaeris tu rationem, ego expavesco altitudinem. (" O altitudo divitiarum sapientiae et scientiae Dei 1") Tu ratiocinare, ego mirer ; tu disputa, ego credam ; altitudinem video, ad profundum non pervenio Ille dicit, " Inscrutabilia sunt judicia ejus :" et tu scrutari venisti ? Ille dicit, " In- investigates sunt viae ejus :" et tu investigare venisti ? Si inscrutabilia scrutari venisti, et ininvestigabilia investigare venisti ; crede, jam peristi.' (Sermo xciii.) ' Quid inter nos agebatur ? Tu dicebas, Intelligam, ut credam ; ego dicebam, Ut intelligas, crede. Nata est controversia, venia- nius ad judicem, judicet Propheta, immo vero Deus judicet per Prophetam. Ambo taceamus. Quid ambo dixerimus, auditum est. Intelligam, inquis, ut credam ; Crede, inquam, ut intelligas. Respondeat Propheta : " Nisi credideritis, non intelligetis." ' [Isaiah vii. 9, according to the Seventy.] (Sermo cxvii.) ' De Deo loquimur, quid mirum, si non comprehendis ? Si enim comprehendis, non est Deus. Sit pia confessio ignorantice magis quam temeraria professio scientice. Adtingere aliquantum mente Deum, magna beatitude est ; cornprehendere autem, omnino impossible.'* (Sermo clxv.) ' Ideo multi de isto profundo quaerentes reddere rationem, in fabulas vanitatis abierunt.' [Compare Sermo cxxvi. c. i.] (Sermo cccii.) ' Con- Be this however as it may, Aristotle's commentators have been wholly una- ble to reach, even by a probable conjecture, his meaning in the text. Alex- ander gives six or seven possible interpretations, but all nothing to the point; whilst the other expositors whom I have had patience to look into (as Averroes, Javelins, Fonseca, Suarez, Sonerus), either avoid the sentence altogether, or show that they, and the authorities whom they quote, had no glimpse of a satisfactory interpretation. I have been unable to find (on a hurried search) in the able and truly learned ' Essay on the Metaphysics oi Aristotle,' by M. Ravaisson, a consideration of the passage. * A century before Augustin, St. Cyprian had said : ' We can only justly conceive God in recognizing Him to be inconceivable.' I cannot, however, at the moment, refer to the passage except from memory. 520 PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. fessio ignorantiae, gradus est scientiae.' (Epistola cxc. vol. ii.) ' Qua nullo sensu carnis explorari possunt, et a nostra experientia longe remota sunt, atque in abditissimis naturae finibus latent, non erubescendum est homini confiteri se nescire quod nescit, ne dum se scire mentitur, nunquam scire mereatur.' (Epistola cxcvii.) ' Magis eligo cautara ignorantiam con- fiteri, quam falsam scientiam profiteri.' 8. ST. CHRYSOSTOM. ( .) ' Nothing is wiser than ignorance in those matters, where they who proclaim that they know nothing, proclaim their paramount wisdom ; whilst those who busy themselves therein, are the most senseless of mankind.' 9. THEODORET. (Therapeutica, &c., Curative of Greek Affections, Ser- mon 1.) ' The beginning of science is the science of nescience ;' or ' The principle of knowledge is the knowledge of ignorance.' 10. ST. PETER CHRYSOLOGUE. (Sermo li.) ' Nolle omnia scire, summa scientiae est.' 11. 'THE ARABIAN SAGE.' (I translate this and the two following from Drusius and Gale) : ' A man is wise while in pursuit of wisdom ; a fool, when he thinks it to be mastered.' 12. A RABBI: 'The wiser a man, the more ignorant does he feel; as the Preacher has it [i. 18] " To add science is to add sorrow." ' 13. A RABBI : ' "Who knows nothing, and thinks that he knows some- thing, his ignorance is twofold.'* 14. PETRARCH. (De Contemptu Mundi, Dial, ii.) ' Excute pectus tuum acriter ; invenies cuncta quae nosti, si ad ignorata referantur, earn propor- tionem obtinere, quam, collatus oceano, rivulus sestivis siccandus ardoribus : quamquam vel multa nosse, quid revelat ?' 15. CARDINAL DE CUSA. (Opera ed. 1565 ; De Docta Iguorantia, L. i, c. 3, p. 3.) ' Quidditas ergo rerum, quae est entium veritas, in suft puritate inattingibilis est ; et per omnes Philosophos investigata, sed per neminem, * Literally: ' Te, tenebris jactum, ligat ignorantia duplex ; Scis nihil, et nescis te modo scire nihil.' Or, with reference to our German evolvers of the Nothing into the Every- thing ; and avoiding the positio debilis : 4 Te, sophia insanum, terit insipientia triplex; Nil sapis, et nil non te sapuisse doces !' PHILOSOPHY OF THE COND nti est, reperta ; et quanto in hac ignorantia profan4i{j elocti fuerimua, tanto magis ad ipsam accedemus veritatem.' (Ib. c. 17, p. 13). ' Sublata igitur ab omnibus entibus participatione, remanet ipsa simplicissima enti- tas, quae est essentia omnium entium, et non conspicimus ipsam talem en- titatem, nisi in doctissima ignorantia, quoniam cum omnia participantia entitatem ab animo removeo, nihil remanere videtur. Et propterea mag- nus Dionysius [Areopagita] dicit, intellectum Dei, magis accedere ad nihil, quam ad aliquid. Sacra autem ignorantia me instruit, hoc quod .ntellectui nihil videtur, esse maxiaium incomprehensible.' (Apologia Doctae Ignorantiaa, p. 67.) ' Augustinus ait : " Deum potius ignorantia quam scientia attingi." Ignorantia enim abjicit, intelligentia colligit ; doc- ta vero ignorantia omnes modos quibus accedi ad veritatem potest, unit. Ita eleganter dixit Algazel in sua Metaphysica, de Deo : " Quod quisque ecit per probationem necessariam, impossibilitatem suam apprehendendi eum. Ipse sui est cognitor, et apprehensor ; quoniam apprehendit, scire ipsuin a nullo posse comprehendi. Quisquis autem non potest apprehen- dere, et nescit necessario esse impossibile eum apprehendere, per proba- tionem praedictam, est ignorans Deum : et tales sunt omnes homines, ex- ceptis dignis, et prophetis et sapientibus, qui sunt profundi in supientia." Haec ille.' See also: De Beryllo, c. 36, p. 281 ; De Venatione Sapientiae, c. 12, p. 306 ; De Deo Abscondito, p. 338 ; 0.1953 in