THE 
 
 METAPHYSICS 
 
 or 
 
 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, 
 
 COLLECTED, ARRANGED, AND ABRIDGED, 
 
 FOR THE USE OF COLLEGES AND PRIVATE STUDENTS, 
 
 FRAN.C'iS. BO TV EN, 
 
 AiPOKD PROPB880R OF MORAL 
 
 BOSTON: 
 JOHN ALLYN, PUBLISHER,
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1861, by 
 
 SEVER AND FRANC 18, 
 In the Clerk's OSJco.of the District Court of the District of Masaachuaetm 
 
 FIFTEENTH THOUSAND.
 
 3 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IT ts unfortunate that Sir William Hamilton did not 
 undertake fully to digest his metaphysical opinions into 
 system, and to publish them as one orderly and connected 
 wholt~ He had a system, for he was eminently a method- 
 ical fctad self-consistent thinker ; but it was built up piece- 
 meal, and so given to the world, at various times, in succes- 
 sive articles in the Edinburgh Review ; in copious notes, 
 appendices, and other additions to these articles when they 
 were lepublished as a volume of " Discussions," and again, 
 when these "Discussions" passed to a second edition; in 
 the iNotes, and, still more at length, in the Supplementary 
 Dissertations, to his ponderous edition of Reid ; and finally, 
 in the memoranda prepared at different times and for vari- 
 ous purposes, which his English editors gathered up and 
 annexed to the posthumous publication of his " Lectures 
 on Metaphysics." While neither of these works furnishes 
 an outline of his system as a whole, each one of them con- 
 tains a statement, more or less complete, of his principal 
 doctrines and arguments, so that, taken together, they 
 abound in repetitions. Even the" Lectures," which afford 
 the nearest approach to a full and systematic exposition of 
 his opinions, besides laboring under the necessary disad- 
 vantage of a posthumous publication, never finally revised 
 by the author for the press, and probably not even intended 
 by him to be printed, were first written by him in great 
 haste at the time (18-30) of his original appointment to a 
 Professorship in the University of Edinburgh, and seem to 
 have received but few subsequent alterations or additions, 
 though his opinions certainly underwent afterwards con- 
 siderable development and modification. 
 
 As any course of instruction in the Philosophy of Mind
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 at the present day must be very imperfect which does 
 not comprise a tolerably full view of Hamilton's Meta- 
 physics, I have endeavored, in the present volume, to pre- 
 pare a text-book which should contain, in his own language, 
 the substance of all that he has written upon the subject. 
 For this purpose, the " Lectures on Metaphysics " have been 
 taken as the basis of the work ; and I have freely abridged 
 them by striking out the repetitions and redundancies in 
 which they abound, and omitting also, in great part, the 
 load of citations and references that they contain, as these 
 are of inferior interest except to a student of the history of 
 philosophy, or as marks of the stupendous erudition of the 
 author. The space acquired by these abridgments has 
 enabled me to interweave into the book, in their appro- 
 priate place and connection, all those portions of the " Dis- 
 cussions," and of the Notes and Dissertations supplemen- 
 tary to Reid, which seemed necessary either to elucidate 
 and confirm the text, or to supplement it with the later 
 and more fully expressed opinions of the author. These 
 insertions, always distinguished by angular brackets [ ], 
 and referred to the source whence they were drawn, are 
 very numerous and considerable in amount ; sometimes 
 they are several pages long, others do not exceed in length 
 a single paragraph, or even a single sentence. The au- 
 thor's language has invariably been preserved, and where- 
 ever a word or two had to be altered or supplied, to pre- 
 serve the connection, the inserted words have been enclosed 
 in brackets. The divisions between the Lectures, necessa- 
 rily arbitrary, as the limits of a discourse of fixed length 
 could not coincide with the natural division of the subject, 
 have not been preserved in this edition. A chapter here 
 often begins in the middle of a Lecture, and sometimes 
 comprises two or more Lectures. A very few notes, criti- 
 cal or explanatory in character, are properly distinguished 
 as supplied by the American Editor. 
 
 It lias been a laborious, but not a disagreeable task, to 
 examine and collate three bulky octavos, with a view thus 
 to condense their substance into a single volume of moder- 
 ate dimensions. I cannot promise that the work has beeu 
 thoroughly, but only that it has been carefully, done.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAOX 
 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY . 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NATURE AND COMPREHENSION OF PHILOSOPHY 27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CAUSES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND THE DISPOSITIONS 
 WITH WHICH IT OUGHT TO BE STUDIED .... 40 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY 60 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY . . . . .71 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY: RELATIVITY OF HUMAN 
 KNOWLEDGE: EXPLICATION OF TERMS ... 84 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS CONTINUED ... 99 
 
 (T)
 
 d CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF MENTAL PHENOMENA: SPECIAL CON- 
 DITIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS 120 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY . . . 1>J 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY CONTINUED : ITS 
 RELATION TO PERCEPTION, ATTENTION, AND REFLEC- 
 TION i48 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 CONSCIOUSNESS, ITS EVIDENCE AND AUTHORITY . .176 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 VIOLATIONS OF THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN 
 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION . . 198 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 GENERAL PHENOMENA OF CONSCIOUSNESS : ARE WE AL- 
 WAYS CONSCIOUSLY ACTIVE? 215 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 GENERAL PHENOMENA OF CONSCIOUSNESS: Is THE MIND 
 
 KVER UNCONSCIOUSLY MODIFIED ?..... 23.) 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 GENERAL PHENOMENA OF CONSCIOUSNESS: DIFFICULTIES 
 AND FACILITIES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY: CLASSIFI- 
 CATION OF THE COGNITIVE FACULTIES .... 25'
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY: REID'S HISTORICAL VIEW 
 OF THE THEORIES OF PERCEPTION . . . . 27S 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY : PERCEPTION : WAS REID A 
 NATURAL REALIST? '295 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY : THE DISTINCTION OF PER- 
 CEPTION PROPER FROM SENSATION PROPER: PRIMARY 
 
 AND SECONDARY QUALITIES 818 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY: OBJECTIONS TO THE DOC- 
 TRINE OF NATURAL REALISM CONSIDERED: THE REP- 
 RESENTATIVE HYPOTHESIS REFUTED .... 342 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY: GENERAL QUESTIONS RE- 
 LATINO TO THE SENSES: PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND 
 TOUCH 363 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY: RECAPITULATION: H. SELF- 
 CONSCIOUSNESS 389 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 TUB CONSERVATIVE FACULTY: MEMORY PROPER . 409
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIT. 
 
 THE REPRODUCTIVE FACULTY: LAWS OF ASSOCIATION: 
 SUGGESTION AND REMINISCENCE . . . .4*21 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY: IMAGINATION . . 443 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 f 
 
 THE ELABORATIVE FACULTY : CLASSIFICATION : ABSTRAC- 
 TION AND GENERALIZATION: NOMINALISM AND CON- 
 CEPTUALISM . . . . 456 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE ELABORATIVE FACULTY: THE PRIMUM COGNITUM: 
 JUDGMENT AND REASONING . 480 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY: THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE 
 CONDITIONED 499 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY: LAW OF THE CONDITIONED 
 IN ITS APPLICATION TO THE DOCTRINE OF CAUSALITY 531
 
 HAMILTON'S METAPHYSICS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 UTILITY oV THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 SOME things are valuable, finally, or for themselves, these 
 are ends ; other things are valuable, not on their own account, 
 but as conducive towards certain ulterior ends, these are 
 means. The value of ends is absolute, the value of means 
 is relative. Absolute value is properly called a good, rela- 
 tive value is properly called a utility. Of goods, or absolute 
 ends, there are for man but two, perfection -and happinesf 
 By perfection is meant the full and harmonious development of 
 all our faculties, corporeal and mental, intellectual and moral ; 
 by happiness, the complement of all the pleasures of which we 
 are susceptible. 
 
 Now, I may state, though I cannot at present attempt to 
 prove, that human perfection and human happiness coincide, 
 and thus constitute, in reality, but a single end. For as, on the 
 one hand, the perfection or full development of a power is in 
 proportion to its capacity of free, vigorous, and continued 
 action, so on the other, all pleasure is the concomitant of activ- 
 ity ; its degree being in proportion as that activity is sponta- 
 neously intense, it* prolongation in proportion as that activity is 
 spontaneously continued ; whereas, pain arises cither from a 
 faculty being restrained in its spontaneous tendency to actiou, 
 or from being urged to a degree, or to a continuance, of energy 
 1 (1)
 
 2 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 beyond the limit to which it of itself freely tends. To pro- 
 mote our perfection is thus to promote our happiness ; for to 
 cultivate fully and harmoniously our various faculties, is simply 
 to enable them, by exercise, to energize longer and stronger 
 without painful effort ; that is, to afford us a larger amount of a 
 higher quality of enjoyment. 
 
 In considering the utility of a branch of knowledge, it be- 
 Looves us, in the first place, to estimate its value as viewed 
 simply in itself; and, in the second, its value as viewed in rela- 
 tion to other branches. Considered in itself, a science is valua- 
 ble in proportion as its cultivation is immediately conducive to 
 the mental improvement of the cultivator. This may be called 
 its Absolute utility. In relation to others, a science is valuable in 
 proportion as its study is necessary for the prosecution of other 
 branches of knowledge. This may be called its Relative utility. 
 Absolute utility of two kinds Subjective and Objective. 
 In the former point of view, that is, considered absolutely, or in 
 itself, the philosophy of mind comprises two several utilities, 
 according as it, 1, Cultivates the mind or knowing subject, by 
 calling its faculties into exercise ; and, 2, Furnishes the mind 
 with a certain complement of truths or objects of knowledge. 
 The former of these constitutes its Subjective, the latter its 
 Objective utility. These utilities are not the same, nor do they 
 even stand to each other in any necessary proportion. As an 
 individual may possess an ample magazine of knowledge, and 
 utill be little- better than an intellectual barbarian, so the utility 
 of one science may be chit-fly seen in affording a greater num- 
 ber of higher and more indisputable truths, the utility of 
 another in determining the faculties to a higher energy, and 
 consequently to a higher education. 
 
 There are few, I bclie\e, disposed to question the speculative 
 dignity of mental science ; but its practical utility is not unfre- 
 quently denied. To what, it is asked, is the science of mind 
 conducive? What are its uses? 
 
 What is Practical Utility ? I am not one of those who 
 hink tint the importance of a study is sufficiently established 
 vhen i dignity is admitted ; for, holding that knowledge is
 
 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHr. 8 
 
 for the sake of man, and not man for the sake of knowledge, it 
 is necessary, in order to vindicate its value, that every science 
 should be able to show what are the advantages which it prom- 
 ises to confer upon its student. I, therefore, profess myself a 
 utilitarian ; and it is only on the special ground of its utility that I 
 would claim for the philosophy of mind, what I regard as its 
 peculiar and preeminent importance. But what is a utilitarian ? 
 Simply one who prefers the Useful to the Useless and whj 
 does not ? But what is the useful ? That which is prized, not 
 on its own account, but as conducive to the acquisition of some- 
 thing else, the useful is, in short, only another word for a 
 mean towards an end ; for every mean is useful, and whatever 
 is useful is a mean. Now the value of a mean is always in 
 proportion to the value of its end ; and the useful being a mean, 
 it follows, that, of two utilities, the one which conduces to the 
 more valuable end will be itself the more valuable utility. 
 
 So far there is no difference of opinion. All agree that the 
 useful is a mean towards an end ; and that, cceteris paribus, a 
 mean towards a higher end constitutes a higher utility than a 
 mean towards a lower. The only dispute that has arisen, or 
 can possibly arise, in regard to the utility of means (supposing 
 always their relative efficiency), is founded on the various views 
 that may be entertained in regard to the existence and compar- 
 ative importance of ends. 
 
 Two errors in the popular estimate of the comparative utility 
 of human sciences. Now the various opinions which prevail 
 concerning the comparative utility of human sciences and stud 
 ies, have all arisen from two errors. 
 
 The first of these consists in viewing man, not as an end 
 unto himself, but merely as a mean organized for the sake of 
 something out of himself; and, under this partial view of 
 human destination, those branches of knowledge obtain exclu- 
 sively the name of useful, which tend to qualify a human being 
 to act the lowly part of a dexterous instrument. It has been 
 the tendency of different ages, of different countries, of different 
 ranks and conditions of society, to measure the utility of studies 
 rather by one of these standards, than by both. Thus it was
 
 4 UTILITY OP THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the bias of antiquity, when the moral and intellectual cultivation 
 of the citizen was viewed as the great end of all political insti- 
 tutions, to appreciate .all knowledge principally by the nigher 
 standard ; on the contrary, it is unfortunately the bias of our 
 modern civilization, since the accumulation (and not too the 
 distribution) of riches in a country, has become the grand prob- 
 lem of the statesman, to appreciate it rather by the lower. 
 
 The second, and the more dangerous, of these errors consists 
 in regarding the cultivation of our faculties as subordinate to 
 the acquisition of knowledge, instead of regarding the posses- 
 sion of knowledge as subordinate to the cultivation of our fac- 
 ulties ; and, in consequence of this error, those sciences which 
 afford a greater number of more certain facts, have been deemed 
 superior in utility to those which bestow a higher cultivation on 
 the higher faculties of the mind. 
 
 Man an end unto himself. As to the first of these errors, 
 the fallacy is so palpable, that we may well wonder at its prev- 
 alence. It is manifest, indeed, that man, in so far as he is a 
 mean for the glory of God, must be an end unto himself; for it 
 is only in the accomplishment of his own perfection, that, as a 
 creature, he can manifest the glory of his Creator. Though 
 therefore man, by relation to God, be but a mean, for that very 
 reason, in relation to all else is lie an end. Wherefore, now 
 speaking of him exclusively in his natural capacity and tempo- 
 ral relations, I say it is manifest that man is by nature necessa- 
 rily an end to himself, that his perfection and happiness 
 constitute the goal of his activity, to which he tends, and ought 
 to tend, when not diverted from this, his general and native 
 destination, by peculiar and accidental circumstances. But it is 
 equally evident, that, under the condition of society, individual 
 men are, for the most part, to a greater or less degree, actually 
 so diverted. To live, the individual must have the means of 
 living; and these means (unless he already possess them) he 
 must procure, he must purchase. But purchase with what? 
 With his services, i. e. he must reduce himself to an instru- 
 ment, an instrument of utility to others; and the services of 
 this instrument he must barter for those means of subsistence
 
 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 5 
 
 of which he is in want. In other words, he must exercise some 
 trade, calling, or profession. 
 
 Thus, in the actualities of social life, each man, instead of 
 being solely an end to himself, instead of being able to make 
 every thing subordinate to that full and harmonious develop- 
 ment of his individual faculties, in which his full perfection and 
 his true happiness consist, is, in general, compelled to degrade 
 himself into the mean or instrument towards the accomplish- 
 ment of some end external to himself, and for the benefit of 
 others. 
 
 Liberal and Professional Education. Now the perfection 
 of man as an end, and the perfection of man as a mean or in- 
 strument, are not only not the same ; they are, in reality, gen- 
 erally opposed. And as these two perfections are different, 
 so the training requisite for their acquisition is not identical, 
 and has, accordingly, been distinguished by different names. 
 The one is styled Liberal, the other Professional education, 
 the branches of knowledge cultivated for these purposes be- 
 ing called respectively liberal and professional, or liberal and 
 lucrative, sciences. By the Germans, the latter are usually 
 distinguished as the Brodwisscnschaflcn, which we may trans- 
 late, The Bread and Butter Sciences. A few of the professions, 
 indeed, as requiring a higher development of the higher faculties, 
 and involving, therefore, a greater or less amount of liberal 
 education, have obtained the name of liberal professions. We 
 must, however, recollect that this is only an accidental and a 
 very partial exception. But though the full and harmonious 
 development of our faculties be the high and natural destination 
 of all, while the cultivation of any professional dexterity is only 
 a contingency, though a contingency incumbent upon most, it 
 has. however, happened that the paramount and universal end 
 of man, of man absolutely, has been often ignorantly lost 
 eight of, and the term useful appropriated exclusively to those 
 acquirements which have a value only to man considered in his 
 relative, lower, and accidental character of an instrument. But, 
 because; some have thus been led to appropriate the name of 
 useful to those studies and objects of knowledge, which are 
 l*
 
 6 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 conducive to the inferior end, it assuredly does not follow that 
 those conducive to the higher have not a far preferable title to 
 the name thus curiously denied to them. Even admitting, 
 therefore, that the study of mind is of no immediate advantage 
 in preparing the student for many of the subordinate parts in 
 the mechanism of society, its utility cannot, on that account, be 
 called in question, unless it be asserted that man " liveth by 
 bread alone," and has no higher destination than that of the 
 "ailing by which he earns his subsistence. 
 
 Knowledge and intellectual cultivation. The second error 
 to which I have adverted, reverses the relative subordination of 
 knowledge and of intellectual cultivation. In refutation of this, 
 I shall attempt briefly to show, Jirstly, that knowledge and 
 intellectual cultivation are not identical ; secondly, that knowl- 
 edge is itself principally valuable as a mean of intellectual cul- 
 tivation ; and, lastly, that intellectual cultivation is more directly 
 and effectually accomplished by the study of mind than by any 
 other of our rational pursuits. 
 
 But to prevent misapprehension, I may premise what I mean 
 by knowledge, and what by intellectual cultivation. By knowl- 
 edge is understood the mere possession of truths ; by intellectual 
 cultivation, or intellectual development, the power, acquired 
 through exercise by the higher faculties, of a more varied, vig- 
 orous and protracted activity. 
 
 In the first place, then, it will be requisite, I conceive, to say 
 but little to show that knowledge and intellectual development 
 are not only not the same, but stand in no necessary proportion 
 to each other. This is manifest, if we consider the very dif- 
 ferent conditions under which these two qualities are acquired. 
 The one condition under vriiirh all powers, and consequently 
 the intellectual faculties, are developed, is exercise. The more 
 intense and continuous the exercise, the more vigorously de- 
 veloped will be the power. 
 
 But a certain quantity of knowledge, in other words, a 
 certain amount of possessed truths, does not suppose, as its 
 condition, a corresponding sum of intellectual exercise. One 
 truth requires much, another truth requires little, effort in
 
 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 7 
 
 acquisition ; and, while the original discovery of a truth evolves 
 perhaps a maximum of the highest quality of energy, the sub- 
 sequent learning of that truth elicits probably but a minimum 
 of the very lowest. 
 
 7* truth or mental exercise the superior end? But, as it is 
 evident that the possession of truths, and the development of 
 the mind in which they are deposited, are not identical, I pro- 
 ceed, in the second place, to show that, considered as ends, and 
 in relation to each other, the knowledge of truths is not su- 
 preme, but subordinate to the cultivation of the knowing mind. 
 The question Is Truth, or is the Mental Exercise in the pur- 
 fcuit of truth, the superior end ? this is perhaps the most 
 curious theoretical, and certainly the most important practical, 
 problem in the whole compass of philosophy. For, according 
 to the solution at which we arrive, must we accord the higher 
 or the lower rank to certain great departments of study ; and, 
 what is of more importance, the character of its solution, as it 
 determines the aim, regulates from first to last the method, 
 which an enlightened science of education must adopt. 
 
 But, however curious and important, this question has never, 
 in so far as I am aware, been regularly discussed. Nay, what 
 is still more remarkable, the erroneous alternative has been 
 very generally assumed as true. The consequence of this has 
 been, that sciences of far inferior, have been elevated above 
 sciences of far superior, utility ; while education has been sys- 
 tematically distorted, though truth and nature have occa- 
 sionally burst the shackles which a perverse theory had im- 
 posed. The reason of this is sufficiently obvious. At first 
 sight, it seems even absurd to doubt that truth is more valuable 
 than its pursuit ; for is this not to say that the end is less im- 
 portant than the mean? and on this superficial view is the 
 prevalent misapprehension founded. A slight consideration 
 will, however, expose the fallacy. 
 
 Practical and speculative Knowledge ; their ends. Knowl- 
 edge is either practical or speculative. In practical knowledge 
 it is evident that truth is not the ultimate end ; for, in that case, 
 knowledge i, ex hypothesi, for the sake of application. The
 
 8 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 knowledge of a moral, of a political, of a religious truth, is of 
 value only as it affords the preliminary or condition of its exer- 
 cise. 
 
 In speculative knowledge, on the other hand, there may 
 indeed, at first sight, seem greater difficulty ; but further re- 
 flection will prove that speculative truth is only pursued, and is 
 only held of value, for the sake of intellectual activity : " Sor- 
 det cognita veritas " is a shrewd aphorism of Seneca. A truth, 
 once known, falls into comparative insignificance. It is now 
 prized less on its own account, than as opening up new ways to 
 new activity, new suspense, new hopes, new discoveries, new 
 self-gratulation. Every votary of science is wilfully ignorant 
 of a thousand established facts, of a thousand which he might 
 make his own more easily than he could attempt the discovery 
 of even one. But it is not knowledge, it is not truth, that 
 he principally seeks ; he seeks the exercise of his faculties and 
 feelings ; and, as in following after the one, he exerts a greatei 
 amount of pleasurable energy than in taking formal possession 
 of the thousand, he disdains the certainty of the many, and pre- 
 fers the chances of the one. Accordingly, the sciences always 
 studied with keenest interest are those in a state of progress 
 and uncertainty ; absolute certainty and absolute completion 
 would be the paralysis of any study ; and the last worst calam- 
 ity that could befall man, as he is at present constituted, would 
 be that full and final possession of speculative truth, which he 
 now vainly anticipates as the consummation of his intellectual 
 happiness. 
 
 " Quaesivit ccelo lucem, ingemuitque reperta." 
 
 But what is true of science, is true, indeed, of all human ac- 
 tivity. u In life," as the great Pascal observes, " we always 
 believe that we are seeking repose, while, in reality, all that we 
 over seek is agitation." It is ever the contest that pleases us, 
 and not the victory. Thus it is in play ; thus it is in hunting 
 thus it is in the search of truth; thus it is in life. The past 
 does not interest, the present does not satisfy, the future alone 
 is the object which engage? us.
 
 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 9 
 
 " (Nullo votorura fine beati) 
 Victuros agimus semper, nee vivimus unquam." 
 
 The question, I said, has never been regularly discussed, 
 probably because it lay in too narrow a compass ; but no philos- 
 opher appears to have ever seriously proposed it to himself, who 
 did not resolve it in contradiction to the ordinary opinion. A 
 contradiction of this opinion is even involved in the very term 
 Philosophy ; and the man who first declared that he was not a 
 oo(fog, or possessor, but a qdoaoqiog, or seeker of truth, at once 
 encunced the true end of human speculation, and embodied it in 
 a significant name. Under the same conviction, Plato defines 
 man " the hunter of truth," for science is a chase, and hi a chase, 
 the pursuit is always of greater value than the game. 
 
 " The intellect," says Aristotle, in one passage, " is perfected, 
 not by knowledge, but by activity ; " and in another, " The arts 
 and sciences are powers, but every power exists only for the 
 Bake of action ; the end of philosophy, therefore, is not knowl- 
 edge, but the energy conversant about knowledge." The pro- 
 foundest thinkers of modern times have emphatically testified 
 to the same great principle. " If," says Malebranche, " I held 
 truth captive in my hand, I should open my hand and let it fly, 
 in order that I might again pursue and capture it." " Did the 
 Almighty," says Lessing, " holding in his right hand Truth, and 
 in his left Search after Truth, deign to tender me the one I 
 might prefer, in all humility, but without hesitation, I should 
 request Search after Truth" [We exist only as we energize ; 
 pleasure is the reflex of unimpeded energy ; energy is the 
 means 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 per- 
 fection of our being ; and knowledge is only precious, as it may 
 afford a stimulus to the exercise of our powers, and the condi- 
 tion of their more complete activity. Speculative truth is, 
 therefore, subordinate to speculation itself; and its value is 
 directly measured by the quantity of energy which it occa- 
 sions, immediately in its discovery, mediately through ita 
 consequences. Life to Endymion was not preferable to >{<'i>th
 
 U UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 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, even of our masters of modern science, 
 rank higher than intellectual barbarians ! Ancient Greece and 
 modern Europe prove, indeed, that " the march of intellect " is 
 no inseparable concomitant of " the march of science ; " that 
 the cultivation of the individual is not to be rashly confounded 
 with the progress of the species.] Discussions. 
 
 Philosophy best entitled to be called useful. But if specula- 
 tive truth itself be only valuable as a mean of intellectual 
 activity, those studies which determine the faculties to a more 
 vigorous exertion, will, in every liberal sense, be better entitled, 
 absolutely, to the name of useful, than those which, with a 
 greater complement of more certain facts, awaken them to a 
 less intense, and consequently to a less improving exercise. 
 On this ground I would rest one of the preeminent utilities of 
 mental philosophy. That it comprehends all the sublimest 
 objects of our theoretical and moral interest ; that every 
 (natural) conclusion concerning God, the soul, the present 
 worth and the future destiny of man, is exclusively deduced 
 frcm the philosophy of mind, will be at once admitted. But I 
 dc not at present found the importance on the paramount dig- 
 nity of the pursuit. It is as the best gymnastic of the mind, 
 as a mean, principally, and almost exclusively, conducive to the 
 highest education of our noblest powers, that I would vindicate 
 to these speculations the necessity which has too frequently 
 Leen denied tin-in. By no other intellectual application is the 
 mind thus reflected on itself, and its faculties aroused to such 
 independent, vigorous, unwonted, and continued energy ; by 
 none, therefore, are its best capacities so variously and intensely 
 evolved. "By turning," says Burke, "the soul inward on 
 itself, its forces are concentred, and are fitted for greater and 
 stronger flights of science ; and ir this pursuit, whether we
 
 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 11 
 
 take or whether we lose our game, the chase is certainly of 
 service." 
 
 These principles being established, it follows, that I must 
 regard the main duty of a Professor to consist not simply in 
 communicating information, but in doing this in such a manner, 
 and with such an accompaniment of subsidiary means, that the 
 information he conveys may be the occasion of awakening hi* 
 pupils to a vigorous and varied exertion of their faculties. 
 Self-activity is the indispensable condition of improvement; 
 and education is only education, that is, accomplishes its pur- 
 pose, only by affording objects and supplying incitements to this 
 spontaneous exertion. Strictly speaking, every one must edu- 
 cate himself. [All profitable study is a silent disputation an 
 intellectual gymnastic ; and the most improving books are pre- 
 cisely those which most excite the reader, to understand the 
 author, to supply what he has omitted, and to canvass his facts 
 and reasonings. To read passively, to learn, is, in reality, 
 not to learn at all. In study, implicit faith, belief upon au- 
 thority, is worse even than, for a time, erroneous speculation. 
 To read profitably, we should read the authors, not most in 
 unison with, but most adverse to, our opinions ; for whatever 
 may be the case in the cure of bodies, enantiopatky, and not 
 homoeopathy, is the true medicine of minds. Accordingly, 
 such sciences and such authors as present only unquestionable 
 truths, determining a minimum of self-activity in the student, 
 are, in a rational education, subjectively naught. Those sciences 
 and authors, on the contrary, who constrain the student to inde- 
 pendent thought, are, whatever may be their objective cer- 
 tainty, subjectively, educationally, best.] discussions. 
 
 But though the common duty of all academical instructors be 
 the cultivation of the student, through the awakened exercise 
 of his faculties, this is more especially incumbent on those to 
 whom is intrusted the department of liberal education; for, in 
 this department, the pupil is trained, not to any nrsre profes- 
 sional knowledge, but to the command and employment of his 
 faculties in general. But, moreover, the same obligation is 
 specially imposed upon a professor of intellectual philosophy.
 
 12 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 by the peculiar nature of his subject, and the conditions under 
 which alone it can be taught The phenomena of the external 
 world are so palpable and so easily described, that the expe- 
 rience of one observer suffices to render the facts he has wit- 
 nessed intelligible and probable to all. The phenomena of the 
 internal world, on the contrary, are not capable of being thus 
 described : all that the prior observer can do, is to enable 
 others to repeat his experience. In the science of mind, we 
 can neither understand nor be convinced of any thing at second 
 hand. Here testimony can impose no belief; and instruction 
 is only instruction as it enables us to teach ourselves. A fact 
 of consciousness, however accurately observed, however clearly 
 described, and however great may be our confidence in the 
 observer, is for us as zero, until we have observed and recog- 
 nized it ourselves. Till that be done, we cannot realize its pos- 
 sibility, far less admit its truth. Thus it is that, in the philoso- 
 phy of mind, instruction can do little more than point out the 
 position in which the pupil ought to place himself, in order to 
 verify, by his own experience, the facts which his instructor 
 proposes to him as true. The instructor, therefore, proclaims, 
 ov qr/.oooqia, dlJ.a qp J.ocfoqpar ; he does not profess to teach phi- 
 losophy, but to philosophize. It is this condition imposed upon 
 the student of doing every thing himself, that renders the study 
 of the mental sciences the most improving exercise of intel- 
 lect. 
 
 Philosophy : its Objective utility. I [have] endeavored to 
 show that all knowledge is only for the sake of energy, and that 
 even merely speculative truth is valuable only as it determines 
 a greater quantity of higher power into activity. I [have] also 
 endeavored to show that, on the standard of Subjective utility, 
 philosophy is of all our studies the most useful; inasmuch as 
 more than any other it exercises, and consequently develops to 
 a higher degree, and in a more varied manner, our noblest fac- 
 ulties. I shall [now] confine myself to certain views of the 
 importance of philosophy estimated by the standard of its Ob- 
 jective utility. 
 
 The human mind the noblest object of speculation. Consid-
 
 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOtHY. 13 
 
 ered in itself, a knowledge of the human mind, whether we 
 regard its speculative or its practical importance, is confessedly 
 of all studies the highest and the most interesting. " On earth," 
 says an ancient philosopher, " there is nothing great but man 
 in man, there is nothing great but mind." No other study fills 
 and satisfies the soul like the study of itself. No other science 
 presents an object to be compared in dignity, in absolute or in 
 relative value, to that which human consciousness furnishes to 
 its own contemplation. What is of all things the best, asked 
 Chilon of the Oracle. " To know thyself," was the response. 
 This is, in fact, the only science in which all are always inter- 
 ested ; for, while each individual may have his favorite occupa- 
 tion, it still remains true of the species, that " the proper study 
 of mankind is man." " For the world," says Sir Thomas 
 Browne, " I count it not an inn, but an hospital ; and a place 
 not to live, but to die in. The world that I regard is myself ; 
 it is the microcosm of my own frame that I cast mine eye on ; 
 for the other, I use it but like my globe, and turn it round some- 
 tunes, for my recreation The earth is a point, not only 
 
 in respect of the heavens above us, but of that heavenly and 
 celestial part within us. That mass of flesh that circumscribes 
 me, limits not my mind. That surface that tells the heavens it 
 
 hath an end, cannot persuade me I have any Wliilst I 
 
 study to find how I am a microcosm, or little world, I find my- 
 self something more than the great. There is surely a piece 
 of divinity in us ; something that was before the elements, and 
 owes no homage unto the sun. Nature tells me, I am the 
 image of God, as well as Scripture. He that understands not 
 thus much hath not his introduction or first lesson, and is yet 
 to begin the alphabet of man." 
 
 Relation of Psychology to Thcolorjy. But, though mind, 
 considered in itself, be the noblest object of speculation which 
 the created universe presents to the curiosity of man, it is under 
 a certain relation that I would now attempt to illustrate its 
 utility ; for mind rises to its highest dignity when viewed as the 
 object through which, and through which alone, our unassisted 
 rea.-on c:ui ascend to the knowledge of a God. The Deity id 
 2
 
 14 UTILITY OF THE STUDT OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 not an object of immediate contemplation ; as existing and in 
 himself, he is beyond our reach ; we can know him only medi- 
 ately through his works, and are only warranted in assuming 
 his existence as a certain kind of cause necessary to account 
 for a certain state of things, of whose reality our faculties are 
 supposed to inform us. The affirmation of a God being thus a 
 regressive inference, from the existence of a special class cf 
 effects to the existence of a special character of cause, it is evi- 
 dint, that the whole argument hinges on the fact, Does a 
 state of things really exist such as is only possible through the 
 agency of a Divine Cause ? For if it can be shown that such 
 a state of things does not really exist, then our inference to the 
 kind of cause requisite to account for it is necessarily null. 
 
 Argument founded exclusively on the phenomena of mind. 
 This being understood, I now proceed to show that the class of 
 phenomena which requires that kind of cause we denominate a 
 Deity, is exclusively given in the phenomena of mind, that 
 the phenomena of matter, taken by themselves (you will observe 
 the qualification, ' taken by themselves '), so far from warranting 
 any inference to the existence of a God, would, on the contrary, 
 ground even an argument to his negation, that the study of 
 the external world taken with, and in subordination to, that 
 of the internal, not only loses its atheistic tendency, but, under 
 such subservience, may be rendered conducive to the great con- 
 clusion, from which, if left to itself, it would dissuade us. 
 
 We must, first of all, then, consider what kind of cause it is 
 which constitutes a Deity, and what kind of effects they are 
 which allow us to infer that a Deity must be. 
 
 The notion of a God what. The notion of a God is not 
 contained in the notion of a mere First Cause ; for in the 
 admission of a first cause, Atheist and Theist are at one. 
 Neither is this notion completed by adding to a first cause the 
 attribute of Omnipotence ; for the atheist who holds matter or 
 necessity to be the original principle of all that is, does not 
 convert his blind force into a God, by merely affirming it to be 
 all-powerful. It is not until the two great attributes of Intelli- 
 gence and Virtue (and be it observed that virtue involves Lil>-
 
 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 15 
 
 erty) I say, it is not until the two attributes of intelligence 
 nd virtue or holiness are brought in, that the belief in a pri- 
 mary and omnipotent cause becomes the belief in a veritable 
 Divinity. But these latter attributes are not more essential to 
 the divine nature than are the former. For as Driginal and 
 infinite power does not of itself constitute a God, neither is a 
 God constituted by intelligence and virtue, unless intelligence 
 and goodness be themselves conjoined with this original and 
 infinite power. For even a Creator, intelligent, and good, and 
 powerful, would be no God, were he dependent for his intelli- 
 gence and goodness and power on any higher principle. On 
 this supposition, the perfections of the Creator are viewed as 
 limited and derived. He is himself, therefore, only a depen- 
 dency, only a creature ; and if a God there be, he must be 
 sought for in that higher principle, from which this subordinate 
 principle derives its attributes. Now is this highest principle 
 (ex hypothesi all-powerful) also intelligent and moral, then it is 
 itself alone the veritable Deity ; on the other hand is it, though 
 the author of intelligence and goodness in another, itself unin- 
 telligent, then is a blind Fate constituted the first and uni- 
 versal cause, and atheism is asserted. 
 
 Conditions of the proof of the existence of a God. The 
 peculiar attributes which distinguish a Deity from the original 
 omnipotence or blind fate of the atheist, being thus those of 
 intelligence and holiness of will, and the assertion of theism 
 being only the assertion that the universe is created by intelli- 
 gence, and governed not only by physical but by moral laws, 
 we have next to consider how we are warranted in these two 
 affirmations ; 1, That intelligence stands first in the absolute 
 order of existence, in other words, that final preceded 
 efficient causes ; and, 2, That the universe is governed by 
 moral laws. 
 
 The proof of these two propositions is the proof of a God ; 
 and it establishes its foundation exclusively on the phenomena 
 of mind. I shall endeavor to show you this, in regard to both 
 these propositions ; but, before considering how far the phae- 
 nornena of mind and of matter do and do not allow u.s to inter
 
 16 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the one position or the other, I must solicit your attention to 
 the characteristic contrasts which these two classes of phne- 
 nomena in themselves exhibit. 
 
 Contrasts of the phcenomena of matter and mind. In the 
 compass of our experience, we distinguish two series of facts, 
 the facts of the external or material world, and the facts of the 
 internal world or world of intelligence. These concomitant 
 series of phenomena are not like streams which merely run 
 parallel to each other ; they do not, like the Alpheus and Are- 
 thusa, flow on side by side without a commingling of their 
 waters. They cross, they combine, they are interlaced ; but 
 notwithstanding their intimate connection, their mutual action 
 and reaction, we are able to discriminate them without diffi- 
 culty, because they are marked out by characteristic dif- 
 ferences. 
 
 The phenomena of the material world are subjected to im- 
 mutable laws, are produced and reproduced in the same inva 
 riable succession, and manifest only the blind force of a 
 mechanical necessity. 
 
 The phenomena of man are, in part, subjected to the laws 
 of the external universe. As dependent upon a bodily organi- 
 zation, as actuated by sensual propensities and animal wants, he 
 belongs to matter, and, in this respect, he is the slave of neces- 
 sity. But what man holds of matter does not make up his 
 personality. They are his, not he ; man is not an organism, 
 he is an intelligence served by organs. For in man there are 
 tendencies, there is a law, which continually urge him to 
 prove that he is more powerful than the nature by which he is 
 surrounded and penetrated. He is conscious to himself of fac- 
 ulties not comprised in the chain of physical necessity ; his intel- 
 ligence reveals prescriptive principles of action, absolute and 
 universal, in the Law of Duty, and a liberty capable of carrying 
 that law into effect, in opposition to the solicitations, the im- 
 pulsions, of his material nature. From the coexistence of these 
 opposing forces in man, there results a ceaseless struggle 
 between physical necessity and moral liberty, in the language 
 of Revelation, between the Flesh and the Spirit ; and this
 
 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 17 
 
 struggle constitutes at once the distinctive character of human- 
 ity, and the essential condition of human development and 
 virtue. 
 
 In the facts of intelligence, we thus become aware of an 
 order of existence diametrically in contrast to that displayed to 
 us in the facts of the material universe. There is made known 
 to us an order of things, in which intelligence, by recognizing 
 the unconditional law of duty and an absolute obligation to fulfil 
 t, recognizes its own possession of a liberty incompatible with 
 a dependence upon fate, and of a power capable of resisting 
 and conquering the counteraction of our animal nature. 
 
 Consciousness of freedom, and of a law of duty, the condi- 
 tions of Theology. Now, it is only as man is a free intelli- 
 gence, a moral power, that he is created after the image of 
 God, and it is only as a spark of divinity glows as the life of 
 our life in us, that we can rationally believe in an Intelligent 
 Creator and Moral Governor of the universe. For, let us sup- 
 pose, that in man intelligence is the product of organization, 
 that our consciousness of moral liberty is itself only an illu- 
 sion ; in short, that acts of volition are results of the same iron 
 necessity which determines the phenomena of matter ; on 
 this supposition, I say, the foundations of all religion, natural 
 and revealed, are subverted. 
 
 The truth of this will be best seen by applying the supposi- 
 tion of the two positions of theism previously stated namely, 
 that the notion of God necessarily supposes, 1, That in the 
 absolute order of existence, intelligence should be first, that is, 
 not itself the product of an unintelligent antecedent ; and, 2, 
 That the universe should be governed not only by physical, but 
 by moral laws. 
 
 Analogy between our experience and the absolute order of 
 emstence. Now, in regard to the former, how can we attempt 
 to prove that the universe is the creation of a free original 
 intelligence, against the counter-position of the atheist, that lib- 
 erty is an illusion, and intelligence, or the adaptation of means 
 to ends, only the product ot" a blind fate? As we know noth- 
 ing of the absolute order of existence In itself, we can oiilj 
 2*
 
 18 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 attempt to infer its character from that of the particular order 
 within the sphere of our experience ; and as we can affirm 
 naught of intelligence and its conditions, except what we may 
 discover from the observation of our own minds, it is evident 
 that we can only analogically carry out into the order of the 
 universe the relation in which we find intelligence to stand in 
 the order of the human constitution. If in man intelligence be 
 A free power, in so far as its liberty extends, intelligence 
 must be independent of necessity and matter ; and a power 
 independent of matter necessarily implies the existence of an 
 immaterial subject, that is, a spirit. If, then, the original 
 independence of intelligence on matter in the human constitu- 
 tion, in other words, if the spirituality of mind in man, be sup- 
 posed a datum of observation, in this datum is also given both 
 the condition and the proof of a God. For we have only to 
 infer, what analogy entitles us to do, that intelligence holds the 
 same relative supremacy in the universe which it holds in us, 
 and the first positive condition of a Deity is established, in the 
 establishment of the absolute priority of a free creative intelli- 
 gence. On the other hand, let us suppose the result of our 
 study of man to be, that intelligence is only a product of mat- 
 ter, only a reflex of organization, such a doctrine would not 
 only alford no basis on which to rest any argument for a God, 
 but, on the contrary, would positively warrant the atheist in 
 denying his existence. For if, as the materialist maintains, the 
 only intelligence of which we have any experience be a conse- 
 quent of matter, on this hypothesis, he not only cannot 
 assume this order to be reversed in the relations of an intelli- 
 gence beyond his observation, but, it' he argue logically, he 
 must positively conclude, that, as in man, so in the universe, 
 the phenomena of intelligence or design are only in their last 
 analysis the products of a brute necessity. Psychological ma- 
 terialism, if carried out fully and fairly to its conclusions, thus 
 \nevitably results in theological atheism ; as it has been well 
 expressed by Dr. Henry More, null us in microcosmo spirilus, 
 mtllus in macrocosinn Dens. I do not, of course, mean to assert 
 that all materialists deny, or actually disbelieve, a God. For,
 
 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 19 
 
 in very many cases, this would be at once an unmerited compli- 
 ment to their reasoning, and an unmerited reproach to their 
 faith. 
 
 Second condition of the proof of a Deity. Such is the man- 
 ifest dependence of our theology on our psychology in refer- 
 ence to the first condition of a Deity, the absolute priority 
 of a free intelligence. But this is perhaps even more con- 
 spicuous in relation to the second, that the universe is gov- 
 erned not merely by physical but by moral laws ; for God is 
 only God inasmuch as he is the Moral Governor of a Moral 
 World, 
 
 Our interest, also, in its establishment is incomparably greater ; 
 for while a proof that the universe is the work of an omnipotent 
 intelligence, gratifies only our speculative curiosity, a proof 
 that there is a holy legislator, by whom goodness and felicity 
 will be ultimately brought into accordance, is necessary to satisfy 
 both our intellect and our heart. A God is, indeed, to us, only 
 of practical interest, inasmuch as he is the condition of our 
 immortality. 
 
 Now, it is self-evident, in the first place, that, if there be no 
 moral world, there can be no moral governor of such a world ; 
 and, in the second, that we have, and can have, no ground on 
 which to believe in the reality of a moral world, except in so 
 far as we ourselves are moral agents. This being undeniable, 
 it is further evident, that, should we ever be convinced that we 
 are not moral agents, we should likewise be convinced that there 
 sxists no moral order in the universe, and no supreme intelli- 
 gence by which that moral order is established, sustained, and 
 regulated. 
 
 Theology is thus "gain wholly dependent on Psychology ; 
 for, with the proof of the moral nature of man, stands or falls 
 the proof of the existence of a Deity.* 
 
 * [It is chiefly, if not solely, to explain the one phenomenon of morality, 
 of freewill, that we are warranted in assuming a second and hyperphysi- 
 cal substance, in an immaterial principle of thought ; for it is only on the 
 supposition of a moral lilierty in man, that we can attempt to vindicate, as 
 truths, a moral order, and, consequently, a moral governor in the universe;
 
 20 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Wherein the moral agency of man consists. But in what 
 does the character of man as a moral agent consist ? Man is a 
 moral agent only as he is accountable for his actions, in other 
 words, as lie is the object of praise or blame; and this he is, 
 only inasmuch as he has prescribed to him a rule of duty, and 
 as he is able to act, or not to act, in conformity with its precepts. 
 The possibility of morality thus depends on the possibility of 
 liberty ; for, if man be not a free agent, he is not the author 
 of his actions, and has, therefore, no responsibility, no moral 
 personality at all. 
 
 How philosophy establishes human liberty. Now the study 
 of Philosophy, or mental science, operates in three ways to 
 establish that assurance of human liberty, which is necessary 
 for a rational belief in our own moral nature, in a moral world, 
 and in a moral ruler of that world. In the first place, an atten- 
 tive consideration of the phenomena of mind is requisite in order 
 to a luminous and distinct apprehension of liberty as a fact or 
 datum of intelligence. For though, without philosophy, a natu- 
 ral conviction of free agency lives and works in the recesses of 
 every human mind, it requires a process of philosophical thought 
 to bring this conviction to clear consciousness and scientific cei- 
 tainty. In the second place, a profound philosophy is necessary 
 
 and it is only on the hypothesis of a soul within us, that we am assert tho 
 reality of a God above us. 
 
 In the hands of the materialist, or physical necessitarian, every argument 
 for the existence of a Deity is either annulled or reversed into a demonstra- 
 tion of atheism. In his hands, with the moral worth of man, the inference 
 lo a moral ruler of a moral universe is gone. In his hands, the argument 
 from the adaptations of end and mean, everywhere apparent in existence, to 
 the primary causality of intelligence and liberty, if applied, establishes, in 
 fact, the primary causality of necessity and matter. For, as this argument 
 is only an extension to the universe of the analogy observed in man ; if in 
 man, design, intelligence, be only a phenomenon of matter, only a reflex of 
 organization ; this consecution of first and second in us, extended to the 
 universal order of things, reverses the absolute priority of intelligence to 
 matter; that is, subverts the fundamental condition of a Deity. Thus it is, 
 that our theology is necessarily founded on our psychology ; that we must 
 recoynizf a God in our own minds, before we can detect a Cod in the universt 
 of nature.] Discussions.
 
 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 21 
 
 to obviate the difficulties which meet us when we attempt to 
 explain the possibility of this fact, and to prove that the datum 
 of liberty is not a mere illusion. For though an unconquerable 
 feeling compels us to recognize ourselves as accountable, and 
 therefore free, agents, still, when we attempt to realize in 
 thought how the fact of our liberty can be, we soon find that 
 this altogether transcends our understanding, and that every 
 effort to bring the fact of liberty within the compass of our con- 
 ceptions, only results in the substitution in its place of some 
 more or less disguised form of necessity. For, if I may be 
 allowed to use expressions which many of you cannot be sup- 
 posed at present to understand, we are only able to conceive 
 a thing, inasmuch as we conceive it under conditions ; while 
 the possibility of a free act supposes it to be an act which is not 
 conditioned or determined. The tendency of a superficial phi- 
 losophy is, therefore, to deny the fact of liberty, on the principle 
 that what cannot be conceived is impossible. A deeper and 
 more comprehensive study of the facts of mind overturns this 
 conclusion, and disproves its foundation. It shows that, st 
 far from the principle being true, that what is inconceivable is 
 impossible, on the contrary, all that is conceivable is a meaii 
 between two contradictory extremes, both of which are incon- 
 ceivable, but of which, as mutually repugnant, one or the other 
 must be true. Thus philosophy, in demonstrating that the 
 limits of thought are not to be assumed as the limits of possibil- 
 ity, while it admits the weakness of our discursive intellect, 
 reestablishes the authority of consciousness, and vindicates the 
 veracity of our primitive convictions. It proves to us, from the 
 very laws of mind, that while we can never understand how any 
 original datum of intelligence is possible, we have no reason 
 from this inability to doubt that it is true. A learned ignorance 
 is thus the end of philosophy, as it is the beginning of theology. 
 In the third place, the study of mind is necessary to counter- 
 balance and correct the influence of the study of matter ; and 
 this utility of metaphysics rises in proportion to the progress 
 of the natural sciences, and to the greater attention which they 
 engross.
 
 22 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Twofold evil of exclusive physical study. An exclusive de- 
 votion to physical pursuits exerts an evil influence in two ways. 
 In the frst place, it diverts from all notice of the phenomena of 
 moral liberty, which are revealed to us in the recesses of the 
 human mind alone ; and it disqualifies from appreciating the 
 import of these phenomena, even if presented, by leaving un- 
 cultivated the finer power of psychological reflection, in the 
 exclusive exercise of the faculties employed in the easier and 
 more amusing observation of the external world. In the secona 
 place, by exhibiting merely the phenomena of matter and exten- 
 sion, it habituates us only to the contemplation of an order in 
 which every thing is determined by the laws of a blind or me- 
 chanical necessity. Now, what is the inevitable tendency of 
 this one-sided and exclusive study ? That the student becomes 
 a materialist, if he speculate at all. For, in the first place, he 
 is familiar with the obtrusive facts of necessity, and is unaccus- 
 tomed to develop into consciousness the more recondite facts of 
 liberty ; he is, therefore, disposed to disbelieve in the existence 
 of phenomena whose reality he may deny, and whose possibility 
 he cannot understand. At the same time, the love of unity, and 
 the philosophical presumption against the multiplication of es- 
 sences, determine him to reject the assumption of a second, and 
 that an hypothetical, substance, ignorant as he is of the rea- 
 sons by which that assumption is legitimated. 
 
 In the infancy of science, this tendency of physical study was 
 not experienced. When men first turned their attention on the 
 phenomena of nature, every event was viewed as a miracle, for 
 every effect was considered as the operation of an intelligence. 
 God was not exiled from the universe of matter ; on the con- 
 trary, he was multiplied in proportion to its phenomena. As 
 science advanced, the deities were gradually driven out ; and 
 long after the sublunary world had been disenchanted, they 
 were left for a season in possession of the starry heavens. The 
 movement of the celestial bodies, in which Kepler still saw the 
 agency of a free intelligence, was at length by Newton resolved 
 into a few mathematical principles; and at last, even the irregu- 
 larities which Newton was compelled to leave for the miraculous
 
 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 23 
 
 correction of the Deity, have been proved to require no super- 
 natural interposition ; for La Place has shown that all contin- 
 gencies, past and future, in the heavens, find their explanation 
 in the one fundamental law of gravitation. 
 
 But the very contemplation of an order and adaptation so 
 astonishing, joined to the knowledge that this order and adapta- 
 tion are the necessary results of a brute mechanism, when 
 acting upon minds which have not looked into themselves for 
 the light of which the world without can only afford them the 
 reflection, far from elevating them more than any other aspect 
 of external creation to that inscrutable Being who reigns beyond 
 and above the universe of nature, tends, on the contrary, to im- 
 press on them, with peculiar force, the conviction, that as the 
 mechanism of nature can explain so much, the mechanism of 
 nature can explain all. 
 
 If all existence be but mechanism, philosophical interest extin- 
 guished. "Wonder," says Aristotle, "is the first cause of 
 philosophy : " but in the discovery that all existence is but 
 mechanism, the consummation of science would be an extinction 
 of the very interest from which it originally sprang. " Even 
 the gorgeous majesty of the heavens," says a religious philoso- 
 pher, " the object of a kneeling adoration to an infant world, 
 subdues no more the mind of him who comprehends the one 
 mechanical law by which the planetary systems move, maintain 
 their motion, and even originally form themselves. lie no 
 longer wonders at the object, infinite as it always is, but at the 
 human intellect alone, which, in a Copernicus, Kepler, Gassendi, 
 Newton, and La Place, was able to transcend the object, by 
 science to terminate the miracle, to reave the heaven of its di' 
 vinities, and to exorcise the universe. But even this, the only 
 admiration of which our intelligent faculties are now capable 
 would vanish, were a future Hartley, Darwin, Condillac, 01 
 Bonnet, to succeed in displaying to us a mechanical syslem of 
 the human mind, as comprehensive, intelligible, and satisfactory 
 as the Newtonian mechanism of the heavens." 
 
 To this testimony I may add, that, should Phv>iologv ever 
 succeed in reducing the facts of intelligence to pha-nonieiia of
 
 24 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 matter, Philosophy would be subverted in the subversion of its 
 three great objects, God, Free- Will, and Immortality. True 
 wisdom would then consist, not in speculation, but in repressing 
 thought during our brief transit from nothingness to nothingness. 
 For why? Philosophy would have become a meditation, not 
 merely of death, but of annihilation ; the precept, Kmw thy- 
 self, would have been replaced by the terrific oracle to (Edipus 
 
 " May'st thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art ; " 
 
 and the final recompense of our scientific curiosity would be 
 wailing, deeper than Cassandra's, for the ignorance that saved 
 us from despair. 
 
 Coincidence of these views with those of previous philoso- 
 phers. The views which I have now taken of the respective 
 influence of the sciences of mind and of matter in relation to 
 our religious belief, are those which have been deliberately 
 adopted by the profoundest thinkers, ancient and modern. 
 Were I to quote to you the testimonies that crowd on my recol- 
 lection, to the effect that ignorance of Self is ignorance of God, 
 I should make no end, for this is a truth proclaimed by Jew 
 and Gentile, Christian and Mohammedan. " The cause," says 
 Plato, " of all impiety and irreligion among men is, that, revers- 
 ing in themselves the relative subordination of mind and body, 
 they have, in like manner, in the universe, made that to be first 
 which is second, and that to be second which is first ; for while, 
 in the generation of all things, intelligence and final causes pre- 
 cede matter and efficient causes, they, on the contrary, have 
 viewed matter and material things as absolutely prior, in the 
 order of existence, to intelligence and design ; and thus, depart- 
 ing from an original error in relation to themselves, they have 
 ended in the subversion of the Godhead." 
 
 The pious and profound Jacobi states the truth boldly and 
 without disguise in regard to the relation of Physics and Meta- 
 physics to Religion. ' But is it unreasonable to confess, that 
 we believe in God, not by reason of the nature* which con- 
 
 * In the philosophy of Germany, Nalnr and its correlatives, whether 
 of Greek or Latin derivation, are, in general, expressive of the world of 
 Matter, in contrast to the world of Intelligence.
 
 JTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 25 
 
 ceals him, but by reason of the supernatural in man, which 
 alone reveals and proves him to exist ? 
 
 * Nature conceals God : for through her whole domain, 
 Nature reveals only fate, only an indissoluble chain of mere 
 efficient causes without beginning and without end, excluding, 
 with equal necessity, both providence and chance. An inde- 
 pendent agency, a free original commencement within her 
 sphere and proceeding from her powers, is absolutely impossi- 
 ble. "Working without will, she takes counsel neither of the 
 good nor of the beautiful ; creating nothing, she casts up from 
 her dark abyss only eternal transformations of herself, uncon- 
 sciously and without an end ; furthering, with the same cease- 
 less industry, decline and increase, death and life, never pro- 
 ducing what alone is of God and what supposes liberty, the 
 virtuous, the immortal. 
 
 " Man reveals God : for man, by his intelligence, rises above 
 nature, and, in virtue of this intelligence, is conscious of himself 
 as a power not only independent of, but opposed to, nature, and 
 capable of resisting, conquering, and controlling her. As man 
 has a living faith in this power, superior to nature, which dwells 
 in him ; so has he a belief in God, a feeling, an experience of 
 his existence. As he does not believe in this power, so does he 
 not believe in God ; he sees, he experiences naught in exist- 
 ence but nature, necessity, fate." 
 
 Tliese uses of Psychology not superseded by the CJiri&iictn 
 revelation. Such is the comparative importance of the sci- 
 ences of mind and of matter in relation to the interests of 
 religion. But it may be said, how great soever be the value of 
 philosophy in this respect, were man left to rise to the divinity 
 by the unaided exercise of his faculties, this value is superseded 
 under the Christian dispensation, the Gospel now assuring ua 
 of all and more than all philosophy could ever warrant us in 
 surmising. It is true, indeed, that in Revelation there is con- 
 tained a great complement of truths of which natural reason 
 could afford us no knowledge or assurance ; but still tin; impor- 
 tance of mental science to theology has not become superfluous 
 in Christianity ; for whereas, anterior to Revelation, religion 
 i
 
 26 UTILITY OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 rises out of psychology as a result, subsequently to revelation, 
 it supposes a genuine philosophy of mind as the condition of 
 its truth. This is at once manifest. Revelation is a revelation 
 to man and concerning man ; and man is only the object of 
 revelation, inasmuch as he is a moral, a free, a responsible 
 being. The Scriptures are replete with testimonies to our 
 natural liberty ; and it is the doctrine of every Christian 
 church, that man was originally created with a will capable 
 equally of good as of evil, though this will, subsequently to the 
 fall, has lost much of its primitive liberty. Christianity thus, 
 by universal confession, supposes as a condition the moral 
 nature of its object ; and if some individual theologians be 
 found who have denied to man a higher liberty than a machine, 
 this is only another example of the truth, that there is no 
 opinion which has been unable to find not only its champions 
 but its martyrs. The differences which divide the Christian 
 cnurches on tlu's question, regard only the liberty of man in 
 Certain particular relations ; for fatalism, or a negation of human 
 responsibility in general, is equally hostile to the tenets of the 
 Calvinist and Arminian. 
 
 In these circumstances, it is evident, that he who disbelieves 
 the moral agency of man must, in consistency with that opinion, 
 disbelieve Christianity. And therefore, inasmuch as Philoso- 
 phy, the Philosophy of Mind, scientifically establishes the 
 proof of human liberty, philosophy, in this, as in many other 
 relations not now to be considered, is the true preparative and 
 best aid of an enlightened Christian Theology.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NATURE AND COMPREHENSION OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 You are about to commence a course of philosophical disci- 
 pline ; for Psychology is preeminently a philosophical science. 
 It is therefore proper that you should obtain at least a notion 
 of what philosophy is. But in affording you this information, 
 it is evident that there lie considerable difficulties in the way. 
 For the definition and the divisions of philosophy arc the results 
 of a lofty generalization from particulars, of which particulars 
 you are, or must be presumed to be, still ignorant. You cannot, 
 therefore, it is manifest, be made adequately to comprehend, in 
 the commencement of your philosophical studies, notions which 
 these studies themselves are intended to enable you to under- 
 stand. But although you cannot at once obtain a full knowledge 
 of the nature of philosophy, it is desirable that you should be 
 enabled to form at least some vague conception of the road you 
 are about to travel, and of the point to which it will conduct 
 you. I must, therefore, beg that you will, for the present, 
 hypothetical!)' believe, believe upon authority, what you 
 may not now adequately understand ; but this only to the end 
 that you may not hereafter be under the necessity of taking any 
 conclusion upon tru.-t. Nor is this temporary exaction of credit 
 peculiar to philosophical education. Jn the order of nature, 
 belief always precedes knowledge, it is the condition of in- 
 struction. The child (as observed by Aristotle) must believe. 
 in order that he may learn ; and even the primary fads of intel- 
 ligence, the facts which precede, ns they afford the conditions 
 of, all knowledge, would not be original, were thev revealed 
 to us undei any other form than that of natural or necessary 
 beliefs. 
 
 (-27)
 
 28 NATURE AND COMPREHENSION OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 There are two questions to be answered: 1st, What is the 
 meaning of the name ? and 2d, What is the meaning of the 
 thing ? An answer to the former question is afforded in n nomi- 
 nal definition of the term philosophy, and in a history of its em- 
 ployment and application. 
 
 Philosophy the name. In regard to the etymological sig- 
 nification of the word, Philosophy is a term of Greek origin. 
 It is a compound of gitlotf, a lover or friend, and aoyia,* wisdom 
 speculative wisdom. Philosophy is thus, literally, a love of 
 wisdom. But if the grammatical meaning of the word be un- 
 ambiguous, the history of its application is, I think, involved in 
 considerable doubt. According to the commonly received ac- 
 count, the designation of philosopher (lover or suitor of wisdom) 
 was first assumed and applied by Pythagoras ; whilst of the 
 occasion and circumstances of its assumption, we have a story 
 by Cicero, on the authority of Heraclides Ponticus. Pythagoras, 
 once upon a time, says the Roman orator, having come to Phlius, 
 a city of Peloponnesus, displayed, in a conversation which he 
 had with Leon, who then governed that city, a range of knowl- 
 edge so extensive, that the prince, admiring his eloquence and 
 ability, inquired to what art he had principally devoted himself. 
 Pythagoras answered, that he professed no art, and was simply 
 a philosopher. Leon, struck by the novelty of the name, again 
 inquired who were the philosophers, and in what they differed 
 from other men. Pythagoras replied, that human life seemed 
 to resemble the great fair, held on occasion of those solemn 
 games which all Greece met to celebrate. For some, exercised 
 in athletic contests, resorted thither in quest of glory and the 
 crown of victory; while a greater number flocked to them in 
 order to buy and sell, attracted by the love of gain. There 
 were a few, however, and they were those distinguished by 
 their liberality and intelligence, who came from no motive of 
 jrlory or of gain, but simply to look about them, and to take note 
 of what was done, and in what manner. So likewise, continued 
 
 * Zopt'n in (ircck, though sometimes used in a wide sense, like the term 
 icisc applied to .skill in h.-imlicnift, yet properly denoted speculative, not 
 practical, \visil'jm or prudence.
 
 NATURE AND COMPREHENSION OF PHILOSOPHY. 29 
 
 Pythagoras, we men all make our entrance into this life on our 
 departure from another. Some are here occupied in the pur- 
 suit of honors, others in the search of riches ; a few there are 
 who, indifferent to all else, devote themselves to an inquiry into 
 the nature of things. These, then, are they whom I call stu- 
 dents of wisdom, for such is meant by philosopher. 
 
 The anecdote rests on very slender authority. It is proba- 
 ble, I think, that Socrates was the first who adopted, or, at 
 least, the first who familiarized, the expression. It was natural 
 that he should be anxious to contradistinguish himself from the 
 Sophists (ol aoqpof, of aoqtazai), literally, the wise men ; and no 
 term could more appropriately ridicule the arrogance of these 
 pretenders, or afford a happier contrast to their haughty desig- 
 nation, than that of philosopher (i. e. the lover of wisdom) ; and, 
 at the same time, it is certain that the substantives qpiP.oaoqpta 
 and qpt/.6<7oqpO first appear in the writings of the Socratic 
 school. It is true, indeed, that the verb qtl.oocxfsTv is found in 
 Herodotus, in the address by Croesus to Solon ; and that, too, in 
 a participial form, to designate the latter as a man who had 
 travelled abroad for the purpose of acquiring knowledge. It is, 
 therefore, not impossible that, before the time of Socrates, 
 those who devoted themselves to the pursuit of the higher 
 branches of knowledge, were occasionally designated philoso- 
 phers : but it is far more probable that Socrates and his school 
 first appropriated the term as a distinctive appellation ; and 
 that the word philosophy, in consequence of this appropriation, 
 came to be employed for the complement of all higher knowl- 
 edge, and, more especially, to denote the science conversant about 
 the. principles or causes of existence. The term philosophy, I 
 may notice, which was originally assumed in modesty, soon lost 
 its Socratic and etymological signification, and returned to the 
 meaning of aotpia, or wisdom. Quintilian calls it notnen inso- 
 lentissimum ; Seneca, nomen invidiosum ; Epictetus counsels 
 his scholars not to call themselves " Philosophers ; " and proud 
 is one of the most ordinary epithets with which philosophy is 
 now associated. 
 
 Philosophy the thintj its definitions. So much for the
 
 80 NATURE AND COMPREHENSION OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 mime signifying ; we proceed now to the thing signified. "Were 
 I to detail the various definitions of philosophy which philoso- 
 phers have promulgated far more, were I to explain the 
 grounds on which the author of each maintains the exclusive 
 adequacy of his peculiar definition I should, in the present 
 stage of your progress, only perplex and confuse you. All 
 such definitions are (if not positively erroneous), either so 
 vague that they afford no precise knowledge of their object ; or 
 they are so partial, that they exclude what they ought to com- 
 prehend ; or they are of such a nature that they supply no pre- 
 liminary information, and are only to be understood (if ever), 
 after a knowledge has been acquired of that which they profess 
 to explain. It is, indeed, perhaps impossible adequately to 
 define philosophy. For what is to be defined comprises what 
 cannot be included in a single definition. For philosophy is not 
 regarded from a single point of view ; it is sometimes consid- 
 ered as theoretical, that is, in relation to man as a thinking 
 and cognitive intelligence; sometimes as practical, that is, in 
 relation to man as a moral agent ; and sometimes, as compre- 
 hending both theory and practice. Again, philosophy may either 
 be regarded objectively, that is, as a complement of truths 
 known ; or subjectively, that is, as a habit or quality of the 
 mind knowing. In these circumstances, I shall not attempt a 
 definition of philosophy, but shall endeavor to accomplish the 
 end which every definition proposes, make you understand, 
 as precisely as the unprccise nature of the object-matter per- 
 mits, what is meant by philosophy, and what are the sciences it 
 properly comprehends within its sphere. 
 
 Definitions in Greek antiquity. As a matter of history, I 
 may here, however, parenthetically mention, that in Greek 
 antiquity, there were, in all, six definitions of philosophy which 
 obtained celebrity. The first and second define philosophy 
 from its object matter, that which it is about; the third and 
 fourth, from its end, tlmt for the sake of which it is; the 
 fifth, from its relative preeminence ; and the sixth, from its ety- 
 mology. 
 
 The first of these definitions of philosophy is, "the knowl
 
 NATURE AND COMPREHENSION OF PmUDSOPHY. 81 
 
 cage of things existent as existent." The second is, " the 
 knowledge of tilings divine and human." These are both from 
 the object-matter ; and both were referred to Pythagoras. 
 
 The third and fourth, the two definitions of philosophy from 
 its end, are, again, both taken from Plato. Of these, the third 
 is, " philosophy is a meditation of death ; " the fourth, 
 u philosophy is a resembling of the Deity in so far as that is 
 competent to man." 
 
 The fifth, that from its preeminence, was borrowed from 
 Aristotle, and defined philosophy " the art of arts, and science 
 of sciences." 
 
 Finally, the sixth, that from the etymology, was, like the first 
 and second, carried up to Pythagoras ; it defined philosophy 
 " the love of wisdom." 
 
 To these a seventh and even an eighth were sometimes 
 added ; but the seventh was that by the physicians, who 
 defined medicine the philosophy of bodies, and philosophy the 
 medicine of souls. This was derided by the philosophers ; as, 
 to speak with Homer, being an exchange of brass for gold, and 
 of gold for brass, and as defining the more known by the less 
 known. The eighth is from an expression of Plato, who. in 
 the Thcnetetus, calls philosophy " the greatest music," meaning 
 thereby the harmony of the rational, irascible, and appetem 
 parts of the soul. 
 
 What Philosophy is. But to return : All philosophy is 
 knowledge, but all knowledge is not philosophy. Philosophy is, 
 therefore, a kind of knowledge. 
 
 Philosophical and empirical knowledge. AYhat, then, is* 
 philosophical knowledge, and how is it discriminated from 
 knowledge in general ? AVe are endowed by our Creator with 
 certain faculties of observation, which enable us to become 
 aware of certain appearances or phenomena. These, faculties 
 may be stated as two, Sense, or External Perception, and 
 Self-Consciousness, or Internal Perception ; and these faculties 
 severally afford us the knowledge of a different series of phe- 
 nomena. Through our senses, we apprehend what exists, or 
 what occurs, in the external or material world ; by our self-
 
 32 NATURE AND COMPREHENSION 07 PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 consciousness, we apprehend what is, or what occurs, in (he 
 internal world, or world of thought. What is the extent, and 
 what the certainty, of the knowledge acquired through sense 
 and self-consciousness, we do not at present consider. It is 
 now sufficient that the simple fact be admitted, that we do 
 actually thus know ; and that fact is so manifest, that it re- 
 quires, I presume, at my hands, neither proof nor illustration. 
 The information which we thus receive, that certain ph:e- 
 nomena are, or have been, is called Historical or Empirical 
 knowledge. It is called historical, because, in this knowledge, 
 we, know only the fact, only that the phenomenon is ; for his- 
 tory is properly only the narration of a consecutive series of 
 phenomena in time, or the description of a coexistent series of 
 phenomena in space. Civil history is an example of the one 
 natural history, of the other. It is called empirical or cxperien 
 tial, if we might use that term, because it is given us by expe- 
 rience or observation, and not obtained as the result of infer- 
 ence or reasoning. 
 
 By-meaning of the term empirical. I may notice, by paren- 
 thesis, that you must discharge from your minds the by -meaning 
 accidentally associated with the word empiric, or empirical, in 
 common English. This term is, with us, more familiarly used in 
 reference to medicine, and from its fortuitous employment in 
 that science, in a certain sense, the word empirical has unfortu- 
 nately acquired, in our language, a one-sided and an unfavora- 
 ble meaning. Of the origin of this meaning many of you may 
 not be aware. You are aware, however, that l^nttQia is the 
 Greek term for experience, and tpjzeiytxbg an epithet applied to 
 one who uses experience. Now, among the Greek physicians, 
 there arose a sect who, professing to employ experience alone, 
 to the exclusion of generalization, analogy, and reasoning, de- 
 nominated themselves distinctively oi tfjiasiQixoi the Empirics. 
 The opposite extreme was adopted by another sect, who, reject- 
 ing observation, founded their doctrine exclusively on reasoning 
 and theory; and these called themselves oi [teftodixoi or 
 Methodists. A third school, of whom Galen was the head, 
 opposed equally to the two extreme sects of the Empirics and
 
 NATURE AND COMPREHENSION OF PHILOSOPHY. 33 
 
 of the Methodists, and, availing themselves both of experience 
 and reasoning, were styled ot doyftanxot the Dogmatists, or 
 rational physicians. A keen controversy arose ; the Empirics 
 were defeated ; they gradually died out ; and their doctrine, of 
 which nothing is known to us, except through the writings of 
 their adversaries, has probably been painted in blacker colors 
 than it deserved. Be this, however, as it may, the word was 
 first naturalized in English, at a time when the Galenic woiks 
 were of paramount authority in medicine, as a term of medical 
 import of medical reproach ; and the collateral meaning, 
 which it had accidentally obtained in that science, was asso- 
 ciated with an unfavorable signification, so that an Empiric, in 
 common English, has been long a synonyme for a charlatan or 
 quack-doctor, and, by a very natural extension, in general, for 
 any ignorant pretender in science. In philosophical language, 
 the term empirical means simply what belongs to, or is the pro- 
 duct of, experience or observation, and, in contrast to another 
 term afterwards to be explained, is now technically in general 
 use through every other country of Europe. Were there any 
 other word to be found of a corresponding signification in Eng- 
 lish, it would perhaps, in consequence of the by-meaning 
 attached to empirical, be expedient not to employ this latter. 
 But there is not. Experiential is not in common use, and 
 experimental only designates a certain kind of experience 
 namely, that in which the fact observed has been brought about 
 by a certain intentional prearrangement of its coefficients. But 
 I his by the way. 
 
 Empirical knowledge. Returning, then, from our digression : 
 Historical or empirical knowledge is simply the knowledge that 
 something is. Were we to use the expression, the knowledge 
 that, it would sound awkward and unusual in our modern lan- 
 guages. In Greek, the most philosophical of all tongues, its 
 parallel, however, was familiarly employed, more especially in 
 the Aristotelic philosophy, in contrast to another knowledge of 
 which we are about to speak. It was called the TO on, cy j'fojrirf 
 on tartv. I should notice, that with us, the knowledge (hat, is 
 commonly called the knowledge of the fact. A* examples of
 
 &4 NATURE AND COMPREHENSION OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 empirical knowledge, take the facts, whether known on our own 
 experience or on the testified experience of others, that a 
 stone falls, that smoke ascends, that the leaves bud in 
 spring and fall in autumn, that such a book contains such a 
 passage, that such a passage contains such an opinion, that 
 Cesar, that Charlemagne, that Napoleon, existed. [P^mpirical 
 is also used in contrast with Necessary knowledge; the former 
 signifying the knowledge simply of what is, the latter cf what 
 must be.] 
 
 Philosophical knowledge what. But things do not exist, 
 events do not occur, isolated, apart by themselves ; they 
 exist, they occur, and are by us conceived, only in connection. 
 Our observation affords us no example of a phenomenon which 
 is not an effect ; nay, our thought cannot even realize to itself 
 the possibility of a phenomenon without a cause. We do not 
 at present inquire into the nature of the connection of effect and 
 cause, either in reality, or in thought. It is sufficient for 
 our present purpose to observe that, while, by the constitution 
 of our nature, we are unable to conceive any thing to begin to 
 be, without referring it to some cause, still the knowledge of 
 its particular cause is not involved in the knowledge of any 
 particular effect. By this necessity which we are under, of 
 thinking some cause for every phenomenon ; and by our origi- 
 nal ignorance of what particular causes belong to what particular 
 effects, it is rendered impossible for us to acquiesce in the 
 mere knowledge of the fact of a phenomenon : on the contrary, 
 we are determined, we are necessitated, to regard each phe- 
 nomenon as only partially known, until we discover the causes 
 on which it depends for its existence. For example, we are 
 struck with the appearance in the heavens called a rainbow. 
 Think we cannot that this phenomenon has no cause, thougl 
 we may be wholly ignorant of what that cause is. Now, our 
 knowledge of the phenomenon a.s a mere fact, as a mere 
 isolated event, docs not content us; we therefore set about 
 an inquiry into the cause, which the constitution of our mind 
 compels us to suppose, and at length, discover that the rain- 
 bow is the effect of the, refraction of the solar rays by the watery
 
 NATURE AND COMPREHENSION OF PHILOSOPHY. 35 
 
 particles of a cloud. Having ascertained the cause, but not till 
 then, WH are satisfied that we fully know the effect. 
 
 Now, this knowledge of the cause of a phenomenon is differ- 
 ent from, is something more than, the knowledge ol that phse- 
 nomenon simply as a fact ; and these two cognitions or knowl- 
 edges have, accordingly, received different names. The latter, 
 *e have seen, is called historical or empirical knowledge ; the 
 former is called philosophical, or scientific, or rational knowl- 
 edge. Historical, is the knowledge that a thing is philo- 
 sophical, is the knowledge why or how it is. And as the Greek 
 language, with peculiar felicity, expresses historical knowledge 
 by the 011 the yvdJatg on eo~n : so, it well expresses philo- 
 sophical knowledge by the Start the yvojaig diori ton, though 
 here its relative superiority is not the same. To recapitulate 
 what has now been stated : There are two kinds or degrees 
 of knowledge. The first is a knowledge that a thing is on 
 jf(>^j art, rem esse ; and it is called the know^dge of the 
 fact, historical or empirical knowledge. The secor.d is a knowl- 
 edge why or how a thing is, dton {>y< tan, cur res sit ; and 
 is termed the knowledge of the cause, philosophical, scientific, 
 rational knowledge. 
 
 PJiilosophy implies a search after first causes. Philosophical 
 knowledge, in the widest acceptation of the term, and as sytiony- 
 mous with science, is thus the knowledge of effects as dependent 
 on their causes. Now, what does this imply? In the first 
 place, as every cause to which we can ascend is itself also an 
 effect, it follows that it is the scope, that is, the aim of phi- 
 losophy, to trace up the series of effects and causes, until we 
 arrive at causes which are not also themselves effects. These 
 first causes do not indeed lie within the reach of philosophy, nor 
 even within the sphere of our comprehension ; nor, consequently, 
 on the actual reaching them docs the existence of philosophy 
 depend, lint as philosophy is the knowledge of effects in their 
 causes, the tendency of philosophy is ever upwards ; and phi- 
 losophy can, in thought, in theory, only be viewed as accom- 
 plished, which in reality it never can be, when the ultimate 
 causes, the causes on which all other causes depend, have 
 been attained and understood.
 
 56 NATURE AND COMPREHENSION OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 But, in the second place, as every effect is only produced by 
 the concurrence of at least two causes (and by cause, be it ob- 
 served, I mean every thing without which the effect could not be 
 realized), and as these concurring or coefficient causes, in fact, 
 constitute the effect, it follows, that the lower we descend in the 
 series of causes, the more complex -will be the product; and 
 that the higher we ascend, it will be the more simple. Let us 
 take, for example, a neutral salt. This, as you probably know 
 is the product, the combination, of an alkali and an acid. 
 Now, considering the salt as an effect, what are the concurrent 
 causes, the co-efficients, which constitute it what it is ? 
 These are, first, the acid, with its affinity to the alkali ; secondly, 
 the alkali, with its affinity to the acid ; and thirdly, the trans- 
 lating force (perhaps the human hand) which made their affin- 
 ities available, by bringing the two bodies within the sphere of 
 mutual attraction. Kach of these three concurrents must be 
 considered as a partial cause ; for, abstract any one, and the 
 effect is not produced. Now, these three partial causes are 
 each of them again effects ; but effects evidently less complex 
 than the effect which they, by their concurrence, constituted. 
 But each of these three constituents is an effect ; and therefore 
 to be analyzed into its causes ; and these causes again into 
 others, until the procedure is checked by our inability to resolve 
 the last constituent into simpler elements. But, though thus 
 unable to carry our analysis beyond a limited extent, we neither 
 conceive, nor are we able to conceive, the constituent in which 
 our analysis is arrested, as itself any thing but an effect. We 
 therefore carry on the analysis in imagination ; and as each step 
 in the procedure carries us from the more complex to the more 
 Rinpls, and, consequently, nearer to unity, we at last arrive at 
 that unity itself, at that ultimate cause which, as ^ultimate, 
 cannot again be conceived as an effect.* 
 
 * I may notice that an ultimate cause, and a first cause, are the same, 
 but viewed in different relations. What is called tin- ultimate cause in as- 
 rending from effects to causes, that is, in the regressive order, is called 
 the first cause in descending from causes to effects, that is, in the pro- 
 gressive order.
 
 NATURE AND COMPREHENSION OF PHILOSOPHY. 37 
 
 Philosophy thus, as the knowledge of effects in their causes, 
 necessarily tends, not towards a plurality of ultimate or first 
 causes, but towards one alone. This first cause, the Creator, 
 it can indeed never reach, as an object of immediate knowl- 
 edge ; but, as the convergence towards unity in the ascending 
 series is manifest, in so far as that series is within our view, and 
 as it is even impossible for the mind to suppose the convergence 
 not continuous and complete, it follows, unless all analogy be 
 rejected, unless our intelligence be declared a lie, that we 
 must, philosophically, believe in that ultimate or primary unity 
 which, in our present existence, we are not destined in itself to 
 apprehend. 
 
 Such is philosophical knowledge in its most extensive signifi- 
 cation ; and, in this signification, all the sciences, occupied in 
 the research of causes, may be viewed as so many branches of 
 philosophy. There is, however, one section of these sciences 
 which is denominated philosophical by preeminence ; sci- 
 ences which the term philosophy exclusively denotes, when 
 employed in propriety and rigor. What these sciences are ; 
 and why the term philosophy has been specially limited tc 
 them, I shall now endeavor to make you understand. 
 
 Man's knowledge relative. " Man," says Protagoras, " is the 
 measure of the universe ; " and, in so far as the universe is an 
 object of human knowledge, the paradox is a truth. Whatever 
 we know, or endeavor to know, God or the world, mind or 
 matter, the distant or the near, we know, and can know, 
 only in so far as we possess a faculty of knowing in general ; 
 and we can only exercise that faculty under the laws which 
 control and limit its operations. However great, and infinite, 
 and various, therefore, may be the universe and its contents, 
 these are known to us, not as they exist, but as our mind is 
 capable of knowing them. Hence the brocard " Quit-quid 
 recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis." 
 
 In (he first place, therefore, as philosophy is a knowledge, 
 
 and as all knowledge is only possible under (lie conditions to 
 
 which our faculties are subjected, the grand, (he primary, 
 
 problem of philosophy must be to investigate and determine 
 
 * ' ^ i 2* o r ' 
 
 . v . S '**, i 
 
 ; a i "w, j% y
 
 38 NATURE A.ND COMPREHENSION OF PHILOSOPHT 
 
 these conditions, as the necessary conditions of its own possi- 
 bility. 
 
 The study of mind the jirst object of philosophy. In the 
 second place, as philosophy is not merely a knowledge, but a 
 knowledge of causes, and as the mind itself is the universal 
 and principal concurrent cause in every act of knowledge ; phi- 
 losophy is, consequently, bound to make the mind its first and 
 paramount object of consideration. The study of mind is thus 
 the philosophical study by preeminence. There is no branch 
 of philosophy which does not suppose this as its preliminary, 
 which does not borrow from this its light. A considerable 
 number, indeed, are only the science of mind viewed in particu- 
 lar aspects, or considered in certain special applications. Logic, 
 for example, or the science of the laws of thought, is only a 
 fragment of the general science of mind, and presupposes a 
 certain knowledge of the operations which are regulated by 
 these laws. Ethics is the science of the laws which govern 
 our actions as moral agents ; and a knowledge of these laws is 
 only possible through a knowledge of the moral agent himself. 
 Political science, in like manner, supposes a knowledge of man 
 in his natural constitution, in order to appreciate the modifica- 
 tions which he receives, and of which he is susceptible, in social 
 and civil life. The Fine Arts have all their foundation in the 
 theory of the beautiful ; and this theory is afforded by that part 
 of the philosophy of mind, which is conversant with the phe- 
 nomena of feeling. Religion, Theology, in fine, is not inde- 
 pendent of the same philosophy. For as God only exists for us 
 as we have faculties capable of apprehending his existence, and 
 of fulfilling his behests, nay, as the phenomena from which we 
 are warranted to infer his being are wholly mental, the exam- 
 ination of these faculties and of these phenomena is, conse- 
 quently, the primary condition of every sound theology. In 
 short, the science of mind, whether considered in it.-elf, or in 
 relation to the other branches of our knowledge, constitutes the 
 principal and most important object of philosophy, consti- 
 tutes in propriety, with its suit of dependent sciences, philoso- 
 phy itself.
 
 NATURE AND COMPREHENSION OF PHILOSOPHY. 39 
 
 Misapplication of the term Philosophy in England. The 
 limitation of the term Philosophy to the sciences of mind, 
 when not expressly extended to the other branches of science, 
 has been always that generally prevalent ; yet it must be 
 confessed that, in this country, the word is applied to subjects 
 with which, on the continent of Europe, it is rarely, if ever, 
 associated. With us, the word philosophy, taken by itself, does 
 uot call up the precise and limited notion which it does to a 
 German, a Hollander, a Dane, an Italian, or a Frenchman ; 
 and we are obliged to say the philosophy of mind, if we do not 
 wish it to be vaguely extended to the sciences conversant with 
 the phaenomena of matter. We not only call Physics by the 
 name of Natural Philosophy, but every mechanical process has 
 with us its philosophy. We have books on the philosophy of 
 Manufactures, the philosophy of Agriculture, the philosophy of 
 Cookery, etc. In all this we are the ridicule of other nations. 
 Socrates, it is said, brought down philosophy from the clouds, 
 the English have degraded her to the kitchen ; and this, our 
 prostitution of the term, is, by foreigners, alleged as a sig- 
 nificant indication of tl.e low state of the mental sciences in 
 Britain. 
 
 From what has been said, you will, without a definition, be 
 able to form at least a general notion of what is meant by phi- 
 losophy. In its more extensive signification, it is equivalent to 
 a knowledge of things by their causes, and this is, in fact, 
 Aristotle's definition ; while, in its stricter meaning, it is con- 
 fined to the sciences which constitute, or hold immediately of, th 
 tcience u/' mind.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 VBE CAUSES OF PHILOSOPHY, AND THE DISPOSITIONS WITH 
 WHICH IT OUGHT TO BE STUDIED. 
 
 T7te causes of philosophy. Having thus endeavored tc 
 make you vaguely apprehend what cannot be precisely under- 
 stood, the Nature and Comprehension of Philosophy, 1 
 now proceed to another question, What are the Causes of 
 Philosophy ? The causes of philosophy lie in the original ele- 
 ments of our constitution. We are created with the faculty of 
 knowledge, and, consequently, created with the tendency to 
 exert it. Man philosophizes as he lives. He may philosophize 
 well or ill, but philosophize he must, Philosophy can, indeed, 
 only be assailed through philosophy itself. " If," says Aristotle, 
 in a passage preserved to us by Olympiodorus, " we must phi- 
 losophize, we must philosophize ; if we must not philosophize, 
 we must philosophize ; in any case, therefore, we must phi- 
 losophize." " Were philosophy," says Clement of Alexandria, 
 " an evil, still philosophy is to be studied, in order that it may 
 be scientifically contemned." And Avcrroes, " Philosophi 
 solum est spernere philosophiam." Of the causes of philoso- 
 phy some are, therefore, contained in man's very capacity for 
 knowledge ; these are essential and necessary. But there are 
 others, again, which lie in certain feelings with which he is 
 endowed ; these are complementary and assistant. 
 
 Essential Causes of Philosophy. Of the former class, 
 that is, of the essential causes, there are in all two: the one 
 is, the necessity we feel to connect Causes with Effects ; the 
 other, to carry iip our knowledge into Unify. These tendencies, 
 however, if not identical in their origin, coincide in their result; 
 for, as I have previously explained to you, in ascending from 
 (40)
 
 THE CAUSES OF PHILOSOPHY. 41 
 
 cause to cause, we necessarily (could we carry our analysis to 
 its issue), arrive at absolute unity. Indeed, were it not a dis- 
 cussion for which you are not as yet prepared, it might be 
 shown, that both principles originate in the same condition ; 
 that both emanate, not from any original power, but from the 
 game original powerlessness of mind. 
 
 1. The principle of Cause and Effect. Of the former, 
 namely, the tendency, or rather the necessity, which we feel to 
 connect the objects of our experience with others which afford 
 the reasons of their existence, it is needful to say but little. 
 The nature of this tendency is not a matter on which we can at 
 present enter ; and the fact of its existence is too notorious to 
 require either proof or illustration. It is sufficient to say, or 
 rather to repeat what we have already stated, that the mind is 
 unable to realize in thought the possibility of any absolute 
 commencement ; it cannot conceive that any thing which begins 
 to be is any thing more than a new modification of preexistent 
 elements ; it is unable to view any individual thing as other than 
 a link in the mighty chain of being ; and every isolated object 
 is viewed by it only as a fragment which, to be known, must be 
 known in connection with the whole of which it constitutes a 
 part.* It is thus that we are unable to rest satisfied with a 
 
 * [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, others conceivable bv us 
 or not. These others (for they are always plural) are called its cause ; 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 un- 
 able 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 nothing. When God is said to create the universe out of noth- 
 ing, we think this, by supposing that he evolves the universe out of nothing 
 but himself ; and, in like manner, we conceive annihilation, only by con- 
 ceiving the Creator to withdraw his creation, by withdrawing his creative 
 
 energy from actuality into power The mind is thus compelled to 
 
 recognize an absolute identity of existence in the effect and in the comple- 
 ment of its causes, between the causatum and the caustc. We think the 
 4*
 
 42 THE CAUSES OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 mere historical knowledge of existence ; and that even our 
 happiness is interested in discovering causes, hypothetical at 
 least, if not real, for the various phaenomena of the existence 
 of which our experience informs us. 
 
 " Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas." 
 
 2. The live of Unity. The second tendency of our nature, 
 M which philosophy is the result, is the desire of Unity. On 
 this, which indeed involves the other, it is necessary to be some 
 what more explicit. This tendency is one of the most promi- 
 nent characteristics of the human mind. It, in part, originates 
 in the imbecility of our faculties. We are lost in the multitude 
 of the objects presented to our observation, and it is only by 
 assorting them in classes that we can reduce the infinity of 
 nature to the finitude of mind. The conscious Ego, the con- 
 scious Self, by its nature one, seems also constrained to require 
 that unity by which it is distinguished, in every thing which it 
 receives, and in every thing which it produces. I regret that I 
 can illustrate this only by examples which cannot, I am aware, 
 as yet be fully intelligible to all. We are conscious of a scene 
 presented to our senses only by uniting its parts into a perceived 
 whole. Perception is thus a unifying act. The Imagination 
 cannot represent an object without uniting, in a single combina- 
 tion, the various elements of which it is composed. Generali- 
 zation is only the apprehension of the one in the many, and 
 language little else than a registry of the factitious unities of 
 thought. The Judgment cannot affirm or deny one notion of 
 another, except by uniting the two in one indivisible act of com- 
 parison. Syllogism is simply the union of two judgments in a 
 third. Reason, Intellect, rot's, in fine, concatenating thoughts 
 and objects into system, and tending always upwards from par- 
 ticular factxS to general laws, from general laws to universal 
 principles, is never satisfied in its ascent till it comprehend 
 
 causes to contain nil that is contained in the effect ; the effect to contain 
 nothing but what is contained in the causes. Each is the sum of the ether 
 
 " Omnia uiutaotur, nihil lnt*rit."l Discussion*.
 
 THE CAUSES OF PHILOSOPHY 43 
 
 (what, however, it can never do) all laws in a single formula, 
 and consummate all conditional knowledge in the unity of un- 
 conditional existence. Nor is it only in science that the mind 
 desiderates the one. We seek it equally in works of art. A 
 work of art is only deserving of the name, inasmuch as an idea 
 of the work has preceded its execution, and inasmuch as it is 
 itself a realization of the ideal model in sensible forms. All 
 languages express the mental operations by words which denote 
 a reduction of the many to the one. 2vvcais, aeQihppig, GWOUP- 
 ff&tjdig, cvvrtiyvK>6tg, etc. in Greek ; in Latin, cogere, (co-agere), 
 cogitare, (co-agitare), concipere, cognoscere, comprehendere, con' 
 tcire, with their derivatives, may serve for examples. 
 
 Testimonies to the love of Unity. The history of philoso- 
 phy is only the history of this tendency ; and philosophers have 
 amply testified to its reality. " The mind," says Anaxagoras, 
 u only knows when it subdues its objects, when it reduces the 
 many to the one." " All knowledge," say the Platonists, " is 
 the gathering up into one, and the indivisible apprehension of 
 this unity by the knowing mind." Leibnitz and Kant have, in 
 like manner, defined knowledge by the representation of multi- 
 tude in unity. " The end of philosophy," says Plato, " is the 
 intuition of unity ; " and Plotinus, among many others, observes 
 that our knowledge is perfect as it is one. The love of unity 
 is by Aristotle applied to solve a multitude of psychological 
 phenomena. St. Augustin even analyzes pain into a feeling 
 of the frustration of unity. " Quid est enim aliud dolor, nisi 
 quidam sensus divisionis vel corruptionis impatiens ? Unde lu :e 
 clarius apparet, quam sit ilia aniina in sui corporis universitate 
 avida unitatis et tenax." 
 
 Love of unity a guiding principle in philosophy. This love 
 of unity, this tendency of mind to generalize its knowledge, 
 leads us to anticipate in nature a corresponding uniformity ; 
 and as this anticipation is found in harmony with experience, 
 it not only affords the efficient cause of philosophy, but the 
 guiding principle to its discoveries. " Tims, for instance, when 
 it is observed that solid bodies are compressible, we are inclined 
 to expect that liquids will be found to be so likewise wt> sub-
 
 44 THE CAUSES OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ject them, consequently, to a series of experiments ; nor do we 
 rest satisfied until it be proved that this quality is common to 
 both classes of substances. Compressibility is then proclaimed 
 a physical law, a law of nature in general ; and we experi- 
 ence a vivid gratification in this recognition of unconditioned 
 universality." Another example } Kant, reflecting on the dif 
 ferences among the planets, or rather among the stars revoking 
 round the sun, and having discovered that these differences be- 
 trayed a uniform progress and proportion, a proportion which 
 was no longer to be found between Saturn and the first of the 
 comets, the law of unity and the analogy of nature, led him 
 to conjecture that, in the intervening space, there existed a star, 
 the discovery of which would vindicate the universality of the 
 law.* This anticipation was verified. Uranus was discovered 
 by Herschel, and our dissatisfaction at the anomaly appeased. 
 Franklin, in like manner, surmised that lightning and the electric 
 spark were identical ; and when he succeeded in verifying this 
 conjecture, our love of unity was gratified. From the moment 
 an isolated fact is discovered, we endeavor to refer it to other 
 facts which it resembles. Until this be accomplished, we do 
 not view it as understood. This is the case, for example, with 
 sulphur, which, in a certain degree of temperature melts like 
 other bodies, but at a higher degree of heat, instead of evapo- 
 rating, again consolidates. When a fact is generalized, our 
 discontent is quieted, and we consider the generality itself as tan- 
 tamount to an explanation. Why does this apple fall to the 
 ground? Because all bodies gravitate towards each other. 
 Arrived at this general fact, we inquire no more, although igno- 
 lant now as previously of the cause of gravitation ; for gravi- 
 tation is nothing more than a name for a general fact, the why 
 of which we know not. A mystery, if recognized as universal, 
 would no longer appear mysterious. 
 
 * Kant's conjecture was founded on a supposed progressive increase in 
 the eccentricities of the planetary orbits. This progression, however, is 
 only true of Venus, the Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn. The eccentricity di- 
 minishes again in Uranus, and still more in Neptune. Subsequent discov- 
 eries have thus rather weakened than confirmed the theory. Enylish 
 Editort
 
 THE CAUSES OF PHILOSOPHY. 45 
 
 The love of unity also a source of error. " But this thirst 
 of unity," as Gamier remarks, " this tendency of mind to gen- 
 eralize its knowledge, and our concomitant belief in the uni- 
 formity of natural phaenomena, is not only an effective mean of 
 discovery, but likewise an abundant source of error. Hardly 
 is there a similarity detected between two or three facts, than 
 men hasten to extend it to all others ; and if, perchance, the 
 similarity has been detected by ourselves, self-love closes our 
 eyes to the contradictions which our theory may encounter 
 from experience." " I have heard," says Condillac, " of a phi- 
 losopher who had the happiness of thinking that he had dis- 
 covered a principle which was to explain all the wonderful 
 phaenomena of chemistry, and who, in the ardor of his self- 
 gratulation, hastened to communicate his discovery to a skilful 
 chemist. The chemist had the kindness to listen to him, and 
 then calmly told him that there was but one unfortunate circum- 
 stance for his discovery, that the chemical facts were precisely 
 the converse of what he had supposed them to be. ' Well, 
 then,' said the philosopher, ' have the goodness to tell me what 
 they are, that I may explain them on my system.' " We are 
 naturally disposed to refer every thing we do not know to prin- 
 ciples with which we are familiar. As Aristotle observes, the 
 arly Pythagoreans, who first studied arithmetic, were induced, 
 by their scientific predilections, to explain the problem of the 
 universe by the properties of number ; and he notices also that 
 a certain musical philosopher was, in like manner, led to suppose 
 that the soul was but a kind of harmony. The musician sug- 
 gests to my recollection a passage of Dr. Reid. " Mr. Locke," 
 says he, " mentions an eminent musician who believed that God 
 created the world in six days, and rested the seventh, because 
 there are but seven notes in music. I myself," he continues, 
 "knew one of that profession who thought there could be only 
 three parts in harmony to wit, bass, tenor, and treble ; be- 
 cause there are but three persons in the Trinity." The alche- 
 mists would see in nature only a single metal, clothed with the 
 different appearances which we denominate gold, silver, copper, 
 iron, mercury, etc., and they confidently explained the mysteries,
 
 46 THE CAUSES OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 not only of nature, but of religion, by salt, sulphur, and mer- 
 cury. Some of our modern zoologists recoil from the possibility 
 of nature working on two different plans, and rather than 
 renounce the unity which delights them, they insist on recogniz 
 ing the wings of insects in the gills of fishes, and the sternum 
 of quadrupeds in the antennae of butterflies ; and all this that 
 they may prove that man is only the evolution of a molluscum ! 
 Descartes saw in the physical world only matter and motion ; 
 and, more recently, it has been maintained that thought itself 
 is only a movement of matter. Of all the faculties of the 
 mind, Condillac recognized only one, which transformed itself 
 like the Protean metal of the alchemists ; and he maintains 
 that our belief in the rising of to-morrow's sun is a sensation. 
 It is this tendency, indeed, which has principally determined 
 philosophers, as we shall hereafter see, to neglect or violate the 
 original duality of consciousness ; in which, as an ultimate fact, 
 a self and not-self, mind knowing and matter known, are 
 given in counterpoise and mutual opposition ; and hence the 
 three Unitarian schemes of Materialism, Idealism, and Absolute 
 Identity. In fine, Pantheism, or the doctrine which identifies 
 mind and matter, the Creator and the creature, God and the 
 universe, how are we to explain the prevalence of this modi- 
 fication of atheism in the most ancient and in the most recent 
 times ? Simply because it carries our love of unity to its high- 
 est fruition. 
 
 Influence of preconceived opinion reducible to love of unity. 
 To this love of unity to this desire of reducing the objects of 
 our knowledge to harmony and system a source of truth and 
 discovery if subservient to observation, but of error and delusion 
 if allowed to dictate to observation what phenomena are to be 
 perceived ; to this principle, I say, we may refer the influence 
 which preconceived opinions exercise upon our perceptions and 
 our judgments, by inducing us to see and require only what is 
 in unison with them. "What we wish, says Demosthenes, that 
 we believe ; what we expect, says Aristotle, that we find ; 
 truths which have been reechoed by a thousand confessors, and 
 confirmed by ten thousand examples. Opinions once adopted
 
 THE CAUSES OF PHILOSOPHY. 47 
 
 become part of the intellectual system of their holders. If op- 
 posed to prevalent doctrines, self-love defends them as a point 
 of honor, exaggerates whatever may confirm, overlooks or ex- 
 tenuates whatever may contradict. Again, if accepted as a 
 general doctrine, they are too often recognized, in consequence 
 of their prevalence, as indisputable truths, and all counter ap- 
 pearances peremptorily overruled as manifest illusions. Thus 
 it is that men will not see in the phenomena what alone is to be 
 seen ; in their observations they interpolate and they expunge ; 
 and this mutilated and adulterated product they call a fact. 
 And why ? Because the real phenomena, if admitted, would 
 spoil the pleasant music of their thoughts, and convert its facti- 
 tious harmony into discord. " Quse volunt sapiunt, et nolunt 
 sapere quae vera sunt." In consequence of this, many a system, 
 professing to be reared exclusively on observation and fact, rests 
 in reality mainly upon hypothesis and fiction. A pretended ex- 
 perience is, indeed, the screen behind which every illusive doc- 
 trine regularly retires. "There are more false facts," says 
 Cullen, " current in the world, than false theories ; " and the 
 livery of Lord Bacon has been most ostentatiously paraded by 
 many who were no members of his household. Fact, obser- 
 vation, induction, have always been the watchwords of those 
 who have dealt most extensively in fancy. It is now above 
 three centuries since Agrippa, in his Vanity of the Sciences, ob- 
 served of Astrology, Physiognomy, and Metoposcopy (the 
 Phrenology of those days), that experience was professedly 
 their only foundation and their only defence : " Solent omnes 
 ills divinationum prodigiosa; artes non, nisi experiential titulo, 
 t>e defendere et se objectionum vinculis extricare." It was on 
 this ground, too, that, at a later period, the great Kepler vindi- 
 cated the first of these arts, Astrology. "For," said he, ''how 
 could the principle of a science be false, where experience showed 
 that its predictions were uniformly fulfilled." Now, truth was 
 with Kepler even as a passion ; and his, too, was one of the 
 most powerful intellects that ever cultivated and promoted a 
 science. To him, astronomy, indeed, owes perhaps even more 
 than to Newton. And yet, even his great mind, preoccupied
 
 48 THE CAUSES OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 wilh a certain prevalent belief, could observe and judge only in 
 conformity with that belief. This tendency to look at realities 
 only through the spectacles of an hypothesis, is perhaps seen 
 most conspicuously in the fortunes of medicine. The history 
 of that science is, in truth, little else than an incredible narrative 
 of the substitution of fictions for facts ; the converts to an hy- 
 pothesis (and every, the most contradictory, doctrine has had 
 its day), regularly seeing and reporting only in conformity with 
 its dictates. The same is also true of the philosophy of mind; 
 and the variations and alternations in this science, which are 
 perhaps only surpassed by those in medicine, are to be traced to 
 a refusal of the real phenomenon revealed in consciousness, and 
 to the substitution of another, more in unison with preconceived 
 opinions of what it ought to be. Nor, in this commutation of 
 fact with fiction, should we suspect that there is any mala fides. 
 Prejudice, imagination, and passion sufficiently explain the illu- 
 sion. " Fingunt simul creduntque." " When," says Kant, " we 
 have once heard a bad report of this or that individual, we in- 
 continently think that we read the rogue in his countenance ; 
 fancy here mingles with observation, which is still further 
 vitiated when affection or passion interferes." 
 
 Auxiliary cause of philosophy Wonder. Such are the 
 two intellectual necessities which afford the two principal sources 
 of philosophy : the intellectual necessity of refunding effects 
 into their causes; and the intellectual necessity of carrying 
 up our knowledge into unity or system. But, besides these 
 intellectual necessities, which are involved in the very existence 
 of our faculties of knowledge, there is another powerful subsidi- 
 ary to the same effect, in a certain affection of our capacities 
 of feeling. This feeling, according to circumstances, is denomi- 
 nated surprise, astonishment, admiration, wonder, and, when 
 blended with the intellectual tendencies we have considered, it 
 obtains the name of curiosity. This feeling, though it cannot, 
 as some have held, be allowed to be the principal, far less the 
 only, cause of philosophy, is, however, a powerful auxiliary to 
 speculation ; and, though inadequate to account for the existence 
 of philosophy absolutely, it adequately explains the preference
 
 THE CAUSES OF PHILOSOPHY. 49 
 
 with which certain parts of philosophy have been cultivated, 
 and the order in which philosophy hi general has been devel- 
 oped. We may err both in exaggerating, and in extenuating, 
 its influence. Wonder has been contemptuously called the 
 daughter of ignorance ; true ! but wonder, we should add, is the 
 mother of knowledge. Among others, Plato, Aristotle, Plu- 
 tarch, and Bacon have all concurred in testifying to the influ- 
 ence of this principle. " Admiration," says the Platonic Socrates 
 in the Thecetetus, " admiration is a highly philosophical affec 
 lion ; indeed, there is no other principle of philosophy but this." 
 " That philosophy," says Aristotle, " was not originally 
 studied for any practical end, is manifest from those who first 
 began to philosophize. It was, in fact, wonder, which then, as 
 now, determined men to philosophical researches. Among the 
 phenomena presented to them, their admiration was first di- 
 rected to those more proximate and more on a level with their 
 powers, and then, rising by degrees, they came at length to de- 
 mand an explanation of the higher phenomena, as the dif- 
 ferent states of the moon, sun, and stars, and the origin of the 
 universe. Now, to doubt and to be astonished is to recognize 
 our ignorance. Hence it is, that the lover of wisdom is, in a 
 certain sort, a lover of mythi, ((fidopvVos nmg) ; for the subject 
 of mythi is the astonishing and marvellous. If, then, men phi- 
 losophize to escape ignorance, it is clear that they pursue knowl- 
 edge on its own account, and not for the sake of any foreign 
 utility. This is proved by the fact ; for it was only after all 
 that pertained to the wants, welfare, and conveniences of life 
 had been discovered, that men commenced their philosophical 
 researches. It is, therefore, manifest that we do not study 
 philosophy for the sake of any thing ulterior ; and, as we 
 call him a free man who belongs to himself and not to another 
 BO philosophy is, of all sciences, the only free or liberal study, 
 for it alone is unto itself an end." " It is the business 
 of philosophy," says Plutarch, " to investigate, to admire, and 
 to doubt." 
 
 Wonder explains t/ie order in which objects are studied. 
 We have already remarked, that the principle of wonder 
 6
 
 50 Till DISPOSITIONS PROPER TO PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 affords an explanation of the order in which the different 
 objects of philosophy engaged the attention of mankind. The 
 ami of all philosophy is the discovery of principles, that is, 
 of higher causes ; but, in the procedure to this end, men first 
 endeavored to explain those phenomena which attracted their 
 attention by arousing their wonder. The child is wholly ab- 
 sorbed in the observation of the world without ; the world 
 within first engages the contemplation of the man. As it is 
 with the individual, so was it with the species. Philosophy, 
 before attempting the problem of intelligence, endeavored to 
 resolve the problem of nature. The spectacle of the external 
 universe was too imposing not first to solicit curiosity, and to 
 direct upon itself the prelusive efforts of philosophy. Thales 
 and Pythagoras, in whom philosophy finds its earliest represent- 
 atives, endeavored to explain the organization of the universe, 
 and to substitute a scientific for a religious cosmogony. For a 
 season, their successors toiled in the same course ; and it was 
 only after philosophy had tried, and tired, its forces on external 
 nature, that the human mind recoiled upon itself, and sought in 
 the study of its own nature the object and end of philosophy. 
 The mind now became to itself its point of departure, and its 
 principal object ; and its progress, if less ambitious, was more 
 secure. Socrates was he who first decided this new destination 
 of philosophy. From his epoch, man sought in himself the so- 
 lution of the great problem of existence ; and the history of 
 philosophy was henceforward only a development, more or less 
 successful, more or less complete, of the inscription on the Del- 
 phic temple /Ywih asuvTor Know thyself. 
 
 Having informed yon, 1, "What Philosophy is, and 2, 
 What are its Causes, I would now say a few words on the Dis- 
 positions with which Philosophy" ought to be studied ; for, with- 
 out certain practical conditions, a speculative knowledge of the 
 most perfect Method of procedure (our next following ques- 
 tion), remains barren and unapplied. 
 
 "To attain to a knowledge of ourselves," says Socrates, "we 
 must banish prejudice, passion, and sloth ; " and no one who 
 neglects this precept, can hope to make any progress in the phi-
 
 THE DISPOSITIONS PROPER TO PHILOSOPHY. 51 
 
 losophy of the human mind, which is only another term for the 
 knowledge of ourselves. 
 
 First condition, renunciation of prejudice. In the first 
 place, then, all prejudices, that is, all opinions formed on 
 irrational grounds, ought to be removed. A preliminary 
 doubt is thus the fundamental condition of philosophy ; and the 
 necessity of such a doubt is no less apparent than is its diffi- 
 culty. We do not approach the study of philosophy ignorant, 
 but perverted. " There is no one," says Gatien-Arnoult, " who 
 has not grown up under a load of beliefs beliefs which ho 
 owes to the accidents of country and family, to the books he has 
 read, to the society he has frequented, to the education he has 
 received, and, in general, to the circumstances which have con- 
 curred in the formation of his intellectual and moral habits. 
 These beliefs may be true, or they may be false, or, what is 
 more probable, they may be a medley of truths and errors. 
 It is, however, under their influence that he studies, and 
 through them, as through a prism, that he views and judges the 
 objects of knowledge. Every thing is therefore seen by him in 
 false colors, and in distorted relations. And this is the reason 
 why philosophy, as the science of truth, requires a renunciation 
 of prejudices (prce-judicia, opiniones prce-judicatce), that is, 
 conclusions formed without a previous examination of their 
 grounds." 
 
 In this, Christianity and Philosophy are at one. In this, if I 
 may without irreverence compare things human with things 
 divine, Christianity and Philosophy coincide, for truth is 
 equally the end of both. What is the primary condition which 
 our Saviour requires of his disciples ? That they throw off 
 their old prejudices, and come with hearts willing to receive 
 knowledge, and understandings open to conviction. " Unless," 
 He says, "ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the 
 kingdom of heaven." Such is true religion; such also is true 
 philosophy. Philosophy requires an emancipation from the 
 yoke of foreign authority, a renunciation of nil blind adhesion 
 to the opinions of our age and country, and a purification of the 
 intellect from all assumptive beliefs. Unless we can cast off
 
 52 THE DISPOSITIONS PROPER TO PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the prejudices of the man, and become as children, docile and 
 unperverted, we need never hope to enter the temple of philos- 
 ophy. It is the neglect of this primary condition, which has 
 mainly occasioned men to wander from the unity of truth, and 
 caused the endless variety of religious and plu'losophical sects. 
 Men would not submit to approach the word of God in order to 
 receive from that alone their doctrine and their faith ; but they 
 came, in general, with preconceived opinions, and, accordingly, 
 each found in revelation only what he was predetermined to 
 find. So, in like manner, is it in philosophy. Consciousness it 
 to the philosopher what the Bible is to the theologian. Both are 
 revelations of the truth ; and both afford the truth to those 
 who are content to receive it, as it ought to be received, with 
 reverence and submission. But as it has, too frequently, fared 
 with the one revelation, so has it with the other. Men turned, 
 indeed, to consciousness, and professed to regard its authority 
 as paramount ; but they were not content humbly to accept the 
 facts which consciousness revealed, and to establish these with- 
 out retrenchment or distortion, as the only principles of their 
 philosophy ; on the contrary, they came with opinions already 
 formed, with systems already constructed ; and while they 
 eagerly appealed to consciousness when its data supported their 
 conclusions, they made no scruple to overlook, or to misinter- 
 pret, its facts, when these were not in harmony with their spec- 
 ulations. Thus, religion and philosophy, as they both terminate 
 in the same end, so they both depart from the same fundamen- 
 tal condition. 
 
 But the influence of early prejudice is the more dangerous, 
 inasmuch as this influence is unobtrusive. Few of us are, per- 
 haps, fully aware of how little we owe to ourselves, how 
 much to the influence of others. 
 
 Source of the power of custom. Man is by nature a social 
 animal. " lie is more political," says Aristotle, " than any bee 
 or ant." But the existence of society, from a family to a state, 
 supposes a certain harmony of sentiment among its members ; 
 and nature has, accordingly, wisely implanted in us a tendency 
 to assimilate, in opinions and habits of thought, to tho.se with
 
 THE DISPOSITIONS PROPER TO PHILOSOPHY. 53 
 
 whom we live and act There is thus, in every society, great 
 or small, a certain gravitation of opinions towards a common 
 centre. As in our natural body, every part has a necessary 
 sympathy with every other, and all together form, by their har- 
 monious conspiration, a healthy whole ; so, in the social body, 
 there is always a strong predisposition, in each of its members, 
 to act and think in unison with the rest This universal sym- 
 pathy, or fellow-feeling, of our social nature, is the principle of 
 the different spirit dominant hi different ages, countries, ranks, 
 sexes, and periods of life. It is the cause why fashions, why 
 political and religious enthusiasm, why moral example, either 
 for good or evil, spread so rapidly, and exert so powerful an 
 influence. As men are naturally prone to imitate others, they 
 consequently regard, as important or insignificant, as honorable 
 or disgraceful, as true or false, as good or bad, what those 
 around them consider hi the same light. They love and hate 
 what they see others desire and eschew. This is not to be re- 
 gretted ; it is natural, and, consequently, it is right Indeed, 
 were it otherwise, society could not subsist, for nothing can be 
 more apparent than that mankind in general, destined as they 
 are to occupations incompatible with intellectual cultivation, are 
 wholly incapable of forming opinions for themselves on many 
 of the most important objects of human consideration. If such, 
 however, be the intentions of nature with respect to the unen- 
 lightened classes, it is manifest that a heavier obligation ia 
 thereby laid on those who enjoy the advantages of intellectual 
 cultivation, to examine with diligence and impartiality the foun- 
 dations of those opinions which have any connection with the 
 welfare of mankind. If the multitude must be led, it is of con- 
 sequence that it be led by enlightened conductors. That the 
 great multitude of mankind are, by natural disposition, only 
 what others are, is a fact at all times so obtrusive, that it could 
 not escape observation from the moment a reflective eye was 
 first turned upon man. " The whole conduct of Carabyses," 
 says Herodotus, the father of history, " towards the Egyptian 
 gods, sanctuaries, and priests, convinces me that this king was 
 in llie highest degree insane ; for otherwise, he would nut liavo 
 6*
 
 54 THE DISPOSITIONS PROPER TO PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 insulted the worship and holy things of the Egyptians. If any 
 one should accord to all men the permission to make free choice 
 of the best among all customs, undoubtedly each would choose 
 his own. That this would certainly happen, can be shown by 
 many examples, and, among others, by the following. The 
 King Darius once asked the Greeks who were resident hi his 
 court, at what price they could be induced to devour their dead 
 parents. The Greeks answered, that to this no price could 
 bribe them. Thereupon the king asked some Indians, who were 
 in the habit of eating their dead parents, what they would take, 
 not to eat, but to burn them ; and the Indians answered even as 
 the Greeks had done." Herodotus concludes this narrative 
 with the observation, that " Pindar had justly entitled Cus- 
 tom the Queen of the World." 
 
 Sceptical inference from the influence of custom. The 
 ancient sceptics, from the conformity of men, in every country, 
 in their habits of thinking, feeling, and acting, and from the 
 diversity of different nations in these habits, inferred that noth- 
 ing was by nature beautiful or deformed, true or false, good or 
 bad, but that these distinctions originated solely in custom. The 
 modern scepticism of Montaigne terminates in the same asser- 
 tion ; and the sublime misanthropy of Pascal has almost carried 
 him to a similar exaggeration. " In the just and the unjust," 
 says he, " we find hardly any thing which does not change its 
 character in changing its climate. Three degrees of an eleva- 
 tion of the pole reverses the whole of jurisprudence. A 
 meridian is decisive of truth, and a few years of possession 
 Fundamental laws change. Right has its epochs. A pleasant 
 justice, which a river or a mountain limits ! Truth, on this side 
 the Pyrenees, error on the other ! " This doctrine is exag- 
 gerated, but it has a foundation in truth ; and the most zealous 
 champions of the immutability of moral distinctions are unani- 
 mous in acknowledging the powerful influence which the opin- 
 ions, taste?, manners, affections, and actions of the society in 
 which we live, exert upon all and each of its members. 
 
 Influence of custom and example in revolutionary times. 
 Nor is this influence of man on man leao unambiguous in times
 
 THE DISPOSITIONS PROPER TO PHILOSOPHY. 55 
 
 of social tranquillity, than in crises of social convulsion. ID 
 seasons of political and religious revolution, there arises 8 
 struggle between the resisting force of ancient habits and the 
 contagious sympathy of new modes of feeling and thought 
 In one portion of society, the inveterate influence of custom 
 prevails over the contagion of example ; in others, the conta- 
 gion of example prevails over the conservative force of an- 
 tiquity and habit. In either case, however, we think and act 
 always in sympathy with others. " We remain," says an illus- 
 trious philosopher, " submissive so long as the world continues 
 to set the example. As we follow the herd in forming our con- 
 ceptions of what is respectable, so we are ready to follow the 
 multitude also, when such conceptions come to be questioned or 
 rejected ; and are no less vehement reformers, when the cur- 
 rent of opinion has turned against former establishments, than 
 we were zealous abettors, while that current continued to set in 
 a different direction." 
 
 Relation of the individual to social crises. Thus it is, that 
 no revolution in public opinion is the work of an individual, of 
 a single cause, or of a day. When the crisis has arrived, the 
 catastrophe must ensue ; but the agents through whom it is ap- 
 parently accomplished, though they may accelerate, cannot 
 originate its occurrence. Who believes, that, but for Luther 
 or Zwingli, the Reformation would not have been? Their indi- 
 vidual, their personal energy and zeal, perhaps, hastened by a 
 year or two the event ; but had the public mind not been 
 already ripe for their revolt, the fate of Luther and Zwingli, in 
 the sixteenth century, would have been that of IIuss and Je- 
 rome of Prague, in the fifteenth. Woe to the revolutionist who 
 is not himself a creature of the revolution ! If he anticipate 
 hi) is lost ; for it requires, what no individual can supply, a long 
 and powerful counter-sympathy in a nation to untwine the 
 ties of custom which bind a people to the established and the 
 old. 
 
 Testimonies to the power of received opinion. I should 
 have no end, wore I to quote to you all that philosophers have 
 said of the prevalence and evil influence of prejudice and opiii-
 
 56 THE DISPOSITIONS PROPER TO PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ion. " Opinion," says the great Pascal, " disposes of all things. 
 It constitutes beauty, justice, happiness ; and these are the all 
 in all of the world." 
 
 "Almost every opinion we have," says the pious Charon, 
 " we have but by authority ; we believe, judge, act, live, and 
 die on trust, as common custom teaches us ; and rightly ! for we 
 are too weak to decide and choose of ourselves. But the wise 
 do not act thus." " Every opinion," says Montaigne, " is 
 strong enough to have had its martyrs ; " and Sir W. Raleigh 
 " It is opinion, not truth, that travelleth the world without pass- 
 port," 
 
 Doubt the first step to philosophy. Such being the recog- 
 nized universality and evil effect of prejudice, philosophers 
 have, consequently, been unanimous in making doubt the first 
 step towards philosophy. Aristotle has a fine chapter in his 
 Metaphysics on the utility of doubt, and. on the things which 
 we ought first to doubt of; and he concludes by establishing 
 that the success of philosophy depends on the art of doubting 
 well. This is even enjoined on us by the Apostle. For in 
 saying " Prove " (which may be more correctly translated test) 
 " Test all things," he implicitly commands us to doubt all 
 things. " He," says Bacon, " who would become a philosopher, 
 must commence by repudiating belief ; " and he concludes one 
 of the most remarkable passages of his writings with the obser- 
 vation, that, " were there a single man to be found with a firm- 
 ness sufficient to efface from his mind the theories and notions 
 vulgarly received, and to apply his intellect free and without 
 prevention, the best hopes might be entertained of his success." 
 " To plu'losophize," says Descartes, u seriously, and to good 
 effect, it is necessary for a man to renounce all prejudices ; in 
 other words, to apply the greatest care to doubt of all his pre- 
 vious opinions, so long as these have not been subjected to a 
 new examination, and been recognized as true." But it is 
 needless to multiply authorities in support of so obvious a truth. 
 The ancient philosophers refused to admit slaves to their in- 
 struction. Prejudice makes men slaves ; it disqualifies them 
 for the pursuit of truth ; and their emancipation from prejudice
 
 THE DISPOSITIONS PROPER TO PHILOSOPHY. 57 
 
 is what philosophy first inculcates on, what it first requires of, 
 its disciples. 
 
 Philosophical doubt distinguished from scepticism. Let us, 
 however, beware that ive act not the part of revolted slaves ; 
 that, in asserting our liberty, we do not run into license. Phil- 
 osophical doubt is not an end, but a mean. We doubt in order 
 that we may believe ; we begin, that we may not end with, 
 doubt. We doubt once that we may believe always ; we re- 
 nounce authority that we may follow reason ; we surrender 
 opinion that we may obtain knowledge. We must be protes- 
 tants, not infidels, hi philosophy. " There is a great difference," 
 says Malebranche, " between doubting and doubting. We may 
 doubt through passion and brutality ; through blindness and 
 malice, and finally through fancy, and from the very wish to 
 doubt ; but we doubt also from prudence and through distrust, 
 from wisdom and through penetration of mind. The former 
 doubt is a doubt of darkness, which never issues to the light, 
 but leads us always further from it ; the latter is a doubt which 
 is born of the light, and which aids in a certain sort, to produce 
 light in its turn." Indeed, were the etfect of philosophy the 
 establishment of doubt, the remedy would be worse than the 
 disease. Doubt, as a permanent state of mind, would be, in 
 fact little better than an intellectual death. The mind lives as 
 it believes, it lives in the affirmation of itself, of nature, and 
 of God ; a doubt upon any one of these would be a diminution 
 of its life ; a doubt upon the three, were it possible, would b 
 tantamount to a mental annihilation. 
 
 It is well observed, by Mr. Stewart, " that it is not merely in 
 order to free the mind from the influence of error, that it ia 
 useful to examine the foundation of established opinions. It is 
 such an examination alone, that, in an inquisitive age like the 
 present, can secure a philosopher from the danger of unlimited 
 scepticism. To this extreme, indeed, the complexion of the 
 tunes is more likely to give him a tendency, than to implicit 
 credulity. In the former ages of ignorance and superstition, 
 the intimate association which had been funned in the prevail- 
 ing systems of education, between truth and error had given to
 
 58 THE DISPOSITIONS PROPER TO PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the latter an ascendant over the minds of men, which it coiJd 
 never have acquired if divested of such an alliance. The case 
 has, of late years, been most remarkably reversed : the common 
 sense of mankind, in consequence of the growth of a more lib- 
 eral spirit of inquiry, has revolted against many of those ab- 
 surdities which had so long held human reason in captivity ; 
 and it was, perhaps, more than could have been reasonably 
 expected, that, in the first moments of their emancipation, 
 philosophers should have stopped short at the precise boundary 
 which cooler reflection and more moderate views would have 
 prescribed. The fact is, that they have passed far beyond it ; 
 and that, in their zeal to destroy prejudices, they have attempted 
 to tear up by the roots many of the best and happiest and most 
 
 essential principles of our nature In the midst of these 
 
 contrary impulses of fashionable and vulgar prejudices, he alone 
 evinces the superiority and the strength of his mind, who is able 
 to disentangle truth from error ; and to oppose the clear conclu- 
 sions of his own unbiased faculties to the united clamors of 
 superstition and of false philosophy. Such are the men whom 
 nature marks out to be the lights of the world ; to fix the wa- 
 vering opinions of the multitude, and to impress their own char- 
 acters on that of their age." In a word, philosophy is, as 
 Aristotle has justly expressed, not the art of doubting, but the 
 art of doubting well. 
 
 Subjugation of the passions. In the second place, in obedi- 
 ence to the precept of Socrates, the passions, under which we 
 shall include sloth, ought to be subjugated. These ruffle the 
 tranquillity of the mind, and consequently deprive it of the power 
 of carefully considering all that the solution of a question re- 
 quires should be examined. A man under the agitation of any 
 lively emotion, is hardly aware of aught but what has immediate 
 relation to the passion which agitates and engrosses him. Among 
 the affections which influence the will, and induce it to adhere 
 to scepticism 01 error, there is none more dangerous than sloth. 
 The greater proportion of mankind are inclined to spare them- 
 selves the trouble of a long and laborious inquiry; or they 
 fancy that a superficial examination is enough; and the slightest
 
 THE DISPOSITIONS PROPER TO PHILOSOPHY. 59 
 
 agreement between a few objects, in a few petty points, they at 
 once assume as evincing the correspondence of the whole 
 throughout. Others apply themselves exclusively to the mat- 
 ters which it is absolutely necessary for them to know, and take 
 no account of any opinion but that which they have stumbled 
 on, for no other reason than that they have embraced it, and 
 are unwilling to recommence the labor of learning. They re- 
 ceive their opinion on the authority of those who have had 
 suggested to them their own ; and they are always facile schol- 
 ars, for the slightest probability is, for them, all the evidence 
 that they require. 
 
 Pride is a powerful impediment to a progress in knowledge. 
 Under the influence of this passion, men seek honor, but not 
 truth. They do not cultivate what is most valuable in reality, 
 but what is most valuable in opinion. They disdain, perhaps, 
 what can be easily accomplished, and apply themselves to the 
 obscure and recondite ; but as the vulgar and easy is the foun- 
 dation on which the rare and arduous is built, they fail even in 
 attaining the object of their ambition, and remain with only a 
 farrago of confused and ill-assorted notions. In all its phases, 
 self-love is an enemy to philosophical progress ; and the history 
 of philosophy is filled with the illusions of which it has been the 
 source. On the one side, it has led men to close their eyes 
 against the most evident truths which were not in harmony with 
 their adopted opinions. It is said that there was not a physician 
 in Europe, above the age of forty, who would admit Harvey's 
 discovery of the circulation of the blood. On the other hand, it 
 is finely observed by Bacon, that " the eye of human intellect is 
 not dry, but receives a suffusion from the will and from the 
 aflections, so that it may almost be said to engender any science 
 it pleases. For what a man wishes to be true, that he prefers 
 believing. ' And, in another place, " if the human intellect hath 
 once takcL a liking to any doctrine, either because received and 
 credited, or because otherwise pleasing, it draws every thing 
 else into harmony with that doctrine, and to its support ; and 
 albeit there may be found a more powerful array of contra- 
 dictory instances, these, however, it either does not observe, 01 
 it contemns, or by distinction extenuates and rejects."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 THERE ia only one possible method in philosophy ; and what 
 have been called the different methods of different philosophers, 
 vary from each other only as more or less perfect applications 
 of this one Method to the objects of knowledge. 
 
 What is Method ? All method is a rational progress, a 
 progress towards an end ; and the method of philosophy is the 
 procedure conducive to the end which philosophy proposes. 
 The ends, the final causes of philosophy, as we have seen, 
 are two ; first, the discovery of efficient causes ; secondly, 
 the generalization of our knowledge into unity ; two ends, 
 however, which fall together into one, inasmuch as the higher 
 we proceed in the discovery of causes, we necessarily approxi- 
 mate more and more to unity. The detection of the one in the 
 many might, therefore, be laid down as the end to which philos- 
 ophy, though it can never reach it, tends continually to approx- 
 imate. But, considering philosophy in relation to both these 
 ends, I shall endeavor to show you that it has only one possible 
 method. 
 
 But one method in relation to the first end of Philosophy. 
 Considering philosophy, in the first place, in relation to its first 
 end, the discovery of causes, we have seen that causes 
 (taking that term as synonymous for all without which the 
 effect would not be) are only the coefficients of the effect ; an 
 effect being nothing more than the sum or complement of all the 
 partial causes, the concurrence of which constitute its existence. 
 This being the case, and as it is only by experience that we 
 discover what particular causes must conspire in order to nro- 
 (GO)
 
 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 61 
 
 duce such or such an effect, it follows, that nothing can be- 
 come known to us as a cause except in and through its effect ; 
 in other words, that we can only attain to the knowledge of a 
 cause by extracting it out of its effect. To take the example, 
 we formerly employed, of a neutral salt. This, as I observed, 
 was made up by the conjunction of three proximate causes, 
 namely, an acid, an alkali, and the force which brought tho 
 alkali and the acid into the requisite approximation. This last, 
 as a transitory condition, and not always the same, we shall 
 throw out of account. Now, though we might know the acid 
 and the alkali in themselves as distinct phenomena, we could 
 never know them as the concurrent causes of the salt, unless we 
 had known the salt as their effect. And though, in this ex- 
 ample, it happens that we are able to compose the effect by the 
 union of its causes, and to decompose it by their separa- 
 tion, this is only an accidental circumstance ; for the far 
 greater number of the objects presented to our observation can 
 only be decomposed, but not actually recomposed ; and in those 
 which can be recomposed, this possibility is itself only the result 
 of a knowledge of the causes previously obtained by an original 
 decomposition of the effect. 
 
 This method is by Analysis and Synthesis. In so far, there- 
 fore, as philosophy is the research of causes, the one necessary 
 condition of its possibility is the decomposition of effects into 
 their constituted causes. Thia is the fundamental procedure of 
 philosophy, and is called by a Greek term Analysis. But 
 though analysis be the fundamental procedure, it is still only a 
 mean towards an end. We analyze only that we may compre- 
 hend ; and we comprehend only inasmuch as we are able to 
 reconstruct, in thought, the complex effects which we have 
 analyzed into their elements. This mental reconstruction is, 
 therefore, the final, the consummative procedure of philosophy, 
 and it is familiarly known by the Greek term Synthesis. Analy- 
 sis and synthesis, though commonly treated as two different 
 methods, are, if properly understood, only the two necessary 
 parts of the same method. Each is the relative and the correl- 
 ative of the other. Analysis, without a subsequent synthesis, la 
 6
 
 62 THE METHOD OF PHiLOSOPHl. 
 
 incomplete ; it is a mean cut off from its end. Synthesis, with- 
 out a previous analysis, is baseless ; for synthesis receives from 
 analysis the elements which it recomposes. And, as synthesis 
 supposes analysis as the prerequisite of its possibility, so it is 
 also dependent on analysis for the qualities of its existence. 
 The value of every synthesis depends upon the value of the 
 foregoing analysis. If the precedent analysis afford false ele- 
 ments, the subsequent synthesis of these elements will cecessa- 
 rily afford a false result If the elements furnished by analysis 
 are assumed, and not really discovered, in other words, if 
 they be hypothetical, the synthesis of these hypothetical ele- 
 ments will constitute only a conjectural theory. The legiti- 
 macy of every synthesis is thus necessarily dependent on the 
 legitimacy of the analysis which it presupposes, and on which 
 it founds. 
 
 These two relative procedures are thus equally necessary to 
 each other. On the one hand, analysis without synthesis 
 affords only a commenced, only an incomplete, knowledge. On 
 the other, synthesis without analysis is a false knowledge, 
 that is, no knowledge at all. Both, therefore, are absolutely 
 necessary to philosophy, and both are, in philosophy, as much 
 parts of the same method as, in the animal body, inspiration 
 and expiration are of the same vital function. But though 
 these operations are each requisite to the other, yet were we to 
 distinguish and compare what ought only to be considered as 
 conjoined, it is to analysis that the preference must be accorded. 
 An analysis is always valuable ; for though now without a syn- 
 thesis, this synthesis may at any time be added ; whereas a 
 synthesis without a previous analysis is radically and ab initio 
 null 
 
 So far, therefore, as regards the first end of philosophy, or 
 the discovery of causes, it appears that there is only one possi- 
 ble method, that method of which analysis is the foundation, 
 synthesis the completion. In the second place, considering phi- 
 losophy in relation to its second end, the carrying up our 
 knowledge into unity, the same is equally apparent. 
 
 Only one method in relation to the second end of Philoso-
 
 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 63 
 
 phy. Every thing presented to our observation, whether 
 external or internal, whether through sense or self-conscious- 
 ness, is presented in complexity. Through sense, the objects 
 crowd upon the mind in multitudes, and each separate indi- 
 vidual of these multitudes is itself a congeries of many various 
 qualities. The same is the case with the phaenomena of self- 
 consciousness. Every modification of miird is a complex state ; 
 and the different elements of each state manifest themselves 
 only in and through each other. Thus, nothing but multiplicity 
 is ever presented to our observation ; and yet our faculties are 
 so limited that they are able to comprehend at once only the 
 very simplest conjunctions. There seems, therefore, a singular 
 disproportion between our powers of knowledge and the objects 
 to be known. How is the equilibrium to be restored ? This is 
 the great problem proposed by nature, and which analysis and 
 synthesis, in combination, enable us to solve. For example, I 
 perceive a tree, among other objects of an extensive landscape, 
 and I wish to obtain a full and distinct conception of that tree. 
 What ought I to do ? Divide et impera : I must attend to it by 
 itself, that is, to the exclusion of the other constituents of the 
 scene before me. I thus analyze that scene ; I separate a petty 
 portion of it from the rest, in order to consider that portion apart. 
 But this is not enough, the tree itself is not a unity, but, on the 
 contrary, a complex assemblage of elements, far beyond what 
 my powers can master at once. I must carry my analysis still 
 further. Accordingly, I consider successively its height, its 
 breadth, its shape ; I then proceed to its trunk, rise from that to 
 its branches, and follow out its different ramifications ; I now 
 fix my attention on the leaves, and severally examine their 
 form, color, etc. It is only after having thus, by analysis, de- 
 tached all these parte, in order to deal with them one by one, 
 that I am able, by reversing the process, fully to comprehend 
 them again in a series of synthetic acts. By synthesis, rising 
 from the ultimate analysis, step by step, I view the parts in 
 relation to each other, and, finallv, to the whole of which they 
 are thf 'onstituents; I reconstruct them ; and it is only through 
 these tw counter-processes of analysis ami synthesis, that I am
 
 64 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 able to convert the confused perception of the tree, which I 
 obtained at first sight, into a clear, and distinct, and comprehen- 
 sive knowledge. 
 
 How a multitude is reduced to unity. But if analysis and 
 synthesis be required to afford us a perfect knowledge even of one 
 individual object of sense, still more are they required to enable 
 the mind to reduce an indefinite multitude of objects, the infin- 
 itude, we may say, of nature, to the limits of its own finite com 
 prehension. To accomplish this, it is requisite to extract the one 
 out of the many, and thus to recall multitude to unity, confu- 
 sion to order. And how is this performed ? The one in the 
 many being that in which a plurality of objects agree, or that in 
 which they may be considered as the same ; and the agreement 
 of objects in any common quality being discoverable only by 
 an observation and comparison of the objects themselves, it fol- 
 lows that a knowledge of the one can only be evolved out of a 
 foregoing knowledge of the many. But this evolution can only 
 be accomplished by an analysis and a synthesis. By analysis, 
 from the infinity of objects presented to our observation, we 
 select some. These we consider apart, and, further, only in 
 certain points of view, and we compare these objects with 
 others also considered in the same points of view. So far the 
 procedure is analytic. Having discovered, however, by this 
 observation and comparison, that certain objects agree in cer- 
 tain respects, we generalize the qualities in which they coincide, 
 that is, from a certain number of individual instances we 
 infer a general law ; we perform what is called an act of In- 
 duction. 
 
 What is Induction? This induction is erroneously viewed 
 as analytic ; it is purely a synthetic process. For example, 
 from our experience, and all experience, be it that of the 
 individual or of mankind, is only finite, from our limited ex- 
 perience, I say, that bodies, as observed by us, attract each 
 other, we infer by induction the unlimited conclusion that all 
 bodies gravitate towards each other. Now, here the consequent 
 contains much more than was contained in the antecedent. 
 Experience, the antecedent, only says, and only can say, this.
 
 THE METIIOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 65 
 
 (hat, and the other body gravitate (that is, some bodies gravi- 
 tate) ; the consequent educed from that antecedent, says, all 
 bodies gravitate. The antecedent is limited, the consequent 
 unlimited. Something, therefore, has been added to the antecedent 
 in order to legitimate the inference, if we are not to hold the 
 consequent itself as absurd ; for, as you will hereafter learn, no 
 conclusion must contain more than was contained in the prem- 
 ises from which it is drawn. What then is the something? If 
 we consider the inductive process, this will be at once apparent. 
 
 The affirmation, this, that, and the other body gravitate, is 
 connected with the affirmation, all bodies gravitate, only by in 
 serting between the two a third affirmation, by which the two 
 other affirmations are connected into reason and consequent, 
 that is, into a logical cause and effect. What that is I shall 
 explain. All scientific induction is founded on the presumption 
 that nature is uniform in her operations. Of the ground and 
 origin of this presumption, I am not now to speak. I shall only 
 say, that, as it is a principle which we suppose in all our induc- 
 tions, it cannot be itself a product of induction. It is, therefore, 
 interpolated in the inductive reasoning by the mind itself. In 
 our example the reasoning will, accordingly, run as follows : 
 
 This, that, and the other body (some bodies) are observed to 
 gravitate ; 
 
 But (as nature is uniform in her operations) this, that, and 
 the other body (some bodies) represent all bodies ; 
 
 Therefore, all bodies gravitate. 
 
 Now, in this and other examples of induction, it is the mind 
 which binds up the separate substances observed and collected 
 into a whole, and converts what is only the observation of many 
 particulars into a universal law. This procedure is manifestly 
 synthetic. 
 
 Now, you will remark that analysis and synthesis are h ore 
 absolutely dependent on each other. The previous observation 
 and comparison, the analytic foundation, are only instituted 
 for the sake of the subsequent induction, the synthetic con- 
 summation. What boots it to observe and to compare, if t'ut 
 uniformities we discover among objects are never generalize 1 
 6*
 
 66 THE METHOD OJ PHILOSOPHY 
 
 into laws ? We have obtained an historical, but not a philo- 
 sophical knowledge. Here, therefore, analysis without synthesis 
 is incomplete. On the other hand, an induction which does not 
 proceed upon a competent enumeration of particulars, is either 
 doubtful, improbable, or null ; for all synthesis is dependent on 
 a foregone analysis for whatever degree of certainty it may 
 pretend to. Thus, considering philosophy in relation to its 
 eecond end, unity or system, it is manifest that the method by 
 which it accomplishes that end, is a method involving both an 
 analytic and a synthetic process. 
 
 Now, as philosophy has only one possible method, so the his- 
 tory of philosophy only manifests the conditions of this one 
 method, more or less accurately fulfilled. There are aberra- 
 tions in the method, no aberrations from it. 
 
 Earliest problem of philosophy. " Philosophy," says Ge- 
 ruzez, " commenced with the first act of reflection on the objects 
 of sense or self-consciousness, for the purpose of explaining 
 them. And with that first act of reflection, the method of phi- 
 losophy began, in its application of an analysis, and in its appli- 
 cation of a synthesis, to its object. The first philosophers 
 naturally endeavored to explain the enigma of external nature. 
 The magnificent spectacle of the material universe, and the 
 marvellous demonstrations of power and wisdom which it every- 
 where exhibited, were the objects which called forth the earliest 
 efforts of speculation. Philosophy was thus, at its commence- 
 ment, physical, not psychological ; it was not the problem of 
 the soul, but the problem of the world, which it first attempted 
 to solve. 
 
 " And what was the procedure of philosophy in its solution 
 of this problem? Did it first decompose the whole into its 
 parts, in order again to reconstruct them into a system ? This 
 it could not accomplish ; but still it attempted this, and nothing 
 else. A complete analysis was not to be expected from the 
 first efforts of intelligence ; its decompositions were necessarily 
 partial and impr-rfect ; a partial and imperfect analysis afforded 
 only hypothetical elements ; and the synthesis of these elements 
 \*sued, consequently, only in a one-sided or erroneous theory.
 
 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 67 
 
 Thales and the Ionic School. " Thales, the founder of the 
 Ionian philosophy, devoted an especial study to the phenomena 
 of the material universe ; and, struck with the appearances of 
 power which water manifested in the formation of bodies, he 
 analyzed all existences into this element, which he viewed as 
 the universal principle, the universal agent of creation. He 
 proceeded by an incomplete analysis, and generalized, by hy- 
 pothesis, the law which he drew by induction from the observa- 
 tion of a small series of phenomena. 
 
 " The Ionic school continued in the same path. They limited 
 themselves to the study of external nature, and sought in mat- 
 ter the principle of existence. Anaximander of Miletus, the 
 countryman and disciple of Thales, deemed that he had traced 
 the primary cause of creation to an ethereal principle, which 
 occupied space, and whose different combinations constituted the 
 universe of matter. Anaximenes found the original element in 
 air, from which, by rarefaction and condensation, he educed ex- 
 istences. Anaxagoras carried his analysis further, and made a 
 more discreet use of hypothesis ; he rose to the conception of 
 an intelligent first cause, distinct from the phenomena of na- 
 ture ; and his notion of the Deity was so far above the gross con 
 ceptions of his contemporaries, that he was accused of atheism. 
 
 Pythagoras and the Italic School. " Pythagoras, the founder 
 of the Italic school, analyzed the properties of number ; and 
 the relations which this analysis revealed, he elevated into 
 principles of the mental and material universe. Mathematics 
 were his only objects ; his analysis was partial, and his synthe- 
 sis was consequently hypothetical. The Italic school developed 
 the notions of Pythagoras, and, exclusively preoccupied wilh 
 the relations and harmonies of existence, its disciples did not 
 extend their speculation to the consideration either of substance 
 or of cause. 
 
 " Thus, these earlier schools, taking external nature for their 
 point of departure, proceeded by an imperfect analysis, and a 
 presumptuous synthesis, to the construction of exclusive sys- 
 tems, -in which Idealism or Materialism preponderated, ac- 
 cording to the kind of data on which they founded.
 
 68 rae METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 u The Eleatic school, which is distinguished into two branches, 
 the one of Physical, the other of Metaphysical, speculation, ex- 
 hibits the same character, the same point of departure, the 
 same tendency, and the same errors. 
 
 " These errors led to the scepticism of the Sophists, which 
 was assailed by Socrates, the sage who determined a new 
 epoch in philosophy by directing observation on man himself; 
 and henceforward the study of mind becomes the prime and cen- 
 tral science of philosophy. 
 
 " The point of departure was changed, but not the method. 
 The observation or analysis of the human mind, though often 
 profound, remained always incomplete. Fortunately, the first 
 disciples of Socrates, imitating the prudence of their master, 
 and warned by the downfall of the systems of the Ionic, Italic, 
 and Eleatic schools, made a sparing use of synthesis, and 
 hardly a pretension to system. 
 
 " Plato and Aristotle directed their observation on the phae- 
 nomena of intelligence, and we cannot too highly admire the 
 profundity of their analysis, and even the sobriety of their syn- 
 thesis. Plato devoted himself more particularly to the higher 
 faculties of intelligence ; and his disciples were led, by the love 
 of generalization, to regard as the intellectual whole those por- 
 tions of intelligence which their master had analyzed ; and this 
 exclusive spirit gave birth to systems false, not in themselves, 
 but as resting upon a too narrow basis. Aristotle, on the other 
 hand, whose genius was of a more positive character, analyzed 
 with admirable acuteness those operations of mind which stand 
 in more immediate relation to the senses ; and this tendency, 
 which among his followers became often exclusive and exag- 
 gerated, naturally engendered systems which more or less 
 tended to materialism." 
 
 School of Alexandria. The school of Alexandria, in which 
 the systems resulting from those opposite tendencies were com- 
 bined, endeavored to reconcile and to fuse them into a still 
 more comprehensive system. Eclecticism, conciliation, 
 union, were, in all things, the grand aim of the Alexandrian 
 school. Geographically situated between Greece and Asia, it
 
 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 69 
 
 endeavors to ally Greek with Asiatic genius, religion with phi- 
 losophy. Hence the Neoplatonic system, of which the last 
 great representative is Proclus. This system is the result of 
 the long labor of the Socratic schools. It is an edifice reared 
 by synthesis out of the materials which analysis had col- 
 lected, proved, and accumulated, from Socrates down to Plo- 
 tinus. 
 
 But a synthesis is of no greater value than its relative analy- 
 sis ; and as the analysis of the earlier Greek philosophy was 
 not complete, the synthesis of the Alexandrian school was 
 necessarily imperfect. 
 
 In the Scholastic philosophy, analysis and observation were 
 too often neglected in some departments of philosophy, and too 
 often carried rashly to excess in others. 
 
 Bacon and Descartes. After the revival of letters, during 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the labors of philosophy 
 were principally occupied in restoring and illustrating the 
 Greek systems ; and it was not until the seventeenth century, 
 that a new epoch was determined by the genius of Bacon and 
 Descartes. In Bacon and Descartes our modern philosophy 
 may be said to originate, inasmuch as they were the first who 
 made the doctrine of method a principal object of considera- 
 tion. They both proclaimed, that, for the attainment of scien- 
 tific knowledge, it is necessary to observe with care, that is, 
 to analyze ; to reject every element as hypothetical, which this 
 analysis does not spontaneously afford ; to call in experiment in 
 aid of observation ; and to attempt no synthesis or generali/a- 
 tion, until the relative analysis has been completely accom- 
 plished. They showed that previous philosophers had erred, not 
 by rejecting either analysis or synthesis, but by hurrying on to 
 synthetic induction from a limited or specious analytic observa- 
 tion. They propounded no new method of philosophy, they 
 only expounded the conditions of the old. They showed that 
 these conditions had rarely been fulfilled by philosophers in 
 time past ; and exhorted them to their fulfilment in time to 
 come. Thus they explained the petty progress of the past 
 philosophy ; and justly anticipated a gigantic advancement for
 
 70 THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the future. Such was their precept, but such unfortunately 
 was not their example. There are no philosophers who merit 
 EO much in the one respect, none, perhaps, who deserve less in 
 the other. 
 
 Of philosophy since Bacon and Descartes, we at present say 
 nothing. Of that we shall hereafter have frequent occasion to 
 speak. But to sum up what this historical sketch was intended 
 to illustrate. There is but one possible method of philoso- 
 phy, a combination of analysis and synthesis ; and the purity 
 and equilibrium of these two elements constitute its perfection. 
 The aberrations of philosophy have been all so many viola- 
 tions of the laws of this one method. Philosophy has erred, 
 because it built its systems upon incomplete or erroneous analy- 
 sis, and it can only proceed in safety, if from accurate and 
 unexclusive observation, it rise, by successive generalization, to 
 a comprehensive system.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Expediency of a division of Philosophy. As. W5 _cannot 
 survey the. universe at a glance, neither can we contemplate 
 the whole of philosophy in one act of consciousness. We can 
 only master it gradually and piecemeal ; and this is in fact the 
 reason why philosophers have always distributed their j?cience 
 (constituting, though it does, one organic whole) into a plurality 
 of sciences. The expediency, and even necessity, of & division 
 of philosophy, in order that the mind may be enabled toj3in- 
 hrace in one_gnexaL-Yiew_ its jvarious parts, in their relation to 
 eachjjther^ and_to_the^ whole which they constitute, is admitted 
 ^y_every_pbilosopher. "Res utilis^" continues Seneca, " et ad 
 gapientiam_pj'operanti utique necessaria, dividi philosophiam, et. 
 ingens. corpus j;jus hi membra disponi. Facilius enim per 
 partes in cognilionem totius adducimur," 
 
 But, although philosophers agree in regard to the utility of 
 such a distribution, they are almost as little at one in regard to 
 the parts, as they are in respect to the definition, of their sci- 
 ence ; and, indeed, their differences in reference to the former, 
 mainly arise from their discrepancies in reference to the latter. 
 For they who vary in their comprehension of the whole, cannot 
 agree in their division of the parts. 
 
 Division into Theoretical and Practical. The most ancient 
 and universally recognized distinction, of philosophy, is into 
 Theoretical and Practical. These are discriminated by the 
 different nature of their ends. Theoretical, called likewise 
 speculative and contemplative, philosophy has for its highest 
 end mere truth or knowledge. Practical philosophy, on the 
 other hand, has truth or knowledge only as ite proximate end,
 
 72 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 this end being subordinate to the ulterior end of some prac- 
 tical action. Ju theoretical philosophy, we know for the sake 
 of knowing,- scimus -nt-jiciamit&.: in practical philosophy, we 
 know fht the^sake of acting^ scimus ut operemur. I may here 
 notice the poverty of the English language, in the want' of a 
 word to express that practical activity which is contradistin- 
 guished from mere intellectual or speculative energy, what 
 the Greeks express by ztgaGszua, the Germans by handeln. The 
 want of such a word occasions frequent ambiguity ; for, to ex- 
 press the japecies which has no appropriate word, we are com- 
 pelled to employ the^eneric term active. Thus our philosophers 
 divide the powers of the mind into Intellectual and Active. 
 They do not, however, thereby mean to insinuate that the 
 powers called intellectual are a whit less energetic than those 
 specially denominated active. But, from the want of a better 
 word, they are compelled to employ a term which denotes at 
 once much more and much less than they are desirous of ex- 
 pressing. I ought to observe, that thej.erm practical has also 
 pbtained with us .certain collateral significations, which render 
 it in some respects unfit to supply the_want. But to return. 
 
 This distinction of Theoretical and Practical philosophy was 
 first explicitly enounced by Aristotle ; and the attempts of the 
 later Plnionists to carry ituip -to_Piato^axuLeven to Pythagoras, 
 are not worthy of statement, far less of refutation. Once pro- 
 mulgated, the division was, however, soon generally recognized 
 le Stoics borrpw.t'dit, as may _be _se_en, from Seneca : " Phi- 
 losophia et contemplativa est et activa ; gpectat, simulque agit." 
 It was also adopted by the. Epicureans ; and, in general, by 
 those Greek and Roman philosophers who viewed their science 
 as versant either hi the contemplation of nature (qpraixj;), or in 
 the regulation of human action (t]0ixi t ) ; for by nature, they did 
 not denote the material universe alone, but their Physics' in- 
 cluded Metaphysics, and their Ethics embraced Politics and 
 Economics. There was thus only a difference of nomenclature ; 
 for Physical and Theoretical, Ethical and Practical Philos- 
 ophy, were with them terms absolutely equivalent. 
 
 T/tis dii'isiun unsound. I regard the division of philosophj
 
 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 73 
 
 into Theoretical and Practical as unsound, and this fhrjw_o 
 reasons. 
 
 Tli-- fir.-t is. that pliilu-ophy. u< philosophy. i> only engnitive, 
 only tbpQr<!tirn.l ; whntp.vp.r lifts ]>p.y_ond the sphere of specu- 
 lation nr knowledge, transcends the apherq of philosophy ; 
 consequently, to divide philosophy by any quality ulterior to 
 speculation, is to divide it by a difference which does not be- 
 long in if. I\'ow, the diMiiu-tion of practical philo-ophy from 
 this error. For, while it is admitted_tht 
 
 all plulosQph.y^aa_CQgnitive, is theoretical^some philosophjja^ 
 again taken out of this category, on the ground, that, beyond the 
 mere theory, thejnere cognition, it has .an ulterior end in 
 its application to practice. 
 
 But, in tke. -second place, this difference^ *vp,n were it-adjni?- 
 eible, would not divide philosophy ; for, in point of fact, all 
 philosophy must b.e__regarded as practical^ inasmuch as mere 
 knowledge, that is, the mere possession of trutlv is not the 
 6ighest end of any philosophy ; but on the contrary, all truth or 
 knowledge is valuable only inasmuch as it determines the mind 
 to its contemplation, that is, to practical energy. Speculation, 
 therefore, inasmuch as it is not a negation of thought, but on 
 the contrary, the highest energy of intellect is, in point of fact, 
 preeminently practical. The practice of one branch of philos.- 
 ophy is, indeed, different from that of another ; but all are still 
 practical; for in none is mere knowledge the ultimate, the 
 highest, end. 
 
 It is manifest that, in our sense of the term practical, Logic, 
 as au instru_mental .science, would be comprehended under the 
 head of practical _philosophy. 
 
 Tk: terms Art and. Science. I shall take this opportunity 
 of explaining an anomaly which you will find explained in no 
 work with which I am acquainted. Certain brandies of philo- 
 sophical knowledge are called Arts, or Arts and Sciences 
 indifferently ; others are exclusively denominated Sciences. 
 W( re. this distinction coincident with the distinction of sciences 
 speculative and sciences practical, taking the term practical 
 in its ordinary acceptation, there would be no dilliculty ; for, 
 T
 
 74 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSDPHY. 
 
 as every practical science necessarily involves a theory, nothing 
 could be more natural than to call the same branch of knowl- 
 edge an art, when viewed as relative to its practical application, 
 and a science when viewed in relation to the theory which that 
 application supposes. But this is not the case. The specula- 
 tive sciences, indeed, are never denominated arts ; we may, 
 therefore, throw them aside. The difficulty is exclusively con- 
 fined to the practical. Of these, some never receive the name 
 of arts ; others are called arts and sciences indifferently. Thus 
 the sciences of Ethics, Economics, Politics, Theology, etc., 
 Ihflu^ijilljiaicticaL-are neYej_dniaamated jartsj whereas this 
 appellation is very usually applied to the practical sciences of 
 Logic, Rhetoric, Grammar, etc. 
 
 t. flip t (\xm_qrj jg wjth_ns ._nnt...cQp.Yfp.nsIvp. with practical 
 lius. manifest-; and yet these are frequently con- 
 founded. Thus, for example, Dr. Whafcely, in his definition 
 of Logic, thinks that Logic is a science, in so far as it institutes 
 an analysisjrf the process, of the niindin reasoning, and nn JT^. 
 jn so far as it affords practical^ j^iles^ to secure the mind from 
 crrorJn its deductions ; and-Jiejlefines an art, the application of 
 Jsnowledge to practice. Now, if this view were correct, art and 
 practical scjence _would be ^convertible terms. But that they 
 are not employed as synonymous expressions is, as we have 
 seen, shown by the incongruity we feel in talking of the art of 
 Ethics, the art of Religion, etc., though these are eminently 
 practical sciences. 
 
 The question, therefore, still remains, Is this restriction of the 
 teim art to certain of tlic^iaicUuiiLscieiices the result of some 
 accidental and forgotteii_LLsa or_js it found cd on any rational 
 principle which we are able. JxLlrace ? T.he formj^rjilternative 
 Sfiema to be the comnitui belief; for no one, in so far as I know, 
 lias endeavored to account for the apparently vague and capri- 
 cious manner in which the terms art and science are applied. 
 Tho Ia.t-tt'-r_^jli'r nilt jy^j Jimy^vor^^jJ^jj^o ; and I shall en- 
 deavor to explain to you the reason of the application of the 
 term art to certain practical sciences, and not to others. 
 
 /i&lqfical origin rf this \I$P. <q If/ttiyiuiyp.- You sire awar<J
 
 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 78 ~ 
 
 that the .ftristotelie philosophy was, for many centuries, not only 
 the prevalent, but Coring the middle ages, the one exclusive 
 philosophy in Europe. This philosophy of the middle ages, or, 
 as it is commonly called, the Scholastic Philosophy, has exerted ' 
 the most extensive influence m the languages of modern Eu- 
 rope ; and from this common source has been principally derived 
 that community of expression which these languages exhibit. 
 Now, the peculiar application of the term, art was introduced 
 into the vulgar tongues from the scholastic philosophy ; and was 
 borrowed by that philosophy from Aristotle. This is only one 
 of a thousand instances, which might be alleged, of the unfelt 
 influence of a single powerful mind, on the associations and 
 habits of thought of generations to the end of time ; and of 
 Aristotle is preeminently true, what has been so beautifully said 
 of the ancients in general : 
 
 " The great of old ! 
 
 The dead but sceptred sovrans who still rule 
 Our spirits from their urns." 
 
 Now, then, the application of the term art in the modern 
 languages being mediately governed by certain distinctions 
 which the capacities of the Greek tongue allowed Aristotle to 
 establish, these distinctions must be explained. 
 
 In the Aristotelic philosophy, the terms jtQu^n; and TTV^XT/XO.,', 
 that is, practice and practical, were employed both in a.ge- 
 neric, or looser, and in a special or stricter signification. In its 
 generic meaning, 7tQUi t practice, was opposed to theory __pr 
 speculation, and it comprehended under it practice in its special 
 meaning, and another coordinate term to which practice, in this, 
 its stricter signification, was opposed. This term wa^^zrouplitf, 
 which we may inadequately translate by production. The di> 
 tinction of Ttywxrixo.,,' and TZQIIJTMO^ consisted in this : the former 
 denoted that action which terminated in action, the latter, 
 that action which resulted in some permanent product. For 
 example, dancing and music are practical, as leaving no work 
 after their performance ; whereas, painting and statuary tire 
 productive, as leaving some product over and above their en 
 ergy.
 
 76 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Now Aristotle, in. formally defining art, defines it as a habit 
 productive, and not as a Jiabit practical, .ZSis noiqxixij per a Istyov ; 
 and, though he has not always himself adhered strictly to this 
 limitation, his definition was adopted by his followers, and the 
 term hi its application to the practical sciences (the term prac- 
 tical being here used in its generic meaning), came to be exclu- 
 sively confined to those whose end did not result in mere action 
 or energy. Accordingly, as Ethics, Politics, etc., proposed hap 
 piness as their end, and as happiness was an energy, or at 
 least the concomitant of energy, these sciences terminated in 
 action, and were consequently practical, not productive. On 
 the other hand, Logic, Rhetoric, etc., did not terminate in a 
 mere, an evanescent action, but hi a permanent, an endur- 
 ing product. For the end of Logic was the production of a 
 reasoning, the end of Rhetoric the production of an oration, 
 and so forth. This distinction is not perhaps beyond the reach 
 of criticism, and I am not here to vindicate its correctness. My 
 only aim is to make you aware of the grounds of the distinction, 
 in order that you may comprehend the principle which origi- 
 nally determined the application of the term art to some of the 
 practical sciences and not to others, and without a knowledge 
 of which principle, the various employment of the term must 
 appear to you capricious and unintelligible. It is needless, per- 
 haps, to notice that the_ rule applies only to the philosophical 
 <cieiice>, to tho.se which received their form and denomina- 
 tions from the learned. The mechanical dexterities were be- 
 neath their notice ; and the.se were accordingly left to receive 
 their appellations from those who knew nothing of the Aristo- 
 telic proprieties. Accordingly, the term art is in them applied, 
 Aitlicut distinction, to productive and unproductive operations. 
 We speak of the art of rope-dancing, equally as of the art of 
 rope-making. But to return. 
 
 Universality of this division of Philosophy. The division 
 of philosophy into Theoretical and Practical i.s the most impor- 
 tant that has been made ; and it is that which has entered into 
 nearly all the distributions attempted by modern philosophers. 
 Bacon was the lirst, after the. revival of letters, who eetajed a
 
 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 77 
 
 distribution of the sciences and of philosophy. He divided all 
 human knowledge into History, Poetry, and Philosophy. Phi- 
 losophy he distinguished into branches conversant about the 
 Deity, about Nature, and about Man ; and each __qf_these__had 
 jthflJT subordinate divisions, which, however, it is not necessary 
 to particularize. 
 
 Descartes distributed philosophy into theoretical and practi- 
 juiU_ja r itk_-Yarious subdivisions ; but his followers adopted the 
 division-of I i ogiiv^Ietaphjsics,_PJliy = sics, and Ethics. (Jassendi 
 recognized, like the ancients, three parts of philosophy, Logic, 
 Physics, and Ethics, and this, along with many other of Gas- 
 seudi's doctrines, was adopted by Locke. Kant distinguished 
 philosophy into theoretical and practical, with various subdivis- 
 ions ; and the distribution into theoretical and practical was also 
 ed._b_ FicKte. 
 
 I have now concluded the general Introduction to Philoso- 
 phy, in which, from the general nature of the subjects, I have 
 been compelled to anticipate conclusions, and to depend on your 
 being able to supply a good deal of what it was impossible for 
 uie articulately to explain. I now enter upon the considera- 
 tion of the matters which are hereafter to occupy our attention, 
 with comparatively little apprehension, for, in these, we shall 
 be able to dwell more upon details, while, at the same time, the 
 subject will open upon us by degrees, so that, every step that 
 we proceed, we shall find the progress easier. But I have to 
 warn you, that you will probably find the very commencement 
 the most arduous, and this not only because you will come less 
 inured to difficulty, but because it will there be necessary to 
 deal with principles, and these of a general and abstract na- 
 ture ; whereas, having once mastered these, every subsequent 
 step will be comparatively easy. 
 
 Without entering upon details, I may now summarily state 
 the order which I propose to follow. This requires a prelim- 
 inary exposition of the different departments of Philosophy, in 
 order that you may obtain a comprehensive view of the proper 
 objects of our consideration, and of the relations in which they 
 stand to others.
 
 78 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 .Di,sfrf,bi'-f' nn n f 1ht Mn aAf , Science and philosophy are 
 emversant jeithex about Mind or about Jiklattfir. The former of 
 these ii-PMlosopliy r properl^^so ^called. With the latter we 
 have nothing to do, except in so far as it may enable us to 
 throw light upon the former ; for Metaphysics, in whatever lati- 
 tude the term, be taken, is a science, or complement of sciences, 
 exclusively occupied.. witli__mind. Now the Philosophy of 
 Mjad, Psychology or Metaphysics, in the widest signification 
 f the terms, is tiureefold ; for the object it immediately pro- 
 poses for consideration may be either, 1, EHJUJLOMENA in 
 general ; or, 2, JJ_AW^ ; or, 3, IsKS3JCES, RESULTS. 
 This I will endeavor to explain. 
 
 The three grand questions of Philosophy. The whole of 
 philosophy is the answer to these three jmestions ; 1, What 
 are the Fa.cts or phenomena to l >ft ^W* r ved' ) 2, What are 
 lln- Laws uhich regulate then- Diet.-, or under uhi.-h llic.-r- phe- 
 nomena appear !' o \ \\\\:\\ are tin- real Kesiiil-. not immedi-- 
 ately manifested, which these facts or phenomena warrant us hi 
 drawing ? 
 
 Plienomenoloay. If we consider the niind merely with the 
 view of observing and generalizing the various phenomena it 
 reveals, that is, of analyzing them into capacities or facul- 
 ties, we have one mental science, or one department of men- 
 till science; and this we may call the PHENOMENOLOGY OF 
 MIND. It is commonly called PSYCHOLOGY EMPIRICAL 
 PSYCHOLOGY, or the INDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY of MIND ; we 
 might call it PHENOMENAL PSYCHOLOGY. It is evident that 
 the divisions of this science will be determined by the classes 
 into which the phenomena of mind are distributed. 
 
 . If, again, we analyze the 
 
 mental phenomena with the view of discovering and consider- 
 ing, not contingent appearances, but the necessary and universal 
 facts, i. e. the laws by which our faculties are governed, to 
 the end that we may obtain a criterion by which to judge or to 
 explain their procedures and manifestations, we have a sci- 
 ence which we may call the NOMOLOGY OF Mi MX, NOMO- 
 LOGICAL raXCUOLOGY. Now, there will be a.s many distinct
 
 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 79 
 
 classes of Nomological Psychology, as there are distinct classes 
 of mental phaenomena under the Phaenomenological division. 
 I shall, hereafter, show you that there are Three great classes 
 of these phaenomena, namely, ^1, The phaenomena of our 
 Cognitive faculties, or faculties of Knowledge ; ,2, The phae- 
 nomena of our Feelings, or the phaenomena of Pleasure and 
 Pain ; and, .2, The phaenomena of our Conative powers, in 
 other words, the phaenomena of Will and Desire. Each of 
 these classes of phaenomena has, accordingly, a science which is 
 conversant about its Laws. For, as each proposes a different 
 end, and, in the accomplishment of that end, is regulated by 
 peculiar laws, each must, consequently, have a different science 
 conversant about these laws, that is, a. different -Nomolpgy. 
 
 There is.HQ_ojiej_no Nomological, &cienc&_Qf the-Gaguitive 
 fnciiMe^ in.gftnp|ni,1 ; though we have some older treatises which, 
 though partial in their subject, afford a name not unsuitable for 
 a nomology of the cognitions, namely, Gnaseologia or Gnos- 
 tologia. There JS-^eo independent science of the laws of Per- 
 ception.; if there were, it might be called ffiatbgjjp, which, 
 however, as we shall see, would be ambiguous. MauuiQnjc, or 
 the science of the laws of Memory, has been elaborated at least 
 in numerous treatises ; but the name Anamncslic, the art of 
 Recollection or Reminiscence, might be equally well applied to 
 it. Tjie laws of the Representative faculty^ that is, the laws 
 of Association, have riot yet been elevated into a j-eparate 
 noinological science. Neither have the conditions of the Regu- 
 lative or Legislative faculty, the faculty itself of Laws, been 
 fully aualyzedj far less reduced to system ; though we have 
 several deservedly forgotten treatises, of an older date, under 
 the inviting name of Nooloyies. The only one of the cognitive 
 faculties, whose laws_constitute the object-matter of a separate 
 science, is the_Elaboraliy_e, tJheJJndejcctanding Special, the 
 faculty of r^lations^ Jjie_ jaculty of Thought Proper. This 
 nomology has obtained the name of L_Oj among other appel- 
 lations, but not from Aristotle. The best name would have 
 been DlASOKTlC, Ltmlgjs_ the science of the laws of thought, 
 il relation to the end which our cognitive faculties pronosv. 
 
 - O Jt X ^
 
 80 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 I. e. the TRUE. To this head might be referred Grammair, 
 Universal Grammar, Philosophical Grammar, or the sci- 
 ence conversant with the laws of Language, as the instrument 
 of thought. 
 
 The Nomology of our Feelin,g^ or -the science of the laws 
 which govern our capacities of enjoyment^ in relation to the 
 end wlu'ch they propose, t. e. the PLEASURABLE, has ob- 
 tained no precise name in.our language. It has been called the 
 Philosophy flJTasle, and, on the Continent especially, it has 
 been denominated Tlysthofip- Neither name is unobjectionable. 
 The first is vague, metaphorical, and even delusive. In regard 
 to the second, you are aware that aLQ&%<n<i in Greek means 
 feeling in general, as well as sense in particular ; as our term 
 feeling means either the sense of touch in particular, or senti- 
 ment, and the capacity of the pleasurable and painful in 
 general. Both terms are, therefore, to a certain extent, ambig- 
 uous ; but this objection can rarely be avoided, and -(Esthetic, 
 if not the best expression to be found, has already been long 
 and generally employed. It is now nearly a century since 
 Baumgarten, a celebrated philosopher of the Leibnitzio-Wolfian 
 school, first applied tlni term ^Esthetic to the doctrine which we 
 Vaguely and- ppriphrn^tiWIly rlpnnminntp L jjift Philosophy of 
 
 Taste, the theory of the-jrine-Arts, the science of the Beauti- 
 ful and SublimCr-etc., and this term is now in general accep- 
 tance, not only in Germany, but throughout the other countries 
 of Europe. The term Apolaustic would have been a more 
 appropriate designation. 
 
 Finally, the Nomology of our Conceive, powers is Practical 
 Philosophy, properly so called ; for practical philosophy is sim- 
 ply the science of the laws regulative of our Will and Desires, 
 in relation to the end which our conative powers propQsj^- 
 t. e. the GjOXU). This, as it considers these laws in relation to 
 man as an individual, or in relation to man as a member of 
 society, will be divided into two branches, Ejjucs and Poli- 
 tics ; and these u^ruin admit of various subdivisions* 
 
 So much for those parts of the Philosophy of Mind, which 
 are conversant about Phaenomena, and about Laws. The
 
 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 81 
 
 finrj jrrn-at branch oL-tliia philosophy is that which is engaged 
 in thmlrtilnutinn -ofLTnfprpncp 3 or Results^ 
 
 OniQlooMi or Metaphysics Proper. In the First branch, 
 tfrp Phenomenology of mind. - _philosophv is _properly limited 
 to the facts afforded in consciousness, considered exclusively in 
 themselves. But these facts may be such as not only to be ob- 
 jects of knowledge in themselves, but likewise to furnish us 
 with grounds of inference to something out of themselves. As 
 effects, and effects of a certain character, they may enable us 
 to infer the analogous character of their unknown causes ; as 
 phaenomena, and phaenomena of peculiar qualities, they may 
 wan-ant us in drawing many conclusions regarding the distinc- 
 tive character of that unknown principle, of that unknown 
 pubstance, of which they are the manifestations. Although, 
 therefore, existence be only revealed to us in phaenomena, and 
 though we can, therefore, have only a relative knowledge either 
 of mind or of matter ; still, by inference and analogy, we may 
 legitimately attempt to rise above the mere appearances which 
 experience and observation afford. Thus, for example, Lhe_fix- 
 istence of God and the Immortality of the Soul are not giyjc.n 
 us as phtcnomeim, as objects of immediate knowledge; yet, if 
 the phenomena actually given do necessarily require, for their 
 rational explanation, the hypotheses of immortality and of God, 
 we are assuredly entitled, from the existence of the former, to 
 infer the reality of the latter. Now, the science conversant 
 about all such inferences of unknown being from its known 
 manifestations, is called ONTOLOGY, or METAPHYSICS PROPER. 
 We might call it INFERENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 The following is a tabular view of the distribution of Philos- 
 ;phy as here proposed : 
 
 ! Cognitions. 
 Feelings. 
 Conative Powers (Will and Desire). 
 {Cognitions, Logic 
 Feelings, JK*thetic. 
 ( Moral Philosophy. 
 Conative Powers j ^^ ^iJ^fa 
 
 Results, Ontology, lufurential Psy- ( Being of (lod. 
 cholojjy | Immortality of tuu Soul, etc
 
 82 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Ill this distribution of the philosophical sciences, you will 
 observe that I take little account of the celebrated division 
 of philosophy into Speculative and Practical, which I have 
 already explained to you, for I call only one minor division of 
 philosophy practical, namely, the Nomology of the donative. 
 _powers,..not because that science is not equally theoretical with 
 any other, but simply because these powers are properly called 
 practical, as tending to practice or overt action. 
 
 ni.ffrt.huti.nn. nf Philnsnpky in fir 7Tviiii/>rsiti.es. The Subject* 
 
 assigned to the various chairs of the Philosophical Faculty, in 
 the different Universities of Europe, were not calculated upon 
 any comprehensive view of the parts of philosophy, and of their 
 natural connection. The universities were founded when the 
 Aristotelic philosophy was the dominant, or rather the exclu- 
 sive, system, and the parts distributed to the different classes, in 
 .the faculty of Arts or Philosophy, were regulated by the contents 
 of certain of the Aristotelic books, and by the order in which 
 they were studied. Of these, there were always Four great 
 divisions. There was first, T-^g'Cj in relation to the Organon of 
 Aristotle ; secondly, MqtanhygicSj relative to his books under 
 that title ; thirdly, 1\|nrp,1 P}iilf^Qphy T relative to his Ethics, 
 Politics, and Economics; and, fourthly, PJljsics, relative to 
 his Physics, and the collection of treatises styled in the schools 
 the Parva Naiuralia. But every university had not a full 
 complement of classes, that is, did not devote a separate year 
 to each of the four subjects of study ; and, accordingly, in 
 those seats of learning where three years formed the curricu- 
 lum of philosophy, two of these branches were combined. In 
 the university of Edinburgh, Logic and Metaphysics were 
 taught in the same year ; in others, Metaphysics and Moral 
 Philosophy were conjoined ; and, when the old practice was 
 abandoned of the several Regents or Professors carrying on 
 their students through every department, the two branches 
 which had been taught in the same year were assigned to the 
 isame chair. What is most curious in the matter is this, 
 'Aristotle's treatise On (lie Soul being (along with his lesser 
 treatises on Memory and Reminiscence, on Sense and its Objects,
 
 THE DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 83 
 
 etc.) included in the Parva Naturalia, and, he having declared 
 that the consideration of the soul was part of the philosophy of 
 nature, the science of Mind was always treated along with 
 ^Physics. The professors of Natural Philosophy have, however, 
 long abandoned the philosophy of mind, and this branch has 
 been, as more appropriate to their departments, taught both by 
 the Professors of Moral Philosophy and by the Professors of 
 Logic and Metaphysics ; for you are not to suppose that meta- 
 physics and psychology are, though vulgarly used as synony- 
 mous expressions, by any means the same. 
 
 In this work, we have nothing to do with Practical Philoso- 
 phy, that is, Ethics, Politics, Economics. But with this 
 exception, there is no other branch of philosophy which doea 
 not fall naturally within our sphere.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY; RELATIVITY OF HUMAN 
 KNOWLEDGE ; EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY, or the Philosophy of _thjj_Human_Mind, 
 strictly so denominated, is the science conversant about the 
 phcenomena, or modifications, or^state^ of the Mind, or Con- 
 scious-Subject, or Soiil, or Spirit, or Self, or Ego. 
 
 In this definition, you will observe that I have purposely 
 accumulated a variety of expressions, in order that I might 
 have the earliest opportunity of making you accurately ac- 
 quainted with their meaning ; for they are terms of vital im- 
 portance and frequent use in philosophy. Before, therefore, 
 proceeding further, I shall pause a moment in explanation of 
 the terms in which this definition is expressed. Without re- 
 stricting myself to the following order, I shall consider the 
 word Psychology ; the correlative terms subject and substance, 
 phenomenon, modification, state, etc., and, at the same time, take 
 occasion to explain another correlative, the expression object ; 
 and, finally, the words mind, soul, spirit, self, and ego. 
 
 Indeed, after considering these terms, it may not be im- 
 proper to take up, in one series, the philosophical expressions 
 of principal importance and most ordinary occurrence, in order 
 to render less frequent the necessity of interrupting the course 
 of our procedure, to afford the requisite verbal explanations. 
 
 Ilt^i& of the term Psychology villdicaiejl. The term Psy- 
 chology, is a Greek compound, its elements j^i'/y, signifying 
 scul or mind, and ^00, signifying discourse or doctrine, jiy- 
 chology } therefore, is the discourse or doctrine treating of the 
 _human mind. But, though composed of Greek elements, it is, 
 like the greater number of the compounds of ^.oj'Oi,*, ojnod_erjj
 
 DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY. 85 
 
 combination. I may be asked, why use an exotic, a techni- 
 cal name ? Why not be contented with the more popular terms, 
 Philosophy of Mind, or Mental Philosophy, Science of Mind. 
 or Mental Science? expressions by which this department of 
 knowledge has been usually designated by those who, in Scotland, 
 have cultivated it with the most distinguished success. To this 
 there are several answers. Tn \\\g.jir$f. plap.p. 7 philosophy itself, nruj 
 ^ULor jdniQSt_all, its branches, have-on ourJbm 
 
 .Greek technical denominations.; wjry _not_als_p_the most^imp_or- 
 tant of all, the science of .mind_? In flip, fer^nd plane, the term 
 psychology isjiow, and has long been, the ordinary expressicm 
 foe ihe doctrine of mind in the philosophical language of every 
 other JEuxopeaa.JiatkuL Nay, in point of fact, it is now natu- 
 ralized in English, psychology and psychological having of late 
 years come into common use ; and their employment is war- 
 ranted by the authority of the best English writers. But these 
 are reasons in themselves of comparatively little moment : they 
 tend merely to show that, if otherwise expedient, the nomen- 
 clature is permissible ; and that it is expedient, the following 
 reasons will prove. For, m the third place, _U is always of con- 
 .jequen.ce,. for... the sake of precision, to ha able. tcMiae xme-jy^axj 
 instead of a plurality of word^ especially where the frequent 
 occurrence of a descriptive appellation might occasion tedium, 
 distraction, and disgust ; and this must necessarily occur in the 
 treatment of any science, if the science be able to possess no 
 single name vicarious of its definition. In this respect, there- 
 fore, Psychology is preferable to Philosophy of Mind. But, jn, 
 the fourth place, even if the employment of the, description for 
 the name could, in this instance, be tolerated when used sub- 
 stantively, what are we to do when we require^, (which we do 
 unceasingly) to use the denomination of the science adjectivelv_? 
 For example, I have occasion to say a psychological fact, a psy- 
 chological laic, a psychological curiosity, etc. How can we ex- 
 press these by the descriptive appellation ? A psychological 
 fact may indeed be styled "a fact considered relatively to the 
 philosophy of the human mind," a psychological law may be 
 called ' a law by which the mental phenomena are governed,' 7 
 8
 
 86 DEFINITION OK PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 a psychological curiosity may be rendered by what, I really 
 do not know. But how miserably weak, awkward, tedious, and 
 affected, is the commutation when it can be made ; not only do 
 the vivacity and precision of the original evaporate, the mean- 
 ing itself is not even adequately conveyed. But this defect js 
 still more manifestly shown, when we wish to place in contrast 
 the matters proper to tliis science, with the matters proper to 
 others. Thus, for example, to say, this is a psychological, not 
 a physiological doctrine this is a psychological observation, 
 not a logical inference. How is the contradistinction to be ex- 
 pressed by a periphrasis ? It is impossible ; for the intensity 
 of the contrast consists, first, in the two opposite terms being 
 single words, and second, in their being both even technical and 
 precise Greek. This necessity has, accordingly, compelled the 
 adoption of the terms psychology and psychological into the 
 philosophical nomenclature of every nation, even where the 
 same necessity did not vindicate the employment of a non-ver- 
 nacular expression. Thus in Germany, though the native lan- 
 guage affords a facility of composition only inferior to the Greek, 
 and though it possesses a word (Seelenlehre) exactly correspond- 
 ent to i/Ji^oAovja, yet because this substantive did not easily 
 allow of an adjective flexion, the Greek terms, substantive and 
 adjective, were both adopted, and have been long in as familiar 
 use in the Empire, as the terms geography and geographical, 
 physiology and physiological, are with us. 
 
 inappropriate* What I have now said may 
 
 suffice to show that, to supply necessity, we must introduce 
 these words into our philosophical vocabulary. Jiul the jiro- 
 
 _priety of this is still further shown by the inauspicious attempts 
 that have been recently made on the name of the science. Dr. 
 
 v BitHVM, inthe very title of the abridgment of his lectures on 
 mental philosophy, has styled this philosophy, " The Physiology 
 af the Human Mind;" and I have also seen two English publi- 
 cations of modern date, one entitled the " Physics ofjfe 
 Soul" the other " Intellectual Physics" Now the term nature 
 (qpvtfti,*, natura), though in common language of a more exten- 
 sive meaning, has, in general, by philosophers, been appliet 1
 
 DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY. 87 
 
 appropriately to denote the laws, which govern the appearances 
 of the rnn.terin.1 nniyp.rsp^. And the words Physiology and 
 Physics have been specially limited to denote sciences conver- 
 sant about these laws as regulating the phaenomena of organic 
 and inorganic bodies. The empire of uat ure ia the empire-of a 
 mechanical necessity ; the necessity of nature, in philosophy, 
 stands opposed to the liberty of intelligence. Those, accord- 
 ingly, who do not allow that mind is matter, who hold that 
 there is in man a principle of action superior to the determina- 
 tions of a physical necessity, a brute or Mind fate, must 
 regard the application of the terms Physiology and Physics to 
 the doctrine of the mind as either singularly inappropriate, or 
 as significant of a false hypothesis in regard to the character of 
 the thinking principle. 
 
 J7s/> ni^fl jjfri^fiti.nn. nf^Stpirif^ foul- Mr. Stewart .objects_to 
 jhe_ term. ^Sjf2iriZ,_as_ seeming to imply an hypothesis concerning 
 the nature and essence of the sentient or thinking principle, 
 altogether unconuected_with our conclusions in regard to its 
 phenomena, and their general laws ; and, for the same reason, 
 he is disposed to object to the words Pneumatology and Psy- 
 chology, the former of which was introduced by the school- 
 men. In regard to Spirit and Pneumatology, Mr. Stewart';* 
 criticism is perfectly just. They are unnecessary ; and, besjdes 
 the etymological metaphor, they are associated with a certain 
 theological limitation, which spoils them as expressions of philo- 
 sophical generality.* But this is not the case with Psychology. 
 For though, in its etymology, it is, like almost all metaphysical 
 terms, originally of physical application, still this had been long 
 forgotten even by the Greeks ; and, if we were to reject philo- 
 sophical expressions on this account, we should be left without 
 any terms for the mental phaenomena at all. The- term soui 
 
 * The terms Psychology and Pnmmntoloiji), or Pneumatic, are not equiva- 
 lents. The latter word was used for the doctrine of spirit in general, which 
 was subdivided into three branches, IIH it treated of the three orders of spir 
 Stuul substances, God, Angels and Devils, and Man. Thus 
 
 i 1. Throlo^ia (Naturalis). 
 
 JL'aeumatolo^ia or I'nemnatiea, > 2. An^eliij^raphia, Diuinonologia. 
 ) 3. I'sycholo^ia.
 
 88 RELATIVITY OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 (and what I say of the term soul is true of the term spirit), 
 though in this country less employed than the term mind, .may. 
 be regarded as another synonym for the unknown basis of the 
 mental phenomena,. Like nearly all the words significant of 
 the internal world, there is here a metaphor borrowed from the 
 external ; and this is the case not merely in one, but, as far as 
 we can trace the analogy, in all languages. You are aware 
 that Ujziy^jjthe Greek term for soul, comes from yv%to+ 1 breathe 
 or blow, as nvsv(ia in Greek, and spiritus in Latin, from 
 verbs of the same signification. In like manner, anima and 
 animus are words which, though in Latin they have lo.-t their 
 primary signification, and are only known in their secondary or 
 metaphorical, yet in their original physical meaning, are pre- 
 served in the Greek an^oj^ wind or air. The English jsoul, 
 and the German SzeJfl, come from a Gothic root saivala, which 
 signifies to storm/ & ns f t the old English word for ^pirJi in 
 general, and so used in our English version of the Scriptures, 
 is the same as the German Geist, and is derived from (2ft?, or 
 Gcscht t which signifies air. In like manner, the two words in 
 Hebrew for soul or spirit, uephesh and ruach, are derivatives 
 of a root which means Aa breathe; and in Sanscrit, the word 
 atina (analogous to the Greek dr^o^, vapor or air) signifies 
 both mind and wind or air. Sapientia^ in Latin, originally 
 meant only the power of tasting ; as sagacitas only the faculty 
 of scenting. In French, Denser comes from the Latin pendere, 
 through pensare to weigh, and the terms, attentio, intentio (en- 
 tendement), comprehensio, apprehensio, pcnetratio, understand- 
 ing, etc., are just so many bodily actions transferred to the 
 expression of mental energies. 
 
 In the second place, I said that Psychology is conversant 
 abcut the phenomena of the thinking subject, etc. ; and I now 
 proceed to expound the import of the correlative terms phe- 
 nomenon, subject, etc. 
 
 Correlative terms illustrated by the relativity of human knmcl- 
 fdge. But the meaning of these terms will be best illustrated 
 by now stating and explaining the great axiom, that all human 
 knowledge, consequently that all human philosophy, is only of
 
 RELATIVITY OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 8^ 
 
 the relative or phaenomenal. In this proposition, the term refe- 
 live is opposed to the term absolute j and, therefore, in saying 
 that we know only the relative, I virtually assert that we know 
 nothing absolute, nothing. j;xisting absolutely; that^ig, in ami 
 for itself, and without relation Jojjsjind our faculties. I shall 
 illustrate this by its application. Qjar knowledge is either of 
 matter or of mind, [aw r whaLis matter ? What do we know 
 ~ maiterj* JJIatLer, or body, is tq^s the name either of some- 
 hing known, or of something unknown. In so far as matter is 
 a name for something known, it means that which appears to ua, 
 under the forms of extension, solidity, divisibility, figure, mo- 
 tion, roughness, smoothness, color, heat, coldj_etc. ; in short, it is 
 a common name for a certain series, or aggregate, or comple- 
 ment of appearances or phaenomena manifested in Qoexistence. 
 
 But as the phaenomena appear only in conjunction, we are 
 compelled by the constitution of our nature to think them con^ 
 joined in and by something; and as they are phDenomena^ .we 
 cannot think them the phaenomena of nothing, but must regard 
 them as the properties or qualities of something that is extended^ 
 solid, figured,. etc. But this something, absolutely and in itself, 
 i. e. considered apart from its phenomena, is to us as zero. 
 It id only in jts. qualities, only in its effects, in its relative or 
 phaenomenal existence, that it is cognizable or conceivable ; jaild. 
 JL JS only by a law-of thought, which compels us to think some- 
 thing, absolute and unknown, as the basis or condition of the 
 relative and known, that this something obtains a kind of in- 
 comprehensible reality, to us. Now, that which manifests its 
 qualities, in other words, that in which the appearing causes 
 inhere, that to which they belong, is called their subject, or tub- 
 stance, or substratum* To this subject of the phenomena of 
 extension, solidity, etc., the term mutter or material substance is 
 commonly given ; and, therefore, as contradistinguished from 
 these qualities, it is the name of something unknown and in- 
 ' f conceivable. 
 
 The .-uinc is true in regard to the term wmu/. Xu.^0 fur-a^ 
 mind is the common name for the states of knowing, willing, 
 feeling, desiring, etc^-of which I aui conscious, it is only the 
 8*
 
 yO KEI ATIVITY OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 name for a certain series of connected phenomena or qualities, 
 and, consequently, expresses only what is known. But in sc 
 far as it denotes that subject or substance in which the phoenom- 
 eua of knowing, willing, etc., inhere, something behind or 
 under these phenomena, it expresses what, in itself, or in ita 
 absolute existence, is unknown. 
 
 Thus, mind and matter, as known or knowable, are only two 
 different series of phaenomena or qualities ; mind and matter, as 
 unknown and unknowable, are the two substances in which 
 these two different series of phenomena or qualities are sup- 
 posed to inhere^ The existence of an unknown substance is 
 only an inference we are compelled to make, from the existerre 
 of known phaenomena ; and the distinction of two substances Is 
 only inferred from the seeming incompatibility of the two series 
 of phaenomena to coinhere in one. 
 
 Our whole knowledge of mind and matter is thus, as we have 
 said, only relative ; of existence, absolutely and in itself, we 
 know nothing; and we may say of man what Virgil says of 
 jEncas, contemplating in the prophetic sculpture of his shield 
 the future glories of Rome 
 
 " Berumque igmxrus, imagine gaudet." 
 
 Testimonies to the relativity of human knowledge. This i*, 
 indeed, a truth, in the admission of which philosophers, in gen- 
 eral, have been singularly harmonious ; and the praise that has 
 been lavished on Dr. Reid for this observation, is wholly unmer- 
 ited. In fact, I am hardly aware of the philosopher who has 
 not proceeded on the supposition, and there are few who have 
 not explicitly enounced the observation. It is only since Reid's 
 death that certain speculators have arisen, who have obtained 
 celebrity by their attempt to found philosophy on an immediate 
 knowledge of the absolute or unconditioned. I shall quote to 
 you a few examples of this general recognition, as they happen 
 to occur to my recollection ; and, in order to manifest the better 
 its universality, I purposely overlook the testimonies of a'more 
 modern philosophy. 
 
 Aristotle, among in my similar observations, remarks in re-
 
 KELATIVITY OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 91 
 
 gard to matter, that it is incognizable in itself ; while in regard 
 to mind he says, " that the- intellect does not know itself directly, 
 but only indirectly, in knowing other things ; " and he defines 
 the soul from its phaenomena, " the- principle-fey Hhicli we Uye, . , 
 and move^ and perceive, and understand." St. Augustin, the 
 most philosophical of the Christian fathers, admirably says of 
 body, " Materiam cognoscendo ignorari, et ignorando cqg- 
 nosci ; " [" By assuming that we know matter, we betray cur 
 ignorance of it ; and it is only by admitting this ignorance, that 
 Fe can be said to know itj "] and of mind, " Mens se cognos- 
 cit cognoscendo se vivere, se meminisse> se intelligere, se velle, 
 cogitare, scire, judicare." ["The mind knows itseh only by 
 knowing that it lives, remembers^ understands, wills, think,'?, 
 knows, and judges."] " Non incurrunt," says Melanchthon, 
 " ipsae substantiae in oculos, sed vestitze et ornatse accidentibus ; 
 hoc est, non possumus, in hac vita, acie oculorum perspicere 
 ipsas substantial : sed utcunque, ex accidentibus quie in sensus 
 exteriores incurrunt, ratiocinamur, quomodo inter se differant 
 substantiae." ["The substances themselves are not exposed to 
 gight, but only so far they are covered and adorned with their 
 Attributes ; that is, we are not able, in this life, to behold the 
 substances themselves ; but from the phenomena whichjare 
 manifest to our external senses, we somehow infer the distin- 
 guishing peculiarities of the substances to which the phenomena 
 belong."] 
 
 AIL relative existence is not relative to us. Thus, our knowl- 
 edge is of partial and relative existence only, seeing that exist- 
 ence in itself, or absolute existence,* is no object of knowledge. 
 But it does not follow that all relative existence is relative to 
 US ; that all that can be known, even by a limited intelligence 
 is actually cognizable by us. \5Te_ must, therefore, more pre- 
 cisely limit our sphere of knowledge, by adding, that all we 
 know is known only under the special conditions of our facul- 
 ties. This is a truth likewise generally acknowledged. " Man," 
 says Protagoras, " is the measure of the universe," a truth 
 
 * Absolute in two senses: 1, As opposed to partial ; 2, As opposed 
 
 to
 
 92 RELATIVITY OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 l*\,(-*fT-*. 
 
 which Bacon has well expressed : [" All perceptions, as well 
 of the senses as of the mind, are conformed to the nature of the 
 percipient individual, and not to the true nature of the uni- 
 verse ; and the human understanding is like a false mirror, 
 which distorts and discolors the nature of things, by mingling 
 its own nature with it."] " In perception," says Kant, " every 
 thing is known according to the constitution of our faeulty of 
 sense." 
 
 This principle has two branches. Now this principle, in 
 which philosophers of the most opposite opinions equally con- 
 cur, divides itself into two branches. In the first place, it 
 would be unphilosophical to conclude that the properties of 
 existence necessarily are, in number, only as the number of our 
 faculties of apprehending them ; or, in the second, that the 
 properties known, are known in their native purity, and without 
 addition or modification from our organs of sense, or our capaci 
 ties of intelligence. I shall illustrate these in their order. 
 / In regard to the first assertion, it is evident that nothing 
 exists for us, except in so far as it is known to us, and that 
 nothing is known to us, except certain properties or modes of 
 existence, which are relative or analogous to our faculties. 
 Beyond these modes we know, and can assert, the reality of no 
 existence. But if, on the one hand, we are not entitled to 
 assert, as actually existent, except what we know ; neither, on 
 the other, are we warranted in denying, as possibly existent, 
 what we do not know. The universe may be conceived as 
 polygon of a thousand, or a hundred thousand, sides or facets, 
 and each of these sides or facets may be conceived as repre- 
 senting one special mode of existence. Now, of these thousand 
 sides or modes, all may be equally essential, but three or four 
 only may be turned towards us, or be analogous to our organs. 
 One side or facet of the universe, as holding a relation to the 
 organ of sight, is the mode of luminous or visible existence ; 
 another, as proportional to the organ of hearing, is the mode 
 of sonorous or audible existence; and so on. But if every eye 
 to see, if every ear to hear, were annihilated, the mode of ex- 
 istence to which these organs now stand in relation, that
 
 RELATIVITY OF HITMAN KNOWLEDGE. 93 
 
 which could be seen, that which could be heard, would still 
 remain ; and if the intelligences, reduced to the three senses of 
 touch, smell, and taste, were then to assert the impossibility of 
 any modes of being except those to which these three senses 
 were analogous, the procedure would not be more unwarranted, 
 than if we now ventured to deny the possible reality of other! 
 modes of material existence than those to the perception of which 
 our five senses are accommodated. I will illustrate this by art 
 hypothetical parallel. Let us suppose a block of marble, onj 
 which there are four different inscriptions, in Greek, in 
 Latin, in Persic, and in Hebrew ; and that four travellers 
 approach, each able to read only the inscription in his native 
 tongue. The Greek is delighted with the information the mar 
 ble affords him of the siege of Troy. The Roman finds inter 
 esting matter regarding the expulsion of the kings. The Per 
 eian deciphers an oracle of Zoroaster. And the Jew is sur 
 prised by a commemoration of the Exodus. Here, as eacb 
 inscription exists or is significant only to him who possesses the 
 corresponding language ; so the several modes of existence are 
 manifested only to those intelligences who possess the corre- 
 sponding organs. And as each of the four readers would be 
 rash, if he maintained that the marble could be significant only 
 as significant to him, so should we be rash, were we to hold 
 that the universe had no other phases of being than the few 
 that are turned towards our faculties, and which our five senses 
 enable us to perceive. 
 
 Before leaving this subject, it is perhaps proper to observe, 
 that had w.e fiiculties equal in number to all the possible modes- 
 of existence, whether of mind or matter, still would our knowl- 
 edge of mind or, mattejL.be only relative. If material existence 
 Could exhibit ten thousand phenomena, and if we possessed ton 
 thousand senses to apprehend these ten thousand phenomena 
 fif material _ existence^ of existence absolutely and in itself, 
 we should be then as ignorant as we are at present. 
 
 J7te properties of existence not known in their native purity. 
 liut the consideration that our actual faculties of knowledge ar 
 probably wholly inadequate in number to the possible modes of
 
 94 RELATIVITY OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 being, is of comparatively less importance than the other con- 
 sideration to which we now proceed, that whatever we know 
 is not known as it is, but only as it seems to us to be ; for it is 
 of less importance that our knowledge should be limited, than 
 that our knowledge should be pure. It is, therefore, of the high- 
 est moment that we should be aware, that what we know is not 
 a simple relation apprehended between the object known and the 
 subject knowing, but that every knowledge is a sum made up 
 of several elements, and that the great business of philosophy is to 
 analyze and discriminate these elements, and to determine from 
 whence these contributions have been derived. I shall explain 
 what I mean by an example. In the perception of an external 
 object, the mind does not know it in immediate relation to itself, 
 but mediately, in relation to the material organs of sense. If, 
 therefore, we were to throw these organs out of consideration, and 
 did not take into account what they contribute to, and how they 
 modify our knowledge of that object, it is evident that our con- 
 clusion in regard to the nature of external perception would be 
 erroneous. ^ain J _an_Qbj.ect_ofj)erception may not e.vea.stand 
 in immediate relation to the organ of sense, but may make ita 
 impression on that organ through an intervening medium. 
 Now, if this medium be thrown out of account, and if it be not 
 considered that the real external object is the sum of all that 
 externally contributes to affect the sense, we shall, in like man- 
 ner, run into error. For example, I see a book, I see that 
 book through an external medium (what that medium is, we do 
 not now inquire), and I see it through my organ of sight, the 
 eye. Now, as the full object presented to the mind (observe 
 that I say the mind}, in perception, is an object compounded of 
 (1.) the external object emitting or reflecting light, i. e. modify- 
 ing the external medium, of (2.) this external medium, and of 
 (<U the living organ of sense, in their mutual relation, let us 
 suppose, in the example I have taken, that the full or ade- 
 quate object perceived is equal to twelve, and that this amount 
 is made up of three several parts, of four contributed by the 
 book, of four contributed by all that intervenes between the 
 book and the organ, and of four contributed by the living 
 ortran it>elf.
 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 95 
 
 I use this illustration to show, that the phenomenon of the 
 external object is not presented immediately to the mind, but is 
 known by it only as modified through certain intermediate 
 agencies ; and to show that sense itself may be a source of 
 error, if we do not analyze jmd distinguish what elements, in 
 an act of perception, belong to the outward reality, what to ihj 
 outward medium, and what to the,, action of sense itself. But 
 this source of error is not limited to our perceptions ; and we 
 are liable to be deceived, not merely by not distinguishing in an 
 act of knowledge what is contributed by sense, but by noj dis- 
 tinguishing what is contributed by the mindJtself. This isjthp 
 most difficult and important function of philosophy ; and the 
 greater number of its higher problems arise in the attempt to 
 determine the shares to which the knowing subject, and the 
 object known, may pretend in the total act of cognition. For 
 according as we attribute a larger or a smaller proportion to 
 each, we either run into the extremes of Idealism and Materi 
 alism, or maintain an equilibrium between the two. 
 
 In what *? n f.eJuimn- n knowing" is rplntir^ From what has 
 been said, you will be able, I hope, to understand what is meant 
 by the proposition, that all our knowledge is only relative. It 
 is relative, 1, Because existence is not cognizable, absolutely 
 and in itself, but only in special modes; 2, Because these 
 modes can be known only if they stand in a certain relation to 
 our faculties ; and 3, Because the modes thus relative to our 
 faculties are presented to, and known by, the mind only under 
 modifications determined by these faculties themselves. 
 
 Two series of expressions applied to human knowledge. This 
 general doctrine being premised, it will be proper now to tak? 
 seme special notice of the several terms significant of the 
 relative nature of our knowledge. And here Jtliere^ are_twp 
 ^Opposite .series of expressions, 1, Tho=e which denote the 
 relative and the knowji ; 2, Those which denote th_e absolute 
 and the unknowji. Of the former class, are the words p/xciLom- 
 enon, mode, modijication, slate, words which are employed in 
 the definition of Psychology ; and to these may be added the 
 analogous terms, quality > property, attribute, accident. Of
 
 96 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 
 
 the latter --class, that is, the absolute and the unknown, ig 
 the word subject, which we have to explain as an element of 
 the definition, and its analogous expressions, substance and sub- 
 stratum. These opposite classes cannot be explained apart j 
 for, as each is jjorrelative of the other, each can be compre- 
 hended only in and through its correlative, 
 
 subject (aubjectitm, VKOGTCKHS, vnoxeiutvov) is used 
 
 to_denota the unknown basis which lies under the various pkae- 
 nomena or properties of which we become aware, whether in 
 pur internal or external experience. In the more recent phi- 
 losophy, especially in that of Germany, it has, however, been 
 principally employed to denote the basis of the various mental 
 phsenomena ; but of this special signification we are hereafter 
 more particularly to speak. 
 
 The word substance (substantia} may be employed in two, 
 but two kindred, meanings. It may be used either to denote 
 that which exisis_abs.olutely and of itself; in this sense, it 
 may be viewed as derived from subsistendo, and as meaning 
 ens per _$_e subsystem ; or.it may be viewed as the basis of attri- 
 biiLL^Jn. .MJudL.ae.nse it may be regarded as derived from sub- 
 gtando, and as meaning id quod substat accidcntibus, like the 
 Greek vTiooraoi^, vrtoxsifisvov. Jn either case, it will, however, 
 signify the same thing viewed in a different aspect. In the 
 former meaning, it is considered in contrast to, and independent 
 of ; its attributes ; in ike latter, as conjoined with these, and as 
 affording them the condition of existence. In different rela- 
 tions, a thing may be at once considered as a substance, and as 
 an attribute, quality, or mode. This paper is a substance, in 
 relation to the attribute of white ; but it is itself a mode in 
 relation to the substance, matter. Substance is thus a term foi 
 ihe substratum we are obliged to think to all that we variously 
 lenominate n?)iode, a slate, a quality, -MI attribute, a. property, an 
 iccident, a phenomenon, an appearance, etc. These, though 
 expressions generically the same, are, however, used with spe- 
 cific distinctions. The terms mode, state, quality, attribute, 
 property, accident, are employed in reference to a substance, as 
 existing; the terms jwcchoinenon, appearance, etc. in reference
 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 97 
 
 to it, as known. But each of these expressions has also its pe- 
 culiar signification. A_m0cfe_is the_ manner of the existence of 
 A thing. Take, for example, a piece of wax. The wax may 
 be round, or square, or of any other definite figure ; it may also 
 be solid or fluid. Its existence in any of these modes is not 
 essential ; it may change from one to the other without any 
 nubstantial alteration. As the mode cannot exist without a 
 eub?tance, we can afford to it only a secondary or precarious 
 existence in relation to the substance, to which we accord the 
 privilege of existing by itself, per se existere ; but though the 
 substance be not astricted to any particular mode of existence, 
 we must not suppose that it can exist, or, at least, be conceived 
 by us to exist, in none. All modes are, therefore, variable 
 .states ; and though some mode is necessary for the existence of 
 a thing, any individual mode is accidental. The word modifica- 
 tion is properly the bringing a thing into a certain mode of 
 existence, but it is very commonly employed for the mode of 
 existence itself. Slate is a term nearly synonymous with mode, 
 but of a meaning more extensive, as not exclusively limited to 
 the mutable and contingent. 
 
 Quality is, likewise, a word of a wider signification, for there 
 are essential and accidental qualities.* The essential qualities 
 of a thing are those aptitudes, those manners of existence and 
 action, which it cannot lose without ceasing to be. For exam- 
 ple, in man, the faculties of sense and intelligence ; in body, the 
 dimensions of length, breadth, and thickness ; in God, the attri- 
 butes of eternity, omniscience, omnipotence, etc. By accidental 
 qualities, are meant those aptitudes and manners of existence 
 and action, which substances have at one time and not at 
 another ; or which they have always, but may lose without 
 ceasing to be. For example, of the transitory class are the 
 whiteness of a wall, the health which we enjoy, the fineness of 
 the weather, etc. Of the permanent class are the gravity of 
 bodies, the periodical movement of the planets, etc. 
 
 * The term tjuality should, in strictness, be confined to accidental attri- 
 bute*;.
 
 98 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 
 
 The term attribute is a word properly convertible with qual- 
 ity* for every quality is an attribute, and every attribute is a 
 quality ; but, in our language, custom has introduced a certain 
 distinction in their application. Attribute is considered as a 
 word of loftier significance, and is, therefore, conveniently 
 limited to qualities of a higher application. Thus, for exam- 
 ple, it would be felt as indecorous to speak of the qualities of 
 God, and as ridiculous to talk of the attributes of matter. 
 
 Property is correctly a synonym for peculiar quality ; * but 
 it is frequently used as coextensive with quality in general. 
 Accident, on the contrary, is an abbreviated expression for acci- 
 j dental or contingent quality. 
 
 Phenomenon is the Greek word for that which appears, and 
 may, therefore, be translated by appearance. There is, how- 
 ever, a distinction to be noticed. In the first place, the employ- 
 ment of the Greek term shows that it is used in a strict and 
 philosophical application. In the second place, the English 
 name is associated with a certain secondary or implied mean- 
 ing, which, in some degree, renders it inappropriate as a pre- 
 cise and definite expression. For the term appearance is used 
 to denote not only that which reveals itself to our observation, 
 as existent, but also to signify that which only seems to be, in 
 contrast to that which truly is. There is thus not merely a 
 certain vagueness in the word, but it even involves a kind of 
 contradiction to the sense in which it is used when employed 
 for phenomenon. In consequence of this, the term phenome- 
 non has been naturalized in our language, as a philosophical 
 substitute for the term appearance. 
 
 * In the older and Aristotelian sense of the term. By the later Logicians, 
 the term property was less correctly used to denote a necessary quality, 
 whether peculiar or not. ENGLISH ED.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS CONTINUED. 
 
 Recapitulation. In the last chapter, I illustrated the prin- 
 ciple, that all our knowledge of mind and matter is merely 
 relative. We know, and can know, nothing absolutely and in 
 itself; all that we know is existence in certain special forms or 
 modes, and these, likewise, only in so far as they may be analo- 
 gous to our faculties. We may suppose existence to have a 
 thousand modes ; but these thousand modes are all to us 33 
 zero, unless we possess faculties accommodated to their appre- 
 hension. But were the number of our faculties coextensive 
 with the modes of being, had we, for each of these thousand 
 modes, a separate organ competent to make it known to us, 
 still would our whole knowledge be, as it is at present, only of 
 the relative. Of existence, absolutely and in itself, we should 
 then be as ignorant as we are now. We should still apprehend 
 existence only in certain special modes, only in certain rela- 
 tions to our faculties of knowledge. 
 
 These relative modes, whether belonging to the world with- 
 out, or to the world within, are, under different points of view, 
 and different limitations, known under various names, as quali- 
 ties, properties, essence, accidents, phenomena, manifestations, 
 appearances, and so forth ; whereas the unknown something 
 of which they are the modes, the unknown ground, which 
 affords them support, is usually termed their substance or sub- 
 ject. Substance (substantial, I noticed, is considered either in 
 contrast to its accidents, as res per se subsistens, or in connection 
 with them, as id quod substat accidentibus. It, therefore, com- 
 prehends both the Greek terms oiiaia and vjtoxfifierm', ovafct 
 being equivalent to substantia in the meaning of ens per se sub-
 
 100 EXPLICATION OF TERMS- 
 
 sisfens ; vTtoxeipsvov to it, as id quod substat accidentibut 
 The term subject is used only for substance in its second mean- 
 ing, and thus corresponds to vnoxeifievov ; its literal signification 
 is, as its etymology expresses, that which lies, or is placed, 
 under the phaenomena. 
 
 Tf&ee different errors regarding Substance. I at present 
 avoid entering into the metaphysics of substance and phe- 
 nomenon. I shall only observe, in general, that philosophers 
 have frequently fallen jntojjnp. or othpr^nf_thrRp. different errors. 
 f1p.njgd__thp. reality of any unknown ground of the 
 
 known phenomena ; ajidJbay^jiiaintaijifid that . 
 liave no substantial existence, but are merely the two comple- 
 ments of two series of associated qualities. This doctrine is, 
 however, altogether futile. It belies the veracity of our pri- 
 mary beliefs ; it leaves unsatisfied the strongest necessities of 
 our intellectual nature; it. admits ns ft, fact that. th.6, 
 
 jtrp conne.cted^but allows no cause pyplnnatory of the fact of 
 their connection. Qf/i^rs^ flfflin, hove fallen into {yn oppnsjfp. 
 error. TJu*y_Jin.vp. endeavored to speculate concerning _the 
 
 natun of lllC unkiiDUii -ruiiiid- uf thij |)li;rii(i!:i<'ii:i .,(' niiin! ;ind 
 
 matter, apart from the phaenomena. and_Jiae, accordingjj, 
 Abe legilimale_iphexe_pjj2l 1 ''9 s 9rl 1 JJ!_ A^Mrd party 
 gn _s_QIB.Q..Qne, or more^ of_tLe phoenomcjia tiiemiiclves as 
 
 the basis or .su.l)stiiitum,.of tlie oLliers.. Thus Dbacartes, at least 
 as understood and followed by Malebranche and others of his 
 disciples, made thought or__cpnscioijisness. Convertible with tie 
 of mind.; and Bishups Brown a4*d LAW, with Dn 
 , constituted solidity and extension into the substance of 
 Thi> theory is, however, liable to all the objections which 
 may be alleged against the first. 
 
 I defined Psychology, the science conversant about the phce- 
 nomenn of the mitnl^ or conscious-subject, or self or ego. The 
 former part-; of the definition have been explained ; the. terms 
 mind, conscious-subject, self, and rrjo< come now to be considered. 
 These are all. only expressions fur tlie unknown baiiis of Jlie 
 
 tiil 4jlia:iioini'.ii;u viejnai. hiuixver, in differeut relaliuui 
 Whut we mi' an bij mind. Of these the woril mind is the
 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 101 
 
 first. In regard to the etymology of this term, it is obscure 
 and doubtful ; perhaps, indeed, none of the attempts to trace it 
 to its origin are successful. Jj^agsmg.J.n hoLl an analogy wi{ji 
 and hnt.h ara probably darigad, 
 
 This root, which is lost in the European lan- 
 guages of Scytho-Indian origin, is probably preserved in the 
 Sapa/TJf. mj>n^ to know or understand. The Greek vovs, intel- 
 ligence, is, in like manner, derived from a verb of precisely the 
 same meaning (vof'co). T_he wjird_/ioLis_Q more Ufflited_sjg- 
 nifigatipn thati the tpmn .^i/Z. IxLJh^_Greek__philpspphj JL the 
 ternL:$t>X5j soul, comprehjgnds^besides the sensitive and rational 
 principle in man, the_4}rim^Je_j3f^rganic_Jif^both in the ani- 
 mal and vegetable kingdoms.; and, InjQhristian theology, il_i3_ 
 likewise used^ in contrast to ftvevfia or spirit, in a vaguer and 
 more extensive signification. 
 
 Since .Descartes limited Psychology to the domain of eon- 
 sciojis_n.esa, lhe_ ieja^^talud, .has Jbeen rigidly .employed for _lhe 
 8eh-knowing princijile alone. Mind, therefore, is to be under- 
 stood as the subject of the various internal phenomena of which 
 we are conscious^ or that subject of which consciousness is the 
 general phenomenon- Consciousness is, in fact, to the mind 
 what extension is to matter or body. Though both are. phe- 
 nomena, yet both are essential qualities : ibx we can neither 
 connclvp, mind without rnnsA'imianpss, n^ body without e^ten> 
 tion. Miii'l can \: il.-li '.-.! vr\\y& posteriori, tlmi i-. > n.!y 
 from its manifeslationst \Vhat it is in itself, that is, apart frooi 
 its manifestations, we, philoiOphicrJly, . _'ii>O{V. ii'Ojhin^_and, 
 af.r.Qrdingly f what we mtuin by jnhijL J8 ^mjilj, t\^t which per- 
 ceiyeSf ihinks, fc.tls^ wills, de&ires,.ut?.. Mind, with us, is thus 
 I nearly coextensive with the Rational . ana vAjiknal.scftik- of, ^vis"- 
 , totle ; for the faculty of voluntary motion, -wlueii ;s a i.mction 
 of the animal soul in the Peripatetic doctrine, ought not, as is 
 generally done, to be excluded from the phenomena of con- 
 sciousness and mind. 
 
 Consciousness and Consc\Qu <! - s "^j erl The next term to be 
 considered is conscious-sufg'eci. And first, what is it to be con- 
 scious ? Without anticipating the discussion relative to con-
 
 102 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 
 
 Bciousness, us the fundamental function of intelligence, I may, 
 at present, simply indicate to you what an act of consciousness 
 denotes. This act is of the most elementary character ; itJa, 
 
 the condition of all knowledge; 1 cannot, therefore, define it to 
 yjni ; but, as you are all familiar with the thing, it is easy to 
 enable you to connect the thing with the word. I knew, J 
 
 f desire, X fcej. What is jt Jhat is common to all these? 
 Knowing and desiring and feeling are not the samp., and may 
 be distinguished. But they all agree in. one. fundamental condi- 
 Can T k"Qw T without knowing that T knowj* Can_J 
 jiesire? CanJL feel, without 
 
 knowing that I feel? This is impossible. How this knowing 
 that I know or desire or feel, this common condition of self- 
 knowledge, is precisely, what is denominated Consciousness. 
 
 [Consciousness is a knowledge solely of what is now and here 
 present to the mind. . . . Again, Consciousness is a knowledge 
 of all that is now and here present to the mind ; every imme- 
 diate object of cognition is thus an object of consciousness, and 
 every intuitive cognition itself is simply a special form of con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Consciousness comprehends every CQgnilive__aetj in- -other 
 jsnl^-wluUerer.wje_-are.iiot-cojisious. of, that we do not know. 
 . . . The q.ctwji 1 - modifications the present acts and affections 
 ef the kg/>, are objects of immediate cognition, as themselves 
 objects of Consciousness.] -^ -Dins'. &npp. to Neid. 
 
 So much at present for the adjective of conscious ; now for 
 the substantive, : su,'y'ect, conscious-subject. Though conscious- 
 ness be the cQRdiiii/ii_oX_ail interne>l.,pkEnomena, still it is itself 
 enl.y a phenomenon ; and, therefore, supposes a subject in which 
 fo inheres ; -r- that if. supposes something that is conscious, 
 something tJiai jauaifests. itself as conscious, .And, since con- 
 Bciojisness comprises within its sphere the whole phenomena of 
 mind, the expression conscious-subject is a brief, but comprehen- 
 ^ivej definition of mind itself. 
 
 I have already informed you of the general meaning of the 
 word subject in its philosophical application, namely, the 
 unknown basis of phenomenal or manifested existence. Jt is
 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 103 
 
 thus, in its application, common equally_to_tlifi-external anxLtp 
 tfrfl intpm.il wnrlds. But the philosophers of mind have, in a 
 manner, usurped and appropriated this expression to themselves. 
 Accordingly, in their hands, the phrases conscious or thinking 
 subject, and subject simply, mean precisely the same thing ; and 
 custom has prevailed so far, that, in psychological discussions, 
 the subject is a term now currently employed, throughout Eu- 
 rope, for the mind or thinking principle. 
 
 f7f of the term Subject v^n^i-nt^ The question here 
 occurs, what is the reason of this employment ? If mind and 
 subject are only convertible terms, why multiply synonyms ? 
 Why exchange a precise and proximate expression for a vague 
 and abstract generality ? The question is pertinent, and merits 
 a reply ; for unless it can be shown that the word is necessary, 
 its introduction cannot possibly be vindicated. ^Now, the utility 
 
 Of tins p.yprp^jnn ia fniinrlp.H nn two firr-nm^nrf P- TJl_first 
 
 that_ii_ajfonii An_adjeciiyje ; the second, that the terms subject 
 End subjective have opposing, .relatives in the terms object and 
 objeciiv^ so that the two pairs of words together enable us to 
 .designate the primary and most important analysis and antithe- 
 sis of philosophy, in a more precise~and emphatic manner than 
 can be done by any other technical expressions. This will 
 require some illustration. 
 
 Terms. Subjective and Objective. Subject, we have seen, ia 
 a term for that in which the phenomena revealed to our obser- 
 vation inhere-; what the schoolmen have designated the 
 materia in qua, Limited to the mental phenomena, subject, 
 therefore, denotes- the mind itself; and subjective, that which 
 Belongs to, or proceeds from, the thinking subject. Object, on 
 the other hand, is a term for that about which the knowing sub- 
 ject i:i conversant, what the schoolmen have styled the materia 
 circa quamj while objective means that which belongs to, or 
 proceeds from, the object known, and not from the subject 
 knowing ; and thus denotes what is real in opposition to what 
 is idea:, w.hat exists in nature, in contrast to what exists 
 merely in the thought of the individual. All knowledge is a 
 relation aj^Jalioii_t>etween that which knows (in scholastic
 
 104 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 
 
 language, the subject in which knowledge inheres), and that 
 which is known (in scholastic language, the object about which 
 knowledge is conversant) ; ajxd the contents of every act of 
 knowledge are made up of elements, and regulated by laws, 
 proceeding partly from its object and partly from its subject 
 Now philosophy proper is principally and primarily the scierne 
 of knowledge ; its first and most important problem being to de- 
 termine What can we know ? that is, what are the conditions 
 of our knowing, whether these lie in the nature of the object, 
 or in the nature of the subject, of knowledge? 
 
 [But Philosophy being the Science of knowledge ; and the 
 science of knowledge supposing, in its most fundamental and 
 thorough-going analysis, the distinction of the subject and object 
 of knowledge ; it is evident, that, to philosophy, the subject of 
 knowledge would be, by preeminence, The Subject, and the object 
 of knowledge, by preeminence, The Object. It was, therefore, 
 natural that the object and the objective, the subject and the sub- 
 jective, should be employed by philosophers as simple terms, 
 compendiously to denote the grand discrimination about which 
 philosophy was constantly employed, and which no others could 
 be found so precisely and promptly to express. In fact, had it 
 not been for the special meaning given to objective in the 
 Schools, their employment in this, their natural relation, would 
 probably have been of a much earlier date ; not, however, that 
 they are void of ambiguity, and have not been often abusively 
 employed. This arises from the following circumstance: 
 The subject of knowledge is, exclusively, the Ego or conscious 
 luinjL Subject and subjective, considered in themselves, are 
 therefore little liable to equivocation, Hut, on the other li.md, 
 (\\Q_oj>ject of knowledge is not necessarily a j)ha>nomenon of the 
 Non-ego; for the phenomena of the Ego itself constitute aa 
 veritable, though not so various and prominent, objects of cog- 
 nition, as the phnenomena of the Non-ego. 
 
 Subjective arid objective do not, therefore, thoroughly and ade- 
 quately discriminate that which belongs to mind, and jhat which 
 belongs to matter; they do not even competently distinguish 
 what is dependent, from what is independent, on the conditions
 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 105 
 
 of ihe mental self. But in these significations they are and must 
 be frequently employed. Without, therefore, discarding thia 
 nomenclature, which, so far as it goes, expresses, in general, a 
 distinction of the highest importance, in the most apposite 
 terms; these terms may, by qualification, easily be rendered 
 adequate to those subordinate discriminations, which it is often 
 requisite to signalize, but which they cannot simply and of them- 
 selves denote. 
 
 Subject a "d subjective, without any qualifying attribute,-! 
 Could therefore employ, as has hitherto been done, to mark out 
 wixat inheres in^pfixlaina tcyar ^depends on, the, knowing mind, 
 jdiether of man in general^ or of -this -oiLlhal individual man in 
 _parlicular ; and this in contrast to object and objective, as ex- 
 pressing what does not so inhere, pertain, and depend. Thus, 
 for example, an art or science is said to be objective, when 
 considered simply as a system of speculative truths or practical 
 rules, but without respect of any actual possessor ; subjective, 
 when considered as a habit of knowledge or dexterity, inherent 
 in the mind, either vaguely of any, or precisely of this or that, 
 possessor. 
 
 JJut^_as_has been stated, an object of knowledge may be__a 
 mode of mind, or it, may_be something different from mindj 
 and it is frequently of importance to indicate precisely under 
 which of these classes that object comes. In this case, by an 
 internal development of the nomenclature itself, we might 
 employ, on the former alternative, the term subject-object ; on 
 the latter, the term object-object. 
 
 But the subject-object may be either a mode of mind, of 
 which we are conscious as absolute and for itself alone, as, 
 for example, a pain or pleasure ; or a mode of mind, of which 
 we are conscious, as relative to, and representative of something 
 else, as, for instance, the imagination of something past or 
 possible. Of these we might distinguish, when necessary, the 
 one, as the absolute or the real subject-object, the other, as the 
 relative, or the ideal, or the representative, subject-object. 
 
 Finally, it may be required to mark whether the object-object 
 and the subject-object be immediately known as present, or only
 
 IOC EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 
 
 as represented. In this case we must resort, on the former 
 alternative, to the epithet presentative or intuitive ; on the lat- 
 ter, to those of represented, mediate, remote, primary, princi- 
 pal, etc."] Diss. supp. to Reid. 
 
 Now, the great problem_of philosophy js^J^Lanalyjzejthe con- 
 trnts of our acts of knowledge or commit ions to distinguish 
 what elements are contributed by the knowing subject, what ele- 
 ments by the object known. There must, therefore, be terms 
 adequate to designate these correlative opposites, and to dis- 
 criminate the share which each has in the total act of cognition. 
 But, if we reject the terms subject and subjective, object and 
 objective, there are no others competent to the purpose. 
 
 At this stage of your progress, it is not easy to make you 
 aware of the paramount necessity of such a distinction, and of 
 euch terms, or to show you how, from the want of words ex- 
 pressive of this primary antithesis, the mental philosophy of 
 [Great Britain] has been checked in its development, and 
 involved in the utmost perplexity and misconception. It is suffi- 
 cient to remark at present, that to this defect in the language of 
 his psychological analysis, is, in a great measure, to be attributed 
 the confusion, not to say the errors, of Reid, in the very cardi- 
 nal point of his philosophy, a confusion so great that the 
 whole tendency of his doctrine was misconceived by Brown, 
 who, in adopting a modification of the hypothesis of a repre- 
 sentative perception, seems not even to have suspected, that he, 
 and Ileid, and modern philosophers in general, were not in this 
 at one. The terms subjective and objecting denote, the primary 
 .dialinction in Consciousness of self and not-self, and this dis- 
 linction-inyolvcs the whole science of mind ; for this science is 
 nothing more than a determination of the subjective and objec- 
 tive, in themselves and in their mutual relations. The distinc- 
 tion is of paramount importance, and of infinite application, not 
 only in Philosophy proper, but in Grammar, Rhetoric, Criti- 
 cism, Ethics, Politics, Jurisprudence, Theology. I will give 
 you an example, a philological example. Suppose a lexi- 
 cographer had to distinguish the two meanings of the word cer- 
 taintij. Certainty expresses either the firm con vie/ ion which
 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 107 
 
 we have of the truth of a thing ; or the character of the proof 
 on which its reality rests. The former is the subjective mean- 
 ing ; the latter the objective. By what other terms can they be . t J 
 distinguished and described ? 
 
 History of the terms Subject and Object. The distinction of 
 subject and object, as marking out the fundamental and most 
 thorough-going antithesis in philosophy, we owe, among many 
 other important benefits, to the schoolmen, and from the school- 
 men the terms passed, both in their substantive and adjective 
 forms, into the scientific language of modern philosophers. 
 Deprived of these terms, the Critical Philosophy, indeed the 
 whole philosophy of Germany and France, would be a blank. 
 In [Great Britain], though familiarly employed in scientific lan- 
 guage, 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 substantives. Object, besides its proper signification, came to 
 be abusively applied to denote motive, end, final cause (a mean- 
 ing, by the way, not recognized by Johnson). This innovation 
 was probably borrowed from the French, in whose language the 
 word had been similarly corrupted, after the commencement of 
 the last century. Subject in English, as sujet in French, had 
 not been rightly distinguished from object, taken in its proper 
 meaning, and had thus returned to the original ambiguity of the 
 corresponding term (vTroxetjucvov) in Greek. It is probable that 
 the logical application of the word (subject of predication) 
 facilitated or occasioned this confusion. In using the terms, 
 therefore, we think that an explanation, but no apology, is re- 
 quired. The distinction is expressed by no other terms ; and 
 if these did not already enjoy a prescriptive right as denizens 
 of the language, it cannot be denied, that, as strictly analogical, 
 they are well entitled to sue out their naturalization. We ?hall 
 have frequent occasion to recur to this distinction, and it is 
 eminently worthy of your attention. 
 
 Self, Ego illustrated from Plato. The last parallel ex- 
 pressions are the terms self and ego. These we shall take
 
 108 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 
 
 together, as they are absolutely convertible. As the best prepar- 
 ative for the proper understanding of these terms, I shall trans- 
 late to you a passage from the First Alcibiades of Plato. The 
 
 interlocutors are Socrates and Alcibiades. 
 
 f 
 
 " Socr. Hold, now, with whom do you at present converse ? 
 Ls it not with me ? Alcib. Yes. 
 
 Socr. And I also with you? Alcib. Yes. 
 
 Socr. It is Socrates then who speaks ? Alcib. Assuredly. 
 
 Socr. And Alcibiades who listens ? Alcib. Yes. 
 
 Socr. Is it not with language that Socrates speaks ? Alcib. 
 What now ? of course. 
 
 Socr. To converse, and to use language, are not these then 
 the same ? Alcib. The very same. 
 
 Socr. But he who uses a thing, and the thing used, are 
 these not different ? Alcib. What do you mean ? 
 
 Socr. A currier, does he not use a cutting knife, and 
 other instruments? Alcib. Yes. 
 
 Socr. And the man who uses the cutting knife, is he differ- 
 ent from the instrument he uses? Alcib. Most certainly. 
 
 Socr. In like manner, the lyrist, is he not different from the 
 lyre he plays on ? Alcib. Undoubtedly. 
 
 Socr. This, then, was what I asked you just now, does not 
 he who uses a thing seem to you always different from the thing 
 Used? Alcib. Very different, 
 
 Socr. But the currier, does he cut with his instruments alone, 
 or also with his hands? Alcib. Also with his hands. 
 
 Socr. He then uses his hands ? Alcib. Yes. 
 
 Socr. And in his work he uses also his eyes? Alcib. Yes. 
 
 Socr. We are agreed, then, that he who uses a thing, and 
 the tiling used, are different ? Alcib. We are. 
 
 Socr. The currier and lyrist are, therefore, different from the 
 hands and eyes, with which they work ? Alcib. So it seems. 
 
 Socr. Now, then, does not a man use his whole body? 
 Alcib. Unquestionably. 
 
 Socr. But we are agreed that lie who uses, and that which 
 is used are different ? Alcib. Yes. 
 
 Socr. A man is, therefore, different from his body ? Alcib. 
 So I think
 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 109 
 
 Socr. What theii is the man ? Alcib. I cannot say. 
 
 Socr. You can at least say that the man is that which uses 
 the body ? Alcib. True 
 
 Socr. Now, does any thing use the body but the mind? 
 Alcib. Nothing. 
 
 Socr. The mind is, therefore, the man ? Alcib. The mind 
 alone." 
 
 To the same effect, Aristotle asserts that the mind contains 
 the man, not the man the mind. " Thou art the soul," says 
 Hierocles, " but the body is thine." 
 
 The Self or Ego in relation to bodily organs, and thought*. 
 But let us come to a closer determination of the point ; let us 
 appeal to our experience. " I turn my attention on my being " 
 [says Gatien-Arnoult], " and find that I have organs, and that 
 I have thoughts. My body is the complement of my organs ; 
 am I then my body, or any part of my body ? This I cannot 
 be. The matter of my body, in all its points, is in a perpetual 
 flux, in a perpetual process of renewal. I, /do not pass 
 away, I am not renewed. None probably of the molecules 
 which constituted my organs some years ago, form any part of 
 the material system which I now call mine. It has been made 
 up anew ; but I am still what I was of old. These organs may 
 be mutilated ; one, two } or any number of them may be re- 
 moved; but not the less do I continue to be what I was^ one 
 and entire^. It is even, not impossible to conceive me existing, 
 deprived of every organ ; I, therefore, who have these organs, 
 or this body, / am neither an organ nor a body, 
 
 " Neither am 1^ Identical _with LiHy_UiQugh_ts, for they are jnan- 
 ifold and various^ Ij on the contrary, a_ui one and the same. 
 Each moment they change and succeed each other ; this change 
 and succession takes place in me, but I neither change nor suc- 
 ceed myself in myself^ Each moment I am aware or am 
 conscious of the existence and change of my thoughts : this 
 change is sometimes determined by me, sometimes by some- 
 thing different from me; but I always can distinguish myself 
 frt)in them : I urn a permanent being, an enduring subject, of 
 whose existence these thoughts arc only so many modes, ap-
 
 110 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 
 
 pearances, or phaenomena ; I who possess organs and thoughts 
 am, therefore, neither these organs nor these thoughts. 
 
 * I can conceive myself to exist apart from every organ. 
 But if I try to conceive myself existent without a thought, 
 without some form of consciousness, I am unable. This or 
 that thought may not be perhaps necessary ; but of some thought 
 it is necessary that I should be conscious, otherwise I can 110 
 longer conceive myself to be. A suspension of thought is thus 
 a suspension of my intellectual existence ; I am, therefore, 
 essentially a thinking, a conscious being; and my true 
 character is that of an intelligence, an intelligence served 
 by organs." 
 
 But this thought, this consciousness, is possible only in, and 
 Jhrough, the consciousness of Self. The Self, the I, is recog- 
 t lized in every act of intelligence, as the subject to which that 
 .act belongs. It is I that perceive, I that imagine, I that re- 
 member, I that attend, I that compare, I that feel, I that desire, 
 I that will, I that am conscious. The I, indeed, is only man- 
 ifested in one or other of these special modes ; but it is mani- 
 fested in them all ; they are all only the phenomena of the I, 
 and, therefore, the science conversant about the phaenomena of 
 the mind is, most simply and unambiguously, said to be conver- 
 sant about the phaenomena of the / or Ego. 
 
 This expression, as that which, in many relations, best marks 
 and discriminates the conscious mind, has now become familiar 
 in every country, with the exception of our own. Why it has 
 not been naturalized with us is not unapparent. The French 
 have two words for the Ego or I Je and Moi. The former 
 of these is less appropriate as an abstract term, being in sound 
 ambiguous ; but le moi admirably expresses what the Germans 
 denote, but less felicitously, by their Das Ich. In English, tht 
 /could not be tolerated ; because in sound it could not be dis- 
 tinguished from the word significant of the organ of siht. We 
 mut, therefore, renounce the term, or resort to the Latin Ego; 
 and this is perhaps no disadvantage, for, as the word is only 
 employed in a strictly philosophical relation, it is better that this 
 should be distinctly marked, by its being ued in that relation
 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. Ill 
 
 alone. The term Self is more allowable ; yet still the expres- 
 sions Ego and Non-Ego are felt to be less awkward than those 
 of Sdf and Not-Self. 
 
 So much in explanation of the terms involved in the defini- 
 tion which I gave of Psychology. I now proceed, as I pro- 
 posed, to the consideration of a few other words of frequent 
 occurrence in philosophy, and which it is expedient to explain 
 at once, before entering upon discussions in which they will 
 continually recur. I take them up without order, except in 
 so far as they may be grouped together by their meaning; 
 and the first I shall consider, are the terms hypothesis and 
 theory. 
 
 Hypothesis. When a phenomenon is presented to us which 
 can be explained by no cause within the sphere of our experi- 
 ence, we feel dissatisfied and uneasy. A desire arises to escape 
 from this unpleasing state ; and the consequence of this desire 
 is an effort of the mind to recall the outstanding phenomenon 
 to unity, by assigning it, ad interim, to some cause, or class, to 
 which we imagine that it may possibly belong, until we shall be 
 able to refer it, permanently, to that cause, or class, to which 
 we shall have proved it actually to appertain. The judgment 
 by which the phenomenon is thus provisorily referred, is called 
 an hypothesis, a supposition. 
 
 Hypotheses have thus no other end than to satisfy the desire 
 of the mind to reduce the objects of its knowledge to unity and 
 system ; and they do this in recalling them, ad interim, to some 
 principle, through which the mind is enabled to comprehend 
 them. From this view of their nature it is manifest how i'ar 
 they are permissible, and how far they are even useful and 
 expedient, throwing altogether out of account the possibility 
 that what is at first assumed as hypothetical, may subsequently 
 be proved true. 
 
 Conditions of a legitimate hypothesis. An hypothesis is 
 allowable only under certain conditions. Of these \\wjirst is, 
 .that the phenomenon to be_ ..ejcpAa.inetl should be ascertained- 
 actually to exist. It would, for example, be absurd to propose 
 au hypothesis to account for the possibility of apparitions, until
 
 112 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 
 
 it be proved that ghosts do actually appear. This precept, to 
 establish your fact before you attempt to conjecture its cause, 
 may, perhaps, seem to you too elementary to be worth the 
 statement. But u longer experience will convince you of the 
 contrary. That the enunciation of the rule is not only not 
 superfluous, but even highly requisite as an admonition, is 
 shown by great and numerous examples of its violation in the 
 history of science; and, as Cullen has truly observed, _there_are 
 more false^ facts Lcurrent_in_ the world than^ false hypotheses to 
 explain thern^ There is, in truth, nothing which men seem to 
 admit so lightly as an asserted fact. It would be easy to ad- 
 duce extensive hypotheses, very generally accredited, even at 
 the present hour, which are, however, nothing better than 
 assumptions founded on, or explanatory of, phenomena which 
 do not really exist in nature. 
 
 The second condition of a permissible hypothesis is, that 
 the phenomenon cannot be explained otherwise than by an 
 hypothesis. It would, for example, have been absurd, even 
 before the discoveries of Franklin, to account for the phenom- 
 enon of lightning by the hypothesis of supernatural agency 
 These two conditions, of the reality of the phenomenon, and 
 the necessity of an hypothesis for its explanation, being fulfilled, 
 an hypothesis is allowable. 
 
 Criteria of the excellence of an hypothesis. But the neces- 
 sity of some hypothesis being conceded, how are we to dis- 
 criminate between a good and a bad, a probatle and an 
 improbable, hypothesis? The comparative excellence of an 
 hypothesis requires, in the Jirst place, that it involve nothing 
 contradictory, either internally or externally. that is, either 
 between the parts of which it is composed, or between these 
 and any established truths. Thus, the Ptolemaic hypothesis 
 of the heavenly revolutions became worthless, from the moment 
 that it was contradicted by the ascertained phenomena of the 
 planets Venus and Mercury. Thus the Wenirrian hypothesis 
 in geology is improbable, inasmuch as it is obliged to maintain 
 that water was originally able to hold in solution substances 
 vliich it is now incapable of dissolving. The Huttonian
 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 113 
 
 hypothesis, on the contrary, is so far preferable, that it assumes 
 no effect to have been produced by any agent, which that agent 
 is not known to be capable of producing. In the second place, 
 an hypothesis is probable in proportion as the phenomenon in 
 question can be by it more completely explained. Thus the 
 Copernican hypothesis is more probable than the Tychonic and 
 semi-Tychonic, inasmuch as it enables us to explain a greater 
 number of phenomena. In the third place, an hypothesis is 
 probable in proportion as it is independent of all subsidiary 
 hypotheses. In this respect, again, the Copernican hypothesis 
 is more probable than the Tychonic. For, though both save 
 all the phenomena, the Copernican does tlu's by one principal 
 assumption ; whereas the Tychouic is obliged to call in the aid 
 of several subordinate suppositions, to render the principal 
 assumption available. So much for hypothesis. 
 
 Theory ; Practice. I shall be more concise in treating of 
 the cognate expression, theory. This word is employed by 
 English writers in a very loose and improper sense. It is with 
 them usually convertible with hypothesis, and hypothesis is 
 commonly used as another term for conjecture. Dr. Reid, 
 indeed, expressly does this ; he identifies the two words, and 
 explains them as philosophical conjectures, as you may see in 
 his First Essay on the Intellectual Powers. ' This is, however, 
 wrong; wrong, in relation to the original employment of the 
 terms by the ancient philosophers ; and wrong, in relation to 
 (heir employment by the philosophers of the modern nations. 
 
 The terms theory and theoretical are properly used in opposi- 
 tion to the terms practice and practical; in this sense they 
 were exclusively employed by the ancients ; and in this sense 
 they are almost exclusively employed by the continental philos- 
 ophers. Practice Ja JJu^-caAtrcjsc., o_f an art,-^ the, appUciUzou 
 jof_a science^ in life, whji.liupplicatiou is itself aii^jirt, for it i.s 
 not every one who is able to apply all he knows ; there being re- 
 quired, over and above knowledge, a certain dexterity and skill 
 Theory, on the Contrary, is mere knowledge or science. There 
 is a distinction, but no opposition, between theory and practice 
 each to a certain extent supposes the other. On the one hand 
 10*
 
 114 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 
 
 theory is dependent on practice ; practice must have preceded 
 theory ; for theory being only a generalization of the principles 
 on which practice proceeds, these must originally have been 
 taken out of, or abstracted from, practice. On the other hand, 
 fliis is true only to a certain extent ; for there is no practice 
 without a theory. The man of practice must have always 
 known something, however little, of what he did, of what he 
 intended to do, and of the means by which his intention was to 
 be carried into effect. He was, therefore, not wholly ignorant 
 of the principles of his procedure ; he was a limited, he was, 
 in some degree, an unconscious, theorist As he proceeded, 
 however, in his practice, and reflected on his performance, his 
 theory acquired greater clearness and extension, so that he 
 became at last distinctly conscious of what he did, and could 
 give, to himself and others, an account of his procedure. 
 
 " Per varies usus artem cxpcrientia fecit, 
 Exemplo monstrante viara." 
 
 ItMliis view, theory is, therefore, simply a. knowledge of the 
 princir)lesj)y_which _pra,ct]ce_accpmpiiskea its end, 
 
 The opposition of Theoretical and Practical philosophy is 
 somewhat different ; for these do not stand simply related to 
 each other as theory and practice. Practical philosophy in- 
 volves likewise a theory, a theory, however, subordinated to 
 the practical application of its principles ; 'while theoretical phi- 
 losophy has nothing to do with practice, but terminates in mere 
 speculative or contemplative knowledge. 
 
 The next group of associated words to which I would call 
 your attention is composed of the terms, power, faculty, ca- 
 pacity, disposition, Jiuliit, act, operation, energy, function, etc. 
 
 Power. Reid's criticism of Locke. Of these the first is 
 power, and the explanation of this, in a manner, involves that 
 of all the others. 
 
 I have, in the first place, to correct an error of Dr. Reid, in 
 relation to this term, in his criticism of Locke's statement of its 
 import. You will observe that I do not, at present, enter on 
 the question, How do we acquire the notion of power? and I
 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 115 
 
 defend the following passage of Locke, only in regard to the 
 meaning and comprehension of the term. u The mind," say? 
 Locke, " being every day informed, by the senses, of the altera- 
 tion of those simple ideas it observes in things without, and 
 taking notice how one comes to an end, and ceases to be, and 
 another begins to exist which was not before ; reflecting, also, 
 on. what passes within itself, and observing a constant change of 
 its ideas, sometimes by the impression of outward objects on the 
 senses, and sometimes by the determination of its own choice ; 
 and concluding from what it has so constantly observed to have 
 been, that the like changes will, for the future, be made in the 
 same things, by like agents, and by the like ways ; considers, in 
 one thing, the possibility of having any of its simple ideas 
 changed, and, in another, the possibility of making that change ; 
 and so comes by that idea which we call power. Thus we say, 
 fire has a power to melt gold, that is, to destroy the consis- 
 tency of its insensible parts, and, consequently, its hardness, 
 and make it fluid, and gold has a power to be melted : that the 
 sun has a power to blanch wax, and wax a power to be 
 blanched by the sun, whereby the yellowness is destroyed, and 
 whiteness made to exist in its room. In which, and the like 
 cases, the power, we consider, is in reference to the change of 
 perceivable ideas ; for we cannot observe any alteration to be 
 made in, or operation upon, any thing, but by the observable 
 change of its sensible ideas ; nor conceive any alteration to be 
 made, but by conceiving a change of some of its ideas. Power, 
 thus considered, is twofold namely, as able to make, or able 
 to receive, any change : the one may be called active, and the 
 other passive power." 
 
 Active and Passive Power. I have here only to call your^ 
 attention to the distinction of power into two kinds, active and I 
 passive the former meaning, id quod potest faccre, that 
 which can effect or can do, the latter, id quod potest feri, that 
 which can be effected or can be done. In both cases, ^he_general 
 notion of power is .expressed by _tlie_ .verb _po_trst or jtvw; Now, 
 on thi, Dr. Reid makes the following strictures : l - Whereas 
 Locke distinguishes power into active and -passive, I conceive
 
 116 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 
 
 passive power is no power at all. He means by it, the possi- 
 bility of being changed. To call this, power, seems to be a 
 misapplication of the word. I do not remember to have met 
 with the phrase passive power in any other good author. Mr. 
 Locke seems to have been unlucky in inventing it ; and it de- 
 serves not to be retained in our language. Perhaps he was 
 unwarily led into it, as an opposite to active power. But I con- 
 ceive we call certain powers active, to distinguish them from 
 other powers that are called speculative. As all mankind dis- 
 tinguish action from speculation, it is very proper to distinguish 
 the powers by which those different operations are performed 
 into active and speculative. Mr. Locke, indeed, acknowledges 
 that active power is more properly called power : but I see no 
 propriety at all in passive power ; it is a powerless power, and 
 a contradiction in terms." 
 
 These observations of Dr. Reid arc, I am sorry to say, erro- 
 neous from first to last. The latter part, in which he attempts 
 to find a reason for Locke being unwarily betrayed into making 
 this distinction, is, supposing the distinction untenable, and 
 Locke its author, wholly inadequate to account for his hallu- 
 cination : for, surely, the powers by which we speculate are, in 
 their operations, not more passive than those that have some- 
 times been styled active, but which are properly denominated 
 practical. But in the censure itself on Locke, Reid is alto 
 gether mistaken. In_ the ^/?r.s<^pjacc, so far was Locke from 
 being unlucky in inventing the distinction, it was invented 
 gome _twQ_thousa.ad y ea rs before. In the second place, to call 
 the possibility of being changed a power, is no misapplication of 
 the word. In the third place, so far is the phrase passii'e powe* 
 firAii not being employed by any good author, there is hardly 
 u metaphysician, previous to Locke, by whom it was not famil- 
 iarly used. In fact, this was one of the most celebrated dis- 
 timtions in philosophy. It was first formally enounced by 
 Aristotle, and from him was universally adopted. Active and 
 passive power are in Greek styled <V'm/</s nnn^r.'.t]. and tivraftti 
 tttt&rjtr/o'j ; in Latin, potcn/ia activa. and potrntia passiva. 
 
 Power, therefore, is a word which we may u>e both in ap
 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 117 
 
 active, and in a passive, signification ; and in psychology, we 
 may apply it both to the active faculties, and to the passive 
 .* capacities, of mind. 
 
 , faculty. This leads to the meaning of the terms facultiet 
 and capacities. Faculty (fucultas) is derived from the obsolete 
 ,' Latin/aewZ, the more ancient form of facilis, from which again 
 ' facilitas is formed. It is properly limited to active power, and, 
 1 therefore, is abusively applied to the mere passive affections of 
 \mind. 
 
 ^t-v- Capacity (capacitas), on the other hand, is more properly 
 limited to these. Its primary signification, which is literally 
 room for, as well as it's employment, favors this ; although it 
 cannot be denied, that there are examples of its usage in an 
 active sense. Leibnitz, as far as I know, was the first who 
 limited its psychological application to the passivities of mind. 
 In his famous Nouveaux Essais sur T Entendement Humain, a 
 work written in refutation of Locke's Essay on the same sub- 
 ject, he observes : " WjijQay_-sayjhat power, in general, L= the 
 possibility of change. Now the change, or the act of this possi- 
 bility, being action in one subject and passion in another, there 
 will be two powers, the one passive, the other active. The 
 active may be called faculty, and perhaps the passive might be 
 called capacity, or receptivity. It is true that the active power 
 is sometimes taken in a higher sense, when, over and above the 
 simple faculty, there is also a tendency, a nisits ,' and it is thus 
 that I have used it in my dynamical considerations. We might 
 give it in this meaning the special name of force." I may 
 notice that Reid seems to have attributed no other meaning to 
 the term power than that of force. 
 
 Power, theiij is_actiy_e_ und passive ; faculty is active power, 
 
 Disposition, Habit. The two terms next in order, are dis- 
 position, in Greek, 8ia.&Gi$; and Jiabit, in Greek Ki^. I take 
 these together, as they are Hinilar, yet not the same. Both_are_ 
 tendencies to action ; but they differ in this, that disposition 
 properly denotes a natural tendency, habit an acquiivd ten- 
 dency. Aristotle distinguishes them by another difference.
 
 118 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 
 
 ,"" Habit (Ktg) is discriminated from disposition (Sid&eatg) in 
 
 ' this, that the latter is easily movable, the former of longei 
 
 i duration, and more difficult to be moved." I may notice that 
 
 habit is formed by the frequent repetition of the same action or 
 
 passion, and that this repetition is called consuetude, or custom. 
 
 The latter terms, which properly signify the cause, are not un- 
 
 frequently abusively employed for habit, their effect. 
 
 I may likewise observe that the terms power, faculty, capac~ 
 ity, are more appropriately applied to natural, than to acquired, 
 capabilities, and are thus inapplicable to mere habits. I say 
 mere habits, for where habit is superinduced upon a natural 
 capability, both terms may be used. Thus we can say both the 
 faculty of abstraction, and the habit of abstraction, the ca- 
 pacity of suffering, and the habit of suffering ; but still the 
 meanings are not identical. 
 
 The last scries of cognate terms are act, operation, energy. 
 They are all mutually convertible, as all denoting the present 
 exertion or exercise of a power, a faculty, or a habit. I must 
 here explain to you the famous distinction of actual and poten- 
 tial existence ; for, by this distinction, act, operation, energy, are 
 contra-discriminated from power, faculty, capacity, disposition, 
 and habit. This distinction, when divested of certain subordi- 
 nate subtleties of no great consequence, is manifest and simple. 
 Potential existence means merely that the thing may be at some 
 time; actual existence, that it now is. Thus, the mathema- 
 tician, when a<lecp or playing at cards, does not exercise his 
 skill ; his geometrical knowledge is all latent, but he is still a 
 mathematician potentially. 
 
 Ilermogenes, says Horace, was a singer, even when silent.; 
 
 * how ? a singer, not in actn, but in posse. So Alfenus was a 
 
 cobbler, even when not at work ; that is, he was a cobbler 
 
 potential ; whereas, when busy in his booth, he was a cobbler 
 
 actual. 
 
 In like manner, my sense of sight potentially exists, though 
 rny eyelids are closed ; but when I open them, it cxi.-t< actually. 
 Now, power, faculty, capacity, disposition, habit, are all differ- 
 ent expressions for potential or possible existence; act, opera-
 
 EXPLICATION OF TERMS. 119 
 
 tion, energy, for actual or present existence. Tims the power 
 of imagination expresses the unexerted capability of imagining ; 
 the_ogl of imagination denoteg__that power Qlicited_into imnie- 
 dialc into present rxi-tmco. Tin- dilli-mit synonyms t<>r 
 potential existence, are existence iv dwdfisi, in potentia, in posse, 
 in power ; for actual existence, existence iv tvsQ-ytia, or iv ivre- 
 ie^etn, in actu, in esse, in act, in operation, in energy. The 
 term energy is precisely the Greek term for act of operation ; 
 but it has vulgarly obtained the meaning of forcible activity. 
 
 The wordfunciio, in Latin, simply expresses performance or 
 operation ; functio muneris is the exertion of an energy of 
 some determinate kind. But with us, the word function has 
 come to be employed in the sense of munus alone, and means 
 not the exercise, but the specific character, of a power. Thus 
 the function of a clergyman does not mean with us the per- 
 formance of his duties, but the peculiarity of those duties 
 themselves. The function of nutrition does not mean the 
 operation of that animal power, but its discriminate character.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF MENTAL PHENOMENA: - SPECIAL CONDI- 
 TIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 Consciousness comprehends all the mental plieenomena. In 
 taking a comprehensive survey of the mental phenomena, these 
 are all seen to comprise one essential element, or to be possible 
 only under one necessary condition. This element or condition 
 is Consciousness, or the knowledge that I, that the Ego 
 exists, in some determinate state. In this knowledge they 
 appear, or are realized as phenomena, and with this knowledge 
 tht-y likewise disappear, or have no longer a phaenomenal exist- 
 ence ; so that consciousness may be compared to an internal 
 Vght, by means of which, and which alone, what passes in the 
 mind is rendered visible. Consciousness is simple, is not 
 composed of pails, either similar or dissimilar. It always 
 resembles itself, differing only in the degrees of its intensity; 
 thus, there are not various kinds of consciousness, although 
 there are various kinds of mental modes, or states, of which we 
 are conscious. Whatever division, therefore, of the mental 
 phaenornena may be adopted, all its members must be within 
 consciousness itself, which must be viewed as comprehensive of 
 the whole phenomena to be divided; far less should we reduce 
 it, as a special phenomenon, to a particular class. Let con- 
 pciousiioss, therefore, remain one and indivisible, comprehend- 
 ing all the modifications, all the phenomena, of the thinking 
 subject. 
 
 Three classes <>f mental phenomena. I>ut taking, again, a 
 
 survey of the mental modifications, or phenomena, of which 
 
 we are conscious. these are seen to divide themselves into 
 
 THHKK great classes. In the first place, there are the phae- 
 
 (120)
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF MENTAL PHENOMENA. 121 
 
 nomena of Knowledge ; in the second place, there are the phae- 
 nomena of Feeling, or the phenomena of Pleasure and Pain ; 
 and, in the third place, there are the phenomena of Will and 
 Desire. 
 
 Let me illustrate this by an example. I see a picture. 
 Now, first of all, I am conscious of perceiving a certain 
 complement of colors and figures, I recognize what the 
 object is. This is the phenomenon of Cognition or Knowl- 
 edge. But this is not the only phenomenon of which I may 
 be here conscious. I may experience certain affections in the 
 contemplation of this object. If the picture be a masterpiece, 
 the gratification will be unalloyed ; but if it be an unequal pro- 
 duction, I shall be conscious, perhaps, of enjoyment, but of 
 enjoyment alloyed with dissatisfaction. This is the phenome- 
 non of Feeling, or of Pleasure and Pain. But these two 
 phenomena do not yet exhaust all of which I may be conscious 
 on the occasion. I may desire to see the picture long, to see 
 it often, to make it my own, and, perhaps, I may will, resolve, 
 or determine so to do. This is the complex phenomenon of 
 Will and Desire. 
 
 Their nomenclature. The English language, unfortunately, 
 does not afford us terms competent to express and discriminate, 
 with even tolerable clearness and precision, these classes of 
 phenomena. In regard to the Jirst, indeed, we have com- 
 paratively little reason to complain ; the synonymous terms, 
 knowledge and cognition, suffice to distinguish the phenomena 
 of this class from those of the other two. In the second class, 
 the defect of the language becomes more apparent. The word 
 feeling is the only term under which we can possibly collect 
 the phenomena of pleasure and pain, and yet this word is 
 ambiguous. For it is not only employed to denote what we 
 are conscious of as agreeable or disagreeable in our mental 
 states, but it is likewise used a< a synonym for the sense of 
 touch. It is, however, principally in relation to the third class 
 that the deficiency is manifested. In English, unfortunately, 
 we have no term capable of adequately expressing what is 
 common both to will and desire ; that is, the nisus or conutus, 
 II
 
 122 DISTRIBUTION OF MENTAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 the tendency towards the realization of their end. By will is 
 meant a free and deliberate, by desire a blind and fatal, ten- 
 dency to act. Now, to express, I say, the tendency to overt 
 action, the quality in which desire and will are equally con- 
 tained, we possess no English terra to which an exception of 
 more or less cogency may not be taken. Were we to say the 
 phenomena of tendency, the phrase would be vague ; and the 
 same is true of the phenomena of doing. Again, the term 
 phenomena of appetency is objectionable, because (to say noth- 
 ing of the unfamiliarity of the expression) appetency, though 
 perhaps etymologically unexceptionable, has, both in Latin and 
 English, a meaning almost synonymous with desire. Like the 
 Latin appetentia, the Greek OQe^i^ is equally ill-balanced ; for, 
 though used by philosophers to comprehend both will and 
 desire, it more familiarly suggests the latter, and we need not, 
 therefore, be solicitous, with Mr. Harris and Lord Monboddo, 
 to naturalize in English the term orectic. Again, the phrase 
 phenomena of activity would be even worse ; every possible 
 objection can be made to the term active powers, by which the 
 philosophers of this country have designated the orectic facul- 
 ties of the Aristotelians. For you will observe, that all facul- 
 ties are equally active ; and it is not the overt performance, but 
 the tendency towards it, for which we are in quest of an 
 expression. The German is (lie only language I am acquainted 
 with which is able to supply the term of which philosophy is in 
 want. The expression llestrebungs Vernwgen, which is most 
 nearly, though awkwardly and inadequately, translated bv striv- 
 ing faculties, faculties of effort or endeavor, is now gen- 
 erally employed, in the philosophy of Germany, as the genus 
 comprehending desire and will. IVrhaps the phrase, phivnom- 
 ena of exertion, is. upon the whole, the be.-t expression to denote 
 the manifestation"!, and ej-crfire faculties, the best expression to 
 denote the faculties, of will and desire. Exero, in Latin, 
 means literally to put forth ; and. with us, exertion and ex- 
 ertivc are the only endurable words that J can find which 
 approximate 1 , though distantly, to the strength and precision of 
 the German expression. I shall, however occasionally employ
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF MENTAL PHENOMENA. 123 
 
 likewise the term appetency, in the rigorous signification I have 
 mentioned, as a genus comprehending under it both desires 
 and volitions.* 
 
 This division of mind into the three great classes of the Cog- 
 nitive faculties, the Feelings, or capacities of Pleasure and 
 Pain, and the Exertive or Conative Powers, I do not pro- 
 pose as original. It was first promulgated by Kant ; and the 
 felicity of the distribution was so apparent, that it has now 
 been long all but universally adopted in Germany by the phi- 
 losophers of every school. To English psychologists it is 
 apparently wholly unknown. They still adhere to the old 
 scholastic division into powers of the Understanding and pow- 
 ers of the Will ; or, as it is otherwise expressed, into Intel- 
 lectual and Active powers. 
 
 Objection to the classification obviated. An objection to the 
 arrangement may, perhaps, be taken on the ground that the 
 three classes are not coordinate. It is evident that every men- 
 tal phenomenon is either an act of knowledge, or only possible 
 through an act of knowledge, for consciousness is a knowl- 
 edge, a phenomenon of cognition ; and, on this principle, 
 many philosophers have been led to regard the knowing, or 
 representative faculty, as they called it, the faculty of cogni- 
 tion, as the fundamental power of mind, from which all other* 
 are derivative. To this the answer is easy. These philoso- 
 phers did not observe that, although pleasure and pain, 
 although desire and volition, are only as they are known to be 
 yet, in these modifications, a quality, a phenomenon of mind 
 absolutely now, has been superadded, which was never involved 
 in, and could, therefore, never have been evolved out of, the 
 mere faculty of knowledge. The faculty of knowledge is cer- 
 tainly the first in order, inasmuch as it is the conditio sine qua 
 non of the others ; and we are able to conceive a beinir pos- 
 sessed of the power of recognizing existence, and yet wholly 
 
 * The term Conative (from Conari) is employed by Oudvvorth in his 
 Treatise on Free \\'ill. The terms Conation and dmatu-t: arc those finally 
 adopted by the Author, as the most appropriate expressions for the class of 
 phrenomcna in question. ENGLISH ED.
 
 124 DISTRIBUTION OF MENTAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 void of all feeling of pain and pleasure, and of all powers of 
 desire and volition. On the other hand, we are wholly unable 
 *o conceive a being possessed of feeling and desire, and, at the 
 same time, without a knowledge of any object upon which his 
 affections may be employed, and without a consciousness of 
 these affections themselves. 
 
 We can further conceive a being possessed of knowledge and 
 feeling alone a being endowed with a power of recognizing 
 objects, of enjoying the exercise, and of grieving at the 
 restraint, of his activity, and yet devoid of that faculty of 
 voluntary agency of that conation, which is possessed by 
 man. To such a being would belong feelings of pain and 
 pleasure, but neither desire nor will properly so called. On 
 the other hand, however, we cannot possibly conceive the exist- 
 ence of a voluntary activity independently of all feeling ; for 
 voluntary conation is a faculty which can only be determined 
 to energy through a pain or pleasure, through an estimate of 
 the relative worth of objects. 
 
 In distinguishing the cognitions, feelings, and conations, it is 
 not, therefore, to be supposed that these phenomena are possi- 
 ble independently of each other. In our philosophical sys- 
 tems, they may stand separated from each other in books and 
 chapters ; in nature, they are ever interwoven. In every, 
 the simplest, modification of mind, knowledge, feeling, and 
 desire or will go to constitute the mental state ; and it is only 
 by a scientific abstraction that we are able to analyze the state 
 into elements, which are never really existent but in mutual 
 combination. These elements are found, indeed, in very vari- 
 ous proportions in different states, sometimes one prepon- 
 derates, sometimes another; but there is no state, in which they 
 are not all coexistent. 
 
 Let the mental phnenomena, therefore, be distributed under 
 (lie three heads of phenomena of Cognition, or the. faculties of 
 Knowledge; phenomena of Keeling, or the capacities of Pleas- 
 ure and Pain ; and phenomena of Desiring or Willing, or the 
 powers of Conation. The order of these is determined by their 
 relative consecution. Kei ling and appetency suppose knowl-
 
 COfTDITIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 125 
 
 edge. The cognitive faculties, therefore, stand first. But as 
 will, and desire, and aversion suppose a knowledge of the 
 pleasurable and painful, the feelings will stand second as inter- 
 mediate between the other two. 
 
 Consciousness cannot be defined. Such is the highest or 
 most general classification of the mental phenomena, or of the 
 phenomena of which we are conscious. But as these primary 
 classes are, as we have shown, all included under one universal 
 phenomenon, the phenomenon of Consciousness, it follows 
 that Consciousness must form the first object of our considera- 
 tion. 
 
 Nothing has contributed more to spread obscurity over a very 
 transparent matter, than the attempts of philosophers to define 
 consciousness. Consciousness cannot be defined ; we may be 
 ourselves fully aware what consciousness is, but we cannot, 
 without confusion, convey to others a definition of what we 
 ourselves clearly apprehend. The reason is plain. Conscious- 
 ness lies at the root of all knowledge. Consciousness is itself 
 the one highest source of all comprehensibility and illustration ; 
 how, then, can we find aught else by which consciousness 
 may be illustrated or comprehended ? To accomplish this, it 
 would be necessary to have a second consciousness, through 
 which we might be conscious of the mode in which the first 
 consciousness was possible. Many philosophers, and among 
 others Dr. Brown, have defined consciousness a feeling. 
 But how do they define a feeling ? They define, and must 
 define it, as something of which we are conscious ; for a feeling 
 of which we are not conscious, is no feeling at all. Here, 
 therefore, they are guilty of a logical see-saw or circle. They 
 define consciousness by feeling, and feeling by consciousness, 
 that is, they explain the same by the same, and thus leave us 
 in the end no wiser than we were in the beginning. Other 
 philosophers say that consciousness is a knowledge, and others 
 again, that it is a belief or conviction of a knowledge. Here, 
 again, we have the same violation of logical law. Is there any 
 knowledge of which we are not conscious ? Is there any belief 
 of which we are not conscious ? There is not, there cannot 
 11*
 
 12fi CONDITIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 be ; therefore, consciousness is not contained under cither 
 knowledge or belief, but on the contrary, knowledge and be- 
 lief are both contained under consciousness. In short, the 
 notion of consciousness is so elementary, that it cannot possibly 
 be resolved into others more simple. It cannot, therefore, be 
 brought under any genus, any more general conception; 
 and, consequently, it cannot be defined. 
 
 But though consciousness cannot be logically defined, it may, 
 however, be philosophically analyzed. This analysis is effected 
 6y observing and holding fast the phenomena or facts of con- 
 sciousness, comparing these, and, from this comparison, evolving 
 the universal conditions under which alone an act of conscious- 
 ness is possible. 
 
 What the word consciousness denotes, and what it involves. 
 But before proceeding to show in detail what the act of con- 
 sciousness comprises, it may be proper, in the first place, to 
 recall in general what kind of act the word is employed to 
 denote. I know, I feel, I desire, etc. What is it that is neces- 
 sarily involved in all these? It requires only to be stated to be 
 admitted, that when I know, I must know that I knoic, when 
 I feel, I must know that I feel, when I desire, I must know 
 that I desire. The knowledge, the feeling, the desire, are pos- 
 sible only under the condition of being known, and being known 
 by me. For if I did not know that I knew, I would not know, 
 if I did not know that I felt, I would not feel, if I did 
 not know that I desired, I would not desire. Now, this knowl- 
 edge, which I, the subject, have of these modifications of my 
 being, and through which knowledge alone these modifications 
 are possible, is what we call consciousness. The expressions, 
 I know that 1 know, / know that I feel, / know that I de- 
 sire, are thus translated by, f am conscious that 1 knout, 1 
 am conscious that I feel, I am conscious that I desire. Con- 
 sciousness is thus, on the one hand, the recognition by the mind 
 or ego of its acts and affections; in other words, the self- 
 affirmation, that certain modifications arc known by me, and 
 lhat these, modifications are mine. But on the other hand, 
 MHHci'Mjsy.ss is not to be viewed as any thing different from
 
 CONDITIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 127 
 
 Ihese modifications themselves, but is, in fact, the general con- 
 dition of their existence, or of their existence within the sphere 
 of intelligence. Though the simplest act of mind, conscious- 
 ness thus expresses a relation subsisting between two terms. 
 These terms are. on the one hand, an I or Self, as the subject 
 of a certain modification, and, on the other, some modifica- 
 tion, state, quality, affection, or operation belonging to the sub- 
 ject. Consciousness, thus, in its simplicity, necessarily involves 
 three things, 1, A recognizing or knowing subject; 2, A 
 recognized or known modification ; and, 3, A recognition or 
 knowledge by the subject of the modification. 
 
 Consciousness and knowledge involve each other. From this 
 it is apparent, that consciousness and knowledge each involve 
 the other. An act of knowledge may be expressed by the 
 formula, I know ; an act of consciousness by the formula, 1 know 
 thai I know : but as it is impossible for us to know without at 
 the same time knowing that we know, so it is impossible to know 
 that we know without our actually knowing. The one merely 
 explicitly expresses what the other implicitly contains. Con- 
 sciousness and knowledge are thus not opposed as really differ- 
 ent. Why, then, it may be asked, employ two terms to express 
 notions, which, as they severally infer each other, are really 
 identical ? To this the answer is easy. Realities may be in 
 themselves inseparable, while, as objects of our knowledge, it 
 may be necessary to consider them apart. Notions, likewise, 
 nay severally imply each other, and be inseparable, even in 
 bought ; yet, for the purposes of science, it may be requisite to 
 iistinguish them by different terms, and to consider them in 
 ueir relations or correlations to each other. Take a geometri- 
 tbl example, a triangle. This is a whole composed of cer- 
 tain parts. Here the whole cannot be conceived as separate 
 from its parts, and the parts cannot be conceived as separate 
 from their whole. Yet it is scientifically necessary to have 
 different names for each, and it is necessarv now to consider 
 the whole in relation to the parts, ami now the parts in com-la- 
 tior to the whole. Again, the constituent parts of a triangle 
 artj sides and angles. Here the sides suppose the angles.
 
 P2H CONDITIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 the angles suppose the sides ; and, in fact, the sides and angles 
 are, in themselves, in reality, one and indivisible. But they 
 are not the same to us, to our knowledge. For though we 
 cannot abstract in thought the sides from the angle, the angle 
 from the sides, we may make one or other the principal object 
 of attention. We may either consider the angles in relation to 
 each other, and to the sides ; or the sides in relation to each 
 other, and to the angles. And to express all this, it is neces 
 sary to distinguish, in thought and expression, what, in nature, 
 is one and indivisible. 
 
 As it is in geometry, so it is in the philosophy of mind. Wo 
 require different words, not only to express objects and relations 
 different in themselves, but to express the sanr . objects and re- 
 lations under the different points of view in ^hich they are 
 placed by the mind, when scientifically considering them. Thus, 
 in the present instance, consciousness and knowledge are not 
 distinguished by different words as different things, but only as 
 the same thing considered in different aspects. The verbal dis- 
 tinction is taken for the sake of brevity and precision, and its 
 convenience warrants its establishment. Knowledqe is a rcla 
 tion, and every relation supposes two terms. Thus, in the rela- 
 tion in question, there is, on the one hand, a subject of knowl- 
 edge, that is, the knowing mind, and on the other, there i? 
 an object of knoicledye, that is, the thing known ; and the 
 knowledge itself is the relation between these two terms. Now. 
 though each term of a relation necessarily supposes the other 
 nevertheless one of these terms may be to us the more inter- 
 esting, and we may consider that term as the principal, and view 
 the other only as subordinate and correlative. Now, this is the 
 case in the present instance. In an act of knowledge, my atten- 
 tion may be principally attracted either to the object known, 
 or to myself as the subject knowing; and, in the iatter case, 
 although no new element be added to the act, the condition 
 involved in it, / know (/tat I know, becomes the primary 
 and prominent matter of consideration. And when, as in 
 the philosophy of mind, the ;ict of knowledge comes to be 
 specially considered in relation to the knowing subject, V
 
 CONDITIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 129 
 
 Is at last, in the progress of the science, found convenient, if not 
 absolutely necessary, to possess a scientific word in which 
 this point of view should be permanently and distinctively em 
 bodied. 
 
 2Qstory nf fh? ^ frm -*xu*?cii<?n<>f* But, as the want of a 
 technical and appropriate expression could be experienced only 
 after psychological abstraction had acquired a certain stability 
 and importance, it is evident that the appropriation of such an 
 expression could not, in any language, be of very early date. 
 And this is shown by the history of the synonymous terms for 
 consciousness in the different languages, a history which, 
 though curious, you will find noticed in no publication what- 
 ever. The_emplqyjnent of the word conscientia, of which our 
 term consciousness is a translation, is. in its psychological signi- 
 fication. not older than thn philosophy of PpArartff, Pre- 
 viously to him, this word was used almost exclusively in the 
 ethical sense, expressed by our term conscience ; and in the 
 striking and apparently appropriate dictum of St. AugiUthi, 
 " jCe_ttissiifla_sde_nLia _el clam.ante_ conscieuiijx," which you 
 may find so frequently paraded by the Continental philosophers, 
 when illustrating the certainty of consciousness, in that quo- 
 tation, the term is, by its author, applied only in its moral 
 or religious signification. Besides the moral application, the 
 words conscire and conscientia were frequently employed to 
 denote participation in a common knowledge. Thus the mem- 
 bers of a conspiracy were said conscire ; and consciiis is ever. 
 used for conspirator ; and, metaphorically, this community of 
 knowledge is attributed to inanimate objects, as wailing to 
 the rocks, a lover says of himself, 
 
 saifl saxajotigo." 
 
 I would not, however, be supposed to deny that these words 
 were sometimes used, in ancient Latinity, in the modern sense 
 of consciousness, or being conscious. 
 
 Until Descartes, therefore, the Latin terms conscire and con- 
 tcientia were very rarely usurped in their present p.-ychological 
 meaning, -a meaning which, it is needless to add, was no/
 
 130 CONDITIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 expressed by any term in the vulgar languages; for, besides 
 Tertullian, I am aware of only one or two obscure instances in 
 which, as translations of the Greek terms avvaiaftdvoiJiai and 
 awcuo&ijaie, of which we are about to speak, the terms conscio 
 and conscientia were, as the nearest equivalents, contorted 
 from their established signification 'to the sense in which they 
 were afterwards employed by Descartes. Thus, in the phi- 
 losophy of the West, we may safely affirm that, prior to Des- 
 cartes, there was no psychological term in recognized use for 
 what, since his time, is expressed in philosophical Latinity by 
 conscientia, in French by conscience, in English by conscious- 
 ness, in Italian by conscienza, and in German by Bewusstseyn. 
 It will be observed that in Latin, French, and Italian (and I 
 might add the Spanish and other Romanic languages), the 
 terms are analogous, the moral and psychological meaning 
 being denoted by the same word. 
 
 fi[o_tertii~JJQr consciousness in Greek until the decline of phi - 
 losapby. In Greek, there was no term for consciousness until 
 the decline of philosophy, and in the later ages of the lan- 
 guage. Plato and ArisloUe, to say nothing of other philoso- 
 phers, had no special term to express the knowledge which the 
 mind affords of the operations of its faculties, though this, of 
 course, was necessarily a frequent matter of their considera- 
 tion. Intellect was supposed by them to be cognizant of its 
 own operations ; it was only doubted whether by a direct or by 
 a reflex act. In regard to sense, the matter was more per- 
 plexed ; and, on this point, both philosophers seem to vacillate 
 in their opinions. In hii TJt(cteLas^ Plalo accords to sense the 
 power of perceiving that it perceives ; whereas, in his Char- 
 mides, this power he denies to sense, and attributes to intelli- 
 gence (i'Qi!). In like manner, an apparently different doctrine 
 may be found in different works of Aristotle. But what con- 
 cerns us at present, in all these discussions by the two philoso- 
 phers, there is no single term employed to denote that special 
 aspect of the phenomenon of knowledge, which is thus by 
 them made a matter of consideration. It is only under the 
 later Platonists and Aristotelians, that peculiar terms, tanta-
 
 CONDITIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 131 
 
 mount to our consciousness, were adopted into the language of 
 philosophy. 
 
 Tlte special conditions qfjwnsciou&nz&s. But to return from 
 our historical digression. We may lay it down as the most 
 general characteristic of consciousness, that itj's the recognition by 
 thv Ihiitkinj subject of its mm nrfs <>, njl'i-ctivns. So lar tin-re 
 
 is no difference and no dispute. In this all philosophers are 
 agreed. The more arduous task remains of determining the 
 special conditions of consciousness. Of these, likewise, some 
 are almost too palpable to admit of controversy. Before pro* 
 ceeding to those in regard to which there is any doubt or diffi- 
 culty, it will be proper, in the first place, to state and dispose 
 of such determinations as are too palpable to be called in ques- 
 tion. Of these admitted limitations, thejjrst iSj^haijwnsciqu*- 
 &ess is an actual, and not a potential, knowledge. Thus, a man 
 is said to know, i. e. is able to know, that 7 -j- 9 are =16, 
 though that equation be not, at the moment, the object of his 
 thought ; but we cannot say that he is conscious of this truth 
 onless while actually present to his mind. 
 
 The second limitation is, that consciousness is an immediate., 
 not a mediate, knowledge. We are said, for example, to know a 
 past occurrence when we represent it to the mind in an act of 
 memory. We know the mental representation, and this we do 
 immediately and in itself, and are also said to know the past 
 occurrence, as mediately knowing it through the mental modifi- 
 cation which represents it. Now, we are conscious of the 
 representation as immediately known, but we cannot be said to 
 be conscious of the thing represented, which, if known, is only 
 Known through its representation. If, therefore, mediate knowl- 
 edge be in propriety a knowledge, consciousness is not coexten- 
 sive with knowledge. This is, however, a problem we are 
 hereafter specially to consider. I may here also observe, 
 that, while all philosophers agree in making consciousness 
 an immediate knowledge, some, as Reid and Stewart, do not 
 admit that all immediate knowledge is consciousness. They 
 hold that we have an immediate knowledge of external ob- 
 iects, but they hold that these objects are beyopd *he sphere
 
 132 CONDITIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 of consciousness. This is an opinion we are, likewise, soon to 
 canvass. 
 
 The Jthird condition of consciousness, which may be held as 
 universally admitted, is, that ii siippo^esjLcontrast^^ Q, discrim- 
 ination ; for we can be conscious only inasmuch as we are 
 conscious of something ; and we are conscious of something 
 only inasmuch as we are conscious of what that something is, 
 that is, distinguish it from what it is not. This discrimination 
 Is of different kinds and degrees. 
 
 Tliis discrimination of various kinds and degrees. 'In the 
 first place, there is the contrast between the two grand opposites, 
 self i\\\<\ not-self , ego and non-ego, mind and matter (ih 
 contrast of subject and object is more general). We are con- 
 scious of self only in and by its contradistinction from not->elf ; 
 ami ara_c,onscious of not-self only in and by its contradistinc- 
 tion from self. " In__tlie^seeo?i<tf place, th_e.re_isjhe discrimination 
 of the states or modifications of the internal subje.cL.ar sell' from 
 each other, We are conscious of one mental state only as we 
 contradistinguish it from another; where two, three, or more 
 such states are confounded, we are conscious of them as one 
 and were we to note no difference in our mental modifications, 
 we might be said to be absolutely unconscious. Hobbes has 
 truly said, "Idem semper sentire, et non sentire, ad idem reci- 
 dunt;" [To have always the _same sengalionj and not to jiave 
 [any sensation at all, amount to the_sajafijhing.] * In. ike tJiird 
 placej there is the distinction bc'tw^eii the parts and qualities of 
 the outer world. We are conscious of an external object only 
 as we are conscious of it as distinct from others ; where sev- 
 eral distinguishable objects are confounded, we are conscious of 
 them as one ; where no object is discriminated, we are not con- 
 scious of any. Before leaving this condition, I may parenthet- 
 ically state, that, while all philosophers admit that consciousness 
 involves a discrimination, many do not allow it any cognizance 
 of aught beyond the sphere of self. The great majority of 
 philosophers do this because they absolutely deny the po>sibility 
 of an immediate knowledge of external things, and, conse- 
 quently, hold that consciousness in distinguishing the non-ejjo
 
 CONDITIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 13S 
 
 from the ego, only distinguishes self from self; for they main- 
 tain, that what we are conscious of as something different from 
 the perceiving mind is only, in reality, a modification of that 
 mind, which we are condemned to mistake for the material 
 reality. Some philosophers, however, (as Reid and Stewart,) 
 who hold, with mankind at large, that we do possess an imme- 
 diate knowledge of something different from the knowing self, 
 still limit consciousness to a cognizance of self; and, conse- 
 quently, not only deprive it of the power of distinguishing 
 external objects from each other, but even of the power of 
 discriminating the ego and non-ego. These opinions we are 
 afterwards to consider. With this qualification, all philosophers 
 may be viewed as admitting that discrimination is an essential 
 condition of consciousness. 
 
 TJie./aw/1/Lcondition of consciousness, which may be assumed 
 as very generally acknowledged, is, that it involves judgment^ 
 Adjudgment is^the mental act by which one thing is affirmed or 
 denied of anotliejk. This fourth condition is, in truth, only a 
 necessary consequence of the third ; for it is impossible to 
 discriminate without judging, discrimination, or contradistinc- 
 tion, being in fact only the denying one thing of another. It 
 may to some seem strange that consciousness, the simple and 
 primary act of intelligence, should be a judgment, which 
 philosophers, in general, have viewed as a compound and deriv- 
 ative operation. This is, however, altogether a mistake. A 
 judgment is, as I shall hereafter show you, a simple act of 
 mind, for every act of mind implies a judgment. Do we per- 
 ceive or imagine, without affirming, in the act, the external or 
 internal existence of the object ? Now these fundamental 
 affirmations arc the affirmations, in other words, the judg- 
 ments, of consciousness. 
 
 The Jifth undeniable condition of p-miAf.Inii>npsa jj mcjnory* 
 This condition, also, is a corollary of the third. For without 
 memory, our mental states could not be held fast, compared, 
 distinguished from each other, and referred to self. Without 
 memory, each indivisible, each infinitesimal, moment in the 
 mental succession would stand isolated from every other, 
 1.2
 
 134 CONDITIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 would constitute, in fact, a separate existence. The notion of 
 the ego or self arises from the recognized permanence and 
 identity of the thinking subject, in contrast to the recognized 
 succession and variety of its modifications. But this recogni- 
 tion is possible only through memory. The notion of self is, 
 therefore, the result of memory. But the notion of self is in- 
 volved in consciousness ; so, consequently, is memory. 

 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY. 
 
 So far as we have proceeded, our determination of the con- 
 tents of consciousness may be viewed as that universally 
 admitted. Let us, therefore, sum up the points we have estab- 
 lished. We have shown, in general, that consciousness is the 
 self-recognition that we know, or feel, or desire, etc. We have 
 shown, in particular, 1, That consciousness is an actual or 
 living, and not a potential or dormant, knowledge ; 2, That 
 it is an immediate, and not a mediate, knowledge ; 3, That it 
 supposes a discrimination ; 4, That it involves a judgment ; 
 and, 5, That it is possible only through memory. 
 
 We are now about to enter on a more disputed territory ; 
 and the first thesis I shall attempt to establish, involves several 
 subordinate questions. 
 
 Our consciousness coextensive with our knowledge* I state, 
 then, as the first contested position which I am to maintain, 
 that our consciousness is coextensive with our knowledge. But 
 this assertion, that we have no knowledge of which we are not 
 conscious, is tantamount to the other, that consciousness is coex- 
 tensive with our cognitive faculties, and this, again, is con- 
 vertible with the assertion, that consciousness is not a special 
 faculty, but that our special faculties of knowledge are onlv 
 modifications of consciousness. The question, therefore, may 
 be thus stated, Is consciousness the genus under which our 
 several faculties of knowledge are contained as species, or, M 
 consciousness itself a special faculty coordinate with, and not 
 comprehending, these ? 
 
 By HuUheH.n. Kiul. and Sttwart. to say nothing of infe- 
 rior names, consciousness has been considered as nothing
 
 136 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY. 
 
 Jiighcr than a special faculty. As I regard tins opinion to be 
 erroneous, and as the error is one affecting the very cardinal 
 point of philosophy, as it stands opposed to the peculiar and 
 most important principles of the philosophy of Reid and Stew- 
 art themselves, and has even contributed to throw around their 
 doctrine of perception an obscurity that has caused Dr. Brown 
 absolutely to mistake it for its converse, and as I have never 
 met with any competent refutation of the grounds on which it 
 rests, I shall endeavor to show you that, notwithstanding the 
 high authority of its supporters, this opinion is altogether un- 
 tenable. 
 
 A'. til ami >'/- inirt on rntisf/'ui/s/ii.^.^. As I ]>iv\ imi.-ly statrd, 
 neither J)r. -Tfoid riqj- 1\T> flW" r P T 't H" given us any regular 
 account of consciousness ; their doctrine on this subject is to be 
 found scattered in differents parts of their works. The two fol- 
 lowing brief passages of Reid contain the principal positions of 
 that doctrine. The first is : "Consciousness is a word used 
 by philosophers to signify that immediate knowledge which we 
 have of our present thoughts and purposes, and, in general, of 
 all the present operations of our minds. Whence we may ob- 
 'serve, that consciousness is only of things present. To apply 
 consciousness to things past, which sometimes is done in popu- 
 lar discourse, is to confound consciousness with memory ; and 
 all such confusion of words ought to be avoided in philosophical 
 discourse. It is likewise to be observed, that consciousness is 
 only of things in the mind, and not of external things. It is 
 improper to say, I am conscious of the table which is before 
 me. I perceive it, I see it ; but do not say I am conscious of 
 it. As that consciousness, by which we have a knowledge of 
 the operations of our own minds, is a different power from that 
 by which we perceive external objects, and as these different 
 powers have different names in our language, and, I believe, in 
 all languages, a philosopher ought carefully to preserve this 
 distinction, and never to confound tilings so different in their 
 nature." The second is : " Consciousness is an operation of the 
 understanding of its own kind, and cannot be logically defined. 
 The objects of it are our present pains, our pleasures, our
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY. 137 
 
 hopes, our fears, our desires, our doubts, our thoughts of every 
 kind ; in a word, all the passions and all the actions and opera- 
 tions of our own minds, while they are present. We may 
 remember them when they are past ; but we are conscious of 
 them only while they are present." Besides what is thus said 
 in general of consciousness, in his treatment of the different 
 special faculties, Reid contrasts consciousness with each. Thus, 
 in his essays on Perception, on Conception or Imagination, and 
 on Memory, he specially contradistinguishes consciousness from 
 each of these operations ; and it is also incidentally by Eeid, 
 but more articulately by Stewart, discriminated from Attention 
 and Reflection. 
 
 According to the doctrine of these philosophers, conscious- 
 ness is thus a special faculty, coordinate with the other intel- 
 lectual powers, having like them a particular operation and a 
 peculiar object. And what is the peculiar object which is pro- 
 posed to consciousness ? The peculiar objects of consciousness, 
 says Dr. Reid, are all the present passions and operations of our 
 minds. Consciousness thus has for its objects, among the other 
 modifications of the mind, the acts of our cognitive faculties. 
 Now here a doubt arises. If_co_nscioiisncss has for its object 
 the cognitive operations, it must know these operations, and^as^ 
 it knows these operations, it must know, their objects : conse- 
 quently, consciousness is either not a special faculty, but a fac- 
 ulty comprehending every cognitive act j * or it must be lu'M 
 
 * [We know ; and Wa know that we know : these propositions, logically 
 distinct, are really identical ; each implies the other. The attempt to 
 analyze the cognition I know, and the cognition I know that I knair, into the 
 separate energies of distinct faculties, is therefore vain. But this is the 
 analysis of Reid. Consciousness, which the formula / knaw tlmt I kroic 
 adequately expresses, he views as a power specilically distinct from the 
 various cognitive faculties comprehended under the formula / knmr, rre- 
 wisely MS these faculties are severally contradistinguished from each other. 
 But here the parallel does not hold. I can feel without perceiving, I can 
 perceive without imagining, I can imagine without remembering, I can 
 -etnemlier without judging (in the emphatic signification), I can judge with- 
 out willing. One of these acts does not immediately suppose the other 
 Though modes merely of the same indivisible subject, they are niod^.s in 
 12*
 
 138 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY. 
 
 that there is a double knowledge of every object^ Jirst, the 
 knowledge of that object by its particular faculty, and second, a 
 knowledge of jt bj^consciousness, as taking cognizance of every 
 mental operation. But the former of these alternatives is a 
 surrender of consciousness as a coordinate and special faculty, 
 and the latter is a supposition not only unphilosophical but 
 absurd. Now, you will attend to the mode in which Reid 
 escapes, or endeavors to escape, from this dilemma. This he 
 does by assigning to consciousness, as its object, the various 
 intellectual operations to the exclusion of their several objects. 
 " I am conscious," he says, " of perception, but not of the 
 object I perceive ; I am conscious of memory, but not of the 
 object I remember." By this limitation, if tenable, he cer- 
 tainly escapes the dilemma, for he would thus disprove the 
 truth of the principle on which it proceeds namely, that to be 
 conscious of the operation of a faculty is, in fact, to be con- 
 scious of the object of that operation. The whole question, 
 therefore, turns upon the proof or disproof of this principle ; 
 for if it can be shown that the knowledge of an operation neces 
 sarihj involves the knowledge of its object, it follows that it is 
 impossible to make consciousness conversant about the intel- 
 lectual operations to the exclusion of their objects. And that 
 this principle must be admitted, is what, I hope, it will require 
 but little argument to demonstrate. 
 
 rf Int ion to each other, really distinct, and admit, therefore, of psychological 
 discrimination. But can I feel without being conscious that I feel? can 
 I remember, without being conscious that I remember ? or, can I be con- 
 scious, without being conscious that I perceive, or imagine, or reason, 
 that I cnergi/r, in short, in some determinate mode, which Keid would view 
 ns the act of a faculty specifically different from consciousness? Thut this 
 is impossible, Keid himself admits. But if, on the one hand, consciousneFl 
 be only realized under specific modes, and cannot therefore exist apart from 
 the several faculties in ciiintilo ; and if, ou the other, these faculties can all 
 and each onlv be exerted under the condition of consciousness; consciots- 
 ncs~, consequently, is not one of the special modes into which our mental 
 activity may be resolved, but the fundamental form, the generic condi- 
 tion of tlii-in all. Every intelligent act is thus a modified consciousness ,' 
 nnd consciousness a comprehensive term for the complement of our cogni- 
 tive energies.] Ltisciissions.
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY. 135 
 
 Cfmsriw-tn''98 of JP rngnitiiif nrt in\ilinui n r(\nsriniitn?gt 
 
 ja^cf. Some things can be conceived by the mind each 
 
 separate and alone ; others, only in connection with something 
 else. The former are said to be things absolute ; the latter, to 
 be things relative. Socrates and Xanthippe may be given as 
 examples of the former ; husband and wife, of the latter. 
 Socrates and Xanthippe can each be represented to the mind 
 without the other ; and, if they are associated in thought, it is 
 only by an accidental connection. Husband and wife, on the 
 contrary, cannot be conceived apart. As relative and correla- 
 tive, the conception of husband involves the conception of wife, 
 and the conception of wife involves the conception of husband. 
 Each is thought only in and through the other, and it is impos- 
 sible to think of Socrates as the husband of Xanthippe, without 
 thinking of Xanthippe as the wife of Socrates. We cannot, 
 therefore, know what a husband is without also knowing what 
 is a wife, as, on the other hand, we cannot know what a wife is 
 without also knowing what is a husband. You will, therefore, 
 understand from this example, the meaning of the logical 
 axiom, that the. knowledge oj 'relatives is ^QJIS*. or that the 
 knowledge of relatives is the SJHTHV 
 
 This being premised, it is evident that, if our intellectual 
 operations exist only in relation, it must be impossible that con- 
 sciousness can take cognizance of one term of this relation, with- 
 out also taking cognizance of the other, ^nowlcd^e^m general, 
 is a relation between a subject knowing and an object knoivji^ and 
 each operation of our cognitive faculties only exists by rela- 
 tion to a particular object, this object at once calling it into 
 existence, and specifying the quality of its existence. It is, 
 therefore, palpably impossible that we can be conscious cf an 
 act without being conscious of the object to which that act is 
 relative.* This, however, is what Dr. Reid and Mr. Stewart 
 
 * [The assertion, that we can be conscious of an net of knowledge, with- 
 out being conscious of its object, is virtually suicidal. A mental operation 
 is what it is, only by relation to its object; the object at once determining 
 its existence, and specifying the character of its existence. ISut if a relation 
 cannot be comprehended in one ot its terms, so we cannot IK; conscious of
 
 140 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY. 
 
 maintain. They maintain that I can know that I know, with 
 out knowing what I know, or that I can know the knowledge 
 without knowing what the knowledge is about; for example, 
 that I am conscious of perceiving a book without being con- 
 scious of the book perceived, that I am conscious of remem- 
 bering its contents, without being conscious of these contents 
 remembered, and so forth. The unsoundness of this opinion 
 must, however, be articulately shown by taking the different 
 faculties in detail, which they have contradistinguished from 
 consciousness, and by showing, in regard to each, that it is alto- 
 gether impossible to propose the operation of that faculty to the 
 consideration of consciousness, and to withhold from conscious- 
 ness its object. 
 
 Jmnffinntinr^ s I shall commence with the faculty of Imagi- 
 nation, to which ftr. Reid and JJf. Stewart have chosen, under 
 various limitations, to give [erroneously] the name of Concep- 
 tion. This faculty is peculiarly suited to evince the error of 
 holding that consciousness is cognizant of acts, but not of the 
 objects of these acts. 
 
 " Conceiving, Imagining, and Apprehending," says Dr. Reid, 
 " are commonly used as synonymous in our language, and sig- 
 nify the same thing which the logicians call Simple Appreheu- 
 
 an operation, without being conseious of the object to which it exists only as 
 correlative. For example, We are conscious of a perception, says Reid, 
 but are not conscious of its object. Yet how can we be conscious of a. per- 
 ception, that is, how can we know that a perception exists, that it is a per- 
 ception, 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 knowl- 
 edge (or consciousness) of the object, which at once determines the exist- 
 ence of the act, specifies its kind, and distinguishes its individuality? 
 Annihilate the object, you annihilate the operation ; annihilate the con- 
 sciousness of the object, von annihilate the consciousness of the operation. 
 In the greater number 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 Hippogryph. 
 The Hippogrvph is at once the object of the act and the act itself. Ab- 
 stract the one, the other has no existence : deny me the consciousness of tho 
 Hippogryph you deny me the consciousness of the imagination; I am 
 conscious of zero ; I am not conscious at all.] Discussions.
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY. A 41 
 
 sion. This is an operation of the mind different from all those 
 we have mentioned [Perception, Memory, etc.]. Whatever we 
 perceive, whatever we remember, whatever we are conscious 
 of, we have a full persuasion or conviction of its existence. 
 What never had an existence cannot be remembered ; what 
 has no existence at present cannot be the object of perception 
 or of consciousness ; but what never had, nor has any exist- 
 ence, may be conceived. Every man knoAvs that it is as easy 
 to conceive a winged horse or a centaur, as it is to conceive a 
 horse or a man. Let it be observed, therefore, that to con- 
 ceive, to imagine, to apprehend, when taken in the proper sense, 
 signify an act of the mind which implies no belief or judgment 
 at all. It is an act of the mind by which nothing is affirmed or 
 denied, and which, therefore, can neither be true nor false." 
 And again : " Consciousness is employed solely about objects 
 that do exist, or have existed. But conception is often em- 
 ployed about objects that neither do, nor did, nor will, exist. 
 This is the very nature of this faculty, that its object, though 
 distinctly conceived, may have no existence. Such an object 
 we call a creature of imagination, but this creature never was 
 created. 
 
 " That we may not impose upon ourselves in this matter, we 
 must distinguish between that act or operation of the mind, 
 which we call conceiving an object, and the object which we 
 conceive. When we conceive any thing, there is a real act or 
 operation of the mind ; of this we are conscious, and can have 
 no doubt of its existence. But every such act must have an 
 object ; for he that conceives must conceive something. Sup- 
 pose he conceives a centaur, he may have a distinct conception 
 of this object, though no centaur ever existed." And again: 
 "I conceive a centaur. This conception is an operation of the 
 mind of which I am conscious, and to which I can attend. The 
 pole object of it is a centaur, an animal which, I believe, never 
 existed." 
 
 Now, here it is admitted by Reid, that imagination has an 
 object, and, in the example adduced, that this object has no 
 exist^nre. out of the mind. The object of imagination is, there
 
 U2 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY 
 
 fore, in the mind, is a modification of the mind. Now, can 
 it be maintained that there can be a modification of mind, a 
 modification of which we are aware, but of which we are not 
 conscious ? But let us regard the matter in another aspect, 
 We are conscious, says Dr. Reid, of the imagination of a cen- 
 taur, but not of the centaur imagined. Now, nothing can be 
 more evident than that the object and the act of imagination 
 are identical. Thus, in the example alleged, the centaur 
 imagined, and the act of imagining it, are one and indivisible. 
 What is the act of imagining a centaur but the centaur imaged, 
 or the image of the centaur ; what is the image of the centaur 
 but the act of imagining it? The. centaur is both the object 
 and the act of imagination : it is the same thing viewed__in 
 different relations. It is called the object of imagination, when_ 
 considered as representing a possible existence ; for every 
 thing that can be construed to the mind, every thing that does 
 not violate the laws of thought, in other words, every thing 
 that does not involve a contradiction, may be conceived by 
 the mind as possible.* I say, therefore, that the ccutauiLJs 
 
 * [Reid says, "The sole object of conception (imagination) is an animal 
 ^hich I believe never existed." It 'never existed;' tliat is, never really, 
 never in nature, never externally, existed. But it is ' an object of imagina- 
 tion.' It is not, therefore, a mere non-existence; for if it had no kind of 
 existence, it could not possibly be the positive object of any kind of 
 thought. For were it an absolute nothing, it could have no qualities (n^- 
 entis nulla sunt attrllntn) ; but the object we are conscious of, as a Centaur, 
 has qualities, qualities which constitute it a determinate something, and 
 distinguish it from every other entity whatsoever. We must, therefore, per 
 force, allow it some sort of imaginary, ideal, representative, or (in the older 
 meaning of the term) ol>jecl!rr, existence in the mind. Now this exist- 
 ence can only be one or other of two sorts; for such object in the mind 
 either is, or is not, a mmlc of nnn/1. Of these alternatives the latter cannot 
 be supposed ; for this \>. uld be an atlinnation of the crudest kind of non- 
 egoistical representation the very hypothesis against which Keid so 
 strenuously contends. The former alternative remains that it is a mode 
 of the imagining mind, that it is, in fact, the plastic act of imagination, 
 considered as representing to it.-flf a cTtain possible form a Centaur. 
 But then Kcid's assertion that there is alwavs an object distinct from the 
 operation of the mind conversant about it, the act being one thin<_', the 
 object of the act another must bo surrendered. For the olijift and tho
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY. 143 
 
 the object of imagination, when considered as repre- 
 senting a possible existences whereas the centaur is called 
 the act of imagination^ when considered jis 
 
 or operation, of the mind itself. The centaur imagined and 
 the imagination of the centaur are thus as much the same indi- 
 visible modification of mind, as a square is the same figure, 
 whether we consider it as composed of four sides, or as composed 
 of four angles, or as paternity is the same relation whethci 
 we look from the son to the father, or from the father to the 
 son. Wg_cannot. therefore T be conscious of imagining an 
 object, without being conscious of the object imagjned; and aa. 
 regards imagination, Reid's limitation of consciousness is, there- 
 fore, futile. 
 
 Memfffy. I proceed next to Memory : " Itjs by Memory/' 
 says t>f. Held, "that we have an immediate knowledge of 
 things past. The senses give us information of things only as 
 they exist in the present moment ; and this information, if it 
 were not preserved by memory, would vanish instantly, and 
 leave us as ignorant as if it had never been. Memory must 
 have an object. Every man who remembers must remember 
 something, and that which he remembers is called the object of 
 his remembrance. In this, memory agrees with perception, but 
 differs from sensation, which has no object but the feeling itself. 
 Every man can distinguish the thing remembered from the 
 remembrance of it. AVe may remember any thing which we 
 have seen, or heard, or known, or done, or suffered ; but the 
 remembrance of it is a particular act of the mind which now 
 exists, and of which we are conscious. To confound these two 
 is an absurdity which a thinking man could not be led into, but 
 by some false hypothesis which hinders him from reflecting 
 upon the thing which he would explain by it." " The object 
 of memory, or thing remembered, must be something that is 
 pa/,t ; as the object of perception and of consciousness must be 
 
 act are here only one and the same tiling in two several relations, lit/ill's 
 error consists in mistaking a logical for a. metaphysical dill'rivnce a dis- 
 tinction of relation for a distinction of entity. Or is the error only from 
 the vagueness and ambiguity of expression ?] iJiss. s<ij>j>. to l\dd.
 
 144 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY. 
 
 Bomething which is present. What now is, cannot be an object 
 of memory ; neither can that which is past and gone be an 
 object of perception, or of consciousness." " Sometimes, in 
 popular discourse, a man says he is conscious that he did such 
 a thing, meaning that he distinctly remembers that he did it. 
 It is unnecessary, in common discourse, to .fix accurately the 
 limits between consciousness and memory. This was formerly 
 shown to be the case with regard to sense and memory. And, 
 therefore, distinct remembrance is sometimes called sense, 
 sometimes consciousness, without any inconvenience. But this 
 ought to be avoided in philosophy, otherwise we confound the 
 different powers of the mind, and ascribe to one what really 
 belongs to another. If a man be conscious of what he did 
 twenty years or twenty minutes ago, there is no use for mem- 
 ory, nor ought we to allow that there is any such faculty. The 
 faculties of consciousness and memory are chiefly distinguished 
 by this, that the first is an immediate knowledge of the present, 
 the second an immediate knowledge of the past." 
 
 From these quotations it appears, that Reid distinguishes 
 memory from consciousness in this, that memory is an im- 
 mediate knowledge of the past, consciousness an immediate 
 knowledge of the present. We may, therefore, be conscious 
 of the act of memory as present, but of the object of memory 
 as past, consciousness is impossible. Now if memory and con- 
 sciousness be, as Reid asserts, the one an immediate knowledge 
 of the past, the other an immediate knowledge of the present, 
 it is evident that memory is a faculty whose object lies beyond 
 the sphere of consciousness ; and, consequently, that conscious- 
 ness cannot be regarded as the general condition of every intel- 
 lectual act. We have only, therefore, to examine whether this 
 attribution of repugnant qualities to consciousness and memory 
 be correct, whether there be not assigned to one or ither a 
 function which does not reallv belong to it. 
 
 Now, in regard to what Dr. Reid says of consciousness, 1 
 admit that no exception can be taken. Consciousness is an 
 immediate knowledge of the; present. We have, indeed, already 
 shown that consciousness is an immediate knowledge, and, there-
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY. 145 
 
 fore, only of the actual or now-existent. This being admiltcd, 
 and professing, as we do, to prove that consciousness is the one 
 generic faculty of knowledge, we consequently must maintain 
 that all knowledge is immediate, and only of the actual or 
 present, in other words, that what is called mediate knowl- 
 edge, knowledge of the past, knowledge of the absent, knowl- 
 edge of the non-actual or possible, is either no knowledge at 
 all, or only a knowledge contained in, and evolved out of, an 
 immediate knowledge of what is now existent and actually 
 present to the mind. This, at first sight, may appear like para- 
 dox ; I trust you will soon admit that the counter doctrine is 
 Belf-repugnant. 
 
 Conditions of immediate knowledge. Let us first determine 
 what immediate knowledge is, and then see whether the knowl- 
 edge we have of the past, through memory, can come under the 
 conditions of immediate knowledge. Now nothing can be more 
 evident than the following positions : 1, An object to be known 
 immediately must be known in itself, that is, in those modifi- 
 tations, qualities, or phenomena, through which it manifests its 
 existence, and not in those of something different from itself; 
 for, if we suppose it known not in itself, but in some other 
 thing, then this other thing is what is immediately known, 
 and the object known through it is only an object mediately 
 known. 
 
 But 2, If a thing can be immediately known only if known 
 in itself, it is manifest that it can only be known in itself, if it 
 be itself actually in existence, and actually in immediate rela- 
 tion to our faculties of knowledge. ' 
 
 Memory not an immediate knowledge of tlic past. Such are 
 the necessary conditions of immediate knowledge : and they 
 disprove at once Dr. Reid's assertion, that memory is an nnme 
 diate knowledge of the past. An immediate knowledge u only 
 conceivable of the now existent, as the now existent alone can 
 be known in itself. But the past is only past, inasmuch as it is 
 not now existent ; and as it is not now existent, it cannot be 
 known in itself. The immediate knowledge of the past is, 
 therefore, impossible. 
 
 is
 
 116 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY. 
 
 We have, hitherto, been considering tl e conditions of imme- 
 diate knowledge in relation to the object ; let us now consider 
 them in relation to the cognitive act. Every act, and conse- 
 quently, every act of knowledge, exists only as it now exists; 
 and as it exists only in the now, it can be cognizant only of a 
 no\\ -existent object. Memory is an act, an act of knowledge ; 
 it can, therefore, be cognizant only of a now-existent object. 
 Hut the object known in memory is, ex hypothesi, past ; conse- 
 quently, we are reduced to the dilemma, either of refusing a 
 past object to be known in memory at all, or of admitting it to 
 be only mediately known, in and through a present object. 
 That the latter alternative is the true, it will require a very 
 few explanatory words to convince you. What are the con- 
 tents of an act of memory ? An act of memory is merely a 
 present state of mind, which we arc conscious of, not as abso- 
 lute, but as relative to, and representing, another state of mind, 
 and accompanied with the belief that the state of mind, as now 
 represented, has actually been. I remember an event I saw, 
 ilie landing of George l\ r . at Leith. This remembrance is 
 Lilly a consciousness of certain imaginations, involving the 
 conviction that these imaginations now represent ideally what I 
 formerly really experienced. All that is immediately known 
 in the act of memory, is the present mental modification ; that 
 is, the representation and concomitant belief. Beyond this 
 mental modification, we know nothing; and this mental modifi- 
 cation is not only known to consciousness, but only exists in and 
 by consciousness. Of any past object, real or ideal, the mind 
 knows and can know nothing, for ex InjjtutJicsi, no Mich object 
 now exists; or if it be said to know such an object, it can only 
 be s:i : d to know it mediately, as represented in the present 
 mental modification. 
 
 Properly speaking, however, we know only the actual and 
 present, and all real knowledge is an immediate knowledge. 
 What is said to be mediately known, is, in truth, not known to 
 lie, hut only believed to be; for its existence is only an inference 
 resting on the belief, that the mental mollification truly repre- 
 sents what is in itself beyond the sphere of knowledge. What
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY. 147 
 
 is immediately known must be ; for what is immediately known 
 is supposed to be known as existing. The denial of the exist- 
 ence, and of the existence within the sphere of consciousness, 
 involves, therefore, a denial of the immediate knowledge of \n 
 object. We may, accordingly, doubt the reality of any object 
 of mediate knowledge, without denying the reality of the im- 
 mediate knowledge on which the mediate knowledge rests. In 
 memory, for instance, we cannot deny the existence of the 
 present representation and belief, for their existence is the con- 
 sciousness of their existence itself. To doubt their existence, 
 therefore, is for us to doubt the existence of our conscious- 
 ness. But as this doubt itself exists only through consciousness, 
 it would, consequently, annihilate itself. But, though in mem- 
 ory we must admit the reality of the representation and belief, 
 as facts of consciousness, we may doubt, we may deny, that the 
 representation and belief are true. We may assert that they 
 represent what never was, and that all beyond their present 
 mental existence is a delusion. This, however, could not be 
 the case if our knowledge of the past were immediate. So 
 far, therefore, is memory from being an immediate knowledge 
 of the past, that it is at best only a mediate knowledge of the 
 past ; while, in philosophical propriety, it is not a knowledge of 
 the past at all, but a knowledge of the present and a belief of 
 the past. But in whatever terms we may choose to designate 
 the contents of memory, it is manifest that these contents are 
 all within the sphere of consciousness.* 
 
 * [This criticism on Reid's doctrine of memory is hardly fair, for it seems 
 to be founded on a misapprehension of his use of language. The word 
 " immediate" has two meanings : first, as pn-scnt, instant, or now existing. 
 In this sense, we say, " There is a call for immi-diate action," meaning 
 thereby instant action. Secondly, it may mean direct, pr.rintati>, or irithmt 
 the intervention of any other thin;;; thus, "The imnudlatr. ajrcncy of (ii><l," 
 signifies his dirtct action, without the intervention of any second cau-c. In 
 treating of memory, Reid uses the word '' immediate " in the former accep. 
 tation, Hamilton in the latter. Hence there is no contradiction brtwecn 
 them. Either might have accepted the other's doctrine as supplementary 
 to his own, certain'y as not contradicting it.] Am. lid.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS NOT A SPECIAL FACULTY CONTINUED ; ITS 
 RELATION TO PERCEPTION, ATTENTION, AND REFLEC- 
 TION. 
 
 Jidtl contradistinguishes consciousness from perception. 
 We now proceed to consider the third faculty which Dr. Reid 
 specially contradistinguishes from Consciousness, I mean 
 Perception, or that faculty through which we obtain a knowl- 
 edge of the external world. Now, you will observe that Reid 
 maintain?,, against the immense majority of all, and the entire 
 multitude of modern, philosophers, that we have a direct and 
 immediate knowledge of the external world. He thus vindicates 
 to mind not only an immediate knowledge of its own modifica- 
 tions, but also an immediate knowledge of what is essentially 
 different from mind or self, the modifications of matter. lie 
 did not, however, allow that these were known by any common 
 faculty, but held that the qualities of mind were exclusively 
 made known to us by Consciousness, the qualities of matter 
 
 exclusively made known to us by Perception. Consciousness 
 
 ---- --- J _ --i 
 
 was, thus, the faculty of immediate knowledge purely suhjectivejl 
 perception, the faculty of immediate knowledge purely objective 
 The Ego was known by one faculty, the Non-Ego by anothei. 
 " Consciousness," says Dr. Reid, "is only of things in the mind, 
 and not of external thjngs. It is improper to say, I am con- 
 pcious of the table which is before me. I perceive it, I see it, 
 but do not say I am conscious of it. As that consciousness by 
 which we have a knowledge of the operations of our own 
 minds, is a different power from that by which we perceive 
 external objects, and as these different powers have different 
 names in our language, and, I believe, in all languages, a philos-
 
 RELATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO PERCEPTION. 149 
 
 opher ought carefully to preserve this distinction, and never to 
 confound things so different in their nature." And in another 
 place he observes : " Consciousness always goes along with 
 perception ; but they are different operations of the mind, and 
 they have their different objects. Consciousness is not percep- 
 tion, nor is the object of consciousness the object of perception." 
 
 Dr. Reid has many merits as a speculator, but the only merit 
 which he arrogates to himself, the principal merit accorded 
 to him by others, is, that he was the first philosopher, in 
 more recent times, who dared, in his doctrine of immediate 
 perception, to vindicate, against the unanimous authority of 
 philosophers, the universal conviction of mankind. But this 
 doctrine he has at best imperfectly developed, and, at the same 
 time, has unfortunately obscured it by errors of so singular 
 a character, that some acute philosophers have never even 
 suspected what his doctrine of perception actually is. One of 
 these errors is the contradistinction of perception from con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Doctrine / rcpr sentativejgerwgtion in tyzojforms. I may 
 here notice, by anticipation, that philosophers, at least modern 
 philosophers, before Reid, allowed to the mind no immediate 
 knowledge of the external reality. They conceded to it only a 
 representative or mediate knowledge of external things. Of 
 these some^ however, held that the representative object the 
 object immediately known was different from the mind know-_ 
 ing, as it was also different from the reality it represented ; 
 while others, on a simpler hypothesis, maintained that there waa 
 no immediate entity, no tertium quid, between the reality and the 
 mind, but that the immediate or representative object was itself 
 a mental modification. The latter thus granting to mind no 
 immediate knowledge of aught beyond its own modification, 
 rould. consequently, only recognize a consciousness of self. 
 The former, on the contrary, could, as they actually did, accord 
 to consciousness a cognizance of not-self. Now Reid, after 
 asserting against the philosophers the immediacy of our knowl- 
 edge of external things, would almost appear to have been 
 startled by his own boldness, and, instead of carrying his prin 
 in*
 
 150 RELATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO PERCEPTION. 
 
 ciple fairly to its issue, by according to consciousness on his 
 doctrine that knowledge of the external world as existing, 
 which, in the doctrine of the philosophers, it obtained of the 
 external world as represented, he inconsistently stopped short, 
 
 split iiinnc(li:U.' knowledge into two ]>urt~, ami besiownl the 
 knowledge of material qualities on perception alone, allowing 
 that of mental modifications to remain exclusively with con- 
 sciousness. Be this, however, as it may, the exemption of 
 the objects of perception from the sphere of consciousness 
 can be easily shown to be self-contradictory. 
 
 jteidjnaintains that we are not conscious of matter. What ! 
 say the partisans of Dr. Reid, are we not to distinguish, as the 
 product of different faculties, the knowledge we obtain of objects 
 in themselves the most opposite ? Mind and matter are mutu- 
 ally separated by the whole diameter of being. Mind and 
 matter are, in fact, nothing but words to express two series of 
 phenomena known less in themselves than in contradistinction 
 from each other. The difference of the phenomena to be 
 known, surely legitimates a difference of faculty to know them. 
 In answer to this, we admit at once, that were the question 
 merely whether we should not distinguish, under consciousness, 
 two special faculties, whether we should not study apart, and 
 bestow distinctive appellations on consciousness considered as 
 more particularly cognizant of the external world, and on con- 
 sciousness considered as more particularly cognizant of the 
 internal this would be highly proper and expedient. But this 
 is not the question. Dr. Reid distinguishes consciousness as a 
 special faculty from perception as a special faculty, and he 
 allows to the former the cognizance of the latter in its operation, 
 to the exclusion of its object. Jle maintains .that we aj-e con- 
 scious of our perception of a rose, but not of the rose perceived; 
 that we know the ego by one act of knowledge, the non-ego by 
 another. This doctrine I hold to be erroneous, and it is this 
 *i)ctrine I now proceed to refute. 
 
 Reid is_wi'_onf}, because 1, f/tc knowledge of opposites is one. 
 -In the first place, it is not only a logical axiom, but a self- 
 f ident truth, that the knowledge of opposes is one. Thus.
 
 : bCH'HCU Ul U1SL'U>L. 
 
 riiou, the Ego andl 
 id matter, by a difJ 
 ris particular nhaeJ 
 
 RELATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO PERCEPTION. 151 
 
 we cannot know what is tall without knowing what is short, 
 we know what is virtue only as we know what is vice, the 
 science of health is but another name for the science of disease. 
 Nor do we know the opposites, the I and Thou, 
 the Non-ego, the subject and object, mind and 
 ferent law. The act which affirms that this particular phaeJ 
 nomenon is a modification of Me, virtually affirms that the 
 phenomenon is not a modification of any thing different from 
 Me, and, consequently implies a common cognizance of self 
 and not-self; the act which affirms that this other phenomenon 
 is a modification of something different from Me, virtually af- 
 firms that the phenomenon is not a modification of Me, and, 
 consequently, implies a common cognizance of not-self and 
 self. But unless we are prepared to maintain that the faculty 
 cognizant of self and not-self is different from the faculty cog 
 nizant of not-self and self, we must allow that the ego and non- 
 ego are known and discriminated in the same indivisible act of 
 knowledge. "What, then, is the faculty of which this act of 
 knowledge is the energy ? It cannot be Reid's consciousness, 
 for that is cognizant only of the ego or mind; it cannot be 
 Reid's perception, for that is cognizant only of the non-ego or 
 matter. But as the act cannot be denied, so the faculty must 
 be admitted. It is not, however, to be found in Reid's cata- 
 logue. But though not recognized by Reid in his system, its 
 necessity may, even on his hypothesis, be proved. For if, with 
 him, we allow only a special faculty immediately cognizant of 
 the ego, and a special faculty immediately cognizant of the non- 
 ego, we are at once met by the question, By what faculty are 
 the ego and non-ego discriminated ? We, cannot say bv con- 
 sciousness, for that knows nothing but mind; we cannot say 
 'by perception, for that knows nothing but matter. But us 
 mind and matter are never known apart and by themselves, but 
 alwavs in mutual correlation and contrast, this knowledge of 
 them in connection must be the function of some facultv. not 
 like Reid's consciousness and perception, severally limited to 
 mind and to matter as exclusive objects, but cognizant of them 
 as the ego and non-ego, as the two terms of a relation. It
 
 152 RELATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO PERCEPTION. 
 
 is thus shown that an act and a faculty must, perforce, on Reid's 
 own hypothesis, be admitted, in which these two terms shall be 
 comprehended together in the unity of knowledge, in short, 
 a higher consciousness, embracing Reid's consciousness and 
 perception, and in which the two acts, severally cognitive of 
 mind and of matter, shall be comprehended and reduced to 
 unity and correlation. But what is this but to admit at last, in 
 an unphilosophical complexity, the common consciousness of 
 subject and object, of mind and matter, which we set out with 
 denying in its philosophical simplicity ? 
 
 [The immediate knowledge which Reid allows of tilings dif- 
 ferent from the mind, and the immediate knowledge of mind 
 itself, cannot therefore be split into two distinct acts. In per- 
 ception, 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 com- 
 prehended together in the unity of consciousness ; or you must 
 postulate a higher faculty, which shall again reduce to one the 
 two cognitions you have distinguished ; that is, you are at last 
 compelled to admit, in an unphilosophical complexity, that com- 
 mon consciousness of subject and object, which you set out with 
 denying in its philosophical simplicity. Consciousness and im- 
 mediate knowledge are thus terms universally convertible ; and 
 ijJiere_he.-An immediate, knowledge ~of-4luugs_ eslernal, there 
 is consequently the consciousness of an oiitcr ivorld. 
 
 (To obviate misapprehension, we may here parenthetically 
 observe, that all we do intuitively know of sell', all that we 
 may intuitively know of not-self, is only relative. Existence, 
 absolutely and in itself, is to us as zero ; and while nothing is, 
 eo nothing is knoicn to us, except those phases of being which 
 stand in analogy to our faculties of knowledge. These we call 
 qualities, phenomena, properties, etc. When we say, therefore, 
 that a thing is known in itself, we moan only that it stands face 
 to fac<-, in direct and immediate relation to the conscious mind; 
 in other words, that, as existing, its phenomena form part of the
 
 RELATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO PERCEPTION. 153 
 
 cird of our knowledge, exist since they are known, and are 
 known because they exist.^j Discussions. 
 
 J&cause, 2, he_thusj&ntradicts his own doctrine of an imme- 
 diate knowledge of the external world. But in the second 
 place, the attempt of Reid to make consciousness conversant 
 about the various cognitive faculties to the exclusion of their 
 objects, is equally impossible in regard to Perception, as we 
 have shown it to be in relation to Imagination and Memory ; 
 nay, the attempt, in the case of perception, would, if allowed, 
 be even suicidal of his great doctrine of our immediate knowl- 
 edge of the external world. 
 
 Reid's assertion, that we_are conscious of the act of percep- 
 tion, but not of the object perceived, involve?, lirst of alL. _a 
 general abj?urdity^ For it virtually asserts that we can know 
 what \ve are not conscious of knowing. An act of' peivrjitiun 
 is an jicl of knowledge^ what we perceive, that we know. Now, 
 if in perception there be an external reality known, but of 
 which external reality we are, on Reid's hypothesis, not con- 
 scious, then is there an object known, of which we are not con- 
 scious. But as we know only inasmuch as we know that we 
 know, in other words, inasmuch as we are conscious that we 
 know, we cannot know an object without being conscious of 
 that object as known ; consequently^ we cannot perceive an 
 object without being conscious of that object as perceived. 
 
 But, again, how is it possible that we can be conscious of an 
 operation of perception, unless consciousness be coextensive 
 with that act ; and how can it be coextensive with the act, and 
 not also conversant with its object? An act of knowledge ia 
 only possible in relation to an object, and it is an act of ono 
 kind or another only by special relation to a particular object 
 Thus the object at once d -termines the existence, and specifies 
 the character of the existence, of the intellectual energy. An 
 act of knowledge existing, and being what it is, only by relation 
 to its object, it is manifest that the act can be known only 
 through the object to which it is correlative ; and Reid's suppo- 
 sition, that an operation can be known in consciousness to the 
 exclusion oF its object, is impossible. For example, I see the
 
 164 RELATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO PERCEPTION. 
 
 inkstand. How can I be conscious that my present modifica* 
 lion exists, that it is a perception, and not another mental 
 state, that it is a perception of sight to the exclusion of every 
 other sense, and, finally, that it is a perception of the ink- 
 etand and of the inkstand only, unless my consciousness com- 
 prehend within its sphere the object, which at once determines 
 the existence of the act, qualifies its kind, and distinguishes its 
 individuality? Annihilate the inkstand, you annihilate the per- 
 ception; annihilate the consciousness of the object, you anni- 
 hilate the consciousness of the operation. 
 
 The apparent incongruity of the expression explained. It 
 undoubtedly sounds strange to say, I am conscious of the ink- 
 stand, instead of saying, I am conscious of the perception of 
 the inkstand. This I admit ; but the admission can avail noth- 
 ing to Dr. Reid, for the apparent incongruity of the expression 
 arises only from the prevalence of that doctrine of perception in 
 the schools of philosophy, which it is his principal merit to 
 have so vigorously assailed. So long as it was universally 
 assumed by the learned, that the mind is cognizant of nothing 
 beyond, either, on one theory, its own representative modifica- 
 tions, or, on another, the species, ideas, or representative enti- 
 ties, different from itself, which it contains, and that all it knows 
 of a material world is only an internal representation which, by 
 the necessity of its nature, it mistakes for an external reality, 
 the supposition of an immediate knowledge of material phe- 
 nomena was regarded only as a vulgar, an unphilosophical illu- 
 sion ; and the term consciousness, which was exclusively a 
 learned or technical expression for all immediate knowledge, 
 vras, consequently, never employed to express an immediate 
 knowledge of aught beyond the mind itself; and thus, when at 
 length, by Reid's own refutation of the prevailing doctrine, it 
 becomes necessary to extend the term to the immediate knowl- 
 edge of external objects, this extension, so discordant with 
 philosophic usage, is, by the force of association and custom, 
 felt at lirst as strange and even contradictory, A slight con- 
 sideration, however, is suliicient to reconcile us to the expres- 
 sion, in flowing, if we hold the doctrine of immediate per-
 
 RELATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO PERCEPTION 155 
 
 ception, the necessity of not limiting consciousness to our 
 subjective states. In fact, if we look beneath the surface, 
 consciousness teas not, in general, restricted, even in philosophi- 
 cal usage, to the modifications of the conscious self. That great 
 majority of philosophers who held that, in perception, we know 
 nothing of the external reality as existing, but that we are 
 immediately cognizant only of a representative something, dif- 
 ferent both from the object represented and from the percipient 
 oind, these philosophers, one and all, admitted that we are 
 onscious of this tertium quid present to, but not a modification 
 ^f, mind; for, except Reid and his school, I am aware of no 
 philosophers who denied that consciousness was coextensive or 
 identical with immediate knowledge. 
 
 How some of the self-contradictions of Reid's doctrine mqy be 
 ^avoided. But, in the third place, we have previously reserved 
 a supposition on which we may possibly avoid some of the self- 
 contradictions which emerge from Reid's proposing as the 
 object of c"nsf'""spfs3 the act, but excluding from its cogni- 
 zance the object, of perception.; tjial '*, *!'** Q]>jrpi nf jts own 
 object. Tjie_supjjosition is that Dr. Reid committed the same 
 error In regard to pj3j^&p.tiaii^.wh'ch IIP- did iii.xega.rd _tp_mem- 
 ory and imagination! and that, in maintaining our immediate 
 knowledge in perception, he meant nothing more than to main- 
 tain, that the mind is not, in that act, cognizant of any repre- 
 sentative object different from its own modification, of any ter- 
 tium quid ministering between itself and the external reality ; 
 but that, in perception, the mind is determined itself to repre- 
 sent the unknown external reality, and that, on this self-repre- 
 sentation, he abusively bestowed the name of immediate knowl- 
 edge, in contrast to that more complex theory of perception, 
 which holds that thf re intervenes between the percipient mind 
 and the external existence an intermediate something, different 
 from both, by which the former knows, and by which the latter 
 is represented. On the supposition of this mistake, we may 
 believe him guiltless of the others ; and we can certainly, on 
 this ground, more eas1y conceive how he could accord to con- 
 sciousness a knowledge only of the percipient act, meaning
 
 156 ATTENTION AND REFLECTION. 
 
 by that act the representation of the external reality ; and how 
 he could deny to consciousness a knowledge of the object of 
 perception, meaning by that object the unknown reality itself. 
 This is the only opinion which Dr. Brown and others ever sus- 
 pect him of maintaining ; and a strong case might certainly be 
 made out to prove that this view of his doctrine is correct. 
 But if such were, in truth, Reid's opinion, then has he accom- 
 plished nothing, his whole philosophy is one mighty blunder 
 For, as I shall hereafter show, idealism finds in this simpler 
 hypothesis of representation even a more secure foundation 
 than on the other ; and, in point of fact, on this hypothesis, the 
 most philosophical scheme of idealism that exists, the Egois- 
 tic or Fichtean, is established. 
 
 Taking, however, the general analogy of Reid's system, and 
 a great number of unambiguous passages into account, I am 
 satisfied that this view of his doctrine is erroneous ; and I shall 
 endeavor, when we come to treat of mediate and immediate 
 knowledge, to explain how, from his never having formed to 
 himself an adequate conception of these under all their possi- 
 ble forms, and from his historical ignorance of them as actually 
 held by philosophers, he often appears to speak in contradic- 
 tion of the vital doctrine which, in equity, he must be held to 
 have steadily maintained. 
 
 Reid and Stewart on Attention and Reflection. Besides 
 the operations we have already considered, Imagination or 
 Conception, Memory, and Perception, which Dr. Reid and Mr. 
 Stewart have endeavored to discriminate from Consciousness, 
 there are further to be considered Attention and Reflection, 
 which^in like manner., they have maintained tpjje an act or 
 acts^ not subordinate to, or contained in, Consciousness. But 
 before proceeding to show that their doctrine on this point is 
 almost equally untenable as on the preceding, it is necessary 
 to clear up some confusion, and to notice certain collateral 
 errors. 
 
 Reid either employs these terms as synonymous expressions, 
 or he distinguishes_ thtem only by jn^kh22_^AiJj2Jati2iLJISl2iix-ifi 
 the cousciouness and pp.r^eptinn of the present ; Reflection ta _
 
 ATTENTION AND REFLECTION. 157 
 
 Jhgjnemory of the past. He says, " In order, however, to our 
 having a distinct notion of any of the operations of our own 
 minds, it is not enough that we be conscious of them, for all 
 men have this consciousness : it is further necessary that we 
 attend to them while they are exerted, and reflect upon them 
 with care while they are recent and fresh in our memory. It 
 is necessary that, by employing ourselves frequently in this 
 way, we get the habit of this attention and reflection," etc. 
 Aud " Mr. Locke," he says, " has restricted the word reflection 
 to that which is employed about the operations of our minds, 
 without any authority, as I think, from custom, the arbiter of 
 language : for surely I may reflect upon what I have seen or 
 heard, as well as upon what I have thought. The word, in ita 
 proper and common meaning, is equally applicable to objects of 
 sense, and to objects of consciousness. He has likewise con- 
 founded reflection with consciousness, and seems not to have 
 been aware that they are different powers, and appear at very 
 different periods of life." In the first of these quotations, Reid 
 might use attention in relation to the consciousness of the 
 present, reflection, to the memory of the past ; but in the 
 second, in saying that reflection " is equally applicable to 
 objects of sense and to objects of consciousness," he distinctly 
 indicates that the two terms are used by him as convertible. 
 Reid (I may notice by the way) is wholly wrong in his stric- 
 tures on Locke for his restricted usage of the term reflection; 
 for it was not until after his time, that the term came, by Wolf, 
 to be philosophically employed in a more extended signification 
 than that in which Locke correctly applies it. jlcid is_likewise 
 wrongj if w.a .literally understand his word^-in .saving that 
 reflection is employed in common language in relation to objects 
 of sense- It is never employed except upon the mind and its 
 contents. We cannot be said to reflect upon any external 
 object, except in .so far as that object has been previously per- 
 ceived, and its image become part and parcel of our intellectual 
 furniture. We may be said to reflect upon it in memory, but 
 not in perception. But to return. 
 
 Reid, therefore, you will observe, identifies Attention and 
 14
 
 158 ATTENTION AND REFLECTION. 
 
 Reflection. Now Mr. Stewart says, " Some important observa 
 tions on the subject of attention occur in different parts of Dr. 
 Reid's writings. To this ingenious author we are indebted for 
 the_remark. L tlia^ attention ^ to things external is properly called 
 observation; and attention to the subjects, of our consciousness^ 
 reflection. 
 
 / 
 
 There is, likewise, another oversight of Mr. Stewart which I 
 may notice. "Although," he says, "the connection between 
 attention and memory has been frequently remarked in general 
 terms, I do not recollect that the power of attention has been 
 mentioned by any of the writers on pneumatology in their enu- 
 meration of faculties of the mind ; nor has it been considered 
 by any one, so far as I know, as of sufficient importance to 
 deserve a particular examination." So far is this from being 
 the case, that there are many previous authors who have con- 
 sidered attention as a separate faculty, and treated of it even 
 at greater length than Mr. Stewart himself. This is true not 
 only of the celebrated Wolf, but of the whole "Wolfian school ; 
 and to these I may add Condillac, Malebranche, and many 
 others. But this by the way. 
 
 /\ . [(tendon a faculty iHsiinrt fnna consciousness ? Taking. 
 however, Attention and Reflection for acts of the same faculty,; 
 and supposing, with Mr. Stewart, thai_xefle_ctiQn. is pxoperly- 
 attention directed^ to_ _tIie_pLagnomena of mind i ..obseiratipn, 
 attention directed to the phinojnna_of mattecj the main ques- 
 tion comes to be considered, Is Attention a faculty different 
 from Consciousness, as Reid and Stewart maintain ? As the 
 latter of these philosophers has not argued the point himself, 
 but merely refers to the arguments of the former in confirma- 
 tion of their common doctrine, it will be sufficient to adduce the 
 following passage from Reid, in which his doctrine on this head 
 is contained. ''I return," he says, " to what I mentioned as 
 the mam source of information on this subject, attentive re- 
 flection upon the operations of our own minds. 
 
 " All the notions we have of mind and its operations, are, by 
 Mr. Locke, called ideas of reflection. A man may have as dis- 
 tinct notions of remembrance, of judgment, of will, of desire.
 
 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 159 
 
 as he has of any object whatever. Such notions, as Mr. Locke 
 justly observes, are got by the power of reflection. But what } 
 is this power of reflection ? *Jt jg/ saysjhe same author, * thatj 
 power by which the mind turns its view inward, aud observes 
 its own actions and operations/ He observes elsewhere, ' That i 
 the_understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see and per ( 
 ceive all other things, takes no notice of itself ; and that it [ 
 requires art and pains to set it at a distance, and make it ita / 
 own qbjecJU' 
 
 "This power of the understanding to make its own opera- 
 tions its object, to attend to them, and examine them on all 
 sides, is the power of reflection, by which alone we can have 
 any distinct notions of the powers of our own or of other 
 minds. 
 
 " This reflection pn.yf>t tn fa distinguish?^ fmm. consciousness, 
 with which it is too often confounded, even by Mr. Locke. All 
 men are conscious of the operations of their own minds, at all 
 times while they are awake ; but there are few who reflect upon 
 them, or make them objects of thought." 
 
 (['/./ .I//., it',,,,1 is. !>!. Keid h;i- rightly .-aid that A! trillion 
 is a voluntary act. Tliis^remark might have led him to the 
 observation^ that Attention is not a separate faculty, or a faculty 
 of intelligence at_all, but merely an act of will or desir^&ubor- 
 dinate to_ji_crtairi law of intelligence... This law is, that the\ 
 greater number of objects to which our consciousness is simul-' 
 taneously extended, the smaller is the intensity with which it is V 
 able to consider each, and consequently, the less vivid and dis- 
 tinct will be the information it obtains of the several subjects. 
 This law is expressed in the old adage, 
 
 " Pluribua-iu&ntus. minor -cst_atLsiiu;uJa senaus," 
 
 Such being the law, it follows that, when our interest in any ^ 
 particular object is excited, and when we wish to obtain all the I 
 knowledge concerning it in our power, it behooves us to limit , 
 onr consideration to that object, to the exclusion of others. 
 This is done by an act of volition or desire., which is called 
 attention- But to view attention as a .-pecial act o< intelligence,
 
 160 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 
 
 and to distinguish it from consciousness, is utterly inept. Con- 
 ggioiispeas nia-y ha compared. Jo .._a Jelescppe, attention^Jp the 
 pulling out or in of the tubes in accommodating the focus to 
 the object.; and we might, with equal justice, distinguish in the 
 eye the adjustment of the pupil from the general organ of 
 vision, as, in the mind, distinguish attention from consciousness, 
 as separate faculties. Not, however, that they are to be ac- 
 counted the same. Attention is consciousness, and something 
 more.. It is consciousness voluntarily applied, under its law 
 of limitations, to some determinate object ; it is consciousness 
 concentrated. In thife respect, attention is an interesting subject 
 of consideration ; and having now finished what I proposed in 
 proof of the position, that consciousness is not a special faculty 
 of knowledge, but coextensive with all our cognitions, I shall 
 proceed to consider it in its various aspects and relations ; and 
 having just stated the law of limitation, I shall go on to what 
 I have to say in regard to attention as a general phenomenon 
 of consciousness. 
 
 Can we attend to more than one object at once ? And, here, 
 I have first to consider a question in which I am again sorry to 
 find myself opposed to many distinguished philosophers, and in 
 particular, to one whose opinion on this, as on every other 
 point of psychological observation, is justly entitled to the 
 highest consideration. The philosopher I allude to is Mr. 
 SlewarL The question is, Can we attend to more than a 
 single object at once? For if attention be nothing but the 
 concentration of consciousness on a smaller number of objects 
 than constitute its widest compass of simultaneous knowledge, 
 it is evident that, unless this widest compass of consciousness 
 be limited to only two objects, we do attend when we converge 
 consciousness on any smaller number than that total comple- 
 ment of objects which it can embrace at once. For example, 
 if we suppose that the number of objects which consciousness 
 ^an_simunaneously apprehend be six, the limitation of con- 
 fcioMsncss to live, or four, or three, or two, or_ one, will all be 
 acts of attention, different in degree, but absolutely identical io 
 kind.
 
 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 161 
 
 Sbtearfg doctrine qf attention. Mr. Stewart's doctrine is 
 as follows : " Before," he says, " we leave the subject of 
 Attention, it is proper to take notice of a question which has 
 been stated with respect to it ; whether we have the power of 
 attending to more than one thing at one and the same instant ; 
 or, in other words, whether we can attend, at one and the same 
 instant, to objects which we can attend to separately ? This 
 question has, if I am not mistaken, been already decided by 
 eeveral philosophers in the negative ; and I acknowledge, for 
 my own part, that although their opinion has not only been 
 called in question by others, but even treated with some degree 
 of contempt as altogether hypothetical, it appears to me to be 
 the most reasonable and philosophical that we can form on the 
 subject. 
 
 " There is, indeed, a great variety of cases in which the 
 mind apparently exerts different acts of attention at once ; but 
 from the instances which have already been mentioned, of the 
 astonishing rapidity of thought, it is obvious that all this may 
 be explained without supposing those acts to be coexistent ; and 
 I may even venture to add, it may all be explained in the most 
 satisfactory manner, without ascribing to our intellectual opera- 
 tions a greater degree of rapidity than that with which we 
 know, from the fact, that they are sometimes carried on. The 
 effect of practice in increasing this capacity of apparently at- 
 tending to different things at once, renders this explanation of 
 the phenomenon in question more probable than any other. 
 
 "The c^ise of the equilibrist and rope-dancer is particularly 
 favorable to this explanation, as it affords direct evidence of the 
 possibility of the mind's exerting different sncces.-ive acts in an 
 interval of time so short, as to produce the same sensible effect 
 a-; if they had been exerted at one and the same moment. In 
 this case, indeed, the rapidity of thought is so remarkable, that 
 if the different acts of the mind were not all necessarilv accom- 
 panied with different movements of the eye, there can be no 
 reason for doubting that the philosophers whose doctrine 1 am 
 now controverting, would have asserted that they are all mathe.- 
 matically coexistent. 
 
 14*
 
 162 NATTJKE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 
 
 " Upon a question, however, of this sort, which does not ad- 
 mit of a perfectly direct appeal to the fact, I would by no 
 means be understood to decide with confidence ; and, therefore, 
 I should wish the conclusions I am now to state, to be received 
 as only conditionally established. They are necessary and 
 obvious consequences of the general principle, ' that the mind 
 can only attend to one thing at once ; ' but must stand or fall 
 with the truth of that supposition. 
 
 " It is commonly understood, I believe, that in a concert of 
 music, a good ear can attend to the different parts of the music 
 separately, or can attend to them all at once, and feel the full 
 effect of the harmony. If the doctrine, however, which I have 
 endeavored to establish be admitted, it will follow that, in the 
 latter case, the mind is constantly varying its attention from the 
 one part of the music to the other, and that its operations are 
 BO rapid as to give us no perception of an interval of time. 
 
 "The same doctrine leads to some curious conclusions with 
 respect to vision. Suppose the eye to be fixed in a particular 
 position, and the picture of an object to be painted on tlie 
 retina. Does the mind perceive the complete figure of the ob- 
 ject at once, or is this perception the result of the various per- 
 ceptions we have of the different points in the outline? With 
 respect to this question, the principles already stated lead me to 
 conclude, that the mind does, at one and the same time, per- 
 ceive every point in the outline of the object (provided tho 
 whole of it be painted on the retina at the same instant) ; for 
 perception, like consciousness, is an involuntary operation. As 
 no two points, however, of the outline are in the same direction, 
 every point by itself constitutes just as distinct an object of 
 attention to the mind, as if it were separated by an interval of 
 empty space, from all the rest. If the doctrine, therefore, 
 formerly stated be just, it is impossible for the. mind to attend 
 to more than one of these points at once ; and as the perception 
 oL the fig_iire_of .the. .object implies a knowledge of the relative 
 pjjuation of tho difiiu'iuit points with respect to each other, we 
 must conclude, that the perception of figure by the eye is the 
 result of a nnmjjer ofjlilferent acts of attention. Those acts
 
 NATDRE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 163 
 
 of attention, however, are performed with such rapidity, that 
 the effect, with respect to us, is the same as if the perception 
 were instantaneous. 
 
 "In further confirmation of this reasoning, it may bo re- 
 marked, that if the perception of visible figure were an imme- 
 diate consequence of the picture on the retina, we should have, 
 at the first glance, as distinct an idea of a figure of a thousand 
 sides as of a triangle or a square. The truth is, that when the 
 figure is very simple, the process of the mind is so rapid that 
 the perception seems to be instantaneous ; but when the sides 
 are multipled beyond a certain number, the interval of time 
 necessary for these different acts of attention becomes percep- 
 tible. 
 
 " It may, perhaps, be asked what I mean by a point in the 
 outline of a figure, and what it is that constitutes this point one 
 object of attention. The answer, I apprehend, is that this 
 point is the minimum visibile. If the point be less, we cannot 
 perceive it ; if it be greater, it is not all seen in one direction. 
 
 " If these observations be admitted, it will follow that, with- 
 out the faculty of memory, we could have had no perception of 
 visible figure." 
 
 On this point, Dr. Brown not only coincides with Mr. Stewart 
 in regard to the special fact of attention, but asserts in general 
 that the mind cannot exist at the same moment in two different 
 states, that is, in two states in either of which it can exist sep- 
 arately. " If the mind of man," he says, " and all the changes 
 which take place in it, from the first feeling with which life 
 commenced to the last with which it closes, could be made, 
 visible to any other thinking being, a certain series of feelings 
 alone, that is to say, a certain number of successive states of 
 mind, would be distinguishable in it, forming indeed a variety 
 of sensations, and thoughts, and passions, as momentary states 
 of the mind, but all of them existing individually, and succes- 
 sively to each other. To suppose the mind to exist in two 
 different states, in the same moment, is a manifest absurdity." 
 
 Criticism of Stewart's doctrine. I shall consider these 
 tate.ments in detail. Mr. Stewart's first illustration of his doc-
 
 164 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 
 
 trine is drawn from a concert of music, in which, he says, " 9 
 good ear can attend to the different parts of the music sepa- 
 rately, or can attend to them all at once, and feel the full effect 
 of the harmony." This example, however, appears to me to 
 amount to a reduction of his opinion to the impossible. What 
 are the facts in this example ? In a musical concert, we have 
 a multitude of different instruments and voices emitting at once 
 an infinity of different sounds. These all reach the ear at the 
 same"indivisible moment in which they perish, and, consequently, 
 if heard at all, much more if their mutual relation or harmony 
 be perceived, they must be all heard simultaneously. This i3 
 evident. For if the mind can attend to each minimum of 
 Bound only successively, it, consequently, requires a minimum 
 of time in which it is exclusively occupied with each minimum 
 of sound. Now, in this minimum of time, there coexist with 
 it, and with it perish, many minima of sound which, ex hypothesi, 
 are not perceived, are not heard, as not attended to. In a con- 
 cert, therefore, on this doctrine, a small number of sounds only 
 could be perceived, and above this petty maximum, all sounds 
 would be to the ear as zero. But what is the fact ? No con- 
 cert, however numerous its instruments, has yet been found to 
 have reached, far less to have surpassed, the capacity of mind 
 and its organ. 
 
 But it is even more impossible, on this hypothesis, to under- 
 stand how we can perceive the relation of different sounds, that 
 is, have any feeling of lite harmony of a concert. In this 
 respect, it is, indeed, fclo de se. It is maintained that we can- 
 not attend at once to two sounds, we cannot perceive them as 
 coexistent, consequently, the feeling of harmony of which we 
 arc conscious, must proceed from the feeling of the relation of 
 these sounds as successively perceived in different points of 
 time. We must, therefore, compare the past sound, as retained 
 in memory, with the present, as actually perceived. But this 
 is impossible on the hypothesis itself. For we must, in this 
 .case, attend to the past sound in memory, and to the present 
 Bound in sense at once, or they will not be perceived in mutuaJ 
 relation ad harmon.ic. But one sound in memory and anothtu
 
 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 1G5 
 
 Round in sense, are as much two different objects as two dif- 
 feivnt .-omxls in sense. Therefore, one of two omrliiHoiis i.s 
 inevitable, tiitherjve can attend to two different objects at 
 oner, ainl the. hypotlie.-i- i- di-nrovcd, or we cannot, and all 
 .knowledge of relation and harmony ia impnssihlft, which i? 
 
 Jlia illustration from tl }>}H< itnt< nn <>f {/>/.///. Tin- con-c- 
 quences of this doctrine are equally startling, as taken from 
 Mr. Stewart's second illustration from the phenomena of vision. 
 He holds that the perception of figure by the eye is the result 
 of a number of separate acts of attention, and that each act of 
 attention has for its object a point the least that can be seen, 
 the minimum visibile. On this hypothesis, we must suppose 
 that, at every instantaneous opening of the eyelids, the moment 
 sufficient for us to take in the figure of the objects compre- 
 hended in the sphere of vision, is subdivided into almost infin- 
 itesimal parts, in each of which a separate act of attention is 
 performed. This is, of itself, sufficiently inconceivable. But 
 iliis being admitted, no difficulty is removed. The separate 
 U'-'- i;i'i-' be laid up in memory, in imagination. I'.nt h<>\v are 
 they there to form a single whole, unless we can, in imagina- 
 tion, attend to all the minima visibilia together, which, in per- 
 ception, we could only attend to severally? On this subject I 
 shall, however, have a more appropriate occasion of speaking, 
 when I consider Mr. Stewart's doctrine of the relation of color 
 to extension. 
 
 Ai.UMLiun. pvfsible wiik&ut an <wt of fre-wUL I think Reid 
 and Stewart incorrect in asserting that attention is only a vol- 
 untary act, meaning, by the expression voluntary, an act of free- 
 will. I am far from inauiUiiiiing, as Brown and others do, thai 
 all will is desire.; but still T am persuaded fli^f. wo iirc frg- 
 quently determined to an act of attention, as to many other 
 acts, independently of our free, mul deliberate volition^ Nor ii? 
 it, I conceive, possible to hold that, though immediately deter- 
 mined to an act of attention by desire, it is only by the permis- 
 sion of our will that this is done; consequently, that every act 
 of attention is still under the control of our volition. This I
 
 166 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 
 
 [cannot maintain. Let us take an example : When occupied 
 with other matters, a person may speak to us, or the clock may 
 etrike, without our having any consciousness of the sound ; but 
 it is wholly impossible for us to remain in this state of un- 
 consciousness intentionally and with will. We cannot deter- 
 minatelv refuse to hear bv voluntarily withholding our atten- 
 tion_; and we can no jnore open our^eyeSj and, by an act of will, 
 avert our minds from all perception of .gight, than we can, by 
 an act of will, cease to live. We may close our ears or shut 
 our eyes, as we may commit suicide ; but we cannot, with our 
 organs unobstructed, wholly refuse our attention at will. 
 
 Attention _of three degrees or K/fo. It, therefore, appears 
 to me the more correct doctrine to hold that there is no con- 
 sciousness without attention, without concentration, but that 
 attention is of three degrees or kinds. The first, a nigre_ vital 
 and irresistible act ; the secoml 3 an act detemiiued by desire, 
 which, though involuntary, may be resisted by our will ; the 
 third, an act determined by a deliberate volition. An act of 
 attention, that is, an act of concentration, seems thus 
 necessary to every exertion of consciousness, as a certain con- 
 traction of the pupil is requisite to every exercise of vision. 
 We have formerly noticed, that discrimination is a condition of 
 consciousness ; and a discrimination is only possible by a con- 
 centrative act, or act of attention. This, however, which cor- 
 responds to the lowest degree, to the mere vital or automatic 
 act of attention, has been refused the name ; and attention, in 
 contradistinction to this mere automatic contraction, given to 
 the two other degrees, of which, however, Reid only recognizes 
 the third. 
 
 Attention, then, is to consciousness, what the contraction of 
 the pupil is to sight ; or to the eye of the mind, what the 
 microscope or telescope is to the bodily eye. The faculty of 
 attention is not, therefore, a special faculty, but merely con- 
 sciousness acting under the law of limitation to which it is sub- 
 jected. But whatever be its relations to the special faculties, 
 attention doubles all their efficiency, and affords them a power 
 of which they would otherwise be destitute. It is, in fact, as
 
 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. iC7 
 
 we are at present constituted, the primary condition of their 
 activity. 
 
 Brown's doctrine that the mind cannot exist in two different 
 $tates at once* I have now only to say a word in answer lo 
 Dr. Brown's assertion that the mind cannot exist, at the same 
 moment, in two different states, that is, in two states in either 
 of which it can exist separately ; he affirms that the -.ontrary 
 supposition is a manifest absurdity. I find the same doctrine 
 maintained by Locke; he says: "Different sentiments are dif- 
 ferent modifications of the mind. The mind or the soul thati 
 perceives, is one immaterial, indivisible substance. Now, I see 
 the white and black on this paper, I hear one singing hi 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 a^k, 
 take modification for what you please, can the same unextended, 
 indivisible substance have different, nay, inconsistent and oppo- 
 site (as these of white and black must be), modifications at the 
 eame time ? Or must we suppose distinct parts in an indivisi- 
 ble substance, one for black, another for white, and another for 
 red ideas, and so of the rest of those infinite sensations which 
 we have in sorts and degrees ; all which we can distinctly per- 
 ceive, and so are distinct ideas, some whereof arc opposite as 
 heat and cold, which yet a man may feel at the same time ? " 
 
 Opposed by Leibnitz and_ Aristotle. In reference to this 
 passage, Leibnitz says: "Mr. Locke asks, ' Can the same unex- 
 tended, indivisible substance have different, nay, inconsistent 
 and opposite, modifications at the same time ? ' I reply, it can. 
 What is inconsistent in the same object, is not inconsistent in 
 the representation of different objects which we conceive at the 
 same moment. For this, there is no necessity that there should 
 be different parts in the soul, as it is not necessary that there 
 should be different parts in the point on which, however, differ- 
 ent angles rest." The same thing had, however, been even 
 better said by Aristotle, whose doctrine I prefer translating to 
 you, as more perspicuous, in the following passage from Joan- 
 nes Grammaticus (better known by the surname Philoponus), 
 a Greek philosopher, who flourished towards the middle of
 
 168 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 
 
 the sixth century. It is taken from the Prologue to his valu- 
 able commentary on the De_Aninia of Aristotle ; and, what is 
 curious, the very supposition which, on Locke's doctrine, would 
 infer the corporeal nature of mind, is alleged, by the Aristo- 
 telians and Condillac, in proof of its immateriality. "Nothing 
 bodily," says Aristotle, " can, at the same time, in the same partj 
 receive contraries. The finger cannot at once be wholly par- 
 ticipant of white and of black, nor can it, at once and in th9 
 same place, be both hot and cold. But the sense at the same 
 moment apprehends contraries. Wherefore, it knows that this 
 is first, and that second, and that it discriminate? the black from 
 the white. In what manner, therefore, does sight simultane- 
 ously perceive contraries ? Does it do so by the same ? or 
 does it by one part apprehend black, by another, white? If it 
 does so by the same, it must apprehend these without parts, and 
 5t is incorporeal. But if by one part it apprehends this quality, 
 and by another, that, this, he says, is the same as if I pei- 
 ce'ved this, and you that. But it is necessary that that which 
 judges should be one and the same, and that it should cvec 
 apprehend by the same the objects which are judged. Body 
 cannot, at the same moment and by the same part, apply itself 
 io contraries or things absolutely different. But sense at once 
 applies itself to black and to white ; it, therefore, applies itself 
 indivisibly. It is thus shown to be incorporeal. For if by one 
 part it apprehended white, by another part apprehended black, 
 it I'ould not discern the one color from the oilier ; for no one 
 can distinguish that which is perceived by himself as different 
 from that which is perceived by another." 
 
 Criticism of tiro ten's doctrine. Dr. Brown calls the sensa- 
 tion of sweet one mental state, the sensation of cold another; 
 and as the one of these states may exist without the other, 
 they are con-eqiientlv different states. But will it lie main- 
 tained that we cannot, at one and the same moment, feel the 
 s?n-ations of sweet and cold, or that sensations forming apart 
 different states, do, when coexistent in the same subject, form 
 only a single,' state? 
 
 On t/iis I'ictc, comparison is iiHjJussiLle. The__doctrine that
 
 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 169 
 
 the mind _ can attend to, or be conscious of, only a single object 
 at a time, would, in fact, involve the conclusion that all com- 
 parison and discrimination are impossible j but comparison and 
 discrimination being possible, this possibility disproves the truth 
 of the counter proposition. An act of comparison or discrim- 
 ination supposes that we are able to comprehend, in one indi- 
 visible consciousness, the different objects to be compared or 
 discriminated. Were I only conscious of one object at one 
 time, I could never possibly bring them into relation ; each 
 could be apprehended only separately, and for itself. For in 
 the moment in which I am conscious of the object A, I am, ex 
 hypothesi, unconscious of the object B ; and in the moment I 
 am conscious of the object B, I am unconscious of the object 
 A. So far, in fact, from consciousness not being competent to 
 the cognizance of two things at once, it is only possible under 
 that cognizance as its condition. For without discrimination 
 there could be no consciousness ; and discrimination necessarily 
 supposes two terms to be discriminated. 
 
 No judgment could be possible were not the subject and 
 predicate of a proposition thought together by the mind, al- 
 though expressed in language one after the other. Nay, as 
 Aristotle has observed, a syllogism forms, in thought, one simul- 
 taneous act ; and it is only the necessity of retailing it piece- 
 meal and by succession, in order to accommodate thought to 
 the imperfection of its vehicle, language, that affords the 
 appearance of a consecutive existence. Some languages, as 
 the Sanscrit, the Latin, and the Greek, express the syntactical 
 relations by flexion, and not by mere juxtaposition. Their 
 sentences are thus bound up in one organic whole, the preced- 
 ing parts remaining suspended in the mind, till the meaning, 
 like an electric spark, is flashed from the conclusion to the com- 
 mencement. This is the reason of the greater rhetorical effect 
 of terminating the Latin period by the verb. And to take a 
 more elementary example, "How could the mind compre 
 bend these words of Horace, 
 
 ' Bacclnitn in rcmotis oarmina ruprtms 
 Vidi docciitem,' 
 15
 
 170 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTUN. 
 
 unless it could seize at once those images in which the adjec- 
 tives are separated from their substantives?" 
 
 Howjnuany-^bjects can the mind embrace at O3ic&? Suppos- 
 ing that the mind is not limited to the simultaneous considera- 
 tion of a single object, a question arises, How many objects can 
 it embrace at once ? You will recollect that I formerly stated, 
 that the greater the number of objects among which the atten- 
 tion of the mind is distributed, the feebler and less distinct will 
 be its cognizance of each. 
 
 Consciousness will thus be at its maximum of intensity when 
 attention is concentrated on a single object ; and the question 
 comes to be, how many several objects can the mind simultane- 
 ously survey, not with vivacity, but without absolute confusion? 
 I find this problem stated and differently answered, by different 
 philosophers, and apparently without a knowledge of each 
 other. By Charles Bonnet, the mind is allowed to have a dis- 
 tinct notion of six objects at once ; by Abraham Tucker, the 
 number is limited to four; while Destutt-Tracy again amplifies 
 it to six. The opinion of the first and last of these philoso- 
 phers appears to me correct. You can easily make the experi- 
 ment for yourselves, but you must beware of grouping the 
 objects into classes. If you throw a handful of marbles on the 
 floor, you will find it difficult to view at once more than six, or 
 seven at most, without confusion ; but if you group them into 
 twos, or threes, or fives, you can comprehend as many groups 
 as you can units; because the mind considers these groups only 
 as units ; it views them as wholes, and throws their parts out 
 of consideration. You may perform the experiment also by an 
 uct of imagination. 
 
 Value f vth-ntlon considered as an act of will. Before 
 leaving this subject, I shall make some observations on the 
 value of attention, considered in its highest degree as an act of 
 will, and on the importance of forming betimes the habit of 
 deliberate concent nil ion. 
 
 The greater capacity of continuous thinking that a man pos,- 
 ses-e-i, the longer and more steadily can he follow out the same 
 tr;>iu of thought, the stronger is his power of attention; and
 
 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 171 
 
 in proportion to his power of attention will be the success with 
 which liis labor is rewarded. All commencement is difficult ; 
 and this is more especially true of intellectual effort. When 
 we turn for the first time our view on any given object, a hun- 
 dred other things still retain possession of our thoughts. Even 
 when we are able, by an arduous exertion, to break loose from 
 the matters which have previously engrossed us, or which every 
 moment force themselves on our consideration, even when a 
 resolute determination, or the attraction of the new object, has 
 smoothed the way on which we are to travel ; still the mind is 
 continually perplexed by the glimmer of intrusive and distract- 
 ing thoughts, which prevent it from placing that which should 
 exclusively occupy its view, in the full clearness of an undi- 
 vided light. How great soever may be the interest which we 
 take in the new object, it will, however, only be fully established 
 as a favorite, when it has been fused into an integral part of the 
 system of our previous knowledge, and of our established asso- 
 ciations of thoughts, feelings, and desires. But this can only 
 be accomplished by time and custom. Our imagination and 
 our memory, to which we must resort for materials with which 
 to illustrate and enliven our new study, accord us their aid un- 
 willingly, indeed, only by compulsion. But if we are vigor- 
 ous enough to pursue our course in spite of obstacles, every 
 step, as we advance, will be found easier; the mind becomes 
 more animated and energetic ; the distractions gradually dimin- 
 ish ; the attention is more exclusively concentrated upon its 
 object ; the kindred ideas flow with greater freedom and abun- 
 dance, and afford an easier selection of what is suitable for illus- 
 tration. At length, our system of thought harmoni/cs with our 
 pursuit. The whole man, becomes, as it may be, philosopher, 
 or historian, or poet; he lives only in the trains of thought 
 relating to this character. He now energizes freely, and, con- 
 sequently, with pleasure; for pleasure is the reflex of unforced 
 and unimpeded energy. All that is produced in this stale of 
 mind, bears the stamp of excellence and perfection. 
 
 Helvetia* justly observes, that the very feeMe-f intellect is 
 capable of comprehending the inference of one mathematical
 
 172 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 
 
 position from another, and even of making such an inference 
 itself. Now, the most difficult and complicate demonstrations 
 in the works of a Newton or a Laplace, are all made up of 
 such immediate inferences. They are like houses composed of 
 single bricks. No greater exertion of intellect is required to 
 make a thousand such inferences than is requisite to make one ; 
 as the effort of laying a single brick is the maximum of any 
 individual effort in the construction of such a house. Thus, 
 the difference between an ordinary mind and the mind of a 
 Newton consists principally in this, that the one is capable of 
 the application of a more continuous attention than the other, 
 that a Newton is able without fatigue to connect inference with 
 inference in one long series towards a determinate end ; while 
 the man of inferior capacity is soon obliged to break or let fall 
 the thread which he had begun to spin. This is, in fact, what 
 Sir Isaac, with equal modesty and shrewdness, himself admit- 
 ted. To one who complimented him on his genius, he replied 
 that if he had made any discoveries, it was owing more tc 
 patient attention than to any other talent. There is but little 
 analogy between mathematics and play-acting ; but I heard the 
 great Mrs. Siddons, in nearly the same language, attribute the 
 whole superiority of her unrivalled talent to the more intense 
 study which she bestowed upon her parts. 
 
 If what Alcibiades, in the Symposium of Plato, narrates of 
 Socrates were true, the father of Greek philosophy must have 
 possessed this faculty of meditation or continuous attention in 
 the highest degree. The story, indeed, has some appearance 
 of exaggeration ; but it shows what Aleibiades, or rather Plato 
 through him, deemed the requisite of a great thinker. Accord- 
 ing to this report, in a military expedition which Socrates made 
 along with Alcibiades, the philosopher was seen by the Athe- 
 nian army to stand lor a whole day and a night, until the break- 
 ing of the second morning, motionless, with a fixed gaze, 
 *hus showing that he W;H uninterruptedly engrossed with the 
 consideration of a single subject: "And thus," says Alcibiades, 
 " Socrates is ever wont to do, when his mind is occupied with 
 inquiries \\\ which there are dillicult'"s to be overcome. Ho
 
 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 175 
 
 then never interrupts his meditation, and forgets to eat, and 
 drink, and sleep, everything, in short, until his inquiry has 
 reached its termination, or, at least, until he has seen some 
 light in it." In this history, there may be, as I have said, ex- 
 aggeration ; but still the truth of the principle is undeniable. 
 Like Newton, Descartes arrogated nothing to the force of his 
 intellect. What he had accomplished more than other men, 
 that he attributed to the superiority of his method ; and Bacon, 
 in like manner, eulogizes his method, in that it places all 
 men with equal attention upon a level, and leaves little or noth- 
 ing to the prerogatives of genius. Nay, genius itself has been 
 analyzed by the shrewdest observers into a higher capacity of 
 attention. "fifiDJHS/' says Helvetius, whom we have already 
 quoted, "is__nothi_ng but a continued attention" (line attention 
 suivie). 
 
 These examples and authorities concur in establishing the 
 important truth, that he who would, with success, attempt dis- 
 covery, either by inquiry into the works of nature, or by 
 meditation on the phenomena of mind, must acquire the faculty 
 of abstracting himself, for a season, from the invasion of sur- 
 rounding objects ; must be able even, in a certain degree, to 
 emancipate himself from the dominion of the body, and live, as 
 it were, a pure intelligence, within the circle of his thoughts. 
 This faculty has been manifested, more or less, by all whose 
 names are associated with the progress of the intellectual sci- 
 ences. In some, indeed, the power of abstraction almost 
 degenerated into a habit akin *to disease, and the examples 
 which now occur to me would almost induce me to retract 
 what I have said about the exaggeration of Plato's history of 
 Socrates, Archimedes, it is well known, was so absorbed in a 
 geometrical meditation, that he was first aware of the stormin" 
 
 O ' O 
 
 of Syracuse by his own death-wound, and his exclamation on 
 the cm ranee of Roman soldiers was, Noli turbare circulos 
 meos. Jn like, manner, Joseph Scaliger, the most learned of 
 men, when a Protestant student in Paris, was so engrossed in 
 the study of Homer, that he became aware of the massacre of 
 15*
 
 174 NATURE AND LIMITS OF ATTENTION. 
 
 St. Bartholomew, and of his own escape, only on the day sub- 
 sequent to the catastrophe. 
 
 I have dwelt at greater length upon the practical bearings of 
 Attention, not only because this principle constitutes the better 
 half of all intellectual power, but because it is of consequence 
 that you should be fully aware of the incalculable importance 
 of acquiring, by early and continued exercise, the habit of 
 attention. There are, however, many points of great moment 
 on which I have not touched, and the dependence of Memory 
 upon Attention might alone form an interesting matter of di- 
 mission.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS, ITS EVIDENCE AND AUTHORITY. 
 
 HAVING now concluded the discussion in regard to what 
 Consciousness is, and shown you that it constitutes the funda- 
 mental form of every act of knowledge ; I now proceed to 
 consider it as the source from whence we must derive every 
 fact in the Philosophy of Mind. And, in prosecution of this 
 purpose, I shall, in the first place, endeavor to show that it 
 really is the principal, if not the only source, from which all 
 knowledge of the mental phenomena must be obtained ; in the 
 second place, I shall consider the character of its evidence, 
 and what, under different relations, are the different degrees of 
 its authority ; and, in the last place, I shall state what, and of 
 what nature, are the more general phenomena which it reveals. 
 Having terminated these, I shall then descend to the considera- 
 tion of the special faculties of knowledge, that is, to the par- 
 ticular modifications of which consciousness is susceptible. 
 
 .Pldlo.&afili.y implies, tlic veraciUj of consciousness. We pro- 
 ceed to consider, in the first place, the authority, the cer- 
 tainty, of this instrument. Now, it is at once evident, that 
 philosophy, as it affirms its own possibility, must affirm the 
 veracity of consciousness ; for, as philosophy is only a scientific 
 development of the facts which consciousness reveals, it follows, 
 that philosophy, in denying or doubting the testimony of con- 
 sciousness, would deny or doubt its own existence. If, there- 
 fore, philosophy be not fclo dc se, it must not invalidate the 
 integrity of that which is, as it were, the heart, the piinrtnm 
 talirns, of its being; and as it would actively maintain its own 
 credit, it must be able positively to vindicate the truth of eon-
 
 176 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 sciousness. Leibnitz truly says, "If our immediate internal 
 experience could possibly deceive us, there could no longer be 
 for us any truth of fact, nay, nor any truth of reason." 
 
 So far there is, and can be, no dispute ; if philosophy is pos- 
 sible, the evidence of consciousness is authentic. No philoso- 
 pher denies its authority, and even the Sceptic can only attempt 
 to show, on the hypothesis of the Dogmatist, that consciousness, 
 as at variance with itself, is, therefore, on that hypothesis, men- 
 dacious. 
 
 But if the testimony of consciousness be in itself confessedly 
 above all suspicion, it follows, that we inquire into the condi- 
 tions or laws which regulate the legitimacy of its applications. 
 The conscious mind being at once the source from which we 
 must derive our knowledge of its phenomena, and the mean 
 through which that knowledge is obtained, Psychology is only 
 an evolution, by consciousness, of the facts which consciousness 
 itself reveals. As every system of Mental Philosophy is thus 
 only an exposition of these facts, every such system, conse- 
 quently, is true and complete, as it fairly and fully exhibits 
 what, and what only, consciousness exhibits. 
 
 Consciousness naturally clear and unerring. But it may be 
 objected, if consciousness be the only revelation we possess 
 of our intellectual nature, and if consciousness be also the sole 
 criterion by which we can interpret the meaning of what this 
 revelation contains, this revelation must be very obscure, 
 this criterion must be very uncertain, seeing that the various 
 systems of philosophy all equally appeal to this revelation and 
 to this criterion, in support of the most contradictory opinions. 
 As to the fact of the variety and contradiction of philosophical 
 systems, this cannot be denied; and it is also true that all 
 these systems either openly profess allegiance; to consciousness, 
 or silently confess its authority. But admitting all this, I am 
 Ptill bold enough to maintain, that consciousness affords not 
 merely (lie, only revelation, and only criterion of philosophy, 
 but that this revelation is naturally clear, this criterion, in 
 itself, unerring. The history of philo~o]>hv, like the history of 
 theology, is only, it is too true, the hi>tory of variations; and
 
 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 177 
 
 w must admit of the book of consciousness what a great Cal 
 vinist divine bitterly confessed of the book of Scripture, 
 
 " Hie liber cet in quo quaerit sua dogmata quisque ; 
 Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua." 
 
 Quuse ovqnation in philosophy. In regard, however, t<* 
 either revelation, it can be shown that the source of this diver- 
 sity is not in the book, but in the reader. If men will go to the 
 Bible, not to ask of it what they shall believe, but to find in it 
 what they believe already, the standard of unity and truth be- 
 comes in human hands only a Lesbian rule.* And if philoso- 
 phers, in place of evolving their doctrines out of consciousness, 
 resort to consciousness only when they are able to quote its 
 authority in confirmation of their preconceived opinions, phi- 
 losophical systems, like the sandals of Theramenes,f may fit 
 any feet, but can never pretend to represent the immutability 
 of nature. And that philosophers have been, for the most part, 
 guilty of this, it is not extremely difficult to show. They have 
 seldom or never taken the facts of consciousness, the whole 
 facts of consciousness, and nothing but the facts of conscious- 
 ness. They have either overlooked, or rejected, or interpo- 
 lated. 
 
 Before we are entitled to accuse consciousness of being a 
 false, or vacillating, or ill-informed witness, we are bound, 
 first of all, to see whether there be any rules by which, in em- 
 ploying the testimony of consciousness, we must be governed ; 
 and whether philosophers have evolved their systems out of 
 consciousness in obedience to these rules. For if there be 
 
 * [A Lesbian (carpenter's) rule or level, being made of lead, did not 
 measure correctly the inequalities of the surface to which it was applied, 
 but bent under its own weight so as to adapt itself to those inequalities, 
 instead of gauging their amount. See Aristotle, Kth. AVc. v. 10, 7.J 
 Am. I'd. 
 
 t [As Theramciu'S readily attached himself to anv party that happened 
 to be nppiTino>t, he was nick named 6 K<0opvof, the name for a sort of san- 
 dal, which, unlike tlr.>se made as rights and lefts, would lit equally well 
 tithwr foot. | dm. Ki.
 
 i78 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 rules under which alone the evidence of consciousness can be 
 fairly and fully given, and, consequently, under which alone 
 consciousness can serve as an infallible standard of certainty 
 and truth, and if philosophers have despised or neglected these, 
 then must we remove the reproach from the instrument, and 
 affix it to those blundering workmen who have not known how 
 to handle and apply it In attempting to vindicate the veracity 
 and perspicuity of this, the natural, revelation of our menta] 
 being, I shall, therefore, first, endeavor to enumerate and ex- 
 plain the general rules by which we must be governed in apply- 
 ing consciousness as a mean of internal observation, and there- 
 after show how the variations and contradictions of philosophy 
 have all arisen from the violation of one or more of these laws. 
 
 Three rules for applying the testimony of consciousness. 
 There are, in all, if I generalize correctly, three laws which 
 afford the exclusive conditions of psychological legitimacy. 
 These laws, or regulative conditions, are self-evident, and yet 
 they seem never to have been clearly proposed to themselves 
 by philosophers ; in philosophical speculation, they have cer- 
 tainly never been adequately obeyed. 
 
 The First of these rules is, That no fact be assumed as a 
 fact of consciousness but what is ultimate and simple. This I 
 would call the law of Parcimony. 
 
 The Second, that which I would style the law of Integrity, 
 is That the whole facts of consciousness be taken without 
 reserve or hesitation, whether given as constituent, or as regu- 
 lative data. 
 
 The Third is, That nothing but the facts of consciousness 
 be taken, or, if inferences of reasoning be admitted, that these 
 Ht least be recognized as legitimate only as deduced from, and 
 in subordination to, the immediate data of consciousness, and 
 evary position rejected as illegitimate, which is contradictory uf 
 tli3se. This I would call the law of Harmony. 
 
 I shall consider these in their order. 
 
 I. The first law, that of Parcimony, is, That no fact be 
 assumed as a fact of consciousness but what is ultimate and 
 simple. What is a fact of consciousness ' This question, of
 
 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 179 
 
 all others, requires a precise and articulate answer ; but I have 
 not found it adequately answered in any psychological author. 
 
 Every facL.^f consciousness,^- 1. Primary and universal. 
 Jnjhe first jduce, every mental phenomenon may be called a 
 fact of consciousness. But as we distinguish consciousness 
 from the special faculties, though these are all only modifica- 
 tions of consciousness, only branches of which consciousness 
 is the trunk, so we distinguish the special and derivative phae- 
 nomena of mind from those that are primary and universal, 
 and give to the latter the name of facts of consciousness, as 
 more eminently worthy of that appellation. In an act of Per- 
 ception, for example, I distinguish the pen I hold in my hand, 
 and my hand itself, from my mind perceiving them. This dis- 
 tinction is a particular fact, the fact of a particular faculty, 
 Perception. But there is a general fact, a general distinction, 
 of which this is only a special case. This general fact is the 
 distinction of the Ego and non-Ego, and it belongs to conscious- 
 ness as the general faculty. Whenever, therefore, in our anal- 
 ysis of the intellectual phenomena, we arrive at an element 
 which we cannot reduce to a generalization from experience, 
 but which lies at the root of all experience, and which we can- 
 not, therefore, resolve into any higher principle, this we 
 properly call a fact of consciousness. Looking to such a fact 
 of consciousness as the last result of an analysis, we call it an 
 ultimate principle ; looking from it as the first constituent of all 
 intellectual combination, we call it a primary principle. A fact 
 cf consciousness is, thus, a simple, and, as we regard it, either 
 an ultimate or a primary, datum of intelligence. It obtains 
 also various denominations ; sometimes it is called an a priori 
 principle, sometimes a fundamental law of mind, sometimes a 
 transcendental condition of thought, etc. 
 
 2. Necessary. But, in the second place, this, its character 
 of ultimate priority supposes its character of necessity. It 
 must be impossible not to think It. In fact, by its necessity 
 alone can we recognize it as an original datum of intelligence, 
 and distinguish it from any mere result of generalization and 
 custom.
 
 180 Till; AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 3. Incomprehensible. In the third place, this fact, as ulti- 
 mate, is also given to us_with a, mexeJielieiLofJts reality ; in 
 
 oiliiT uonls. consciousneja ivvral- ihai it is. lmt nut ////// or lic-ic 
 it is^ This is evident. Were this fact given us, not only with 
 a belief, but with a knowledge of how or why it is, in that case 
 it would be a derivative, and not a primary, datum. For that 
 whereby we were thus enabled to comprehend its how and why, 
 in other words, the reason of its existence, this would be 
 relatively prior, and to it or to its antecedent must we ascend, 
 until we arrive at that primary fact, in which we must at last 
 believe, which we must take upon trust, but which we could 
 not comprehend, that is, think under a higher notion.* 
 
 * Elsewhere, in the " Dissertations Supplementary to Reid," the author 
 gives a somewhat different, and more clearly explicated, enumeration of 
 [" the essential notes and characters by which we arc enabled to distinguish 
 our original from our derivative convictions. These characters, I think, 
 may be reduced to four; 1, their Incomprehensibility 2, their Simplic- 
 ity 3, their Necessity and absolute Universality 4, their comparative. 
 Evidence and Certainty. 
 
 "1. In reference to the first; A conviction is incomprehensible when 
 there is merely given us in consciousness That its object is (on tan) ; and 
 when we are unable to comprehend through a higher notion or belief, Why 
 or How it is (6ion Ian). When we are able to comprehend why or how 
 a thing is, the belief of the existence of that thing is not a primary datum 
 of consciousness, but a subsumption under the cognition or belief which 
 affords its reason. 
 
 "2. As to the second; It is manifest that if a cognition or belief he 
 made up of, and can be explicated into, a plurality of cognitions or beliefs, 
 that, as compound, it cannot be original. 
 
 "3. Touching the third ; Necessity and Universality may be regarded 
 as coincident. For when a belief is necessary, it is, to ipso, universal ; and 
 that a belief is universal, is a certain index that it must be necessary. To 
 prove the necessity, the universality must, however, be absolute ; for a rel- 
 ative universality indicates no more than custom and education, howbeit 
 the subjects themselves may deem that they follow only the diitates of 
 nature. As St. Jerome has it ' Unaquajque gens hoe legem naturae pu- 
 tat, (jtiod didicit.' 
 
 "4. The fourth and last character of our original beliefs is their compara- 
 tive Evidence and Certainty. This, along with the third, is \vell snued by 
 Aristotle ' What Hjyii-ars In all, that we allirm to lit-: and he who reject* 
 this bel'cf will assuredly advance nuthiinj better deacruiiig of credence.' Ac<*
 
 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 181 
 
 A fact of consciousness is thus, that whose existence is 
 given and guaranteed by an original and necessary belief. But 
 there is an important distinction to be here made, which has not 
 only been overlooked by all philosophers, but has led some of 
 the most distinguished into no inconsiderable errors. 
 
 The facts of consciousness considered in two points _of view. 
 The facts of consciousness are to be considered in two poinis 
 of view ; either as evidencing their own ideal or phenomenal 
 existence, or as evidencing the objective existence of something 
 else beyond them. A belief in the former is not identical with 
 a belief in the latter. The one cannot, the other may possibly, 
 be refused. In the case of a common witness, we cannot doubt 
 the fact of his personal reality, nor the fact of his testimony as 
 emitted ; but we can always doubt the truth of that which his 
 testimony avers. So it is with consciousness. We cannot pos- 
 sibly refuse the fact of its evidence as given, but we may hesi- 
 tate to admit that beyond itself of which it assures us. I shall 
 explain by taking an example. In the act of External Per- 
 ception, consciousness gives, as a conjunct fact, the existence of 
 Me or Self as perceiving, and the existence of something 
 different from Me or Sell as perceived. Now the reality of 
 
 again : ' If we know and believe 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 such arc the truths 
 in regard to which the Aphrodisian says, 'though some men may ver- 
 bally dissent, all men are in their hearts agreed.' This constitutes the first 
 of Burner's essential qualities of primary truths, which is, as he expresses 
 it, ' to be so clear, that if we attempt to prove or to disprove them, this 
 can be done only by propositions which are manifestly neither more evident 
 nor more certain.' 
 
 "A good illustration of this character is afforded by the assurance to 
 which we have already so frequently referred that in perception, mind is 
 immediately cogni/.ant of matter. How self can be conscious of not-self, 
 tutio mind can be cognizant of matter, we do not know; but we know as 
 little lime mind can be percipient of itself. In both cases, we onlv know tho 
 fact, on the authority of consciousness ; and when the conditions of the 
 problem are rightly understood when it is established that it is only tho 
 friiituri/ qualities of body which are apprehended in tlu-m>clvc<, and this 
 only in so far as they are in immediate relation to the organ of sense, tin 
 diflicultj? in the one ease is not more than in the other. "I 
 10
 
 *82 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 this, as & subjective datum, as an ideal phenomenon, il ia 
 impossible to doubt without doubting the existence of conscious- 
 ness, for consciousness is itself this fact ; and to doubt the 
 existence of consciousness is absolutely impossible ; for as such 
 a doubt could not exist, except in and through consciousness, it 
 would, consequently, annihilate itself. We should doubt that 
 we doubted. As contained, as given, in an act of conscious- 
 ness, the contrast of mind knowing and matter known cannot 
 be denied. 
 
 But the whole phenomenon as given in consciousness may 
 be admitted, and yet its inference disputed. It may be said, 
 consciousness gives the mental subject as perceiving an exter- 
 nal object, contradistinguished from it as perceived ; all this we 
 do not, and cannot, deny. But consciousness is only a phe- 
 nomenon ; the contrast between the subject and object may be 
 only apparent, not real ; the object given as an external reality 
 may only be a mental representation, which the mind is, by an 
 unknown law, determined unconsciously to produce, and to mis- 
 take for something different from itself. All this may be said 
 and believed, without self-contradiction ; nay, all this has, by 
 the immense majority of modern philosophers, been actually 
 said and believed.* 
 
 * This distinction is, perhaps, more distinctly stated and illustrated by the 
 author in the " notes to Held." [" There is no scepticism possible touching 
 the facts of consciousness in themselves. We cannot doubt that the phaa- 
 nomena of consciousness are real, in so far as we are conscious of them. I 
 cannot doubt, for example, that I am actually conscious of a certain feeling 
 of fragrance, and of certain perceptions of color, figure, etc., when I sec and 
 gmell a rose. Of the reality of these, as experienced, I cannot doubt, be- 
 cause they are facts of consciousness ; and of consciousness I cannot 
 doubt, because such doubt being itself an art of consciousness, would con- 
 tradict, and, consequently, annihilate itself. J5ut of all beyond the mere 
 pha'iioniena of which we are conscious, we may without fear of self-con- 
 tradiction, at least doubt I may, for instance, doubt whether the rose I 
 pec and smell has any existence beyond a ph:i>nomenal existence in my 
 consciousness. I cannot doubt that I am conscious of it irn something dif- 
 ferent from self; but whether it have indeed any reality beyond my mind 
 whether the nnl-*ilf lie not in truth only * If that I may philosophi- 
 cally <iucMion. In like manner, I am conscious of the memory of a ceP
 
 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 183 
 
 The case of Memory. In like manner, in an act of Mem- 
 wry, consciousness connects a present existence with a past I 
 cannot deny the actual phenomenon, because my denial would 
 be suicidal, but I can, without self-contradiction, assert that 
 consciousness may be a false witness in regard to any former 
 existence ; and I may maintain, if I please, that the memory of 
 the past, in consciousness, is nothing but a phenomenon, which 
 has no reality beyond the present. There are many other facts 
 of consciousness which we cannot but admit as ideal phaenom- 
 ena, but may discredit as guaranteeing aught beyond their phe- 
 nomenal existence itself. The legality of this doubt I do not 
 at present consider, but only its possibility ; all that I have now 
 in view being to show, that we must not confound, as has been 
 done, the double import of the facts, and the two degrees of 
 evidence for their reality. This mistake has, among others, 
 been made by Mr: Stewart. " The belief," he says, " which 
 accompanies consciousness, as to the present existence of its 
 appropriate phenomena, has been commonly considered as 
 much less obnoxious to cavil, than any of the principles which 
 philosophers are accustomed to assume as self-evident, in the 
 formation of their metaphysical systems. No doubts on this 
 head have yet been suggested by any philosopher, how scepti- 
 cal soever ; even by those who have called in question the 
 existence both of mind and of matter. And yet the fact is, 
 that it rests on no foundation more solid than our belief of the 
 existence of external objects ; or our belief, that other men 
 possess intellectual powers and faculties similar to those of 
 which we are conscious in ourselves. In all these cases, the 
 only account that can be given of our belief is, that it forms a 
 necessary part of our constitution ; against which metaphysi- 
 cians may easily argue, so as to perplex the judgment, but of 
 which it is impossible for us to divest ourselves for a moment, 
 when we are called on to employ our reason either in the busi- 
 
 tain past e.ent. Of the contents of this memory, as :\ pha-nomenon iriveii 
 in consciousness, scepticism is impossible. 15ut I mav by possibility demur 
 to the rcalit/ of all beyond these contents and the sphere of present COD 
 ieiousness."|
 
 184 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 ness of life, or in the pursuits of science. While we are under 
 the influence of our appetites, passions, or affections, or even of 
 a strong speculative curiosity, all those difficulties, which be- 
 wildered us in the solitude of the closet, vanish before the 
 essential principles of the human frame." 
 
 Criticism of Stiuxs viciv. "With all the respect to which 
 the opinion of so distinguished a philosopher as Mr. Stewart is 
 justly entitled I must be permitted to say, that I cannot but 
 regard his assertion, that the present existence of the phe- 
 nomena of consciousness, and the reality of that to which the^e 
 phenomena bear witness, rest on a foundation equally solid, 
 as wholly untenable. The second fact, the fact testified to, may 
 be worthy of all credit, as I agree with Mr. Stewart in 
 thinking that it is ; but still it does not rest on a foundation 
 equally solid as the fact of the testimony itself. Mr. Stewart 
 confesses, that, of the former, no doubt had ever been suggested 
 by the boldest sceptic ; and the latter, in so far as it assures us 
 of our having an immediate knowledge of the external world, 
 which is the case alleged by Mr. Stewart, has been doubted, 
 nay, denied, not merely by sceptics, but by modern philoso- 
 phers almost to a man. This historical circumstance, therefore, 
 of itself, would create a strong presumption, that the two facts 
 must stand on very different foundations ; and this presumption 
 is confirmed when we investigate what these foundations them- 
 selves are. 
 
 The one fact, the fact of the testimony, is an act of con- 
 sciousness itself; it cannot, therefore, be invalidated without 
 self-contradiction. For, as we have frequently observed, to 
 doubt the reality of that of which we are conscious is impossi- 
 ble ; for as we can only doubt through consciousness, to doubt 
 of consciousness is to doubt of consciousness by consciousness. 
 If, on the one hand, we affirm the reality of the doubt, we 
 thereby explicitly affirm the reality of consciousness, and con- 
 tradict our doubt ; if, on the other hand, we deny the reality of 
 consciousness, we implicitly deny the reality of our denial 
 itself. Thus, in the act of perception, consciousness gives, as a 
 conjunct fact, at eyo or mind, and a non-eyo or matter, known
 
 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 185 
 
 together, and contradistinguished from each other. Now, as a 
 present phenomenon, this double fact cannot possibly be denied. 
 I cannot, therefore, refuse the fact, that, in perception, I am 
 conscious of a phenomenon, which I am compelled to regard as 
 the attribute of something different from my mind or self. 
 This I must perforce admit, or run into self-contradiction. 
 But admitting this, may I not still, without self-contradiction, 
 maintain that what I am compelled to view as the phenomenon 
 of something different from me is, nevertheless (unknown to 
 me), only a modification of my mind? In this I admit the 
 fact of the testimony of consciousness as given, but deny the 
 truth of its report. Whether this denial of the truth of con- 
 sciousness, as a witness, is or is not legitimate, we are not, at 
 this moment, to consider : all I have in view at present is, as JE 
 said, to show that we must distinguish in consciousness two 
 kinds of facts, the fact of consciousness testifying, and Ihe 
 fact of which consciousness testifies ; and that we must not, as 
 Mr. Stewart has done, hold that we can as little doubt of the 
 fact of the existence of an external world, as of the fact that 
 consciousness gives, in mutual contrast, the phenomenon of self 
 in contrast to the phenomenon of not-self. 
 
 Residts of the Law of Parcimony. Under this first law, 
 let it, therefore, be laid down, in the first place, that by a fact 
 of consciousness, properly so called, is meant a primary and 
 universal fact of our intellectual being ; and, in the second, that 
 Buch facts are of two kinds, 1, The facts given in the act of 
 consciousness itself; and, 2, The facts which consciousness 
 does not at once give, but to the reality of which it only bears 
 evidence. And as simplification is always a matter of impor- 
 tance, we may throw out of account altogether the former class 
 of these facts ; for of such no doubt can be, or has been, enter- 
 tained. It is only the authority of these facts as evidence of 
 something beyond themselves, that is, only the second class 
 of facts, which become matter of discussion; it is not the 
 reality of consciousness that we have to prove, but its veracity. 
 
 11. TLe Law of Integrity. The second rule is, That the 
 whole facts of consciousness be taken without reserve or hesi- 
 18*
 
 186 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 tation, whether given as constituent, or as regulative, data. 
 This rule is too manifest to require much elucidation. As phi 
 losophy is only a development of the phenomena and laws of 
 consciousness, it is evident that philosophy can only be com- 
 plete, as it comprehends, in one harmonious system, all the con- 
 stituent, and all the regulative, facts of consciousness. If any 
 phenomenon or constituent fact of consciousness be omitted, the 
 system is not complete ; if any law or regulative fact is ex 
 eluded, the system is not legitimate. 
 
 III. The Law of Harmony. The violation of this second 
 rule is, in general, connected with a violation of the third, and 
 we shall accordingly illustrate them together. The third is, 
 That nothing but the facts of consciousness be taken ; or, if 
 inferences of reasoning be admitted, that these at least be 
 recognized as legitimate only as deduced from, and only in sub- 
 ordination to, the immediate data of consciousness, and that 
 every position be rejected as illegitimate which is contradictory 
 to these. 
 
 The truth and necessity of this rule are not less evident than 
 the truth and necessity of the preceding. Philosophy is only p. 
 systematic evolution of the contents of consciousness, by the 
 instrumentality of consciousness ; it, therefore, necessarily sup- 
 poses, in both respects, the veracity of consciousness. 
 
 How Scepticism arises out of partial dogmatic systems. But, 
 though this be too evident to admit of doubt, and though no 
 philosopher has ever openly thrown off allegiance to the au- 
 thority of consciousness, we find, nevertheless, that its testi- 
 mony has been silently overlooked, and systems established 
 upon principles in direct hostility to the primary data of intelli- 
 gence. It is only such a violation of the integrity of conscious- 
 ness, by the dogmatist, that affords, to the sceptic, the founda- 
 tion on which he can establish his proof of the nullity of 
 philosophy. The sceptic cannoi assail the truth of the facts of 
 consciousness in themselves. In attempting this, he would run 
 at once into self-contradiction. In the first place, he would 
 enact the part of a dogmatist, that is, he would positively, 
 dogmatically, establish his, doubt. In the second, waiving this.
 
 iHE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 17 
 
 how can he accomplish what he thus proposes ? For why ? 
 He must attack consciousness either from a higher ground, or 
 from consciousness itself. Higher ground than consciousness 
 there is none ; he must, therefore, invalidate the facts of con- 
 sciousness from the ground of consciousness itself. On this 
 ground, he cannot, as we have seen, deny the facts of conscious- 
 ness as given ; he can only attempt to invalidate their testi- 
 mony. But this again can be done only by showing that 
 consciousness tells different tales, that its evidence is contra- 
 dictory, that its data are repugnant. But this no sceptic has 
 ever yet been able to do. Neither does the sceptic or negative 
 philosopher himself assume his principles ; he only accepts 
 those on which the dogmatist or positive philosopher attempts to 
 establish his doctrine ; and this doctrine he reduces to zero, by 
 showing that its principles are either mutually repugnant, or 
 repugnant to facts of consciousness, on which, though it may 
 not expressly found, still, as facts of consciousness, it cannot 
 refuse to recognize without denying the possibility of philosophy 
 in general. 
 
 Violations of these laws in Dr. Brown's doctrine of external 
 perception. I shall illustrate the violation of this rule by ex- 
 amples taken from the writings of the late ingenious Dr. Thomas 
 Brown. I must, however, premise that this philosopher, so 
 far from being singular in his easy way of appealing to, or 
 overlooking, the facts of consciousness, as he finds them con- 
 venient or inconvenient for his purpose, supplies only a speci- 
 men of the too ordinary style of philosophizing. Now, you 
 must know, that Dr. Brown maintains the common doctrine of 
 the philosophers, that we have no immediate knowledge of any 
 thing beyond the states or modifications of our own minds, 
 that we are only conscious of the eyq the non-ego, as known, 
 being only a modification of self, which mankind at large are 
 illusively determined to view as external and different from 
 self. This doctrine is contradictory to the fact to which conscious- 
 ness testifies, that the object of which we are conscious in per- 
 ception, is the external reality as existing, and not merely its 
 representation in the percipient mind. That this is the fact
 
 188 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 testified to by consciousness, and believed by the common sense 
 of mankind, is admitted even by those philosophers who reject 
 the truth of the testimony and the belief. It is of no conse- 
 quence to us at present what are the grounds on which the 
 principle is founded, that the mind can have no knowledge of 
 aught besides itself; it is sufficient to observe, that, this princi- 
 ple being contradictory to the testimony of consciousness, Dr. 
 Brown, by adopting it, virtually accuses consciousness of false- 
 hood. But if consciousness be false in its testimony to one fact, 
 we can have no confidence in its testimony to any other ; and 
 Brown, having himself belied the veracity of consciousness 
 cannot, therefore, again appeal to this veracity as to a credible 
 authority. But he is not thus consistent. Although he does 
 not allow that we have any knowledge of the existence of an 
 outer world, the existence of that world he still maintains. 
 And on what grounds ? He admits the reasoning of the ideal- 
 ist, that is, of the philosopher who denies the reality of the 
 material universe, he admits this to be invincible. How 
 then, is this conclusion avoided? Simply by appealing to the 
 universal belief of mankind in favor of the existence of exter- 
 nal things,* that is, to the authority of a fact of conscious- 
 ness. But to him this appeal is incompetent. For, in the 
 first place, having already virtually given up, or rather posi- 
 tively rejected, the testimony of consciousness, when conscious- 
 ness deposed to our immediate knowledge of external things, 
 how can he even found upon the veracity of that mendacious 
 principle, when bearing evidence to the unknown existence of 
 external tilings ? / cannot but believe that the material reality 
 exists ; therefore, it does exist, for consciousness does not deceit e 
 
 * [Tennemann, speaking of Plato, says : " The illusion that things in then- 
 selves are cognizable., is so natural, that we need not marvel if even philoso- 
 phers have not been able to emancipate themselves from the prejudice. 
 The common sense of mankind (gemcine Menschenverstand), which re- 
 mains steadfast within the sphere of experience, recognizes no distinction 
 between things in themselves [unknown reality existing] and phenomena 
 [representation, object known] ; and the philosophizing reason, commences 
 therewith its attempt to investigate the foundation of this knowledge, and 
 to recall iteJf into system."] Quoted in Notes to Discussions, p. 92.
 
 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 189 
 
 wf, this reasoning Dr. Brown employs when defending his 
 assertion of an outer world. I cannot but believe that the mate- 
 rial reality is the object immediately known in perception ; there- 
 fore, it is immediately known, for consciousness does not deceive 
 us, this reasoning Dr. Brown rejects when establishing the 
 foundation of his system. In the one case, he maintains, this 
 belief, because irresistible, is true ; in the other case, he main- 
 tains, this belief, though irresistible, is false. Consciousness 
 is veracious in the former belief, mendacious in the latter. I 
 approbate the one, I reprobate the other. The inconsistency 
 of this is apparent. It becomes more palpable when we con- 
 sider, in the second place, that the belief which Dr. Brown 
 assumes as true rests on is, in fact, only the reflex of the be- 
 lief which he repudiates as false. Why do mankind believe 
 in the existence of an outer world ? They do not believe in it 
 as in something unknown ; but, on the contrary, they believe it 
 to exist, only because they believe that they immediately know 
 it to exist. The former belief is only as it is founded on the 
 latter. Of all absurdities, therefore, the greatest is to assert, 
 on the one hand, that consciousness deceives us in the belief 
 that we know any material object to exist, and, on the other, 
 that the material object exists, because, though on false grounds, 
 we believe it to exist. 
 
 Brown's proof of our Personal Identity. I may give you 
 another instance, from the same author, of the wild work that 
 the application of this rule makes, among philosophical systems 
 not legitimately established. Dr. Brown, with other philoso- 
 phers, rests the proof of our Personal Identity, and of our 
 Mental Individuality, on the ground of beliefs, which, as " in- 
 tuitive, universal, immediate, and irresistible," he, not unjustly, 
 regards as the " internal and never-ceasing voice of our Cre- 
 ator, revelations from on high, omnipotent [and veracious] 
 as their Author." To him this argument is, however, incompe- 
 tent, as contradictory. 
 
 What we know of self or person, we know only as a fact of 
 consciousness. In our perceptive consciousness, there is re- 
 vealed, in contrast to each, a self and a not-self. This contrast
 
 190 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 is either true or false. If true, then am I consciotis of an objeii 
 different from me, that is, I have an immediate perception of 
 the external reality. If false, then am I not conscious of any 
 thing different from me, hut what I am constrained to regard as 
 not-me is only a modification of me, which, by an illusion of my 
 nature, I mistake, and must mistake, for something different 
 from me. 
 
 Now, will it he credited that Dr. Brown and be it remem- 
 bered that I adduce him only as the representative of a great 
 majority of philosophers affirms or denies, just as he finds it 
 convenient or inconvenient, this fact, this distinction of con- 
 sciousness ? In his doctrine of Perception, he explicitly denies 
 its truth, in denying that mind is conscious of aught beyond 
 itself. But, in other parts of his philosophy, this false fact, this" 
 illusive distinction, and the deceitful belief founded thereupon, 
 are appealed to (I quote his expressions), as "revelations from 
 on high, as the never-ceasing voice of our Creator," etc. 
 
 Thus, on the veracity of this mendacious belief, Dr. Brown 
 establishes his proof of our personal identity. Touching the 
 object of perception, when its evidence is inconvenient, this 
 belief is quietly passed over, as incompetent to distinguish not- 
 self from self; in the question regarding our personal identity, 
 where its testimony is convenient, it is clamorously cited as an 
 inspired witness, exclusively competent to distinguish self from 
 not-self. Yet why, if, in the one case, it mistook self for not- 
 self, it may not, in the other, mistake not-self for self, would 
 appear a problem not of the easiest solution. 
 
 And of our Indiviiluality. The same belief, with the same 
 inconsistency, is called in to prove the Individuality of mind. 
 But if we are fallaciously determined, in our perceptive con- 
 sciousness, to regard mind both as mind and as matter, for, 
 on Brown's hypothesis, in perception, the object perceived is 
 only a mode of the percipient subject, if, I say, in this act, I 
 must view what is supposed one and indivisible, as plural, and 
 different, and opposed, how is it possible to appeal to the 
 authority of a testimony so treacherous as consciousness for an 
 evidence of the real simplicity of the thinking principle?
 
 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 191 
 
 How, says the materialist to Brown, how can you appeal 
 against me to the testimony of consciousness, which you your- 
 self reject when against your own opinions, and how can you, 
 on the authority of that testimony, maintain the unity of self to 
 be more than an illusive appearance, when self and not-self, as 
 known to consciousness, are, on your own hypothesis, confess- 
 edly only modifications of the same percipient subject? If, ou 
 your doctrine, consciousness can split what you hold to be one 
 and indivisible into two, not only different but opposed, exist- 
 ences, what absurdity is there, on mine, that consciousness 
 should exhibit as phenomenally one, what we both hold to be 
 really manifold? If you give the lie to consciousness in favor 
 of your hypothesis, you can have no reasonable objection that 1 
 should give it the lie in favor of mine. If you can maintain 
 that not-self is only an illusive phenomenon, being, in fact, 
 only self in disguise ; I may also maintain, e contra, that self 
 is only an illusive phenomenon, and that the apparent unity 
 of the ego is only the result of an organic harmony of action 
 between the particles of matter. 
 
 The absolute and universal veracity of consciousness. From 
 these examples, the truth of the position I maintain is mani- 
 fest, that a fact of consciousness can only be rejected on the 
 supposition of falsity, and that, the falsity of one fact of con 
 sciousness being admitted, the truth of no other fact of con 
 sciousness can be maintained. The legal brocurd, Fahus in 
 unOjfalsus in omnibus, is a rule not more applicable to other 
 witnesses than to consciousness. Thus, every system of phi- 
 losophy which implies the negation of any fact of conscious- 
 ness, is not only necessarily unable, without self-contradiction, 
 to establish its own truth by any appeal to consciousness ; it is 
 also unable, without self-contradiction, to appeal to conscious- 
 ness against the falsehood of any other system. If the abso- 
 lute and universal veracity of consciousness be once surren- 
 dered, every system is equally true, or rather all are equally 
 false; philosophy is impossible, for it has now no instrument by 
 which truth can be discovered, no standard by which it can 
 be tried ; the root of our nature is a lie. Hut though it is thus
 
 192 THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 manifestly the common interest of every scheme of philosophy 
 to preserve intact the integrity of consciousness, almost every 
 scheme of philosophy is only another mode in which this integ- 
 rity has been violated. If, therefore, I am able to prove the 
 fact of this various violation, and to show that the facts of con- 
 sciousness have never, or hardly ever, been fairly evolved, it 
 will follow, as I said, that no reproach can be justly addressed 
 to consciousness as an ill-informed, or vacillating, or perfidious 
 witness, but to those only who were too proud, or too negligent, 
 to accept its testimony, to employ its materials, and to obey its 
 laws. And on this supposition, so far should we be from de- 
 spairing of the future advance of philosophy from the expe- 
 rience of its past wanderings, that we ought, on the contrary, to 
 anticipate for it a steady progress, the moment that philosophers 
 can be persuaded to look to consciousness, and to consciousness 
 alone, for their materials and their rules.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 VIOLATIONS OF THE AUTHORITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS IS 
 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 JV0 retrenchment possible of the facts of consciousness^ 
 As all philosophy is evolved from consciousness, so, on the 
 truth of consciousness, the possibility of all philosophy ia -da- 
 pendent. Henc^if is manifest, at once and yrit.lioi.it further 
 rea-oning, that no philosophical theory can pretend to truth 
 except that single theory which comprehends and_develops thfl 
 fact of consciousness on which it founds, without retrenchment, 
 distortion, or addition. Were a philosophical system to pretend 
 that it culls out all that is correct in a fact of consciousness, 
 and rejects only what is erroneous, what would be the inev- 
 itable result ? InjJie^ first place, this system admits, and uiudt 
 admit, that it is wholly dependent on consciousness for its con- 
 stituent elements, and for the rules by which these are selected 
 and arranged, in short, that it is wholly dependent on con- 
 sciousness for its knowledge of true and false. But, in the 
 second place, it pretends to select a part, and to reject a part, 
 of a fact given and guaranteed by consciousness. Now, by 
 what criterion, by what standard, can it discriminate the true 
 from the false in this fiict? This criterion must be either con- 
 sciousness iuelf, or an instrument different from consciousiiejis 
 If it be an instrument different from consciousness, what is it? 
 No such instrument has ever yet been named has ever yet 
 been heard of. lf_it exist, and if it enable us to criticize the 
 data of consciousnesSj_it must be a higher source of knowledge 
 than consciousness, and thus it will replace consciousness as the 
 first and generative principle of philosophy. P>ut of any prin- 
 ciple of this character, different from consciousness, philosophy 
 17
 
 194 INTEGRITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 is yet in ignorance. It remains unenounced and unknown. It 
 may, therefore, be safely assumed not to be. 
 . '. The standard, therefore, by which any philosophical theory 
 can profess to regulate its choice among the elements of any 
 fact of consciousness, must i^f ^virjgf frm/fT^f * jt^Jf, Now, mark 
 the dilemma. The theory makes consciousness the discrim- 
 inator between what is true and what is false in its own testi- 
 
 /' mony. But if consciousness be_ assumed to be a mendacious 
 witness in certain parts of its evidence, how can it be pre- 
 sumed a veracious witness in others ? This it cannot be. It 
 must be held as false in all, if false in any ; and the philosophi- 
 cal theory which starts from this hypothesis, starts from a nega- 
 tion of itself in the negation of philosophy in general. Again, 
 on the hypothesis that part of the deliverance of consciousness 
 is true, part false, how can consciousness enable us to distin- 
 guish these ? This has never yet been shown ; it is, in facl, 
 
 5. inconceivable. But, farther., how is it discovered that any part 
 of a datum of consciousness is false, another true ? This can 
 
 :-/ only be done if the datum involve a contradiction. Bjjt if the 
 facts of consciousness be contradictory, then is consciousness a 
 principle of falsehood ; and the greatest of conceivable follies 
 would be an attempt to employ such a principle in the discovery 
 of truth. And_such an act of folly is every philosophical the- 
 ory, which, departing from an admission that the data of con- 
 sciousness are false, would still pretend to build out of them a 
 system of truth. But, on the other hand, if the data of con- 
 sciousness are not contradictory, and consciousness, therefore, 
 not a self-convicted deceiver, how is the unapparent falsehood 
 of its evidence to be evinced? This is manifestly impossible; 
 for such falsehood is not to be presumed ; and, we have pre- 
 viously ssen, there ib no highei principle by which the tes- 
 timony of consciousness can be canvassed and redargued 
 Consciousness, therefore, is to be presumed veracious ; a philo- 
 sophical theory which accepts one part of the hannonious data 
 of consciousness, and rejects another, is manifestly a mere 
 caprice, a chimera not worthy of consideration, far less o* 
 articulate disproof. Jtioi iuUiu nulL
 
 THE DUALITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 195 
 
 77,'' Duality of Caaudoutnut. In order .-till I'lirlln-; 1 to 
 evince to you the importance of the precept (namely, that we 
 must look to consciousness, and to consciousness alone, for the 
 materials and rules of philosophy), and to show articulately 
 how all the variations of philosophy have been determined by 
 its neglect, I will take those facts of consciousness which lie at 
 the very root of philosophy, and with which, consequently, all 
 philosophical systems are necessarily and primarily conversant ; 
 and point out how, besides the one true doctrine which accepts 
 and simply states the fact as given, there are always as many 
 various actual theories as there are various possible modes of 
 distorting or mutilating this fact. I shall commence with that 
 preat fact to which I have already alluded, that we are_im- 
 mediately conscious in perception of an Ego and a Non-ego, 
 known together, and known in contrast to each other. This ig 
 the fact of the Duality of Consciousness, It is clear and 
 manifest. \JQien I concentrate my attention in the simplest act 
 of perception, I return from my observation with the most 
 irresistible conviction of two facts, or rather two branches of 
 the same fact; that I am, and that something different 
 from me exists. In this act, I am conscious of myself as the 
 perceiving subject, and of an external reality as the pbject per- 
 ceived ; and I am conscious of both existences in the same 
 indivisible moment of intuition. The knowledge of the subject 
 docs not precede, nor follow, the knowledge of the object ; 
 neither determines, neither is determined by, the other. 
 
 The fact of this testimony allowed even by thosejwho deny its 
 trutli. Such is the fact of perception revealed in conscious- 
 ness, and as it determines mankind in general in their almost 
 equal assurance of the reality of an external world, as of the 
 existence of their own minds. Consciousness declares our 
 knowledge of material qualities to be intuitive or immediate, 
 not representative or mediate. Nor is the lad. as given, 
 denied even by those who disallow its truth. So clear i- the 
 deliverance, that even the philosophers who reject an intuitive 
 perception, find it impossible not to admit, ilia! their doctrine 
 Rtands decidedly opposed to the voice of consciousness, to tho
 
 196 THE DUALITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 natural convictions of mankind. I may give you some exam- 
 ples of the admission of this fact, which it is of the utmost 
 importance to place beyond the possibility of doubt. I quote,, 
 of course, only from those philosophers whose systems, are in 
 contradiction of the testimony of consciousness, which they are 
 forced to admit. 
 
 The following is [Eeid's quotation] from Berkeley, towards 
 the conclusion of the work, in which his system of Jdealiam is 
 established : " When Hylas is at last entirely converted, he 
 observes to Philonous, ' After all, the controversy about mat- 
 ter, in the strict acceptation of it, lies altogether between you 
 and the philosophers, whose principles, I acknowledge, are not 
 near so natural, or so agreeable to the common sense of man- 
 kind and Holy Scripture, as yours.' Philonous observes in 
 the end, 'That he does not pretend to be a settcr-up of new 
 notions ; his endeavors tend only to unite, and to place in a 
 clearer light, that truth which was before shared between the 
 vulgar and the philosophers ; the former being 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 ; which two things put together 
 do, in effect, constitute the substance of what he advances.' 
 And he concludes by observing, ' That those principles which 
 at first view lead to scepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring 
 men back to common sense.' " 
 
 Here you will notice that Berkeley admits that the common 
 belief of mankind is, that the things immediately perceived are 
 not representative objects in the mind, but the external realities 
 themselves. Hume, in like manner, makes the *.aim' coulee- 
 Bioji ; and the confession of that sceptical Idealist, or sceptical 
 Nihilitt, is of the utmost weight. 
 
 "It seems evident that men are carried by a iiatural instinct 
 or prepossession to repose faith in their senses; and that, with- 
 out any reasoning, or even almost before the use of reason, we 
 always suppose an external universe, which depends not on our 
 perception, but would exist though we and every sensible crea- 
 ture were absent or annihilated. Kven the animal creation are
 
 THE DUALITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 197 
 
 governed by a like opinion, and preserve this belief of external 
 objects in all their thoughts, designs, and actions. 
 
 " It seems also evident that, when men follow this blind and 
 powerful instinct of nature, they always suppose the very im- 
 ages presented by the senses to be the external objects, and 
 never entertain any suspicion that the one are nothing but 
 representations of the other. This very table, which we see 
 white, and which we feel hard, is believed to exist, independent 
 of our perception, and to be something external to our mind, 
 which perceives it. Our presence bestows not being on it, 
 our absence does not annihilate it. It preserves its existence 
 uniform and entire, independent of the situation of intelligent 
 beings, who perceive or contemplate it 
 
 " Do you follow the instincts a7id propensities of nature, may 
 they say, in assenting to the veracity of sense? But these lead 
 you to believe that the very perception or sensible image is the 
 external object. Do you disclaim this principle, in order to 
 embrace a more rational opinion, that the perceptions are only 
 representations of something external ? You here depart from 
 your natural propensities and more obvious sentiments ; and yet 
 are not able to satisfy your reason, which can never find any 
 convincing argument from experience to prove that the per- 
 ceptions are connected with any external objects." 
 
 We are conscious of an immediate knoivledye of the not-self. 
 The fact that consciousness docs testify to an immediate knowl- 
 edge by mind of an object different from any modification of its 
 own, is thus admitted even by those philosophers who still do 
 not hesitate to deny the truth of the testimony; for to say that 
 all men do naturally believe in such a knowledge, is only, in 
 other words, to say that they believe it upon the authority of 
 onsciousness. A fact of consciousness, and a fact of the com. 
 mon sense of "mankind, are only various expressions of the 
 same import. \Ve may, therefore, lay it down as an undis- 
 puted truth, that consciousness gives, as an ultimate fact, a 
 primitive duality; a knowledge! of the Kgo in relation and 
 contrast to the "Non^ejjoj and a knowledge of the Non-ego in 
 relation and contrast to the, Kgo. The Kgo and Non-ego arts. 
 17-
 
 i'J8 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 thus, given in an original synthesis, as conjoined in the unit/ of 
 knowledge, and, in an original antithesis, as opposed in the con- 
 trariety of existence. In other words, we are conscious of them 
 in an indivisible act of knowledge together and at once, but 
 we are conscious df them as, in themselves, different and exclu- 
 sive of each other. 
 
 Again, consciousness not only gives us a duality, but it gives 
 its elements in equal counterpoise and independence. The Ego 
 and Non-ego mind and matter are not only given together, 
 but in absolute coequality. The one does not precede, the other 
 does not follow ; and, in their mutual relations, each is equally 
 dependent, equally independent. Such is the fact as given in 
 and by consciousness. 
 
 Different philosophical systems which deny this fact. Phi- 
 losophers have not, however, been content to accept the fact in 
 its integrity, but have been pleased to accept it only under such 
 qualifications as it suited their systems to devise. In truth, 
 there are just as many different philosophical systems originat- 
 ing in this fact, as it admits of various possible modifications. 
 An enumeration of these modifications, accordingly, affords an 
 enumeration of philosophical theories. 
 
 Natural Realists. In_ the first jplace, there is the grand 
 division of philosophers into those who do, and those who do 
 not, accept the fact in its integrity. Of modern philosophers, 
 almost all are comprehended under the latter category ; while 
 of the former, if we do not remount to the Schoolmen and 
 the ancients, I am only aware of a single philosopher before 
 Reid, who did not reject, at least in part, the fact as conscious- 
 ness affords it. As it is always expedient to possess a precise 
 name for a precise distinction, I would be inclined to denomi- 
 nate those \YliQ_iinplicitly acquiesce in the primitive duality as 
 given in _ consci_qu_snesSj Jh_e Natural -Realists or Natural Dual- 
 ists ; and their doctrine, Natural Realism or Natural Dualism. 
 
 In the second place, the philosophers who do not accept the 
 fart, and the whole fact, may be divided and subdivided into 
 various classes bv variou> principles of distribution. 
 
 s and NiliiLLaL&- The first subdivision will be
 
 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 199 
 
 afc.cn from the total, or partial, rejections of the import of the 
 fact. T have previously shown you that to deny any fact of 
 consciousness as an actual phenomenon is utterly junjx>ssible. 
 Bui, though necessarily admitted as a present phenomenon, the 
 import of this phenomenon, all beyond our actual conscious- 
 ness of its existence, may be denied. We are able, without 
 
 JL_ ^ 
 
 self-contradiction, to suppose, and, consequently, to assert, that 
 all to which the phenomenon of which we are conscious refers 
 is a deception ; that, for example, the past to which an act of 
 memory refers, is only an illusion involved in our consciousness 
 of the present ; that the unknown subject to which every 
 phamomenon of which we are conscious involves a reference, 
 has no reality beyond this reference itself; in short^that all 
 our knowledge of mind or matter is only a consciousness^ of 
 various bundles of baseless appearances. This doctrine, as re- 
 fusing a substantial reality to the phenomenal existence of 
 which we are conscious, is called Nihilism ; and, consequently, 
 philosophers, as they affirm or deny the authority of conscious- 
 ness in guaranteeing a substratum or ffubstance_to_the mani- 
 festations of the Ego and Non-ego, arc divided into Realists 
 or Suhstantialist.s, and Nihilists or Non-Substantialists. Of posi- 
 tive or dogmatic Nihilism, there is no example in modern phi- 
 losophy ; forOken's deduction of the universe from the original 
 nothing, the nothing being equivalent to the Absolute or God, 
 is only the paradoxical foundation of a system of lieali.-m ; 
 and, in ancient philosophy, we know too little of the book of 
 Gorgiju tlit; Sophist, entitled Ue()t TOV fitj oVro.,', i] TZE^I gweov, 
 Concerning Nature or the Non-existent, to be able to af- 
 firm whether it were maintained by him as a dogmatic and bona 
 fide doctrine. But as a sceptical conclusion from the premises 
 of previous philosophers, we have an illustrious example of 
 Nihilism in Huntt ; and the celebrated ^iclite admits that jhe 
 speculative principles of his own Idealism would, unless cor- 
 rected by his practical, terminate in this result.* 
 
 * [In the Notes to lit id, Hamilton translates the following passage from 
 Fiehtc's " Destination of Man," to prove that Fii'htean idealism terminate* 
 in thorough -going Nihilism "The sum total,' 1 says Fichte, " is this :
 
 200 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 Realists ditided into Hypotiietical Dualists and Monies. 
 The Rgalistsf or Substautialists are again divided into Dualists, 
 
 there is absolutely nothing permanent cither without or within me, but only 
 an unceasing change. I know absolutely nothing of any existence, not 
 even of my own. 1 myself know nothing and am nothing. Images (Bit- 
 der) 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 being 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 onlj 
 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 of 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, of my destination is the dream of that dream."] 
 t [The term Real (realis), though always importing the existent, is used in 
 various significations and oppositions. The following occur to me : 
 
 1. Aj^enpdn^j^m/VHttj in contrast to the nomenclature of existence, 
 the thine/, us contradistinguished from its name. Thus we have definitions 
 and divisions real, and definitions and divisions nominal or wrlal. 
 
 2. A* expressing the cxi^tad opposed to the non-existent, a sonifthint/ in 
 contrast to a nothing. In this sense, the diminutions of existence, to which 
 reality, in the following significations, is counterposed, are all real. 
 
 3. As denoting material or external, in contrast to mental, spiritual, or in- 
 ttrnal, cxiste'"* . This meaning is improper; so, therefore, is the term 
 Realism, as eqmralent to Materialism, in the nomenclature of some recent 
 philosophers. 
 
 4. As_synonymous with actual; and this (a. as opposed to potential, b.) 
 as opposed to possible existence. 
 
 . r >. As denoting ubwlute or irrespective^ in opposition to phenomenal or n-la- 
 tire, existence ; in other words, as denoting things in themselves, and out 
 of relation to all else, in contrast to things in relation to, and as known by, 
 intelli'_r<'nees, like men, who know only under the conditions of plurality 
 and dirt'crenrp. In this sense, which is rarely employed find may be neg- 
 lected, the Heal is only another term for the Unconditioned or Absolute, 
 rd tvTuf !<v. 
 
 6. As iiidicuting existence considered as a subsistence in nature (ens ertra 
 animam, ens natnnr), it stands counter to an existence considered as a 
 representation in thought. In tliis sense, rrali', in the language of the older 
 philosophy (Scholastic, rartcshm, (lasscndian), as applied to rssr or ra.s-, is 
 opposed to intentionale, notional'', ronerjitiliile, imtti/innriitm, rat ion is, cofjnitfonis, 
 in ant ma, in inteJIectii, prout cix/intum, iilml', ih-.; and corresponds with a 
 jMirte n't, as opposed to a part? inliM.'tu.t, with miliju-licuiH, a.s opposed tc
 
 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 201 
 
 and Unitarians or Monists, according as they are, or arq 
 not, contented with the testimony of consciousness to the ulti- 
 mate duplicity of subject and object in perception. The Dual- 
 ists, of whom we are now first speaking, are distinguished from 
 the Natural Dualists of whom we formerly spoke, in this ; 
 that the latter establish the existence of the two worlds of mind 
 and matter on the immediate knowledge we possess of both 
 series of phenomena, a knowledge of which consciousness 
 assures us ; whereas the former, surrendering the veracity of 
 consciousness to our immediate knowledge of material phaenom- 
 
 objectivum, with proprittm, principale, and fundamental, as opposed to n'oo- 
 rium, with materiale, as opposed toformale, and with formate in seipso, and 
 entitativum, as opposed to representatimm, etc. Under this head, in the 
 vacillating language of our more recent philosophy, real approximates to, 
 but is hardly convertible with, objective, in contrast to subjective in the signifi- 
 cation there prevalent. 
 
 7. In close connection with the sixth meaning, real, in the last place, de- 
 notes an identity or difference founded on the conditions of the existence 
 of n thing in itself, in contrast to an identity or difference founded only on 
 the relation or point of view in which the thing may he regarded by the 
 thinking subject. In this sense it is opposed to loyical or rational, the terms 
 being here employed in a peculiar meaning. Thus a thing which, really (re) 
 or in itself, is one and indivisible, may logically (ratione), by the mind, be con- 
 sidered as diverse and plural ; and vice versa, what are really diverse and 
 plural, may Ifx/ically be viewed as one and indivisible. As an example of 
 the former; the sides and angles of a triangle (or trilateral), as mutually 
 correlative as together making up the same simple figure and as, with- 
 out destruction of that figure, actually inseparable from it, and from each 
 other, are really one ; but inasmuch as they have peculiar relations which 
 may, in thought, be considered severally and for themselves, they are loji- 
 cal/y twofold. In like manner, take apprehension and judgment. These 
 are really one, as each involves the other (for we apprehend only as we 
 judge something to be, and we judge only as we apprehend the existence 
 of the terms compared), and as together they constitute a single indivisible 
 act of cognition ; but they are logically double, inasmuch as, by mental ab- 
 straction, they may be viewed each for itself, and as a distinguishable ele- 
 ment of thought. As an example of the latter; individual tilings, as John, 
 James, Richard, etc., are nail if (numerically) different, as coexisting in 
 nature only under the condition of plurality ; but, as resembling object* 
 constituting a single class or notion (man), they are ltxji<:alli/ conside-ed 
 (generic-ally or specifically) identical and one.] Dins. suj>j>. to licid.
 
 202 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 , consequently, our immediate knowledge of the exisv 
 ence of matter, still endeavor, by various hypotheses and 
 reasonings, to maintain the existence of an unknown external 
 world._ As we denominate those who maintain a dualism as 
 involved in the fact of consciousness, Natural Dualists ; so we 
 may style those Dualists who deny the evidence of conscious- 
 ness to our immediate knowledge of aught beyond the sphere 
 of mind, {Iypx>th^ticalJIhiah^ts^F-Cosinothetic Idealists. 
 
 To the class of CosmotJieiic Idealists^ the great majority of 
 modern philosophers are to be referred. jPenying an imme- 
 diate or intuitive knowledge of the external reality, whose 
 existence they maintain, they, of course, hold a doctrine of 
 mediate or representative perception ; and, according to the 
 various modifications of that doctrine, they are again subdi- 
 vided into those who view, in the immediate object of percep- 
 tion, a representative entity present to_tliejiiind_j but not a mere 
 mental modificaiisnj and into those who hold that the immediate 
 object is only a representative modification of the mind itself. 
 It is not always easy to determine to which of these classes 
 some philosophers belong. To the former, or class holding the 
 cruder hypothesis of representation, certainly belong the follow- 
 ers of Democritu& and Epicurus, those Axistotolifin* who h.eld 
 the vulgar doctrine of species- (Aristotle himself .was- probably 
 a Natural Dualist), and in recent times, among many others, 
 Malebranche, Berkeley, Clacke, Newton, Abraham Tucker, 
 etc. To these is also, but problematically, to be referred 
 Locke. To the second, or class lidding the finer hypothesis of 
 representation, belong, without any doubt, many of the Pla- 
 tcnists, Leibnitz, Arnauld, Crousaz, Gfliulillac, Jvant, .etc. and 
 to this class is also, probably, to be referred Descartes. 
 
 Monists subdivided. The philosophical Unitarians or Mo- 
 nists reject the testimony of consciousness to the ultimate dual- 
 ity of the subject and object in perception, but they arrive 
 at the unity of these in different ways. Si?Bie admit the tes- 
 timony of consciousness to the equipoise of the mental and 
 material phenomena, and do not attempt to reduce either mind 
 to matter, or matter to mind. They reject, however, the evi*
 
 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 203 
 
 J(ence of consciousness to their antithesis in existence, and 
 maintain that mind and matter are only phsenqmenal modifica- 
 tions of the same common substance. This is the doctrine_j>f 
 Absolute M<-n;i:y. -a doctrine of which i!i<- most iMiMrit.u-: 
 representatives among recent philosophers are Schelling, Hegel, 
 and Cousin. Qthgrs. again, deny the evidence of conscious- 
 ness to the equipoise of the subject and object as coordinate 
 and cooriginal elements ; and as the balance is inclined in favor 
 of the one relative or the other, two opposite schemes of 
 psychology are determined. If the subject be taken as the 
 original and genetic, and the object evolved from it as its pro- 
 duct, the theory of Idealism is established. On the other hand, 
 if the object be assumed as the original and genetic, and the 
 subject evolved from it as its product, the theory of Materialism 
 is established. 
 
 Opposite errors often counteract each other. In regard to 
 these two opposites schemes of a one-sided philosophy, I would 
 at present make an observation to which it may be afterwards 
 necessary to recur ; namely, that a philosophical system is 
 often prevented from falling into absolute Idealism or absolute 
 Materialism, and held in a kind of vacillating equilibrium, not 
 in consequence of being based on the fact of consciousness, but 
 from the circumstance, that its Materialistic tendency in one 
 opinion happens to be counteracted by its Idealistic tendency in 
 another ; two opposite errors, in short, cooperating to the 
 same result as one truth. On this ground is to be explained, 
 why the philosophy of Locke and Condillac did not more easily 
 elide into Materialism. Deriving our whole knowledge, medi- 
 ately or immediately, from the senses, this philosophy seemed 
 destined to be fairly analyzed into a scheme of Materialism ; 
 but from this it was for a long time preserved, in consequence 
 of involving a doctrine, which, on the other hand, if not coun- 
 teracted, would have naturally carried it over into Idealism. 
 This was the doctrine of a jiejjr.eseiUa.tive Perception. The 
 legitimate issue of such a doctrine is now admitted, on all 
 hands, to be absolute Idealism; and the only ground on which 
 it has been latterly thought possible to avoid this conclusion,-
 
 204 VARIOCJS THEO.RIES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 an appeal to the natural belief of mankind in the existence of an 
 external world, is, as I showed you, incompetent to the Hy- 
 pothetical Dualist or Cosmothetic Idealist. In his hands, such 
 an appeal is self-contradictory. For, if this universal belief be 
 fairly applied, it only proves the existence of an outer world by 
 disproving the hypothesis of a Representative Perception. 
 
 To^ recapitulate, wha.t. T hnvp now said: \ fWhen I_concen- 
 trate my attention in the simplest act of Perception, I return 
 from my^ observation with the most irresistible conviction_pf^ 
 two facts, or ratKer~two branches of the same fact, that 
 / am, and that something different from me exists. In 
 this acjj_l ^m.jcpji5cious_Qf _myself as the perceiving subject, 
 and of an external reality as the object perceived ; and I am 
 conscious of both existences in the same indivisible moment of 
 intuition. The knowledge of the subject does not precede or 
 follow the knowledge of the object ; neither determines, 
 neither is determined by, the other. The two terms of correla- 
 tion stand in mutual counterpoise and equal independence ; 
 they are given as connected in the synthesis of knowledge, but 
 as contrasted in the antithesis of existence. 
 
 Such is the fact of Perception revealed in consciousness, and 
 as it determines mankind in general in their equal assurance of 
 the reality of an external world, and of the existence of their 
 own minds. Consciousness declares our knowledge of material 
 qualities to be intuitive. Nor is the fact, as given, denied even 
 by those who disallow its truth. So clear is the deliverance, 
 that even the philosophers who reject an intuitive perception, 
 find it impossible not to admit, that their doctrine stands decid- 
 edly opposed to the voice of consciousness and the natural con- 
 viction of mankind. 
 
 According as the truth of the fact of consciousness in percep- 
 tion is entirely accepted, accepted in part, or wholly rejected, six 
 possible and actual systems of philosophy result. We say ex- 
 plicitly the truth of the fact. For ihcfact, as a phenomenon 
 of consciousness, cannot be doubted ; since to doubt that we are 
 conscious of this or that, is impossible. The doubt, as itself a 
 phenomenon of consciousness, \\ould annihilate itself.
 
 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 205 
 
 1. If the veracity of consciousness be unconditionally admit- 
 ted, if the intuitive knowledge of mind and matter, and the 
 consequent reality of their antithesis be taken as truths, to be 
 explained if possible, but in themselves to be held as paramount 
 to all doubt, the doctrine is established which we would call the 
 .scheme of Natural Realism, or Natural Dualism^ 2. If the 
 veracity of consciousness be allowed to the equipoise of the 
 object and subject in the act, but rejected as to the reality of 
 their antithesis, the_systera of Absolute Identity tMnp.ro-pa T which 
 reduces^ both mind_juid matter toj)haenomena] L rmxjificjitipns of 
 the same common jubsUvnce. 3 and 4. ILtheJe_stiiuony^of 
 consciousness? i be refused. to_the^ jCQ-origiuality and reciprocal 
 independence of the subject and object, two schemes are deter- 
 mined, according as the one or the other of the terms is placed 
 as the original and genetic. Is the object educed from the_sub- 
 ject 7 Idealism ; is the subject educed from the object, Mate- 
 rialism, is the result. 5. Again, is the consciousness itself 
 recognized only as a phenomenon, and the substantial reality of 
 both subject and object denied, the issue is Nihilism. 
 
 6. These systems are all conclusions from an original inter- 
 pretation of the fact of consciousness in Perception, carried, 
 intrepidly forth to its legitimate issue. But there is one 
 scheme, which, violating the integrity of this fact, and, with the 
 complete Idealist, regarding the object of consciousness in Per- 
 ception as only a modification of the percipient subject, or, at 
 least, a phenomenon numerically different from the object it 
 represents, endeavors, however, to stop short of the negation 
 of an external world, the reality of which, and the knowledge of 
 whose reality, it seeks by various hypotheses to establish and ex- 
 plain. This scheme, which we would term Cosmothctic Ideal 
 ism, Hypothetical Realism, or Hypothetical Dualism, although 
 the most inconsequent of all systems, has been embraced, under 
 various forms, by the immense majority of philosophers. 
 
 Of these systems, Dr. ipniwn adheres to the hist. lie holds 
 
 that the mind is conscious, or immediately cognizant, of nothing 
 
 Ityond its subjective states ; but he assumes the existence of an 
 
 external world beyond the sphere of consciousness, exclusively 
 
 18
 
 206 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 on the ground of our irresistible belief in its unknown reality 
 Independent of this belief, there is no reasoning on which the 
 existence of matter can be vindicated ; the logic of the Idealist 
 he admits to be unassailable. 
 
 It will be proper, first, to generalize the possible forms undet 
 which the hypothesis of a Representative Perception can be real- 
 ized; as a confusion of some of these as actually held, on the 
 part both of Reid and Brown, has tended to introduce no small 
 confusion into the discussion. 
 
 The Hypothetical Realist contends, that he is wholly ignorant 
 of things in themselves, and that these are known to him only 
 through a vicarious phenomenon, of which he is conscious in 
 perception ; 
 
 ' Rerumque ignarns, Imagine gaudet.' 
 
 In_j)ther words, that the object immediately known and repre- 
 senting is numerically different from the object really existing 
 and represented. iow this vicarious phenomenon, or imme- 
 diate object, must either be numerically different from the per- 
 cipient intellect, or a modification of that intellect itself. Ijtlhe 
 latter, it must, again, either be a modification of the thinking 
 substance, with a transcendent existence beyond the act of 
 thought, or a modification identical with the act of perception 
 itself. 
 
 All possible forms of the representative hypothesis are thus 
 reduced to three, and these have all been actually maintained. 
 
 1. The representative object not a modification of mind. 
 
 2. The representative object a modification of mind, depend' 
 ent for its apprehension, but not for its existence, on the act of 
 fonsciousness. 
 
 3. The representative object a modification of mind, non- 
 existent out of conscioi/KncM ; (he idea and its perception 
 only different relations of an act really identical.^ Discussions. 
 
 It would be turning aside, from my present purpose, were I 
 to attempt any articulate refutation of these various systems. 
 What I have now in view is to exhibit to you how, the inoiaent 
 that the fact of consciousness . in its absolute integrity is surren-
 
 INTERCOURSE OF MIND AND BODY. 207 
 
 dercd, philosophy at once falls from unity and truth into variety 
 and error. Jn_xeali^_bjL_lhe. Yery aefc^fl-xefusing anytime 
 datum _qf_ consciousness, philosophy invalidates the whole credi- 
 bility of consciousness, and consciousness ruined as an instru- 
 ment, philosophy is extinct^ Thus, the refusal of philosophers 
 to accept the fact of the duality of consciousness is virtually _an 
 act of philosophical suicide. Their various systems are now 
 only so many empty spectresj so many enchanted corpses, 
 which the first exorcism of the sceptic reduces to their natural 
 nothingness. The mutual polemic of these systems is like the 
 warfare of shadows ; as the heroes in Valhalla, they hew each 
 other into pieces, only in a twinkling to be reunited, and ; 
 again to amuse themselves in other bloodless and indecisive 
 contests. 
 
 Mode of intercourse between Mind and Body. Having now 
 given a general view of the various systems of philosophy, in 
 their mutual relations, as founded on the great fact of the 
 Duality of Consciousness, I proceed, in subordination to this 
 fact, to give a brief account of certain famous hypotheses which 
 it is necessary for you to know, hypotheses proposed in solu- 
 tion of the problem of how intercourse of substances so oppo- 
 site as mind and body could be accomplished. These hypotheses, 
 of course, belong exclusively to the doctrine of Dualism ; for in 
 the Unitarian system, the difficulty is resolved by the annihila- 
 tion of the opposition, and the reduction of the two substances 
 to one. The hypotheses I allude to are known under the names, 
 1, Of the system of Assistance or of Occasional Causes ; 2, 
 Of the Preestablished Harmony ; _, Of the Plastic Medium ; 
 and^.4, Of Physical Influence. The Jirst belongs to Descartes 
 De la Forge, Malebranche, and the Cartesians in general; th 
 fgcpml to Leibnitz and Wolf, though not universally adopted by 
 their school; the third was an ancient opinion revived in mod 
 ern times by Cudworth and Le Clerc ; the (ourth is the common 
 doctrine of the Schoolmen, and, though not explicitly enounced, 
 that generally prevalent at present; among modern philoso- 
 phers, it has been expounded with great perspicuity by l^uler 
 We shall take these in their order.
 
 208 INTERCOURSE OF MIND AND BODY. 
 
 Occasional Causes, The hypothesis of Diyme_ Assistance 
 or of Occasional Causes, sets out from the apparent impossi- 
 bility, involved in Dualism, of any actual communication be- 
 tween a spiritual and a material substance, jltat is T between 
 extended and non-extended .existences.; and it terminates in 
 the assertion, that the Deity, on occasion of the affections of 
 matter of the motions of the bodily organism, excites in the 
 mind correspondent thoughts and representations; and on occa- 
 sion of thoughts or representations arising in the mind, thai 
 He, in like manner, produces the correspondent movements in 
 the body. But more explicitly : [as Laromiguiere remarks,] 
 " God, according to the advocates of this scheme, governs the 
 universe, and its constituent existences, by the laws according 
 to which lie has created them ; and as the world was originally 
 called into being by a mere fiat of the divine will, so it owes the 
 continuance of its existence from moment to moment only to the 
 unremitted perseverance of the same volition. Let the sustain- 
 ing energy of the divine will cease, but for an instant, and the 
 universe lapses into nothingness. The existence of created 
 things is thus exclusively maintained by a creation, as it were, 
 incessantly renewed. God is, thus, the necessary cause of 
 every modification of body, and of every modification of 
 mind ; and his efficiency is sufficient to afford an explanation 
 of the union and intercourse of extended and unextended sub- 
 stances. 
 
 " External objects determine certain movements in our bodily 
 organs of sense, and these movements are, by the nerves and 
 animal spirits, propagated to the brain. The brain doe_s not 
 act immediately and really upon the soul ; the soul has no 
 direct cognizance of any modification of the brain ; this is im- 
 possible. It is God himself, who, by a law which lie has estab- 
 lished, when movements are determined in the brain, produces 
 analogous modifications in the conscious mind. In like manner, 
 suppose the mind has a volition to move the arm ; this volition 
 is, of itself, inefficacious ; but God, in virtue of the same law, 
 causes the answering motion in our limb. The body is not, 
 therefore, the real cause of the mental modifications; nor the
 
 INTERCOURSE OF MIND AND BODY. 20J 
 
 mind the real cause of the bodily movements. Nevertheless,, 
 as the soul would not be modified without the antecedent changes 
 in the body, nor the body moved without the antecedent deter- 
 mination of the soul, these changes and determinations are 
 in a certain sort necessary. But this necessity is not absolute ; 
 it is only hypothetical or conditional. The_organic changes, 
 and the mental determinations, are nothing but simple condi- 
 tions, and not real causes ; in short, they are occasions or occa- 
 sional causes." This doctrine of occasional causes is called, 
 likewise, the hypothesis of Assistance, as supposing the imme- 
 diate cooperation or intervention of the Deity. It is involved 
 in the Cartesian theory, and, therefore, belongs to Descartes ; 
 but it was fully evolved by De la Forge, Malebranche, and 
 other followers of Descartes. It may, however, be traced far 
 higher. Many of the most illustrious philosophers of the mid- 
 dle ages maintained that God is the only real agent in the 
 universe. To this doctrine Dr. Reid inclines, and it is expressly 
 maintained by Mr. Stewart. 
 
 Preestablished Harmony. This hypothesis did not satisfy 
 Leibnitz. " He reproaches the Cartesians," [says Laromiguiere,] 
 u with converting the universe into a perpetual miracle,, and of - 
 explaining the natural, by a supernatural, order. This would 
 annihilate philosophy ; for philosophy consists in the investiga- 
 tion and discovery of the second causes which produce the vari- 
 ous phenomena of the universe. You degrade the Divinity," he 
 subjoined ; " you make him act like a watchmaker, who, hav- 
 ing constructed a timepiece, would still be obliged himself to 
 turn the hands to make it mark the hours. A skilful mechanist 
 would so frame his clock, that it would go for a certain period 
 without assistance or interposition, jSu_wJien God created man, 
 le disposed his organs and faculties in such a manner that they 
 arc able, of themselves, to execute their functions and maintain 
 their activity from birth to death." 
 
 Leibnitz thought In- had devised a more philosophical scheme, 
 in the hypothesis of the prcestablished or predetermined Har- 
 mony. This hypothesis denies all real connection, not oniy 
 between spiritual and material substances, but between sub- 
 18*
 
 210 INTERCOURSE OF MIND AND BODY. 
 
 stances in general ; and explains their apparent communion 
 from a previously decreed coarrangement of the Supreme Be- 
 ing, in the following manner : * " God, before creating souls 
 and bodies, knew all these souls and bodies ; he knew also al] 
 possible souls and bodies. Now, in this infinite variety of 
 possible souls and bodies, it was necessary that there should be 
 souls whose series of perceptions and determinations would 
 correspond to the series of movements which some of these 
 possible bodies would execute ; for in an infinite number of 
 souls, and in an infinite number of bodies, there would be found 
 all possible combinations. Now, suppose that, out of a soul 
 whose series of modifications corresponded exactly to the series 
 of modifications which a certain body was destined to perform, 
 and of this body whose successive movements were correspond- 
 ent to the successive modifications of this soul, God should 
 make a man ; it is evident, that between the two substances 
 which constitute this man, there would subsist the most perfect 
 harmony. It is, thus, no longer necessary to devise theories to 
 account for the reciprocal intercourse of the material and the 
 spiritual substances. These have no communication, no mutual 
 influence. The soul passes from one state, from one perception, 
 to another, by virtue of its own nature. The body executes the 
 series of its movements without any participation or interference 
 of the soul in these. The soul and body are like two clocks 
 accurately regulated, which point to the same hour and minute, 
 although the spring which gives motion to the one is not the 
 spring which gives motion to the other. Thus the harmony 
 which appears to combine the soul and body is, however, inde- 
 pendent of any reciprocal action. This harmony was estab- 
 lished before the creation of man ; and hence it is called the 
 Preestabli.shed or pred itennincd Harmony." 
 
 It is needless to attempt a refutation of this hypothesis, which 
 its author himself probably regarded more as a specimen of 
 ingenuity than as a serious doctrine. 
 
 PlasLic^f^dijjjn. The third hypothesis is that of a Plastic 
 
 * [The following expositions of the second, third, and fourth hypotheses 
 we all translated by Hamilton from Laromi^uiere.] Am. Ed.
 
 INTERCOURSE OF MIND AND BODY. 211 
 
 Medium between the soul and body, " Tjuajnedium partici- 
 pates of the two natures ; it is partly material, partly spiritual. 
 As material, it can be acted on by the body ; and as spiritual, 
 ft can act upon the mind. It is the middle term of a continu- 
 ous proportion. It is a bridge thrown over the abyss which '. 
 separates matter from spirit. This hypothesis is too absurd for 
 refutation ; it annihilates itself. Between an extended and 
 nnextended substance, there can be no middle existence ; [these 
 being not simply different in degree, but contradictory.] If the 
 medium be neither body nor soul, it is a chimera; if it is at 
 once body and soul, it is contradictory; or if, to avoid the_ con- 
 tradiction, it is said to be, like us, the union of _sou_l and body, 
 jt is itself in want of a medium." 
 
 Pfy&ql JpfifnC&i The fourth hypothesis is that of Physi- 
 cal Influence. "On this doctrine, external objects affect our 
 senses, and the organic motion they determine is communicated 
 to the brain. The brain acts upon the soul, and the soul has an 
 idea, a perception. The mind, thus possessed of a perception 
 or idea, is affected for good or ill. If it suffers, it seeks to be 
 relieved of pain. It acts ia its turn upon the brain, in which 
 it causes a movement in the nervous system ; the nervous sys- 
 tem causes a muscular motion in the limbs, a motion directed 
 to remove or avoid the object which occasions the sensation of 
 pain. 
 
 "The brain is the seat of the soul, and, on this hypothesis, 
 the soul has been compared to a spider seated in the centre of 
 its web. The moment the least agitation is caused at the ex- 
 tremity of this web, the insect is advertised and put upon the 
 watch. In like manner, the mind situated in the brain has a 
 point on which all the nervous filaments converge ; it is informed 
 of what passes at the different parts of the body ; and forthwith 
 it takes its measures accordingly. The body thus acts with a 
 real efficiency on the mind, and the mind acts with a real effi- 
 ciency upon the body. This action or influence being real, 
 physical, in the course of nature, the body exerts a physical 
 influence upon the, soul, the soul a physical influence upon tha 
 body.
 
 212 INTERCOURSE OF MIND AND BODY. 
 
 " This system is simple, but it affords us no help in explain, 
 ing the mysterious union of an extended and an unextended 
 substance. 
 
 ' Tangcre cnim et tangi nisi corpus nulla potcst res.' 
 
 Nothing can touch and be touched but what is extended ; and 
 if the soul be unextended, it can have no connection by touch 
 with the body, and the physical influence is inconceivable cr 
 contradictory." 
 
 Historical order of these hypotheses. If we consider these 
 hypotheses in relation to their historical manifestation, the 
 -' doctrine of Physical Influence would stand first ; for this doc- 
 trine, which was only formally developed into system by the 
 later Peripatetics, was that prevalent in the earlier schools of 
 Greece. The Aristotelians, who held that the soul was the 
 substantial form, the vital principle, of the body, that the soul 
 was all in the whole and all in every part of the body, natu- 
 rally allowed a reciprocal influence of these. By influence (in 
 Latin, influxus), you are to understand the relation of a cause 
 to its effect ; and the term, now adopted into every vulgar lan- 
 guage of Europe, was brought into use principally by the au- 
 thority of .&jjiz, a Spanish Jesuit, who flourished at the close 
 of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, 
 and one of the most illustrious metaphysicians of modern times. 
 By him a cause is defined, principium per se influens esse in 
 ahud. This definition, however, and the use of the metaphysi- 
 cal term influence, (for it is nothing more,) are not, as is sup- 
 posed, original with him. They are to be found in the pseudo- 
 Aristotelic treatise, De Causis. 
 
 The second hypothesis in chronological order is that of the 
 Plastic Medium. It is to be traced to Plato. That philosopher, 
 in illustrating the relations of the two constituents cf man, 
 Bays that the soul is in the body like a sailor in a ship ; that the 
 soul employs the body as its instrument ; but that the energy, 
 or life and sense, of the body, is the manifestation of a different 
 substance, of a substance which holds a kind of intermediate 
 existence between mind and matter. This conjecture, which
 
 INTERCOURSE OF MIND AND BODY. 215 
 
 Plato only obscurely hinted at, was elaborated with peculiar 
 partiality by his followers of the Alexandrian school ; and, in 
 their psychology, the o^og, or vehicle of the soul, the medium 
 through which it is united to the body, is a prominent element 
 and distinctive principle. To this opinion j$L Austin, among 
 other Christian fathers, was inclined ; and, in modern times, it 
 has been revived and modified by Gasaendi, Cudworth, and Le 
 
 Descartes agrees with the Platonists, in opposition to the 
 Aristotelians, that the soul is not the substantial form of the 
 body, but is connected with it only at a single point in the brain, 
 namely, the jineaLgland. The pineal gland, he supposes, is 
 the central point at which the organic movements of the body 
 terminate, when conveying to the mind the determinations to 
 voluntary motion. But Descartes did not allow, like the Pla- 
 tonists, any intermediate or connecting substance. The nature 
 of the connection he himself does not very explicitly state ; 
 but his disciples have evolved the hypothesis, already explained, 
 of Occasional Causes, in which God is the connecting principle, i 
 
 an hypothesis at least implicitly contained in his philosophy. 
 Finally, Leibnitz and Wolf agree with the Cartesians, that 
 
 there is no real, but only an apparent, intercourse between mind 
 and body. To explain this apparent intercourse they do no* 
 however, resort to the continual assistance or interposition of 
 the Deity, but have recourse to the supposition of a harmony 
 between mind and body, established before the creation of 
 either. 
 
 These hypotheses unphilosophical. All these theories art 
 unphilosophical, because they all attempt to establish something 
 beyond the sphere of observation, and, consequently, beyor/i 
 the sphere of genuine philosophy ; and because they are either 
 like the Cartesian and Leibnitzian theories, contradictions c :' 
 the fact of consciousrvss ; or, like the two other hypotheses, at 
 variance with the fact which they suppose. What St. Austin 
 so admirably says of the substance, either of mind or of body, 
 
 "Materiam spiritumque cognoscendo ignorari, ft ignorando 
 cognosci," I would exhort you to adopt as your opinion in re-
 
 214 INTERCOURSE OF MIND AND BODY. 
 
 gard to the union of these two existences. In short, in the 
 words of Pascal, " Man is to himself the mightiest prodigy of 
 nature ; for he is unable to conceive what is body, still less what 
 is mind, but least of all, is he able to conceive how a body can 
 be united to a mind ; yet this is his proper being." A content- 
 ed ignorance is, indeed, wiser than a presumptuous knowledge ; 
 but this is a lesson which seems the last that philosophers are 
 willing to learn. In the words of one of the acutest modern 
 thinkers " Magna, immo maxima, pars sapiential est, quaedana 
 BQUO animo nescire velle."
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 GENERAL PHENOMENA OF CONSCIOUSNESS ARE Wl 
 ALWAYS CONSCIOUSLY ACTIVE? 
 
 THE second General Fact of Consciousness which we shall 
 Dnsider, and out of which several questions of great interest 
 rise, is the fact, or correlative facts, of the Activity and 
 Passivity of Mind. 
 
 Activity and Passivity always conjoined in mind. There ii 
 no pure activity, no pure passivity in creation. All things in 
 the universe of nature are reciprocally in a state of continual 
 action and counter-action ; they are alway active and passive 
 at once. God alone must be thought of as being active with- 
 out any mixture of passivity, as his activity is subjected to no 
 limitation. But precisely because it is unlimited, is it for us 
 wholly incomprehensible. 
 
 Activity and passivity are not, therefore, in the manifesta- 
 tions of mind, distinct and independent phenomena. This is a 
 great, though a common, error. They are always conjoined. 
 There is no operation of mind which is purely active ; no affec- 
 tion which is purely passive. In every mental modification, 
 action and passion are the two necessary elements or factors of 
 which it is composed. But though both are always present, 
 each is not, however, always present in equal quantity. Some- 
 times the one constituent preponderates, sometimes the other ; 
 and if is from the preponderance of the active element in some 
 modifications, of the passive element in others, that we distin- 
 guish these modifications by different names, 'and consider them 
 as activities or passivities according as they approximate to one 
 or other of the two factors. Thus faculty, operation, energy, 
 
 (215)
 
 216 GENERAL PH/ENOMENA OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 are words that we employ to designate the manifestations in 
 which activity is predominant. Faculty denotes an active 
 power ; action, operation, energy, denote its present exertion. 
 On the other hand, capacity expresses a passive power ; affec- 
 tion, passion, express a present suffering. The terms, mode, 
 nodijication, state, may be used indifferently to signify both 
 phenomena ; but it mut be acknowledged that these, espe- 
 cially the word state, are now closely associated with the pas- 
 sivity of mind, which they, therefore, tend rather to suggest. 
 The passivity of mind is expressed by another term, receptivity; 
 for passivity is only the condition, the necessary antecedent of 
 activity, only the property possessed by the mind of standing in 
 relation to certain foreign causes, of receiving from them, 
 impressions, determinations to act. 
 
 No consciousness of passivity. It is to be observed, that we 
 are never directly conscious of passivity. Consciousness only 
 commences with, is only cognizant of, the reaction consequent 
 upon the foreign determination to act ; and this reaction is not 
 itself passive. In so far, therefore, as we are conscious, we are 
 active ; whether there be a mental activity of which we are not 
 conscious, is another question. 
 
 There are certain arduous problems connected with the 
 activity of mind, which will be more appropriately considered 
 [hereafter]. At present, I shall only treat of those questions 
 which are conversant about the immediate phenomena of 
 activity. Of these, the first that I shall consider is one of con- 
 siderable interest, and which, though variously determined by 
 different philosophers, does not seem to lie beyond the sphere 
 of observation. I allude to the question, Whether we are 
 always consciously active? 
 
 Are we always consciously active? It is evident that this 
 question is not convertible, with the question, Have we always 
 a memory of our consciousness? for the latter problem must 
 be at once answered in the negative. It is also evident, that 
 we must exclude the consideration of those states in which the 
 mind is apparently without consciousness, but in regard to 
 which, in reality, we can obtain no information from experi-
 
 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 217 
 
 ment. Concerning these, we must be contented to remain in 
 ignorance ; at least, only to extend to them the analogical con- 
 clusions which our observations on those within the sphere of 
 experiment warrant us inferring. Our question, as one of pos- 
 sible solution, must, therefore, be limited to the states of sleep 
 nnd somnambulism, to the exclusion of those states of insensi- 
 oility which we cannot terminate suddenly at will. It is hardly 
 necessary to observe, that with the nature of sleep and som- 
 dambulism, as psychological phenomena, we have at present 
 jothing to do ; our consideration is now strictly limited to the 
 inquiry, Whether the mind, in as far as we can make it matter 
 f observation, is always in a stute of conscious activity. The 
 general probfem in regard to the ceaseless activity of the mind 
 has been one agitated from very ancient times, but it has also 
 been one on which philosophers have pronounced less on grounds 
 oi experience than of theory. Plato and the Platonists were 
 unanimous in maintaining the continual energy of intellect. 
 The opinion of Aristotle appears doubtful, and passages may 
 be quoted from his works in fvor of either alternative. Tha 
 Aristotelians, in general, were opposed, but a considerable num- 
 ber were favorable, to the Platonic doctrine. The question, 
 however, obtained its principal importance in the philosophy of 
 Descartes. That philosopher made the essence, the very exist- 
 ence, of the soul to consist in actual thought, under which he 
 included even the desires and feelings ; and thought he denned 
 all oi which we are conscious. The assertion, therefore, of 
 Descartes, that the mind always thinks, is, in his employment 
 of language, tantamount to the assertion that the mind is 
 always conscious. 
 
 Locke's argument for the negative. That the mind is 
 always conscious, though a fundamental position of the Carte- 
 sian doctrine, was rather assumed than proved by an appeal to 
 fact and experience. All is theoretical in Descartes ; all is 
 theoretical in his disciples. Even Malebranche assumes our 
 consciousness in sleep, and explains our oblivion only by a 
 mechanical hypothesis. It was, therefore, easy for Locke to 
 deny the truth of the Cartesian opinion, and to give a strong 
 10
 
 218 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 
 
 semblance of probability to his own doctrine by its apparent 
 conformity with the phenomena. Omitting a good deal of 
 what is either irrelevant to the general question, or what is now 
 admitted to be false, as founded on his erroneous doctrine of 
 personal identity, the following is the sum of Locke's argumen' 
 upon the point. " We know certainly by experience," | he 
 eay?,] " that we sometimes think, and thence draw this infallible 
 consequence, that there is something in us that has a power to 
 think : but whether that substance perpetually thinks or no, we 
 can be no further assured than experience informs us. For to 
 eay that actually thinking is essential to the soul, and insepara- 
 ble from it, is to beg what is in question, and not to prove it by 
 reason ; which is necessary to be done, if it be not a self- 
 evident proposition. But whether this, ' that the soul always 
 thinks,' be a self-evident proposition, that everybody assents to 
 at first hearing, I appeal to mankind. It is doubted whether I 
 thought all last night or no ; the question being about a matter 
 of fact, it is begging it to bring as a proof for it an hypothesis 
 which is the very tiling in dispute ; by which way one may 
 prove any thing." . ..." It will, perhaps, be said, that ' the 
 soul thinks even in the soundest sleep, but the memory retains 
 it not.' That the soul in a sleeping man should be this moment 
 busy a-thinking, and the next moment in a waking man not 
 remember nor be able to recollect one jot of all those thoughts, 
 is very hard to be conceived, and would need some better proof 
 than bare assertion to make it be believed. For who can, 
 without any more ado but being barely told so, imagine that the 
 greatest part of men do, during all their lives, for several hours 
 every day, think of something which, if they were asked even 
 in the middle of these thoughts, they could remember nothing 
 at all of? Most men, I think, pass a great part of their sleep 
 without dreaming. I once knew a man that was bred a scholar 
 and had no bad memory, who told me he had never dreamed in 
 his life, till he had that fever he was then newly recovered of, 
 which was about the five or six and twentieth year of his age. 
 I suppose the world affords more such instances ; at least every 
 one's acquaintance will furnish him with examples enough of
 
 THE MIND NE\ER SLEEPS. 219 
 
 such as pass most of their nights without dreaming." .... 
 And again, "If they say that a man is always conscious V) 
 himself of thinking ; I ask how they know it ? ' Conscio'^ness 
 is the perception of what passes in a man's own mind, 3an 
 another man perceive that I am conscious of any thing, when I 
 perceive it not myself? ' No man's knowledge here can go 
 beyond his experience. Wake a man out of a sound sleep, 
 and ask him what he was that moment thinking on. If ht 
 himself be conscious of nothing he then thought on, he must be 
 a notable diviner of thoughts that can assure him that he was 
 thinking : may he not with more reason assure him he was not 
 asleep ? This is something beyond philosophy ; and it cannot 
 be less than revelation that discovers to another thoughts in my 
 mind when I can find none there myself; and they must needs 
 have a penetrating sight who can certainly see what I think 
 when I cannot perceive it myself, and when I declare that I do 
 not. This some may think to be a step beyond the Rosicru- 
 cians, it being easier to make one's self invisible to others, than 
 to make another's thoughts visible to one which are not visible 
 to himself. But it is but defining the soul v to be ' a substance 
 that always thinks,' and the business is done." 
 
 Locke's view opposed by Leibnitz. This decision of Locke 
 was rejected by Leibnitz. He observes, in reply to the suppo- 
 sition that continual consciousness is an attribute of Him " who 
 neither slumbereth nor sleepeth," ' that this affords no inference 
 that in sleep we are wholly without perception.' To the re- 
 mark, "that it is diflicult to conceive, that a being can think 
 and not be conscious of thought," he replies, ' that in this lies 
 the whole knot and difficulty of the matter. But this is not in- 
 soluble.' " We must observe," he says, " that we think of a 
 multitude of things at once, but take heed only of those thoughts 
 that are the more prominent. Nor could it be otherwise. For 
 were we to take heed of every thing, it would be neees-ary to 
 attend to an infinity of matters at the same moment, all of 
 which make an effectual impression on the sen-e-j. Xay, 1 
 assert that there remains always something of all our past 
 thought.- that none is ever entirely effaced. Now when we.
 
 220 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS 
 
 sleep without dreaming, and when stunned by a blow or othei 
 accident, there are formed in us an infinity of small confused 
 perceptions." And again he remarks: "That even when we 
 sleep without dreaming, there is always some feeble perception. 
 The act of awakening, indeed, shows this : and the more easily 
 we are roused, the clearer is the perception we have of what 
 passes without, although this perception is not always strong 
 enough to cause us to awake." 
 
 Now, in all this it will be observed, that Leibnitz does not 
 precisely answer the question we have mooted. He maintains 
 that the mind is never without perceptions, but, as he holds that 
 perceptions exist without consciousness, he cannot, though he 
 opposes Locke, be considered as affirming that the mind is 
 never without consciousness during sleep, in short, does al- 
 ways dream. 
 
 But if Leibnitz cannot be adduced as categorically asserting 
 that there is no sleep without its dream, this cannot be said of 
 Kant. That great thinker distinctly maintains that we always 
 dream when asleep ; that to cease to dream would be to cease 
 to live ; and that those who fancy they have not dreamt have 
 only forgotten their dream. This is all that the manual of 
 Ant/tropology, published by himself, contains upon the question ; 
 but in a manuscript in my possession, which bears to be a work 
 of Kant, but is probably only a compilation from notes taken 
 at his lectures on Anthropology, it is further stated that we can 
 dream more in a minute than we can act during a day, and that 
 the great rapiditv of the train of thought in sleep, is one of the 
 principal causes why we do not always recollect what \\e dream. 
 He el-ewhere ; ,lso ob-erve>, that the cessation of a force to act 
 iit tantamount to its ce.-sation to be. 
 
 The icakpf ulncss <>f mind pr(>rcd from somnambulism. 
 Though the determination of this question is one that serins not 
 extremely dillicult, we lind it dealt with by philosophers, on the 
 one side and the other, rather by hypothesis than by experi- 
 ment ; at lc;i-t. we have, with one partial exception, which I 
 Hin soon to quote to you, no observations sufficiently accurate 
 und detailed to warrant us in establishing more than a very
 
 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 221 
 
 doubtful conclusion. I have myself at different times turned 
 my attention to the point, and, as far as my observations go, 
 they certainly tend to prove that, during sleep, the mind is 
 never either inactive or wholly unconscious of its activity. As 
 to the objection of Locke and others, that, as we have often no 
 recollection of dreaming, we have, therefore, never dreamt, it is 
 sufficient to say that the assumption m this argument thai 
 consciousness, and the recollection of consciousness, are conver- 
 tible is disproved in the most emphatic manner by experience. 
 You have all heard of the phenomenon of somnambulism. In 
 this remarkable state, the various mental faculties are usually 
 in a higher degree of power than in the natural. The patient 
 has recollections of what he has wholly forgotten. He speaks 
 languages of which, when awake, he remembers not a word. 
 If he use a vulgar dialect when out of this state, in it he em- 
 ploys only a correct and elegant phraseology. The imagination, 
 the sense of propriety, and the faculty of reasoning, are all in 
 general exalted. The bodily powers are in high activity, and 
 under the complete control of the will ; and, it is well known, 
 persons in this state have frequently performed feats, of which, 
 when out of it, they would not even have imagined the possibil- 
 ity. And what is even more remarkable, the difference of the 
 faculties in the two states seems not confined merely to a differ- 
 ence in degree. For it happens, for example, that a person 
 who has no ear for music when awake, shall, in his somnambulic 
 crisis, sing with the utmost correctness and with full enjoyment 
 of his performance. Under this affection persons sometimes 
 live half their lifetime, alternating between the normal and ab- 
 normal states, and performing the ordinary functions of life 
 indifferently in both, with this distinction, that if the patient be 
 dull and doltish when he is said to be awake, he is comparatively 
 alert and intelligent when nominally asleep. I am in possession 
 of three works, written during the crisis by three different som- 
 nambulists. Now it is evident that consciousness, and an ex- 
 alted consciousness, must be allowed in somnambulism. This 
 cannot possibly be denied; but mark what follows. It is the 
 peculiarity of somnambulism, it is the differential quality by 
 19*
 
 222 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 
 
 which that state is contradistinguished from the state of dream 
 ing, that we have no recollection, when we awake, of what 
 has occurred during its continuance. Consciousness is thus cut 
 in two ; memory does not connect the train of consciousness in 
 the one state with the train of consciousness in the other. When 
 the patient again relapses into the state of somnambulism, he 
 again remembers all that had occurred during every former 
 alternative of that state ; but he not only remembers this, ho 
 recalls also the events of his normal existence; so that, whereas 
 the patient in his somnambulic crisis has a memory of hia 
 whole life, in his waking intervals he has a memory only of half 
 his life. 
 
 Dreaming possible without memory. At the time of Locke, 
 the phenomena of somnambulism had been very little studied ; 
 nay, so great is the ignorance that prevails in regard to its na- 
 ture even now, that you will find this, its distinctive character, 
 wholly unnoticed in the best works upon the subject. But this 
 distinction, you observe, is incompetent always to discriminate 
 the states of dreaming and somnambulism. It may be true 
 that, if we recollect our visions during sleep, this recollection 
 excludes somnambulism ; but the want of memory by no means 
 proves that the visions we are known by others to have had, 
 were not common dreams. The phenomena, indeed, do not 
 always enable us to discriminate the two states. Somnambu- 
 lism may exist in many different degrees ; the sleep-walking 
 from which it takes its name is only one of its higher phenom- 
 ena, and one comparatively rare. In general, the subject of 
 this affection does not leave his bed, and it is then frequently 
 impossible to say, whether the manifestations exhibited are the 
 phenomena of somnambulism or of dreaming. Talking during 
 sleep, for example, may be a symptom of either ; and it is often 
 only from our general knowledge of the habits and predisposi- 
 tions of the sleeper, that we are warranted in referring this 
 effect to the one and not to the other da-. of phenomena. We 
 have, however, abundant evidence to prove that forget fulness 
 is not a decisive criterion of somnambulism. Persons whom 
 there is no reason to su.-i>eet of this alVection often manifest
 
 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 223 
 
 during sleep the strongest indications of dreaming, and yet, 
 when they awaken in the morning, retain no memory of what 
 they may have done or said during the night. Locke's argu- 
 ment, that because we do not always remember our conscious- 
 ness during sleep, we have not, therefore, been always conscious, 
 is thus, on the ground of fact and analogy, disproved. 
 
 ei>ults of personal experience. But this is not all. We 
 can not only show that the fact of the mind remaining conscious 
 during sleep is possible, is even probable, we can also show, by 
 an articulate experience, that this actually occurs. The follow- 
 ing observations are the result of my personal experience, and 
 similar experiments every one of you is competent to institute 
 for himself. 
 
 In the first place, when we compose ourselves to rest, we do 
 not always fall at once asleep, but remain for a time in a state 
 of incipient slumber, in a state intermediate between sleep 
 and waking. Now, if we are gently roused from this transition- 
 state, we find ourselves conscious of being in the commencement 
 of a dream ; we find ourselves occupied with a train of thought, 
 and this train we are still able to follow out to a point when it 
 connects itself with certain actual perceptions. We can still 
 trace imagination to sense, and show how, departing from the 
 last sensible impressions of real objects, the fancy proceeds in 
 its work of distorting, falsifying, and perplexing these, in order 
 to construct out of their ruins its own grotesque edifices. 
 
 In the second place, I have always observed, that when sud- 
 denly awakened during sleep, (and to ascertain the fact I have 
 caused myself to be roused at different seasons of the night,) I 
 have always been able to observe that I was in the middle of a 
 dream,, The recollection of this dream was not always equally 
 vivid On some occasions, I was able to trace it back until the 
 train was gradually lost at a remote distance ; on others, I was 
 hardly aware of more than one or two of the latter links of the 
 chain ; and. sometimes, was scarcely certain of more than the 
 fact, that I wa-= not awakened from an unconscious state. Why 
 we should not always be able to recollect our dreams, il is not 
 diilicult to explain In our waking and our sleeping .-tales, we
 
 224 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 
 
 are placed in two worlds of thought, not only different but con 
 trasted, and contrasted both in the character and in the inten- 
 sity of their representations. When snatched suddenly from 
 the twilight of our sleeping imaginations, and placed in the 
 meridian lustre of our waking perceptions, the necessary effect 
 of the transition is at once to eclipse or obliterate the traces of 
 our dreams. The act itself, also, of rousing us from sleep, by 
 abruptly interrupting the current of our thoughts, throws ua 
 into confusion, disqualifies us for a time from recollection, and 
 before we have recovered from our consternation, what we 
 could at first have easily discerned is fled or flying. 
 
 A sudden and violent is, however, in one respect, more 
 favorable than a gradual and spontaneous, wakening to the 
 observation of the phenomena of sleep. For, in the former 
 case, the images presented are fresh and prominent ; while in 
 the latter, before our attention is applied, the objects of obser- 
 vation have withdrawn darkling into the background of the 
 soul. We may, therefore, I think, assert, in general, that 
 whether we recollect our dreams or not, we always dream. 
 Something similar, indeed, to the rapid oblivion of our sleeping 
 consciousness, happens to us occasionally even when awake. 
 When our mind is not intently occupied with any subject, or 
 more frequently when fatigued, a thought suggests itself. We 
 turn it lazily over and fix our eyes in vacancy ; interrupted by 
 the question what we are thinking of, we attempt to answer, but 
 the thought is gone ; we cannot recall it, and say that we are 
 thinking of nothing. 
 
 General conclusion. The observations I have hitherto 
 made tend only to establish the fact, that the mind is never 
 wholly inactive, and that we are never wholly unconscious of 
 its activity. Of the degree and character of that activity, I at 
 present say nothing. But in confirmation of the opinion I 
 have now hazarded, and in proof of something more even than 
 1 have ventured to maintain, I have great pleasure in quot- 
 ing the substance of a remarkable essay on sleep by one 
 of the most distinguished of the philosophers of France. I 
 rei'er to M. Jouffroy, who, along with M. Royer Collard,
 
 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 22ft 
 
 was at the head of the pure school of Scottish Philosophy in 
 France. 
 
 The mind often awake when the senses sleep. "I have 
 never well understood those who admit that in sleep the mind 
 is dormant. When we dream, we are assuredly asleep, and 
 assuredly also our mind is not asleep, because it thinks ; it is, 
 therefore, manifest, that the mind frequently wakes when the 
 senses are in slumber. But this does not prove that it never 
 sleeps along with them. To sleep is for the mind not to dream; 
 and it is impossible to establish the fact, that there are in sleep 
 moments in which the mind does not dream. To have no 
 recollection of our dreams, does not prove that we have not 
 dreamt ; for it can be often proved that we have dreamt, al- 
 though the dream has left no trace on our memory. 
 
 " The fact, then, that the mind sometimes wakes while the 
 senses are asleep, is thus established ; whereas the fact, that it 
 sometimes sleeps along with them is not ; the probability, there- 
 fore, is, that it icakes always. It would require contradictory 
 facts to destroy the force of this induction, which, on the con- 
 trary, every fact seems to confirm. I shall proceed to analyze 
 some of these which appear to me curious and striking. They 
 manifestly imply rliis conclusion, that the mind, during sleep, is 
 not in a peculiar state, but that its activity is carried on pre- 
 cisely as when awake. 
 
 facts in support of this conclusion. "When an inhabitant 
 of the province comes to Paris, his sleep is at first disturbed, 
 and continually broken, by the noise of the carriages passing 
 under his window, lie soon, however, becomes accustomed to 
 the turmoil, and ends by sleeping at Paris as he slept in his 
 village. 
 
 " The noise, however, remains the same, and makes an equal 
 impression on his senses ; how comes it that this noise at 
 first hinders, and then, at length, does not hinder him, from 
 sleeping? 
 
 " The state of waking presents analogous facts. Every one 
 knows that it i.s difficult to fix our attention on a book, when 
 surrounded by persons engaged in conversation ; at length
 
 226 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 
 
 however, we acquire this faculty. A man unaccustomed to th 
 tumult of the streets of Paris is unable to think consecutively 
 while walking through them ; a Parisian finds no difficulty. 
 He meditates as tranquilly in the midst of the crowd and bustle 
 of men and carriages, as he could in the centre of the forest. 
 The analogy between these facts taken from the state of 
 waking, and the fact which I mentioned at the commencement, 
 taken from the state of sleep, is so close, that the explanation 
 of the former should throw some light upon the latter. Wo 
 shall attempt this explanation. 
 
 Analysis of Attention and Distraction. " Attention is the 
 voluntary application of the mind to an object. It is estab- 
 lished, by experience, that we cannot give our attention to two 
 different objects at the same time. Distraction is the removal 
 of our attention from a matter witli which we are engaged, and 
 our bestowal of it on another which crosses us. In distraction, 
 attention is only diverted because it is attracted by a new per- 
 ception or idea soliciting it more strongly than that with which 
 it is occupied ; and this diversion diminishes exactly in propor- 
 tion as the solicitation is weaker on the part of the intrusive 
 idea. All experience proves this. The more strongly atten- 
 tion is applied to a subject, the less susceptible is it of distrac- 
 tion ; thus it is, that a book which awakens a lively curiosity 
 retains the attention captive; a person occupied with a matter 
 affecting his life, his reputation, or his fortune, is not easily dis- 
 tracted ; he sees nothing, he understands nothing, of what 
 passes around him ; we say that lie is deeply preoccupied. In 
 like mariner, the greater our curiosity, or the more curious th* 
 things that are spoken of around us, the less able are we to 
 rivet our attention on the book we read. In like manner, also, 
 if we are waiting in expectation of any one, the slightest 
 noises occasion distraction, as these noises may be the signal of 
 the approach we anticipate. All these facts tend to prove, that 
 distraction results only when the intrusive idea solicits us more 
 strongly than that with which we are occupied. 
 
 " Hence it is, that the stranger in Paris cannot think in the 
 bustle of the streets. The impressions which assail his eyes
 
 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS 227 
 
 Wid ears on every side, being for him the signs of things new or 
 little known, when they reach his mind, interest him more strongly 
 than the matter even to which he would apply his thoughts. 
 Each of these impressions announces a cause which may be 
 beautiful, rare, curious, or terrific ; the intellect cannot refrain 
 from turning out to verify the fact. It turns out, however, no 
 longer when experience has made it familiar with all that can 
 strike the senses on the streets of Paris ; it remains within, and 
 no longer allows itself to be deranged. 
 
 " The other admits of a similar explanation. To read with- 
 out distraction, in the midst of an unknown company, would be 
 impossible. Curiosity would be too strong. This would also 
 be the case if the subject of conversation were very interest- 
 ing. But in a familiar circle, whose ordinary topics of conver- 
 sation are well known, the ideas of the book make an easy 
 conquest of our thoughts. 
 
 " The will, likewise, is of some avail in resisting distraction. 
 Not that it is able to retain the attention when disquieted and 
 curious ; but it can recall, and not indulge it in protracted ab- 
 sences, and, by constantly remitting it to the object of its voli- 
 tion, the interest of this object becomes at last predominant. 
 Rational considerations, and the necessity of remaining atten- 
 tive, likewise exert an influence ; they come in aid of the idea, 
 and lend it, so to speak, a helping hand in concentrating on it 
 the attention. 
 
 Distraction and Non-distraction matters of intelligence. 
 " But, howsoever it may be with all these petty influences, it 
 remains evident that distraction and non-distraction are neither 
 of them matters of sense, but both matters of intelligence. It is 
 not the senses which become accustomed to hear the noises of the 
 street and the sounds of conversation, and which end in being 
 less affected by them ; if we are at first vehemently affected by 
 the noises of the street or drawing-room, and then little or not 
 at all, it is because at first attention occupies itself with these 
 impressions, and afterwards neglects them ; when it neglects 
 them, it is not diverted from its object, nnd distraction does not 
 take place ; when, on the contrary, it accords them notice, it 
 abandons its object, and is then distracted.
 
 228 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 
 
 "We may observe, in support of this conclusion, that the 
 habit of hearing the same sounds renders us sometimes highly 
 sensible to them, as occurs in savages and in the blind ; some- 
 times, again, almost insensible to them, as exemplified in the 
 apathy of the Parisian for the noise of carriages. If the effect 
 were physical, if it depended on the body and not on the 
 mind, there would be a contradiction, for the habit of hearing 
 the same sounds either blunts the organ or sharpens it ; it could 
 not at once have two, and two contrary, effects ; it could have 
 only one. The fact is, it neither blunts nor sharpens ; the 
 organ remains the same ; the same sensations are determined ; 
 but when these sensations interest the mind, it applies itself to 
 them, and becomes accustomed to their discrimination ; when 
 they do not interest it, it becomes accustomed to neglect, and 
 does not discriminate them. This is the whole mystery ; the 
 phenomenon is psychological, not physiological. 
 
 The phenomena of sleep. " Let us now turn our attention 
 to the state of sleep, and consider whether analogy does not 
 demand a similar explanation of the fact which we stated at the 
 commencement. What takes place when a noise hinders us 
 from sleeping? The body fatigued begins to slumber; then, of 
 a sudden, the senses are struck, and we awake ; then fatigue 
 regains the ascendant, we relapse into drowsiness, which is soon 
 again interrupted ; and so on for a certain continuance. When, 
 on the contrary, we are accustomed to noise, the impressions it 
 makes no longer disturb our first sleep ; the drowsiness is pro- 
 longed, and we fall asleep. That the senses are more torpid 
 in sleep than in our waking state, is not a matter of doubt. But 
 when I am once asleep, they are then equally torpid on the first 
 night of my arrival in Paris as on the hundredth. Tire noise 
 being the same, they receive the same impressions, which they 
 transmit in equal vivacity to the mind. Whence comes it, 
 then, that on the first night I am awakened, and not on the 
 hundredth? The physical facts are identical; the difference 
 can originate only in the mind, as in the case of distraction and 
 of non-distraction in the waking state. Let us suppose that the 
 Boul has fallen asleep along with the body ; on this hypothesis.
 
 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 229 
 
 the slumber would be equally deep in both cases, for the mind 
 and for the senses ; and we should be unable to see why, in the 
 one case, it was aroused more than in the other. It remains, 
 therefore, certain that it does not sleep like the body ; and that, 
 in the one case, disquieted by unusual impressions, it awakens 
 the senses to inquire what is the matter ; whilst in the other, 
 knowing by experience of what external fact these impressions 
 are the sign, it remains tranquil, and does not disturb the setjes 
 to obtain a useless explanation. 
 
 " For let us remark, that the mind has need of (he senses to 
 obtain a knowledge of external things. In sleep, the senses are 
 some of them closed, as the eyes; the others half torpid, as 
 touch and hearing. If the soul be disquieted by the impressions 
 which reach it, it requires the senses to ascertain the cause, and 
 to relieve its inquietude. This is the cause why we find our- 
 selves in a disquieted state, when aroused by an extraordinary 
 noise ; and this could not have occurred had we not been occu- 
 pied with this noise before we awoke. 
 
 " This is also the cause why we sometimes feel, during sleep, 
 the efforts we make to awaken our senses, when an unusual 
 noise or any painful sensation disturbs our rest. If we are in a 
 profound sleep, we are for a long time agitated before we have 
 it in our power to awake ; we say to ourselves, we must awake 
 in order to get out of pain ; but the sleep of the senses resists, 
 and it is only by little and little that we are able to rouse them 
 from torpidity. Sometimes, when the noise ceases before the 
 issue of the struggle, the awakening does not take place, and, 
 in the morning, we have a confused recollection of having been 
 disturbed during our sleep, a recollection which becomes dis- 
 tinct only when we learn from others that such and such an 
 occurrence has taken place while we were asleep. 
 
 Illustrated by personal experience. "I had given orders 
 some time ago, that a parlor adjoining to my bedroom should 
 be swept before I was called in the morning. For the first two 
 days, the noise awoke me ; but, thereafter, I was not aware of 
 it. Whence arose the difference? The noises are the same, 
 and at the same hour I am in the .-aine degree of slumber; 
 20
 
 230 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 
 
 the same sensations, consequently, take place. Whence comes 
 it that I awoke, and do no longer awake ? For this, it appears 
 to me, there is but one explanation ; namely, that my mind 
 which awakes, and which is now aware of the cause of these 
 sensations, is no longer disquieted, and no longer rouses my 
 senses. It is true that I do not retain the recollection of this 
 reasoning ; but this oblivion is not more extraordinary than that 
 of so many others which cross our mind, both when awake and 
 when asleep. 
 
 " I add a single observation. The noise of the brush on the 
 carpet of my parlor is as nothing compared with that of the 
 heavy wagons, which pass under my windows at the same hour, 
 and which do not trouble my repose in the least. I was, there- 
 fore, awakened by a sensation much feebler than a crowd of 
 others, which I received at the same time. Can that hypothesis 
 afford the reason, which supposes that the awakening is a neces- 
 sary event ; that the sensations rouse the senses, and that the 
 senses rouse the mind ? It is evident that my mind alone, and 
 its activity, can explain why the fainter sensation awoke me ; 
 as these alone can explain why, when I am reading in my study, 
 the small noise of a mouse playing in a corner can distract my 
 attention, while the thundering noise of a passing wagon does 
 not affect me at all. 
 
 " The explanation fully accounts for what occurs with those 
 who sleep in attendance on the sick. All noises foreign to the 
 patient have no effect on them ; but let the patient turn him on 
 the bed, let him utter a groan or sigh, or let his breathing be- 
 come painful or interrupted, forthwith the attendant wakes, 
 however little inured to the vocation, or interested in the wel- 
 fare of the patient. Whence comes this discrimination between 
 the noises which deserve the attention of the attendant, and 
 those which do not, if, whilst, the senses are asleep, the mind 
 does not remain observant, does not act the sentinel, does not 
 consider the sensations which the. senses convey, and does not 
 awaken the senses as it finds these sensations disquieting or not? 
 It is by being strongly impressed, previous to going to sleep, 
 with the duty of attending to the respiration, motions, complaints
 
 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 231 
 
 of the sufferer, that we come to awaken at all such noises, and 
 at no others. The habitual repetition of such an impression 
 gives this faculty to professional sick-nurses ; a lively interest 
 in the health of the patient gives it equally to the members of 
 his family. 
 
 " It is in precisely the same manner that we waken at the 
 appointed hour, when before going to sleep we have made a 
 firm resolution of so doing. I have this power in perfection, 
 but I notice that I lose it if I depend on any one calling me. 
 In this latter case, my mind does not take the trouble of meas- 
 uring the time or of listening to the clock. But in the former, 
 it is necessary that it do so, otherwise the phenomenon is inex- 
 plicable. Every one has made, or can make, this experiment ; 
 when it fails, it will be found, if I mistake not, either that we 
 have not been sufficiently preoccupied with the intention, or were 
 over-fatigued ; for when the senses are strongly benumbed, they 
 convey to the mind, on the one hand, more obtuse sensations of 
 the monitory sounds, and, on the other, they resist for a longer 
 time the efforts the mind makes to awaken them, when these 
 sounds have reached it. 
 
 " After a night passed in this effort, we have, in general, the 
 recollection, in the morning, of having been constantly occupied 
 during sleep with this thought. The mind, therefore, watched, 
 and, full of its resolution, awaited the moment. It is thus that 
 when we go to bed much interested with any subject, we remem- 
 ber, on awakening, that during sleep we have been continually 
 haunted by it. On these occasions, the slumber is light, for, the 
 mind being untranquil, its agitation is continually disturbing the 
 torpor of the senses. When the mind is calm, it does not sleep 
 more, but it is less restless. 
 
 " It would be curious to ascertain, whether persons of a fee- 
 ble memory, and of a volatile disposition, are not less capable 
 than others of awakening at an appointed hour ; for these two 
 circumstances ought to produce this effect, if the notion I have 
 formed of the phaenomenon be correct. A volatile dispo.-ition is 
 unable strongly to preoccupy itself with the thought, ami to form 
 a determined resolution ; and, on the other hand, it is the mem-
 
 232 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 
 
 ory which preserves a recollection of the resolution taken before 
 falling asleep. I have not had an opportunity of making the 
 experiment. 
 
 General conclusions. "It appeal's to me, that, from the pre- 
 vious observations, it inevitably follows : 
 
 1, That in sleep the senses are torpid, but that the mind 
 wakes. 
 
 2, That certain of our senses continue to transmit to the 
 mind the imperfect sensations they receive. 
 
 3, That the mind judges these sensations, and that it is in 
 virtue of its judgments that it awakens, or does not awaken, the 
 senses. 
 
 4, That the reason why the mind awakens the senses is, 
 that sometimes the sensation disquiets it, being unusual or pain- 
 ful, and that sometimes the sensation warns it to rouse the 
 senses, as being an indication of the moment when it ought 
 to do so. 
 
 5, That the mind possesses the power of awakening the 
 senses, but that it only accomplishes this by its own activity 
 overcoming their torpor ; that this torpor is an obstacle, an 
 obstacle greater or less as it is more or less profound. 
 
 " If these inferences are just, it follows that we can waken 
 ourselves at will and at appointed signals ; that the instrument 
 called an alarum does not act so much by the noise it makes, as 
 by the associations we have established in going to bed between 
 the noise and the thought of wakening ; that, therefore, an in- 
 strument much less noisy, and emitting only a feeble sound, 
 would probably produce the same effect. It follows, moreover, 
 that we can inure ourselves to sleep profoundly in the midst 
 of the loudest noises ; that to accomplish this, it is perhaps suf- 
 ficient, on the first night, to impress it on our minds that these 
 sounds do not deserve attention, and ought not to awaken us ; 
 and that by this mean, any one may probably sleep as well in 
 the mill as the miller himself. It follows, in fine, that the sleep 
 of the strong and courageous ought to be less easily disturbed, 
 all things equal, than the sleep of the weak and timid. Some 
 historic?,! facts may be quoted in proof of this last conclusion.'
 
 THE MIND NEVEH SLEEPS. 233 
 
 I may notice a rather curious case which occurs to my recol- 
 lection, and which tends to corroborate the theory of the French 
 psychologist. The object of observation was the postman be- 
 tween Halle and a town, I forget which, some eight miles dis- 
 tant. This distance the postman was in the habit of traversing 
 daily. A considerable part of his way lay across a district of 
 unenclosed champaign meadow-land, and in walking over this 
 smooth surface, the postman was generally asleep. But at the 
 termination of this part of his road, there was a narrow foot- 
 bridge over a stream, and to reach this bridge, it was necessary 
 to ascend some broken steps. Now, it was ascertained as com- 
 pletely as any fact of the kind could be, the observers were 
 shrewd, and the object of observation was a man of undoubted 
 probity, I say, it was completely ascertained : 1, That the 
 postman was asleep in passing over this level course ; 2, That 
 he held on his way in this state without deflection towards the 
 bridge ; and, 3, That before arriving at the bridge, he awoke. 
 But this case is not only deserving of all credit from the posi- 
 tive testimony by which it is vouched ; it is also credible as 
 only one of a class of analogous cases which it may be adduced 
 as representing. This case, besides showing that the mind must 
 be active though the body is asleep, shows also that certain 
 bodily functions may be dormant, while others are alert. The 
 locomotive faculty was here in exercise, while the senses were 
 in slumber. 
 
 This suggests to me another example of the same phenome- 
 non. It is found in a story told by Erasmus in one of his 
 letters, concerning his learned friend Oporinus, the celebrated 
 professor and printer of Basle. Oporinus was on a journey 
 with a bookseller ; and, on their road, they had fallen in with a 
 manuscript. Tired with their day's travelling, travelling was 
 then almost exclusively performed on horseback, they cam' 1 , 
 at nightfall to their inn. They were, however, curious to ascer- 
 tain the contents of their manuscript, and Oporinus undertook 
 the task cf reading it aloud. This he continued for some time, 
 when the bookseller found it necessary to put a question con- 
 cerning a word which he had not rightly understood. It was 
 20*
 
 234 THE MIND NEVER SLEEPS. 
 
 now discovered that Oporinus was asleep, and being awakened 
 by liis companion, he found that he had no recollection of what 
 for a considerable time he had been reading. This is a case 
 concurring with a thousand others to prove, 1, That one bodily 
 sense or function may be asleep while another is awake ; and, 
 2, That the mind may be in a certain state of activity during 
 sleep, and no memory of that activity remain after the sleep 
 has ceased. The first is evident ; for Oporinus, while reading, 
 must have had his eyes, and the muscles of his tongue and 
 fauces awake ; though his ears and other senses were asleep ; 
 and the second is no less so, for the act of reading supposed a 
 very complex series of mental energies. I may notice, by the 
 way, that physiologists have observed, that our bodily senses 
 and powers do not fall asleep simultaneously, but in a certain 
 succession. "We all know that the first symptom of slumber is 
 the relaxation of the eyelids ; whereas, hearing continues alert 
 for a season after the power of vision has been dormant. In 
 the case last alluded to, this order was, however, violated ; and 
 the sight was forcibly kept awake while the hearing had lapsed 
 into torpidity. 
 
 In the case of sleep, therefore, so far is it from being proved 
 ihat the mind is at any moment unconscious, that the result of 
 observation would incline us to the opposite conclusion.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 UENEBAl PHENOMENA OF CONSCIOUSNESS, IS THE MDJU 
 EVER UNCONSCIOUSLY MODIFIED? 
 
 I PASS now to a question in some respects of still more 
 proximate interest to the psychologist than that discussed in the 
 preceding [chapter] ; for it is one which, according as it ia 
 decided, will determine the character of our explanation of 
 many of the most important phenomena in the philosophy of 
 mind, and, in particular, the great phsenomena of Memory and 
 Association. The question I refer to is, Whether the mind 
 exerts energies, and is the subject of modifications, of neither of 
 which it is conscious. This is the most general expression of a 
 problem which has hardly been mentioned, far less mooted, in 
 [Great Britain] ; and when it has attracted a passing notice, 
 the supposition of an unconscious action or passion of the 
 mind has been treated as something either unintelligible, or 
 absurd. In Germany, on the contrary, it has not only been 
 canvassed, but the alternative which the philosophers of this 
 country have lightly considered as ridiculous, has been gravely 
 established as a conclusion which the phaenomena not only war- 
 rant, but enforce. The French philosophers, for a long time, 
 viewed the question in the same light as the British. Condil- 
 lac, indeed, set the latter the example ; but of late, a revolution 
 is apparent, and two recent French psychologists have marvel- 
 lously propounded the doctrine, long and generally established 
 in Germany, as something new and unheard of before their 
 own assertion of the paradox. 
 
 Three degrees of mental latency. This question is one not 
 only of importance, but of ditliculty ; I shall endeavor to make 
 you understand its purport, by arguing it upon broader grounds 
 
 (235)
 
 236 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 
 
 than has hitherto been done, and shall prepare you, by some 
 preliminary information, for its discussion. I shall, first of all, 
 adduce some proof of the fact, that the mind may, and does, 
 contain far more latent furniture than consciousness informs us 
 it possesses. To simplify the discussion, I shall distinguish 
 three degrees of this mental latency. 
 
 In thejirst place, it is to be remembered that the riches, the 
 possessions, of our mind are not to be measured by its present 
 momentary activities, but by the amount of its acquired habits. 
 I know a science, or language, not merely while I make a tem- 
 porary use of it, but inasmuch as I can apply it when and how 
 I will. Thus the infinitely greater part of our spiritual treas- 
 ures lies beyond the sphere of consciousness, hid hi the 
 obscure recesses of the mind. This is the first degree of 
 latency. In regard to this, there is no difficulty or dispute ; 
 and I only take it into account in order to obviate misconcep- 
 tion, and because it affords a transition towards the other two 
 degrees, which it conduces to illustrate. 
 
 The second degree of latency exists when the mind contains 
 certain systems of knowledge, or certain habits of action, which 
 it is wholly unconscious of possessing in its ordinary state, but 
 which are revealed to consciousness in certain extraordinary 
 exaltations of its powers. The evidence on this point shows 
 that the mind frequently contains whole systems of knowledge, 
 which, though, in our normal state, they have faded into absolute 
 oblivion, may, in certain abnormal states, as madness, febrile 
 delirium, somnambulism, catalepsy, etc., flash out into luminous 
 consciousness, and even throw into the shade of unconsciousness 
 those other systems by which they had, for a long period, been 
 eclipsed, and even extinguished. For example, there are cases 
 in which the extinct memory of whole languages was suddenly 
 restored, and, what is even still more remarkable, in which the 
 faculty was exhibited of accurately repeating, in known or un- 
 known tongues, passages which were never within the grasp of 
 conscious memory in the normal state. This degree, this phe- 
 nomenon of latency, is ane of the most marvellous in the whole 
 compass of philosophy ; and the proof of its reality will prepare
 
 I 
 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 287 
 
 os for an enlightened consideration of the third, of which the 
 evidence, though not less certain, is not equally obtrusive. But, 
 however remarkable and important, this phenomenon has been 
 almost wholly neglected by psychologists, and the cases which I 
 adduce in illustration of its reality have never been previously 
 collected and applied. That in madness, in fever, in somnam- 
 bulism, and other abnormal states, the mind should betray ca- 
 pacities and extensive systems of knowledge, of which it was at 
 other times wholly unconscious, is a fact so remarkable that it 
 may well demand the highest evidence to establish its truth. 
 But of such a character is the evidence which I am now to 
 give. It consists of cases reported by the most intelligent and 
 trustworthy observers, by observers wholly ignorant of each 
 other's testimony ; and the phenomena observed were of so 
 palpable and unambiguous a nature, that they could not possibly 
 have been mistaken or misinterpreted. 
 
 Evidence from cases of madness. The first, and least inter- 
 esting, evidence I shall adduce, is derived from cases of mad- 
 ness ; it is given by a celebrated American physician, Dr. 
 Rush. 
 
 " The records of the wit and cunning of madmen," says the 
 Doctor, " are numerous in every country. Tulents for eloquence, 
 poetry, music, and painting, and uncommon ingenuity in several 
 of the mechanical arts, are often evolved in this state of mad- 
 ness. A gentleman, whom I attended in an hospital in the year 
 1810, often delighted as well as astonished the patients and offi- 
 cers of onr hospital by his displays of oratory, in preaching 
 from a table in the hospital yard every Sunday. A female pa- 
 tient of mine who became insane after parturition, in the year 
 1807, sang hymns and songs of her own composition during the 
 latter stage of her illness, with a tone of voice so soft and pleas- 
 ant that I hung upon it with delight every time I visited her. 
 She had never discovered a talent for poetry or music in any 
 previous part of her life. Two instances of a talent tor draw- 
 ing, evolved by madness, have occurred within my knowk-clge. 
 And where is the hospital for mad people, in which elegant and 
 completely rigged ships, and curious pieces of machinery, hava
 
 238 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 
 
 not been exhibited by persons who never discovered the leas! 
 turn for a mechanical art, previous to their derangement ? Some- 
 times we observe in mad people an unexpected resuscitation of 
 knowledge ; hence we hear them describe past events, and speak 
 in ancient or modern languages, or repeat long and interesting 
 passages from books, none of which, we are sure, they were ca- 
 pable of recollecting in the natural and healthy state of their 
 mind." 
 
 From cases of fever. The second class of cases are those 
 of fever ; and the first I shall adduce is given on the authority 
 of the patient himself. This is Mr. Flint, a very intelligent 
 American clergyman. I take it from his Recollections of the 
 Valley of the Mississippi. He was travelling in the State of 
 Illinois, and suffered the common lot of visitants from other 
 climates, in being taken down with a bilious fever. " I am 
 aware," he remarks, " that every sufferer in this way is apt to 
 think his own case extraordinary. My physicians agreed with 
 all who saw me that my case was so. As very few live to 
 record the issue of a sickness like mine, and as you have re- 
 quested me, and as I have promised, to be particular, I will 
 relate some of the circumstances of this disease. And it is in 
 my view desirable, in the bitter agony of such diseases, that 
 more of the symptoms, sensations, and sufferings should have 
 been recorded than have been ; that others, in similar pre- 
 dicaments, may know that some before them have had sufferings 
 like theirs, and have survived them. I had had a fever before, 
 and had risen and been dressed every day. But in this, with 
 the first day, I was prostrated to infantine weakness, and felt, 
 with its first attack, that it was a thing very different from what 
 I had yet experienced. Paroxysms of derangement occurred 
 the third day, and this was to me a new state of mind. That 
 state of disease in which partial derangement is mixed with a 
 consciousness generally sound, and a sensibility preternaturally 
 excited, I should suppose the most distressing of all its forms. 
 At the same time that I was unable to recognize my friends, I was 
 informed that my memory was more than ordinarily exact and 
 retentive, and that I repeated whole passages in the different
 
 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 239 
 
 languages which I knew, with entire accuracy. I recited, with- 
 out losing or misplacing a word, a passage of poetry which I 
 could not so repeat after I recovered my health." 
 
 The following more curious case is given by Lord Monboddo, 
 in his Ancient Metaphysics. 
 
 " ' The Comtesse de Laval had been observed, by servants 
 who sate up with her on account of some indisposition, to talk 
 in her sleep a language that none of them understood ; nor were 
 they sure, or, indeed, herself able to guess, upon the sounds 
 being repeated to her, whether it was or was not gibberish. 
 
 " ' Upon her lying in of one of her children, she was attended 
 by a nurse, who was of the province of Brittany, and who im- 
 mediately knew the meaning of what she said, it being in the 
 idiom of the natives of that country ; but she herself, when 
 awake, did not understand a single syllable of what she had 
 uttered in her sleep, upon its being retold her. 
 
 " ' She was born in that province, and had been nursed in a 
 family where nothing but that language was spoken ; so that, in 
 her first infancy, she had known it, and no other ; but when she 
 returned to her parents, she had no opportunity of keeping up 
 the use of it ; and, as I have before said, she did not under- 
 stand a word of Breton when awake, though she spoke it in her 
 sleep. 
 
 " ' I need not say that the Comtesse de Laval never said or 
 imagined that she used any words of the Breton idiom, more 
 than were necessary to express those ideas that are within the 
 compass of a child's knowledge of objects,' " etc. 
 
 A highly interesting case is given by Mr. Coleridge in hi? 
 JBiographia Literaria. 
 
 " It occurred," says Mr. Coleridge, " in a Roman Catholic 
 town in Germany, a year or two before my arrival at Gottingen, 
 and had not then ceased to be a frequent subject of conversa- 
 tion. A young woman of four or five and twenty, who could 
 neither read nor write, was seized with a nervous fever ; during 
 which, according to the asseverations of all the priests and monks 
 of the tie ighborhood, she became possessed, and, as it appeared 
 by a very learned devil. She continued incessantly talking
 
 240 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 
 
 Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, in very pompous tones, and with 
 
 most distinct enunciation Sheets full of her ravings 
 
 were taken down from her own mouth, and were found to con- 
 sist of sentences, coherent and intelligible each for itself, but 
 with little or no connection with each other. Of the Hebrew, 
 a small portion only could be traced to the Bible ; the remainder 
 geemed to be in the Rabbinical dialect. All trick or conspiracy 
 was out of the question. Not only had the young woman ever 
 been a harmless, simple creature ; but she was evidently labor- 
 ing under a nervous fever. In the town, in which she had been 
 resident for many years as servant in different families, no solu- 
 tion presented itself. A young physician, however, determined 
 to trace her past life step by step ; for the patient herself was 
 incapable of returning a rational answer. He at length suc- 
 ceeded in discovering the place where her parents had lived : 
 travelled thither, found them dead, but an uncle surviving; and 
 from him learned that the patient had been charitably taken by 
 an old Protestant pastor at nine years old, and had remained 
 
 with him some years, even till the old man's death 
 
 Anxious inquiries were then, of course, made concerning the 
 pastor's habits ; and the solution of the phenomenon was soon 
 obtained. For it appeared that it had been the old man's cus- 
 tom, for years, to walk up and down a passage of his house into 
 which the kitchen-door opened, and to read to himself, with a 
 loud voice, out of his favorite books. A considerable number 
 of these were still in the niece's possession. She added, that 
 he was a very learned man, and a great Hebraist. Among his 
 books were found a collection of Rabbinical writings, together 
 with several of the Greek and Latin lathers; and the physician 
 succeeded in identifying so many passages with those taken 
 down at the young woman's bedside, that no doubt could remain 
 hi any rational mind concerning the true origin of the impres- 
 sions made on her nervous sy.-tem." 
 
 These cases thus evince the general fact, that a mental modi- 
 fication is not proved not to be, merely because consciousness 
 affords us no evidence of its existence. This general fact being 
 established, I now proceed to consider the question in relation
 
 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 241 
 
 to the third class or degree of latent modifications, a class in 
 relation to, and on the ground of which alone, it has ever hith- 
 erto been argued by philosophers. 
 
 The third degree of latency. The problem, then, in regard 
 to this class is, Are there, in ordinary, mental modifica- 
 tions, 7*. e. mental activities and passivities, of which we are 
 unconscious, but which manifest their existence by effects of 
 which we are conscious 1 ? 
 
 In the question proposed, I am not only strongly inclined to 
 the affirmative ; nay, I do not hesitate to maintain, that what 
 we are conscious of is constructed out of what we are not con- 
 scious of, that our whole knowledge, in fact, is made up of 
 the unknown and the incognizable. 
 
 This, at first sight, may appear not only paradoxical, but con- 
 tradictory. It may be objected, 1, How can we know that to 
 exist which lies beyond the one condition of all knowledge, 
 consciousness? And, 2, How can knowledge arise out of 
 ignorance, consciousness out of unconsciousness, the cog- 
 nizable out of the incognizable, that is, how can one opposite 
 proceed out of the other? 
 
 In answer to the first objection, how can we know that of 
 which we are unconscious, seeing that consciousness is the condi- 
 tion of knowledge, it is enough to allege, that there arc many 
 tilings which we neither know nor can know in themselves, 
 that is, in their direct and immediate relation to our faculties 
 of knowledge, but which manifest their existence indirectly 
 through the medium of their effects. This is the case with the 
 mental modifications in question ; they are not in themselves 
 revealed to consciousness, but as certain facts of consciousness 
 necessarily suppose them to exist, and to exert an influence in 
 the mental processes, we are thus constrained to admit, as 
 modifications of mind, what are not in themselves phenomena 
 of consciousness. The truth of this will be apparent, if, before 
 descending to any special illustration, we consider that con- 
 sciousness cannot exist independently of some peculiar modifica- 
 tion nf mitid ; we are only conscious as we are conscious of a 
 determinate state. To be conscious, \ve must be conscious of 
 
 21
 
 242 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 
 
 some particular perception, or remembrance, or imagination, or 
 feeling, etc. ; we have no general consciousness. But as con- 
 sciousness supposes a special mental modification as its object, 
 it must be remembered, that this modification or state supposes 
 a change, a transition from some other state or modification. 
 But as the modification must be present, before we have a con- 
 sciousness of the modification, it is evident, that we can have 
 no consciousness of its rise or awakening; for its rise or 
 awakening is also the rise or awakening of consciousness. 
 
 But the illustration of this is contained in an answer to the 
 second objection, which asks, How can knowledge come out 
 of ignorance, consciousness out of unconsciousness, the 
 known out of the unknown, how can one opposite be made 
 up of the other ? 
 
 In the removal of this objection, the proof of the thesis 
 which I support is involved. And without dealing in any gen- 
 eral speculation, I shall at once descend to the special evi- 
 dence, which appears to me not merely to warrant, but to 
 necessitate the conclusion, that the sphere of our conscious 
 modifications is only a small circle in the centre of a far wider 
 sphere of action and passion, of which we are only conscious 
 through its effects. 
 
 I. ^External Perception. 1. The sense of Sight. Let us 
 take our first example from Perception, the perception of 
 external objects, and in that faculty, let us commence with the 
 sense of sight. Now, you either already know, or can be at 
 once informed, what it is that has obtained the name of Mini- 
 mum Visibile. You are of course aware, in general, that vision 
 is the result of the rays of light reflected from the surface of 
 objects to the eye ; a greater number of rays is reflected from a 
 larger surface ; if the superficial extent of an object, and, con- 
 sequently, the number of rays which it reflects, be diminished 
 beyond a certain limit, the object becomes invisible ; and the 
 minimum visibile is the smallest expanse which can be seen. 
 which can consciously affect us, which we can be conscious 
 of seeing. This being understood, it is plain that, if we divide 
 ihi-" minimum visibile into two parts, neither hah can, by itself,
 
 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 243 
 
 be aii object of vision, or visual consciousness. They are, sev- 
 erally and apart, to consciousness as zero. But it is evident, 
 that each half must, by itself, have produced hi us a certain 
 modification, real though unperceived ; for as the perceived 
 wlnle is nothing but the union of the unperceived halves, so 
 ths perception the perceived affection itself of which we are 
 conscious is only the sum of two modifications, each of which 
 severally eludes our consciousness. When we look at a distant 
 forest, we perceive a certain expanse of green. Of this, as an 
 affection of our organism, we are clearly and distinctly con- 
 scious. Now, the expanse, of which we are conscious, is evi- 
 dently made up of parts of which we are not conscious. No 
 leaf, perhaps no tree, may be separately visible. But the 
 greenness of the forest is made up of the greenness of the 
 leaves ; that is, the total impression of which we are conscious, 
 is made up of an infinitude of small impressions of which we 
 are not conscious. 
 
 2. Sense of Hearing. Take another example, from the 
 eense of hearing. In this sense, there is, in like manner, a 
 Minimum Audibile, that is, a sound the least which can come 
 into perception and consciousness. But this minimum audibile 
 is made up of parts which severally affect the sense, but of 
 which affections, separately, we are not conscious, though of 
 their joint result we are. We must, therefore, here likewise, 
 admit the reality of modifications beyond the sphere of con. 
 sciousness. To take a special example. When we hear the 
 distant murmur of the sea, what are the constituents of the 
 total perception of which we are conscious ? This murmur is a 
 sum made up of parts, and the sum would be as zero if the 
 parts did not count as something. The noise of the sea is the 
 complement of the noise of its several waves; aovriwr re 
 xi>jura' 'j4vr{Oi&[jiov yfyUttTjua and if the noise of each wave 
 made no impression on our sense, the noise of the sea, as the 
 result of these impressions, could not be realized. But the 
 noise of each several wave, at the distance we suppose, is in- 
 audible ; we must, however, admit that they produce a certain 
 modification, beyond consciousness, on the percipient subject;
 
 244 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 
 
 for this is necessarily involved in the reality of their result 
 The same is equally the case in the other senses ; the taste of 
 smell of a dish, be it agreeable or disagreeable, is composed of 
 a multitude of severally imperceptible effects, which the stimu- 
 h.ting particles of the viand cause on different points of the 
 nervous expansion of the gustatory and olfactory organs ; and 
 the pleasant or painful feeling of softness or roughness is the 
 result of an infinity of unfelt modifications, which the body 
 handled determines on the countless papillae of the nerves of 
 touch. 
 
 II. Association of Ideas. Let us now take an example 
 from another mental process. We have not yet spoken of what 
 is called the Association of Ideas ; and it is enough for our 
 present purpose that you should be aware, that one thought 
 suggests another in conformity to certain determinate laws, 
 laws to which the successions of our whole mental states are 
 subjected. Now it sometimes happens, that we find one thought 
 rising immediately after another in consciousness, but whose 
 consecution we can reduce to no law of association. Now in 
 these cases we can generally discover, by an attentive observa- 
 tion, that these two thoughts, though not themselves associated, 
 are each associated with certain other thoughts ; so that the 
 whole consecution would have been regular, had these inter- 
 mediate thoughts come into consciousness, between the two 
 which are not immediately associated. Suppose, for instance, 
 that A, B, C, are three thoughts, that A and C cannot im- 
 mediately suggest each other, but that each is associated with 
 B, so that A will naturally suggest B, and B naturally suggest 
 J. Now it may happen, that we are conscious of A, and, 
 jnned'ately thereafter, of C. How is the anomaly to be ex- 
 plained ? It can only be explained on the principle of latent 
 modification.-;. A suggests C, not immediately, but through B; 
 but as B, like the half of the minimum visibile or minimum 
 audilnle, does not rise into consciousness, we are apt to consider 
 it as non-existent. You are, probably aware of the following 
 fact in mechanics. If a number of billiard balls be placed in a 
 straight row and touching each other, and if a ball be made to
 
 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION 245 
 
 strike, in the line of the row, the ball at one end of me series, 
 what will happen ? The motion of the impinging ball is not 
 divided among the whole row ; this, which we might a priori 
 have expected, does not happen ; but the impetus is transmitted 
 through the intermediate balls, which remain each in its place, 
 to the ball at the opposite end of the series, and this ball alone 
 is impelled on. Something like this seems often to occur in the 
 train of thought. One idea mediately suggests another into 
 consciousness, the suggestion passing through one or more 
 ideas which do not themselves rise into consciousness. The 
 awakening and awakened ideas here correspond to the ball 
 striking and the ball struck off; while the intermediate ideas of 
 which we are unconscious, but which carry on the suggestion, 
 resemble the intermediate balls which remain moveless, but 
 communicate the impulse. An instance of this occurs to me 
 with which I was recently struck. Thinking of Ben Lomond, 
 this thought was immediately followed by the thought of the 
 Prussian system of education. Now, conceivable connection 
 between these two ideas in themselves, there was none. A 
 little reflection, however, explained the anomaly. On my last 
 visit to the mountain, I had met upon its summit a German 
 gentleman, and though I had no consciousness of the interme- 
 diate and unawakened links between Ben Lomond and the 
 Prussian schools, they were undoubtedly these ; the Ger- 
 man, Germany, Prussia, and, these media being admit- 
 ted, the connection between the extremes was manifest. 
 
 Stewart's explanation of the phenomenon. I should perhaps 
 reserve for a future occasion noticing Mr. Stewart's explanation 
 of this phenomenon. lie admits that a perception or idea may 
 pass through the mind without leaving any trace in the memory, 
 and yet serve to introduce other ideas connected with it by the 
 laws of association. Mr. Stewart can hardly be said to have 
 contemplated the possibility of the existence and agency of 
 mental modifications of which we are unconscious. He grants 
 the necessity of interpolating certain intermediate ideas, in order 
 to account for the connection of thought, which could otherwise 
 be explained by no theory of association ; and he admits thaf 
 2J *
 
 246 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 
 
 these intermediate ideas are not known by memory to have 
 actually intervened. So far, there is no difference in the two 
 doctrines. But now comes the separation. Mr. Stewart sup- 
 poses that the intermediate ideas are, for an instant, awakened 
 into consciousness, but, in the same moment, utterly forgot; 
 whereas the opinion I would prefer, holds that they are efficient 
 without rising into consciousness. Mr. Stewart's doctrine on 
 this point is exposed to all the difficulties, and has none of the 
 proofs in its favor which concur in establishing the other. 
 
 Difficulties of Slew art's doctrine. In the first place, to as- 
 sume the existence of acts of consciousness of which there is 
 no memory beyond the moment of existence, is at least as in- 
 conceivable an hypothesis as the other. But, in the second 
 place, it violates the whole analogy of consciousness, which the 
 other does not. Consciousness supposes memory ; and we are 
 only conscious as we are able to connect and contrast one in- 
 stance of our intellectual existence with another. Whereas, to 
 suppose the existence and efficiency of modifications beyond 
 consciousness, is not at variance with its conditions ; for con- 
 sciousness, though it assures us of the reality of what is within 
 its sphere, says nothing against the reality of what is without. 
 In the third place, it is demonstrated, that, in perception, there 
 are modifications, efficient, though severally imperceptible ; why, 
 therefore, in the other faculties, should there not likewise be 
 modifications, efficient, though unapparent ? In the fourth place, 
 there must be some reason for the assumed fact, that there are 
 perceptions or ideas of which we are conscious, but of which 
 there is no memory. Now, the only reason that can possibly 
 be assigned is, that the consciousness was too faint to afford the 
 condition of memory. But of consciousness, however faint, 
 there must be some memory, however short. But this is at 
 variance with the phamomenon ; for the ideas A and C may 
 precede and follow each other without any perceptible interval, 
 and without any, the feeblest, memory of B. If there be no 
 memory, there could have been no consciousness ; and, there- 
 fore, Mr. Stewart's hypothesis, if strictly interrogated, must, 
 even at last, take refuge in our doctrine ; for it can easily be
 
 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 247 
 
 ehown, that the degree of memory is directly in proportion to 
 the degree of consciousness, and, consequently, that an absolute 
 negation of memory is an absolute negation of consciousness. 
 
 III. Our Acquired Dexterities and Habits. Let us now 
 turn to another class of phaenomena, which in like manner are 
 capable of an adequate explanation only on the theory I have 
 advanced ; I mean the operations resulting from our Acquired 
 Dexterities and Habits. 
 
 To explain these, three theories have been advanced. The 
 first regards them rfs merely mechanical or automatic, and thus 
 denying to the mind all active or voluntary intervention, conse- 
 quently removes them beyond the sphere of consciousness. 
 The second, again, allows to each several motion a separate act 
 of conscious volition ; while the third, which I would maintain, 
 holds a medium between these, constitutes the mind the agent, 
 accords to it a conscious volition over the series, but denies to it 
 a consciousness and deliberate volition in regard to each sepa- 
 rate movement in the series which it determines. 
 
 The first or mechanical theory. The first of these has been 
 maintained, among others, by two philosophers who in other 
 points are not frequently at one, by Reid and Hartley. 
 " Habit," says Reid, " differs from instinct, not in its nature, but 
 in its origin ; the last being natural, the first acquired. Both 
 operate without will or intention, without thought, and therefore 
 may be called mechanical principles." In another passage, he 
 expresses himself thus : " I conceive it to be a part of our con- 
 stitution, that what we have been accustomed to do, we acquire 
 not only a facility but a proneness to do on like occasions ; so 
 that it requires a particular will or effort to forbear it, but to do 
 it requires very often no will at all." 
 
 The same doctrine is laid down still more explicitly by Dr. 
 Hartley. " Suppose," says he, " a person who has a perfectly 
 voluntary command over his fingers, to begin to learn to play 
 on the harpsichord. The first step is to move his fingers, from 
 key to key, with a slow motion, looking at the notes, and exert- 
 ing an express act of volition in every motion. By degrees, the 
 motions cling to one another, and to the impressions of the notex.
 
 248 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 
 
 in the wny of association, so often mentioned ; the acts of voli- 
 tion growing less and less express all the time, till, at last, they 
 become evanescent and imperceptible. For an expert performer 
 will play from notes, or ideas laid up in the memory, and, at the 
 Bame time, carry on a quite different train of thoughts in his 
 mind; or even hold a conversation with another. Whence we 
 conclude, that there is no intervention of the idea, or state of 
 mind, called will." Cases of this sort Hartley calls " transitions 
 of voluntary actions into automatic ones." 
 
 The second theory by Stewart. The second theory is main- 
 tained against the first by Mr. Stewart ; and I think his refuta- 
 tion valid, though not his confirmation. " I cannot help thinking 
 it," he says, " more philosophical to suppose, that those actions 
 which are originally voluntary always continue so, although, in 
 the case of operations which are become habitual in conse- 
 quence of long practice, we may not be able to recollect every 
 different volition. Thus, in the case of a performer on the 
 harpsichord, I apprehend that there is an act of the will preced- 
 ing every motion of every finger, although he may not be able 
 to recollect these volitions afterwards, and although he may, 
 during the time of his performance, be employed in carrying on 
 a separate train of thought. For it must be remarked, that the 
 most rapid performer can, when he pleases, play so slowly as to 
 be able to attend to, and to recollect, every separate act of his 
 will in the various movements of his fingers ; and he can grad- 
 ually accelerate the rate of his execution, till he is unable to 
 recollect these acts. Now, in this instance, one of two suppo- 
 sitions must be made. The one is, that the operations in the 
 two cases are carried on precisely in the same manner, and 
 differ only in the degree of rapidity ; and that when this rapid- 
 ity exceeds a certain rate, the acts of the will are too momentary 
 to leave any impression on the memory. The other is, that 
 when the rapidity exceeds a certain rate, the operation is taken 
 ntirely out of our hands, and is carried on by some unknown 
 power, of the nature of which we are as ignorant as of the 
 cause of the circulation of the blood, or of the motion of the 
 intestines. The last supposition seems to me to be some w ha/
 
 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 249 
 
 similar to that of a man who should maintain, that although a 
 body projected with a moderate velocity is seen to pass through 
 all the intermediate spaces in moving from one place to another, 
 yet we are not entitled to conclude that this happens when the 
 body moves so quickly as to become invisible to the eye. The 
 former supposition is supported by the analogy of many other 
 facts in our constitution. Of some of these I have already taken 
 notice, and it would be easy to add to the number. An expert 
 ac;ountant, for example, can sum up, almost with a single glance 
 of his eye, a long column of figures. He can tell the sum, with 
 unerring certainty, while, at the same time, he is unable to re- 
 collect any one of the figures of which that sum is composed ; 
 and yet nobody doubts that each of these figures has passed 
 through his mind, or supposes, that, when the rapidity of the 
 process becomes so great that he is unable to recollect the vari- 
 ous steps of it, he obtains the result by a sort of inspiration. 
 This last supposition would be perfectly analogous to Dr. Hart- 
 ley's doctrine concerning the nature of our habitual exertions. 
 
 "The only plausible objection which, I think, can be offered 
 to the principles I have endeavored to establish on this subject, 
 is founded on the astonishing and almost incredible rapidity they 
 necessarily suppose in our intellectual operations. When a per- 
 son, for example, reads aloud, there must, according to this doc- 
 trine, be a separate volition preceding the articulation of every 
 letter ; and it has been found by actual trial, that it is possible 
 to pronounce about two thousand letters in a minute. Is it rea- 
 sonable to suppose that the mind is capable of so many different 
 acts, in an interval of time so very inconsiderable ? 
 
 " With respect to this objection, it may be observed, in the 
 first place, that all arguments against the foregoing doctrine with 
 respect to our habitual exertions, in so far as they are founded 
 on the inconceivable rapidity which they suppose in our intel- 
 lectual operations, apply equally to the common doctrine con- 
 cerning our perception of distance by the eye. But this is not 
 all. To what docs the supposition amount which is considered 
 as so incredible? Only to this, that the mind is so formed as to 
 be able to carry on certain intellectual processes in intervals of
 
 250 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 
 
 time too short to be estimated by our faculties ; a supposition 
 which, so far from being extravagant, is supported by the anal- 
 ogy of many of our most certain conclusions in natural philoso- 
 phy. The discoveries made by the microscope have laid open 
 to our senses a world of wonders, the existence of which hardly 
 any man would have admitted upon inferior evidence ; and have 
 gradually prepared the way for those physical speculations, which 
 explain some of the most extraordinary phenomena of naturs 
 by means of modifications of matter far too subtile for the 
 examination of our organs. Why, then, should it be consid- 
 ered as unphilosophical, after having demonstrated the existence 
 of various intellectual processes which escape our attention in 
 consequence of their rapidity, to carry the supposition a little 
 further, in order to bring under the known laws of the human 
 constitution a class of mental operations which must otherwise 
 remain perfectly inexplicable ? Surely, our ideas of time are 
 merely relative, as well as our ideas of extension ; nor is there 
 any good reason for doubting that, if our powers of attention 
 and memory were more perfect than they are, so as to give us 
 the same advantage in examining rapid events, which the micro- 
 scope gives for examining minute portions of extension, they 
 would enlarge our views with respect to the intellectual world, 
 no less than that instrument has with respect to the material." 
 
 Stewart's theory shown to involve contradictions. This doc- 
 trine of Mr. Stewart, that our acts of knowledge are made 
 up of an infinite number of acts of attention, that is, of various 
 acts of concentrated consciousness, there being required a sepa- 
 rate act of attention for every minimum possible of knowledge, 
 I have already shown you, by various examples, to involve 
 contradictions. In the present instance, its admission would 
 constrain our assent to the most monstrous conclusions. Take 
 the case of a person reading. Now, all of you must have ex- 
 perienced, if ever under the necessity of reading aloud, that, if 
 the matter be uninteresting, your thoughts, while you arc goirg 
 on in the performance of your task, are wholly abstracted from 
 the book and its subject, and you are perhaps deeply occupied 
 in a train of serious meditation. Here the process of reading
 
 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 251 
 
 H performed without interruption, and with the most punctual 
 accuracy ; and, at the same time, the process of meditation is 
 carried on without distraction or fatigue. Now this, on Mr. 
 Stewart's doctrine, would seem impossible ; for what does his 
 theory suppose ? It supposes that separate acts of concentrated 
 consciousness or attention are bestowed on each least movement 
 in either process. But be the velocity of the mental operations 
 what it may, it is impossible to conceive how transitions between 
 such contrary operations could be kept up for a continuance 
 without fatigue and distraction, even if we throw out of ac- 
 count the fact, that the acts of attention to be effectual must be 
 simultaneous, which on Mr. Stewart's theory is not allowed. 
 
 We could easily give examples of far more complex opera- 
 tions ; but this, with what has been previously said, I deem suf- 
 ficient to show, that we must either resort to the first theory, 
 which, as nothing but the assumption of an occult and incom 
 prehensible principle, in fact explains nothing, or adopt the 
 theory that there are acts of mind so rapid and minute as to 
 elude the ken of consciousness. 
 
 The doctrine of unconscious mental modifications. I shah 
 now say something of the history of this opinion. It is a curi- 
 ous fact that Locke attributes this opinion to the Cartesians, and 
 he thinks it was employed by them to support their doctrine of 
 the ceaseless activity of mind. In this, as in many other points 
 of the Cartesian philosophy, he is, however, wholly wrong. On 
 the contrary, the Cartesians made consciousness the essence of 
 thought; and their assertion that the mind always thinks is, in 
 their language, precisely tantamount to the assertion that the 
 mind is always conscious. 
 
 But what was not maintained by the Cartesians, and even in 
 opposition to their doctrine, was advanced by Leibnitz. To 
 this great philosopher belongs the honor of having originated 
 this opinion, and of having supplied some of the strongest argu- 
 ments in its support. He was, however, unfortunate in the 
 terms which he employed to propound his doctrine. The latent 
 modifications, the unconscious activities of mind, he denom- 
 inated obscure ideas, obscure representations, jjerceptions without
 
 252 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 
 
 apperception or consciousness, insensible perceptions, etc. In 
 this he violated the universal usage of language. For percep- 
 tion, and idea, and representation, all properly involve the 
 notion of consciousness, it being, in fact, contradictory to 
 speak of a representation not really represented a percep- 
 tion not really perceived an actual idea of whose presence 
 we are not aware. 
 
 The close affinity of mental modifications with perceptions, 
 ideas, representations, and the consequent commutation of 
 these terms, have been undoubtedly the reasons why the Leib- 
 nitzian doctrine was not more generally adopted, and why, in 
 France and in Britain, succeeding philosophers have almost 
 admitted, as a self-evident truth, that there can be no modifica- 
 tion of mind devoid of consciousness. As to any refutation of 
 the Leibnitzian doctrine, I know of none. Condillac is, indeed, 
 the only psychologist who can be said to have formally proposed 
 the question. He, like Mr. Stewart, attempts to explain why 
 it can be supposed, that the mind has modifications of which we 
 are not conscious, by asserting that we are, in truth, conscious 
 of the modification, but that it is immediately forgotten. In 
 Germany, the doctrine of Leibnitz was almost universally 
 adopted. I am not aware of a philosopher of the least note by 
 whom it has been rejected. 
 
 This doctrine explains the phenomena. The third hypothe- 
 sis, then, that which employs the single principle of latent 
 agencies to account for so numerous a class of mental phenom- 
 ena, how does it explain the phenomenon under considera- 
 tion ? Nothing can be more simple and analogical than it? 
 solution. As, to take an example from vision, in the exter- 
 nal perception of a stationary object, a certain space, an ex- 
 panse of surface, is necessary to the minimum visibile ; in other 
 words, an object of sight cannot come into consciousness unless 
 it be of a certain size; in like manner, in the internal percep- 
 tion of a series of mental operations, a certain time, a certain 
 duration, is necessary for the smallest section of continuous 
 energy to which consciousness is competent. Some minimum 
 of time must be admitted as the condition of consciousness
 
 UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL ACTION. 253 
 
 and as time is divisible ad infinitum, whatever minimum be 
 taken, there must be admitted to be, beyond the cognizance of 
 consciousness, intervals of time, in which, if mental agencies be 
 performed, these will be latent to consciousness. If we suppose 
 that the minimum of time, to which consciousness can descend, 
 be an interval called six, and that six different movements be 
 performed in this interval, these, it is evident, will appear to con 
 sciousness as a simple indivisible point of modified time ; pre- 
 cisely as the minimum visibile appears as an indivisible point of 
 modified space. And, as in the extended parts of the minimum 
 visibile, each must determine a certain modification on the per- 
 cipient subject, seeing that the effect of the whole is only the 
 conjoined effect of its parts, in like manner, the protended parts 
 of each conscious instant, of each distinguishable minimum 
 of time, though themselves beyond the ken of consciousness, 
 must contribute to give the character to the whole mental state 
 which that instant, that minimum, comprises. This being un- 
 derstood, it is easy to see how we lose the consciousness of the 
 several acts, in the rapid succession of many of our habits and 
 dexterities. At first, and before the habit is acquired, every 
 act is slow, and we are conscious of the effort of deliberation, 
 choice, and volition ; by degrees, the mind proceeds with less 
 vacillation and uncertainty ; at Jength, the acts become secure 
 and precise : in proportion as this takes place, the velocity of 
 the procedure is increased, and as this acceleration rises, the 
 individual acts drop one by one from consciousness, as we lose 
 the leaves in retiring further and further from the tree ; and, ai 
 last, we are only aware of the general state which results from 
 these unconscious operations, as we can at last only perceive the 
 greenness which resulls from the unperceived leaves. 
 
 a
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 GENE1-A1, PHENOMENA OF CONSCIOUSNESS. DIFFICULTIES 
 AND FACILITIES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. CLASSIFICA- 
 TION OF THE COGNITIVE FACULTIES. 
 
 BEFORE terminating the consideration of the general phae- 
 nomena of consciousness, there are Three Principal Facts, 
 which it would be improper altogether to pass over without 
 notice, but the full discussion of which I reserve for Meta- 
 physics Proper, when we come to establish upon their founda- 
 tion our conclusions in regard to the Immateriality and Immor- 
 tality of Mind ; I mean the fact of our Mental Existence or 
 Substantiality, the fact of our Mental Unity or Individuality, 
 and the fact of our Mental Identity or Personality. In regard 
 to these three facts, I shall, at present, only attempt to give a 
 very summary view of what place they naturally occupy in our 
 psychological system. 
 
 Self-Existence. The first of these the fact of our own 
 Existence I have already incidentally touched on, in giving 
 a view of the various possible modes in which the fact of the 
 Duality of Consciousness may be conditionally accepted. 
 
 The various modifications of which the thinking subject, Ego, 
 is conscious, are accompanied with the feeling, or intuition, or 
 belief, or by whatever name the conviction may be called, 
 that I, the thinking subject, exist. This feeling has been called 
 by philosophers the apperception, or consciousness, of our own 
 existence ; but, as it is a simple and ultimate fact of conscious- 
 ness, though it be clearly given, it cannot be defined or 
 described. And for the same reason that it cannot be defined, 
 it cannot be deduced or demonstrated ; and the apparent enthy-
 
 PELENOMENA OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 255 
 
 meme of Descartes Cogito ergo sum, [I think, therefore I 
 am, J if really intended for an inference, if really intended 
 to be more than a simple enunciation of the proposition, that 
 the fact of our existence is given in the fact of our conscious- 
 ness, is either tautological or false. Tautological, because 
 nothing is contained in the conclusion which was not explicitly 
 given in the premise, the premise, Cogito, I think, being only 
 a grammatical equation of Ego sum cogitans, I am, or exist, 
 thinking. False, inasmuch as there would, in the first place, be 
 postulated the reality of thought as a quality or modification, 
 and then, from the fact of this modification, inferred the fact of 
 existence, and of the existence of a subject ; whereas it is self- 
 evident, that in the very possibility of a quality or modification, 
 is supposed the reality of existence, and of an existing subject 
 Philosophers in general, among whom may be particularly 
 mentioned Locke and Leibnitz, have accordingly found the evi- 
 dence in a clear and immediate belief in the simple datum of 
 consciousness ; and that this was likewise the opinion of Des- 
 cartes himself, it would not be difficult to show. 
 
 Mental Unity. The second fact our Mental Unity or In- 
 dividuality is given with equal evidence as the first. A? 
 clearly as I am conscious of existing, so clearly am I conscious 
 At every moment of my existence, (and never more so than 
 when the most heterogeneous mental modifications are in a state 
 of rapid succession,) that the conscious Ego is not itself a mere 
 modification, nor a series of modifications of any other subject, 
 but that it is itself something different from all its modifica- 
 tions, and a self-subsistent entity. This feeling, belief, datum, 
 or fact of our mental individuality or unity, is not more capable 
 of explanation than the feeling or fact of our existence, which 
 it indeed always involves. The fact of the deliverance of con 
 sciousness to our mental unity has, of course, never been 
 doubted ; but philosophers have been found to doubt its truth. 
 According to Ilurne, our thinking Ego is nothing but a bundle 
 of individual impressions and ideas, out of whose union in the 
 imagination, the notion of a whole, as of a subject of that 
 which is felt -ml thought is formed. According to Kant, it
 
 256 PHENOMENA OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 cannot be properly determined whether we ex j st as substance 
 01 as accident-, because the datum of individuality is a condition 
 of the possibility of our having thoughts and feelings ; in other 
 woids, of the possibility of consciousness ; and, therefore, al- 
 ihough consciousness gives cannot but give the phamorn- 
 jnon oi individuality, it does not follow that this phenomenon 
 nay not be only a necessary illusion. An articulate refutation 
 .f tuese opinions I cannot attempt at present, but their refuta- 
 aor. is, in fact, involved in their statement. In regard to Hume, 
 his sceptical conclusion is only an inference from the premises 
 ot the dogmatical philosophers, who founded their systems on a 
 violation or distortion of the facts of consciousness. His con- 
 clusion is, therefore, refuted in the refutation of their premises, 
 which is accomplished in the simple exposition that they at once 
 found on, and deny, the veracity of consciousness. And by this 
 objection the doctrine of Kant is overset. For if he attempts 
 to philosophize, he must assert the possibility of philosophy. 
 But the possibility of philosophy supposes the veracity of con- 
 sciousness as to the contents of its testimony ; therefore, in dis- 
 puting the testimony of consciousness to our mental unity and 
 substantiality, Kant disputes the possibility of philosophy, and, 
 consequently, reduces his own attempts at philosophizing to ab- 
 surdity. 
 
 Mentat, Identity. The third datum under consideration is 
 the Identuy 01' Mind or Person. This consists in the assurance 
 we have, from consciousness, that our thinking Ego, notwith- 
 standing the it&dtiless changes of state or modification, of which 
 it is the subject, 14 essentially the same thing, the same per- 
 son, at every pifiod of its existence. On this subject, laying 
 out of account ctrtAin subordinate differences on the mode of 
 statin:; the fact, philosophers, in general, are agreed. Locke, in 
 the Essay on the Ilan^n Understanding ; Leibnitz, in the Nou- 
 veuux Essais ; Butlei and Reid are particularly worthy of 
 attention. In regard tj this deliverance of consciousness, the 
 truth of which is of vkai importance, affording, as it does, the 
 basis of moral responsibility and hope of immortality, it is, 
 like the last, denied by Kant to afford a valid ground of scientific
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY 25V 
 
 certainty. He maintains that there is no cogent proof of the 
 Bubstantial permanence of our thinking self, because the feejing 
 of identity is only the condition under which that thought is 
 possible. Kant's doubt in regard to the present fact is refuted 
 in the same manner as his doubt in regard to the preceding, anl 
 there are also a number of special grounds on which it can be 
 shown to be untenable. But of these at another time. 
 
 The peculiar difficulties of psychological investigation. We 
 have now terminated the consideration of Consciousness as the 
 general faculty of thought, and as the only instrument and only 
 source of Philosophy. But before proceeding to treat of the 
 Special Faculties, it may be proper here to premise some obser- 
 vations in relation to the peculiar Difficulties and peculiar Fa- 
 cilities which we may expect in the application of consciousness 
 to the study of its own phenomena. I shall first speak of the 
 difficulties. 
 
 The first difficulty in psychological observation arises from 
 this, that the conscious mind is at once the observing subject ana 
 the object observed. What are the consequences of this ? In 
 the first place, the mental energy, instead of being concentrated, 
 is divided, and divided in two divergent directions. The state 
 of mind observed, and the act of mind observing, are mutually 
 in an inverse ratio; each tends to annihilate the other. Is the 
 state to be observed intense, all reflex observation is rendered 
 impossible ; the mind cannot view as a spectator ; it is wholly 
 occupied as an agent or patient. On the other hand, exactly in 
 proportion as the mind concentrates its force in the act of re- 
 flective observation, in the same proportion must the direct 
 phenomenon lose in vivacity, and, consequently, in the precision 
 and individuality of its character. This difficulty is manifestly 
 insuperable in those states of mind, which, of their very nature, 
 as suppressing consciousness, exclude all contemporaneous and 
 voluntary observation, as in sleep and fainting. In states like 
 dreaming, which allow at least of a mediate, but, then-fore, only 
 of an imperfect, observation, through recollection, it is not alur 
 gel her exclusive. In all states of strong mental emotion, tho 
 22*
 
 258 DIFFICULTIES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. 
 
 phssion is itself, to a certain extent, a negation of the tranquil- 
 lity requisite for observation, so that we are thus impaled on the 
 awkward dilemma, either we possess the necessary tranquil 
 lity for observation, with little or nothing to observe, or there 
 is something to observe, but we have not the necessary tran- 
 quillity for observation. All this is completely opposite in 
 our observation of the external world. There the objects lie 
 always ready for our inspection ; and we have only to open our 
 eyes, and guard ourselves from the use of hypotheses and green 
 spectacles, to carry our observations to an easy and successful 
 termination. 
 
 Want of mutual cooperation. In the second place, in the 
 study of external nature, several observers may associate them- 
 selves in the pursuit ; and it is well known how cooperation and 
 mutual sympathy preclude tedium and languor, and brace up 
 the faculties to their highest vigor. Hence the old proverb, 
 unus homo, nullus homo. " As iron," says Solomon, " sharpen- 
 eth iron, so a man sharpencth the. understanding of his friend." 
 "In my opinion," says Plato, ''it is well expressed by Homer, 
 
 By mutual confidence and mutual aid, 
 
 Great deeds are done, and great discoveries made;' 
 
 for if we labor in company, we are always more prompt and 
 capable for the investigation of any hidden matter. But if a 
 man works out any thing by solitary meditation, he forthwith 
 goes about to find some one with whom lie may commune, nor 
 does he think his discovery assured until confirmed by the ac- 
 quiescence of others." Aristotle, in like manner, referring to the 
 sajne passage of Homer, gives the same solution. " Social oper- 
 ation," he says, " renders us more energetic both in thought and 
 action." Of tliis advantage the student of Mind is in a great 
 measure deprived. lie who would study the internal world must 
 isolate himself in the solitude of his own thought; and for man, 
 who. as Aristotle observes, is more social by nature than any 
 bee or ant. this isolation is not only painful in itself, but, in 
 place of strengthening his powers, tends to rob them of what 
 maintains their viiror and stimulates their exertion.
 
 DIFFICULTILS OP PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. 25? 
 
 No fact of consciousness can be accepted at second hand. ID 
 the third place, " In the study of the material universe," [say* 
 Cardaillac,] " it is not necessary that each observer should him 
 self make every observation. The phenomena are here s< 
 palpable and so easily described, that the experience ot one ob 
 server suffices to make the facts which he has witnessed intelli- 
 gible and credible to all. In point of fact, our knowledge of the 
 external world is taken chiefly upon trust. The phaenomena of 
 the internal world, on the contrary, are not thus capable of being 
 described ; all that the first observer can do is to lead others to 
 repeat his experience : in the science of mind, we can believe 
 nothing upon authority, take nothing upon trust. In the physi- 
 cal sciences, a fact viewed in different aspects and in different 
 circumstances, by one or more observers of acknowledged 
 sagacity and good faith, is not only comprehended as clearly by 
 those who have not seen it for themselves, but is also admitted 
 without hesitation, independently of all personal verification. 
 Instruction thus suffices to make it understood, and the authority 
 of the testimony carries with it a certainty which almost pre- 
 cludes the possibility of doubt. 
 
 " But this is not the case in the philosophy of mind. On the 
 contrary, we can here neither understand nor believe at second 
 hand. Testimony can impose nothing on its own authority ; 
 and instruction is only instruction when it enables us to teach 
 ourselves. A fact of consciousness, however well observed, 
 however clearly expressed, and however groat may be our con- 
 fidence in its observer, is for us as nothing, until, by an expe- 
 rience of our own, we have observed and recognized it our- 
 selves. Till this be done, we cannot comprehend what it means, 
 far less admit it to be true. Hence it follows that, in philoso- 
 phy proper, instruction is limited to an indication of the position 
 in which the pupil ought to place himself, in order, by his own 
 observation, to verify for himself the facts which his instructor 
 pronounces true." 
 
 Phenomena of consciousness only to be studied through mem- 
 ory. In the/b nrth place, the phenomena of consciousness am 
 not arrested during observation ; they are in a ceaseless and
 
 260 DIFFICULTIES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. 
 
 rapid flow ; each state of mind is indivisible but for a moment, 
 and there are not two states or two moments of whose precise 
 identity we can be assured. Thus, before we can observe a 
 modification, it is already altered ; nay, the very intention of 
 observing it, suffices for the change. It hence results that the 
 phenomenon can only be studied through its reminiscence ; but 
 memory reproduces it often very imperfectly, and always in 
 lower vivacity and precision. The objects of the external 
 world, on the other hand, remain either unaltered during our 
 observation, or can be renewed without change ; and we can 
 leave off at will, and recommence our investigation, without 
 detriment to its result. 
 
 Presented only in succession. In the fifth place, " The 
 phenomena of the mental world," [says Biunde,] " are not, 
 like those of the material, placed by the side of each other in 
 space. They want that form by which external objects attract 
 and fetter our attention ; they appear only in rows on the 
 thread of time, occupying their fleeting moment, and then van 
 ishing into oblivion ; whereas, external objects stand before us 
 steadfast, and distinct, and simultaneous, in all the life and 
 emphasis of extension, figure, and color." 
 
 Naturally blend with each otlier, In the sixth place, the 
 perceptions of the different qualities of external objects are 
 decisively discriminated by different corporeal organs, so that 
 color, sound, sol-idity, odor, flavor, are, in the sensations them- 
 selves, contrasted, without the possibility of confusion. In an 
 individual sense, on the contrary, it is not always easy to draw 
 the line of separation between its perceptions, as these are con- 
 tinually running into each other. Thus red and yellow are, in 
 their extreme points, easily distinguished, but the transition 
 point from one to the other is not precisely determined. Now, 
 in our internal observation, the mental phenomena cannot be 
 discriminated like the perceptions of one sense from the per- 
 ceptions of another, but only like the perceptions of the same. 
 Thus the phenomenon of feeling, of pleasure or pain, and 
 the phenomenon of desire, an?, when considered in their re 
 motor divergent aspects, manifestly marked out and con fad is*-
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF J If GEOLOGICAL STUDY. 261 
 
 languished as different original modifications; whereas, when 
 viewed on their approximating side, they are seen to slide so 
 insensibly into each other, that it becomes impossible to draw 
 between them any accurate line of demarcation. Thus the 
 various qualities of our internal life can be alone discriminated 
 by a mental process called Abstraction ; and abstraction is ex- 
 posed to many liabilities of error. Nay, the various mental 
 operations do not present themselves distinct and separate; 
 they are all bound up in the same unity of action ; and as they 
 are only possible through each other, they cannot, even in 
 thought, be dealt with as isolated and apart. In the perception 
 of an external object, the qualities are, indeed, likewise pre- 
 sented by the different senses in connection, as, for example, 
 vinegar is at once seen as yellow, felt as liquid, tasted as sour, 
 and so on ; nevertheless, the qualities easily allow themselves in 
 abstraction to be viewed as really separable, because they are all 
 the properties of an extended and divisible body ; whereas in the 
 mind, thoughts, feelings, desires, do not stand separate, though 
 in juxtaposition, but every mental act contains at once all these 
 qualities, as the constituents of its indivisible simplicity. 
 
 Self-observation costs painful effort. In the seventh place, 
 the act of reflection on our internal modifications is not acconi 
 panied with that frequent and varied sentiment of pleasure, 
 which we experience from the impression of external things. 
 Self-observation costs us a greater effort, and has less excite- 
 ment than the contemplation of the material world ; and the 
 higher and more refined gratification, which it supplies when its 
 habit has been once formed, cannot be conceived by those who 
 have not as yet been trained to its enjoyment. " The first part 
 of our life," [says Cardaillac,] "is fled before we possess the 
 capacity of reflective observation ; while the impressions which, 
 from curliest infancy, we receive from material objects, the 
 wants of our animal nature, and the prior development of our 
 external senses, all contribute to concentrate, even from the 
 first breath of life, our attention on the world without. The 
 second passes without our caring to observe ourselves. The 
 outer life is too agreeable to allow the soul to tear itself from
 
 262 FACILITIES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY. 
 
 its gratifications, and return frequently upon itself. And at the 
 period when the material world has at length palled upon the 
 senses, when the taste and the desire of reflection gradually 
 become predominant, we then find ourselves, in a certain sort, 
 already made up, and it is impossible for us to resume our life 
 from its commencement, and to discover how we have become 
 what we now are." " Hitherto," [says Ancillon,] " external 
 objects have exclusively riveted our attention ; our organs have 
 acquired the flexibility requisite for this peculiar kind of obser- 
 vation ; we have learned the method, acquired the habit, and 
 feel the pleasure which results from performing what we per- 
 form with ease. But let us recoil upon ourselves ; the scene 
 changes ; the charm is gone ; difficulties accumulate ; all that is 
 done, is done irksomely and with effort ; in a word, every thing 
 within repels, every thing without attracts ; we reach the age 
 of manhood without being taught another lesson than reading 
 what takes place without and around us, whilst we possess 
 neither the habit nor the method of studying the volume of our 
 own thoughts." " For a long time, we are too absorbed in life 
 to be able to detach ourselves from it in thought ; and when the 
 desires and the feelings are at length weakened or tranquil- 
 lized, when we are at length restored to ourselves, we can no 
 longer judge of the preceding state, because we can no longer 
 reproduce or replace it Thus it is that our life, in a philo- 
 sophical sen.se, runs like water through our fingers. We are 
 carried along lost, whelmed in our life ; we live, but rarely see 
 ourselves to live. 
 
 " The reflective Ego, which distinguishes self from its transi- 
 tory modifications, and which separates the spectator from the 
 spectacle of life, which it is continually representing to itself, is 
 never developed in the majority of mankind at all ; and even in 
 the thoughtful and reflective few, it is formed only at a mature 
 period, and is even then only in activity by starts and at inter- 
 vals." 
 
 The facilities of philosophical study. But Philosophy haa 
 not only peculiar difficulties, it has also peculiar facilities. 
 There is, indeed, only one external condition on which it i
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF THE COGNITIVE FACULTIES. 263 
 
 dependent, and that is language ; and when, in the progress of 
 civilization, a language is once formed of a copiousness and pli- 
 ability capable of embodying its abstractions without figurative 
 ambiguity, then a genuine philosophy may commence. With 
 this one condition, all is given ; the Philosopher requires for his 
 discoveries no preliminary preparations, no apparatus of 
 instruments and materials. He has no new events to seek, as 
 the Historian ; no new combinations to form, as the Mathema- 
 tician. The Botanist, the Zoologist, the Mineralogist, can accu- 
 mulate only by care, and trouble, and expense, an inadequate 
 assortment of the objects necessary for their labors and obser- 
 vations. But that most important and interesting of all studies 
 of which man himself is the object, has no need of any thing 
 external ; it is only necessary that the observer enter into hia 
 inner self, in order to find there all he stands in need of, or 
 rather it is only by doing this, that he can hope to find any 
 thing at all. If he only effectively pursue the method of ob 
 eervation and analysis, he may even dispense with the study of 
 philosophical systems. This is at best only useful as a mean 
 towards a deeper and more varied study of himself, and is often 
 only a tribute paid by philosophy to erudition. 
 
 We have now concluded the consideration of Consciousness, 
 viewed in its more general relations, and shall proceed to an- 
 alyze its more particular modifications, that is, to consider the 
 various Special Faculties of Knowledge. 
 
 It is here proper to recall to your attention the division I 
 gave of the Mental Phenomena into three great classes, 
 namely, the phenomena of Knowledge, the phenomena of 
 Feeling, and the phenomena of Conation. But as these vari- 
 ous phenomena all suppose Consciousness as their condition, 
 those of the first class, the phenomena of Knowledge, being, 
 indeed, nothing but consciousness in various relations, it was 
 necessary, before descending to the consideration of the subor- 
 dinate, first to exhaust the principal ; and in doing this, the 
 discussion has been protracted to a greater length than I antici- 
 pated. 
 
 I now proceed to the particular investigation of the first class
 
 264 DISTRIBUTION OF THE COGNITIVE FACULTIES. 
 
 of the mental phenomena, those of Knowledge or Cognition, 
 and shall commence by delineating to you the distribution of 
 the cognitive faculties which I shall adopt ; a distribution dif- 
 ferent from any other with which I am acquainted. But I would 
 first premise an observation in regard to psychological powers, 
 and to psychological divisions. 
 
 Mental powers not distinguishable from the thinking principle, 
 nor from each other. As to mental powers, under which 
 term are included mental faculties and capacities, you are not 
 to suppose entities really distinguishable from the thinking 
 principle, or really different from each other. Mental powers 
 are not like bodily organs. It is the same simple substance 
 which exerts every energy of every faculty, however various, 
 and which is affected in every mode of every capacity, however 
 opposite. This has frequently been wilfully or ignorantly mis- 
 understood ; and, among others, Dr. Brown has made it a mat- 
 ter of reproach to philosophers in general, that they regarded 
 the faculties into which they analyzed the mind as so many dis- 
 tinct and independent existences. No reproach, however, can 
 be more unjust, no mistake more flagrant ; and it can easily be 
 shown that this is perhaps the charge, of all others, to which the 
 very smallest number of psychologists need plead guilty. On 
 this point, Dr. Brown does not, however, stand alone as an ac- 
 cuser ; and, both before and since his time, the same charge has 
 been once and again preferred, and this, in particular, with sin- 
 gular infelicity, against Reid and Stewart. To speak only of 
 the latter, he sufficiently declares his opinion on the subject 
 in a foot-note of the Dissertation: '' J quote," he says, " the 
 following passage from Addison, not as a specimen of his meta- 
 physical acumen, but as a proof of his good sense in divining 
 and obviating a difficulty, which, I believe, most persons will 
 acknowledge occurred to themselves when they first entered on 
 metaphysical studies: 'Although we divide the soul into sev- 
 eral powers and faculties, there is no such division in the soul 
 itself, since it is the w/iule soul that remembers, understands, 
 wills, or imagines. Our manner of considering the memory, 
 understanding, will, imagination, and the like faculties, is for the
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF THE COGNITIVE FACULTIES. 265 
 
 better enabling us to express ourselves in such abstracted sub- 
 jects of speculations, not that there is any such division iii the 
 eoul itself.' In another part of the same paper, Addison ob- 
 serves, ' that what we call the faculties of the soul are only the 
 different ways or modes in which the soul can exert herself.' " 
 
 What is a mental power ? I shall first state to you what is 
 intended by the terms mental power, faculty, or capacity ; and 
 then show you that no other opinion has been generally held by 
 philosophers. 
 
 It is a fact too notorious to be denied, that the mind is capa- 
 ble of different modifications, that is, can exert different actions, 
 and cau be affected by different passions. This is admitted. 
 But these actions and passions are not all dissimilar ; every 
 action and passion is not different from every other. On the 
 contrary, they are like, and they are unlike. Those, therefore, 
 that are like, we group or assort together hi thought, and bestow 
 on them a common name ; nor are these groups or assortments 
 manifold, they are in fact few and simple. Again, every 
 action is an effect ; every action and passion a modification. 
 But every effect supposes a cause ; every modification supposes 
 a subject. When we say that the mind exerts an energy, we 
 virtually say that the mind is the cause of the energy ; when 
 we say that the mind acts or suffers, we say in other words, that 
 the mind is the subject of a modification. But the modifications, 
 that is, the actions and passions, of the mind, as we stated, all 
 fall into a few resembling groups, which we designate by a pe- 
 culiar name ; and as the mind is the common cause and subject 
 of all these, we are surely entitled to say in general that the 
 mind has the faculty of exerting such and such a class of ener- 
 gies, or has the capacity of being modified by such and such an 
 ordei of affections. AV r e here excogitate no new, no occult 
 principle. We only generalize certain effects, and then infer 
 that common effects must have a common cause ; we only clas- 
 sify certain modes, and conclude that similar modes indicate the 
 same capacity of being nullified. There is nothing in all this 
 contrary to-tlie most rigid rules of philosophizing; nay, it is the 
 purest specimen of the inductive philosophy. 
 23
 
 2G6 DISTRIBUTION OF THE COGNITIVE FACULTIES. 
 
 On this doctrine, a faculty is nothing more than a general 
 term for the causality the mind has of originating a certain class 
 of energies ; a capacity, only a general term for the susceptibil- 
 ity the mind has of being aifected by a particular kind of emo- 
 tions. All mental powers are thus, in short, nothing more than 
 names determined by various orders of mental phenomena. 
 But as these phenomena differ from, and resemble, each other 
 in various respects, various modes of classification may, there- 
 fore, be adopted, and consequently, various faculties and capaci 
 ties, in different views, may be the result. 
 
 Value of Philosophical System. And this is what we actu- 
 ally see to be the case in the different systems of philosophy ; 
 for each system of philosophy is a different view of the phse- 
 nomena of mind. Now, here I would observe that we might 
 fall into one or other of two errors, either by attributing too 
 great or too small importance to a systematic arrangement of 
 the mental phenomena. It must be conceded to those who af- 
 fect to undervalue psychological system, that system is neither 
 the end first in the order of time, nor that paramount in the scale 
 of importance. To attempt a definitive system or synthesis, be- 
 fore we have fully analyzed and accumulated the f;cts to be ar- 
 ranged, would be preposterous, and necessarily futile ; and 
 system is only valuable when it is not arbitrarily devised, but 
 arises naturally out of an observation of the facts, and of the 
 whole facts themselves ; rr^ noVJ^' nsina^ Ttl.svratov intyivvrj^a. 
 
 On the other hand, to despise system is to despise philosophy ; 
 for the end of philosophy is the detection of unity. Even in 
 the progress of a science, and long prior to its consummation, it 
 is indeed better to assort the materials we have accumulated, 
 even though the arrangement be only temporary, only provis- 
 ional, than to leave them in confusion. For without such ar- 
 rangement, we are unable to overlook our possessions ; and as 
 experiment results from the experiment it supersedes, so system 
 is destined to generate system in a progress never attaining, but 
 ever approximating to, perfection. 
 
 Having stated what a psychological power in propriety is, I 
 may add that this, and not the other, opinion, has been the one
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF THE COGNITIVE FACULTIES. 267 
 
 prevalent in the various schools and ages of philosophy. I 
 could adduce to you passages hi which the doctrine that the 
 faculties and capacities are more than mere possible modes, in 
 which the simple indivisible principle of thought may act and 
 exist, is explicitly denied by [many of] the fathers of the 
 Church, by [many of] the Platonists, the Aristotelians, and by 
 the whole host of recent philosophers. During the middle ages, 
 the question was indeed one which divided the schools. St. 
 Thomas, at the head of one party, held that the faculties were 
 distinguished not only from each other, but from the essence >f 
 the mind ; and this, as they phrased it, really and not formally. 
 Henry of Ghent, at the head of another party, maintained a 
 modified opinion, that the faculties were really distinguished 
 from each other, but not from the essence of the soul. Scotus, 
 again, followed by Occam and the whole sect of Nominalists, 
 denied all real difference either between the several faculties, or 
 between the faculties and the mind ; allowing between them 
 only a formal or logical distinction. This last is the doctrine 
 that has subsequently prevailed in the latter ages of philosophy ; 
 and it is a proof of its universality, that few modern psycholo- 
 gists have ever thought it necessary to make an explicit profes- 
 sion of their faith in what they silently assumed. No accusation 
 can, therefore, be more ungrounded than that which has been 
 directed against philosophers, that they have generally har- 
 bored the opinion that faculties are, like organs in the body, 
 distinct constituents of mind. The Aristotelic principle, that in 
 relation to the body, " the soul is all in the whole and all in 
 every part," that it is the same indivisible mind that operates 
 in sense, in imagination, in memory, in reasoning, etc., diller- 
 jntly indeed, but differently only because operating in different 
 relations, this opinion is the one dominant among psycholo- 
 gists, and the one which, though not always formally proclaimed, 
 must, if not positively disclaimed, be in justice presumptively 
 attributed to every philosopher of mind. Those who employed 
 the old and familiar language of philosophy meant, in truth, 
 exactly the same as those who would establish a new doctrine 
 on a newfangled nomenclature.
 
 268 DISTRIBUTION OF THE COGNITIVE FACULTIES. 
 
 What is Psychological Division ? From what I have now 
 said, you will be better prepared for what I ana about to state 
 in regard to the classification of the first great order of mental 
 phenomena, and the distribution of the faculties of Knowledge 
 founded thereon. I formerly told you that the mental quah- 
 ities the mental phenomena are never presented to us 
 separately ; they are always in conjunction, and it is only by an 
 ideal analysis and abstraction that, for the purposes of science, 
 they can be discriminated and considered apart. The prob- 
 lem proposed in such an analysis is to find the primary threads 
 which, in their composition, form the complex tissue of thought 
 In what ought to be accomplished by such an analysis, all phi- 
 losophers are agreed, however different may have been the 
 result of their attempts. I shall not state and criticize the vari- 
 ous classifications propounded of the cognitive faculties, as I 
 did not state and criticize the classifications propounded of the 
 mental phenomena in general. The reasons are the same. 
 You would be confused, not edified. I shall only delineate the 
 distribution of the faculties of knowledge, which I have 
 adopted, and endeavor to afford you some general insight into 
 its principles. At present, I limit my consideration to the 
 phenomena of Knowledge ; with the two other classes the 
 phaenomena of Feeling and the phenomena of Conation we 
 have at present no concern. 
 
 I again repeat that consciousness constitutes, or is coexten- 
 sive with, all our faculties of knowledge, these faculties 
 being only special modifications under which consciousness is 
 manifested. It being, therefore, understood that consciousness 
 is not a special faculty of knowledge, but the general faculty 
 out of which the special faculties of knowledge are evolved, I 
 proceed to this evolution. 
 
 I. The Present alive. Faculty. In the first place, as we are 
 endowed with a faculty of Cognition, or Consciousness in gen- 
 eral, and since it cannot be maintained that we have always 
 possessed the knowledge \\hich we now possess, it will be 
 admitted, that we must have a faculty of acquiring knowledge. 
 lint this acquisition of knowledge can only be accomplished by
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF THK COGNITIVE FACULTIES. 2G9 
 
 the Immediate presentation of a new object to consciousness, in 
 other words, by the reception of a new object within the sphere 
 of our cognition. We have thus a faculty which may be called 
 the Acquisitive, or the Presentative, or the Receptive. The 
 term Presentative I use, as you will see, in contrast and correla- 
 tion to a Representative Faculty, of which I am immediately to 
 speak. 
 
 Subdivided into Perception and Self-Consciousness. Now, 
 new or adventitious knowledge may be either of things exter- 
 nal, or of things internal; in other words, either of the phae- 
 nomena of the Non-ego, or of the phacnomena of the Ego ; and 
 this distinction of object will determine a subdivision of this, 
 the Acquisitive Faculty. If the object of knowledge be ex- 
 ternal, the faculty receptive or presentative of the qualities ol 
 such object will be a consciousness of the Non-ego. This has 
 obtained the name of External Perception, or of Perception 
 simply. If, on the other hand, the object be internal, the 
 faculty receptive or presentative of the qualities of such sub- 
 ject-object will be a consciousness of the Ego. This faculty 
 obtains the name of Internal or Reflex Perception, or of Self- 
 Consciousness. By the foreign psychologists, this faculty is 
 termed also the Internal Sense. 
 
 Under the general faculty of cognition is thus, in the first 
 place, distinguished an Acquisitive, or Presentative, or Recep- 
 tive Faculty ; and this acquisitive faculty is subdivided into the 
 consciousness of the Non-ego, or External Perception simply, 
 and into the consciousness of the Ego, or Self-Consciousness, or 
 Internal Perception. 
 
 This acquisitive faculty is the faculty of Experience. It 
 affords us exclusively all the knowledge we possess a posteriori : 
 ti'.iit is, our whole contingent knowledge, our whole knowl- 
 edge of fact. External perception is the faculty of external, 
 self-consciousness is the faculty of internal, experience. If we 
 limit the term Reflection in conformity to its original employ- 
 ment and proper signification, an attention to the internal 
 phsenomena, refection will be an expression for seKion- 
 Bciousness concentrated.
 
 270 DISTRIBUTION OF THE COGNITIVE FACULTIES. 
 
 D. The Conservative Faculty. In the second place, inas- 
 much as we are capable of knowledge, we must be endowed 
 not only with a faculty of acquiring, but with a faculty of re- 
 taining or conserving it when acquired. By this faculty, I 
 mean merely, and in the most limited sense, the power of men- 
 tal retention. If our knowledge of any object terminated 
 when the object ceased to exist, or to exist within the sphere of 
 consciousness, our knowledge would hardly deserve the name 
 for what we actually perceive by the faculties of external and 
 of internal perception is but an infinitesimal part of the knowl- 
 edge which we actually possess. We have thus, as a second 
 necessary faculty, one that may be called the Conservative or 
 Retentive. This is Memory strictly so denominated, that is, 
 the power of retaining knowledge in the mind, but out of con- 
 sciousness ; I say retaining knowledge in the mind, but out of 
 consciousness, for to bring the retentum out of memory into 
 consciousness is the function of a totally different faculty, of 
 which we are immediately to speak. Under the general faculty 
 of cognition is thus, in the second place, distinguished the Con- 
 servative or Retentive Faculty, or Memory Proper. Whether 
 there be subdivisions of this faculty, we shall not here inquire. 
 
 III. The Reproductive Faculty. But, in the third place, if 
 we are capable of knowledge, it is not enough that we possess a 
 faculty of acquiring, and a faculty of retaining it in the mind, 
 but out of consciousness ; we must further be endowed with a 
 faculty of recalling it out of unconsciousness into consciousness, 
 in short, a reproductive power. This Reproductive Faculty is 
 governed by the laws which regulate the succession of cur 
 thoughts, the laws, as they are called, of Mental Association 
 If these laws are allowed to operate without the intervention 
 of the will, this faculty may be called Suggestion, or Sponta- 
 neous Suggestion ; wherea-, if applied under (lie influence of 
 the will, it will properly obtain the name of Reminiscence, or 
 Recollection. By reproduction, it should be observed, that I 
 strictly mean the process of recovering tin; absent thought from 
 unconsciousness, and not its re|resent;i(ion in consciousness. 
 This reproductive faculty is commonly confounded with tho
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF THE COGNITIVE FACULTIES 271 
 
 conservative, under the name of Memory ; but most errone- 
 ously. These qualities of mind are totally unlike, and are pos- 
 sessed by different individuals in the most different degrees. 
 Some have a strong faculty of conservation, and a feeble fac- 
 ulty of reproduction ; others, again, a prompt and active rem- 
 iniscence, but an evanescent retention. Under the general 
 faculty of cognition, there is thus discriminated, in the third 
 place, the Reproductive Faculty. 
 
 IV. The Representative Faculty. In the fourth place, as 
 capable of knowledge, we must not only be endowed with a 
 presentative, a conservative, and a reproductive faculty ; there 
 is required for their consummation for the keystone of the 
 arch a faculty of representing in consciousness, and of keep- 
 ing before the mind the knowledge presented, retained, and 
 reproduced. We have thus a Representative Faculty ; and 
 this obtains the name of Imagination or Phantasy. The word 
 Fancy is an abbreviation of the latter ; but with its change of 
 form, its meaning has been somewhat modified. Phantasy, 
 which latterly has been little used, was employed in the lan- 
 guage of the older English philosophers, as, like its Greek 
 original, strictly synonymous with Imagination. 
 
 The element of imagination is not to be confounded with the 
 element of reproduction, though this is frequently, nay com- 
 monly, clone ; and this either by comprehending these two qual- 
 ities under imagination, or by conjoining them with the quality 
 of retention under memory. The distinction I make is valid. 
 For the two faculties are possessed by different individuals in 
 very different degrees. It is not, indeed, easy to see how, with- 
 out a representative act, an object can be reproduced. But the 
 fact is certain, that the two powers have no necessary propor- 
 tion to each other. The representative faculty has, by philoso- 
 phers, been distinguished into the Productive or Creative, and 
 the Reproductive, Imagination. I shall hereafter show you that 
 this distinction is untenable. 
 
 V. The Elahoratirc Faculty. In the fifth place, all the fac- 
 ulties we have considered are only subsidiary. They acquire, 
 preserve, call out, and hold up the materials, for the use of a
 
 272 DISTRIBUTION OF THE COGNITIVE FACULTIES. 
 
 highei faculty which operates upon these materials, and which 
 we ma/ call the Elaborative or Discursive Faculty. This fac- 
 ulty has only one operation, it only compares ; it is Compari- 
 son, the faculty of Relations. It may startle you to hear 
 that the highest function of mind is nothing higher than com- 
 parison, but in the end, I am confident of convincing you of the 
 paradox. Under Comparison, I include the conditions, and the 
 results, of Comparison. In order to compare, the mind muat 
 divide or separate, and conjoin or compose. Analysis and syn- 
 thesis are, therefore, the conditions of comparison. Again, the 
 result of comparison is either the affirmation of one thing of 
 another, or the negation of one thing of another. If the mind 
 affirm one thing of another, it conjoins them, and is thus again 
 synthesis. If it deny one tiling of another, it disjoins them, 
 and is thus again analysis. Generalization, which is the result 
 of synthesis and analysis, is thus an act of comparison, and is 
 properly denominated Conception. Judgment is only the com- 
 parison of two terms or notions directly together ; Reasoning 
 only the comparison of two terms or notions with each other 
 through a third. Conception or Generalization, Judgment and 
 Reasoning, are thus only various applications of Comparison, 
 and not even entitled to the distinction of separate faculties. 
 
 Under the general cognitive faculty, there is thus discrim- 
 inated a fifth special faculty in the Elaborative Faculty, or 
 Comparison. This is Thought, strictly so called ; it corresponds 
 to the /luivoia. of the Greek, to the Discursus of the Latin, to 
 the Verstand of the German philosophy ; and its laws are the 
 object of Logic. 
 
 VI. The Regulative Faculty. But, in the sixth and last 
 place, the mind is not altogether indebted to experience fcr the 
 whole apparatus of its knowledge; its knowledge is not all 
 adventitious, not all a posteriori. What we know by expe- 
 rience, without experience we should not have known ; and as 
 all our experience is contingent, all the knowledge derived 
 from experience is contingent also. Hut there are cognitions 
 in the mind which are not contingent, which are necessary, 
 which we cannot but think, which thought supposes as it
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF TIIE COGNITIVE FACULTIES. 273 
 
 fundamental condition. These a priori cognitions are the laws 
 or conditions of thought in general ; consequently, the laws and 
 conditions under which our knowledge a posteriori is possible. 
 These cognitions, therefore, are not mere generalizations from 
 experience. But if not derived from experience, they must be 
 native to the mind ; unless, on an alternative that we need not 
 at present contemplate, we suppose with Plato, St. Austin, 
 Cousin, and other philosophers, that Reason, or more properly 
 Intellect, is impersonal, and that we are conscious of these nec- 
 essary cognitions in the divine mind. These native, these 
 necessary cognitions, are the laws by which the mind is gov- 
 erned in its operations, and which afford the conditions of its 
 capacity of knowledge. These necessary laws, or primary con- 
 ditions, of intelligence, are phenomena of a similar character ; 
 and we must, therefore, generalize or collect them into a class ; 
 and on the power possessed by the mind of manifesting these 
 phaenomena, we may bestow the name of the Regulative Fac- 
 ulty. This faculty corresponds in some measure to what, io 
 the Aristotelic philosophy, was called Nov^, vov<j (intellectus, 
 mens), when strictly employed, being a term, in that philosophy, 
 for the place of principles, the locus prineipiorum. It is 
 analogous, likewise, to the term Reason, as occasionally used by 
 some of the older English philosophers, and to the Vernunft 
 (reason) in the philosophy of Kant, Jacob!, and others of the 
 recent German metaphysicians, and from them adopted into 
 France and England. It is also nearly convertible with what I 
 conceive to be Reid's, and certainly Stewart's, notion of Com- 
 mon Sense. This, the last general faculty which I would dis- 
 tinguish under the Cognitive Faculty, is thus what I would call 
 the Regulative or Legislative, ite synonyms being Novf, 
 Intellect, or Common Sense. 
 
 You will observe that the term, faculty can be applied to the 
 ?lass of pha'uomena here collected under one name, only in a 
 very different signification from what it bears when applied to 
 the preceding powers. For roiv, intelligence or common sense, 
 meaning merely the complement of the fundamental principled 
 or laws of thought, is not properly a faculty ; that is, it is not an
 
 274 DISTRIBUTION OF THE COGNITIVE FACULTIES. 
 
 active power at all. As it is, however, not a capacity, it is not 
 easy to see by what other word it can be denoted. 
 
 Knowledge a priori and a posteriori explained. By the way, 
 you will please to recollect these two relative expressions. Aa 
 used in a psychological sense, a knowledge a posteriori is a syn- 
 onym for knowledge empirical, or from experience ; and, con- 
 sequently, is adventitious to the mind, as subsequent to, and in 
 consequence of, the exercise of its faculties of observation. 
 Knowledge a priori, on the contrary, called likewise native, 
 pure, or transcendental knowledge, embraces those principles 
 which, as the conditions of the exercise of its faculties of obser- 
 vation and thought, are, consequently, not the result of that 
 exercise. True it is that, chronologically considered, our a pri- 
 ori is not antecedent to our a posteriori knowledge ; for the 
 internal conditions of experience can only operate when an 
 object of experience has been presented. In the order of time, 
 our knowledge, therefore, may be said to commence with expe- 
 rience, but to have its principle antecedently in the mind. Much 
 as has been written on this matter by the greatest philosophers, 
 this all-important doctrine has never been so well stated as in 
 an unknown sentence of an old and now forgotten thinker : 
 " Cognitio omnis a mente primam originem, a sen.sibus exordium 
 habet primum" [All knowledge has its primitive source in the 
 mind, its beginning in the senses.] These few words are worth 
 many a modern volume of philosophy. You will observe the 
 felicity of the expression. The whole sentence has not a su- 
 perfluous word, and yet is absolute and complete. Mcns, the 
 L.itin term for vov', is the best possible word to express the 
 intellectual source of our a priori principles, and is well opposed 
 to senses. But the happiest contrast is in the terms origo and 
 exordium; the former denoting priority in the order of exist- 
 ence, the latter priority in the order of time. 
 
 The following is a tabular view of the distribution of the 
 Special Faculties of Knowledge :
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF THE COGNITIVE FACULTIES. 275 
 
 I. Presentative 
 II. Conservative 
 
 III. Reproductive 
 
 IV. Representative 
 V. Elaborative 
 
 VI. Regulative 
 
 ( External = Perception. 
 
 { Internal = Self-consciousness. 
 = Memory. 
 
 ( Without will = Suggestion. 
 
 ( With will = Reminiscence. 
 = Imagination. 
 
 = Comparison, Faculty of Relations. 
 = Reason, Common Sense. 
 
 Besides these faculties, there are, I conceive, no others ; and, 
 in the sequel, I shall endeavor to show you, that while these are 
 attributes of mind not to be confounded, not to be analyzed 
 into each other, the other faculties which have been devised 
 by philosophers are either factitious and imaginary, or easily 
 reducible to these.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. REID'S HISTORICAL VIEW OF 
 THE THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 Use of the term Cognition vindicated. I may here notice, 
 parenthetically, the reason why I frequently employ cognition 
 as a synonym of knowledge. This is not done merely for the 
 sake of varying the expression. In the first place, it is neces- 
 sary to have a word of this signification, which we can use in 
 the plural. Now the term knowledges has waxed obsolete, though 
 I think it ought to be revived. It is frequently employed by 
 Bacon. We must, therefore, have recourse to the term cogni- 
 tion, of which the plural is in common usage. But in the 
 second place, we must likewise have a term for knowledge 
 which we can employ adjectively. The word knowledge itself 
 has no adjective, for the participle knowing is too vague and 
 unemphatic to be employed, at least, alone. But the substantive 
 cognition has the adjective cognitive. Tims, in consequence of 
 having a plural and an adjective, cognition is a word we cannot 
 possibly dispense with in psychological discussion. It. would 
 also be convenient, in the third place, for psychological precision 
 and emphasis, to use the word to cognize in connection with its 
 noun cognition, a-s we use the decompound to recognize in con- 
 nection with its noun recognition. But in llfis instance, the 
 necessity is not strong enough to warrant our doing what cus- 
 tom has not done. You will notice, such an innovation is always 
 a question of circumstances ; and though I would not subject 
 Philosophy to Rhetoric more than Gregory the Great would 
 Theology to Grammar, still, without an adequate necessity, I 
 bhould always recommei d you, in your English composition.-. t 
 (276)
 
 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 277 
 
 prefer a word of Saxon to a word of Greek or Latin derivation. 
 It would be absurd to sacrifice meaning to its mode of utterance, 
 to make thought subordinate to its expression ; but still where 
 no higher authority, no imperious necessity, dispenses with phil- 
 ological precepts, these, as themselves the dictates of reason and 
 philosophy, ought to be punctiliously obeyed. " It is not in 
 language," says Leibnitz, " that we ought to play the puritan " 
 but it is not either for the philosopher or the theologian to throw 
 off all deference to the laws of language, to proclaim of theii 
 doctrines, 
 
 " Mysteria tanta 
 Turpe est grammaticis submittere colla capistris." 
 
 The general right must certainly be asserted to the philosopher 
 of usurping a peculiar language, if requisite to express his pe- 
 culiar analyses ; but he ought to remember that the exercise of 
 tliis right, as odious and suspected, is strictissimi Juris, and that, 
 to avoid the pains and penalties of grammatical recusancy, he 
 must always be able to plead a manifest reason of philosophical 
 necessity. But to return from this digression. 
 
 JWenlaL phenomena distinguished only In/ abstraction, The 
 phenomena of mind are never presented to us undecomposed 
 and simple ; that is, we are nev;r conscious of any modification 
 of mind which is not made up of many elementary modes ; but 
 these simple modes we are able to distinguish, by abstraction, as 
 separate forms or qualities of our internal life, since, in differ- 
 ent states of mind, they are given in different proportions and 
 combinations. We are thus able to distinguish as simple, by an 
 ideal abstraction and analysis, what is never actually given ex- 
 cept in composition ; precisely as we distinguish color from 
 extension, though color is never presented to us apart, nay, can- 
 not even be conceived as actually separable, from extension. 
 The aim of the psychologist is thus to analyze, by abstraction, 
 the mental phenomena into tho.se ultimate or primary qualities, 
 which, in their combination, constitute the concrete complexities 
 of actual thought. If the simple constituent phenomenon be a 
 mental activity, we give to the active power thus possessed bjr
 
 278 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 the mind of eliciting such elementary energy the name of fac- 
 ulty ; whereas, if the simple or constituent phenomenon be a 
 mental passivity, we give to the passive power thus possessed by 
 the mind of receiving such an elementary affection, the name 
 of capacity. Thus it is that there are just as many simple fac- 
 ulties as there are ultimate activities of mind ; as many simple 
 capacities as there are ultimate passivities of mind ; and it is 
 consequently manifest that a system of the mental powers can 
 never be final and complete, until we have accomplished a full 
 and accurate analysis of the various fundamental phenomena 
 of our internal life. And what does such an analysis suppose ? 
 Manifestly thrjee^ conditions ; 1, That no phenomenon be as- 
 sumed as elementary which can be resolved into simpler princi- 
 ples ; 2, That no elementary phenomenon be overlooked ; and 
 jj, That no imaginary element be interpolated. 
 
 These are the rules which ought evidently to govern our psy- 
 chological analyses. I could show, however, that these have 
 been more or less violated in every attempt that has been made 
 at a determination of the constituent elements of thought ; for 
 philosophers have either stopped short of the primary phenom- 
 enon, or they have neglected it, or they have substituted another 
 in its room. I declined, however, at present, an articulate criti- 
 cism of the various systems of the human powers proposed by 
 philosophers, and passed on to the summary distribution of the 
 cognitive faculties given in the last chapter. It is evident that 
 such a distribution, as the result of an analysis, cannot be appreci- 
 ated until the analysis itself be understood ; and this can only 
 be understood after the discussion of the several faculties and 
 elementary phenomena has been carried through. You are, 
 therefore, at present to look upon this scheme as little more 
 than a table of contents to the various chapters, under which 
 the phenomena of knowledge will be considered. I now only 
 make a statement of what I shall subsequently attempt to prove. 
 The principle of the distribution is, however, of such a nature 
 that I Hatter myself it can, in some measure, be comprehended 
 even on its first enunciation : for the various elementary phe- 
 nomena, and the relative faculties which it assumes, are of so
 
 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 279 
 
 notorious and necessary a character, that they cannot possibly 
 be refused ; and, at the same time, they are discriminated from 
 each other both by obvious contrast, and by the fact that they 
 are manifested in different individuals each in very various 
 proportions to each other. 
 
 The general faculty of knowledge is thus, according to Jhja 
 distribution, divided into six special faculties : first, the Acquis- 
 itive, Presentative, or Receptive; second, the Conservative; 
 third, the Reproductive ; fourth, the Representative ; _fifth_the 
 Elaborative ; fc and sixth, the^ Regulative. The first of these, the 
 Acquisitive, is again subdivided into two faculties, Perception 
 and Self- Consciousness ; the third into Suggestion and Reminis- 
 cence ; and the" fifth may likewise admit of subdivisions, into 
 "Conception, Judgment, and Reasoning, which, however, as 
 merely applications of the same act in different degrees, hardly 
 warrant a distinction into separate faculties. I now proceed to 
 consider these faculties in detail. 
 
 The Presentative Faculty - ffinegpftVm. Perception, or the 
 consciousness of external objects, is the first power in order. 
 And, in treating of this faculty, the faculty on which turns 
 the whole question of Idealism and Realism, it is perhaps 
 proper, in the first place, to take an historical survey of the hy- 
 potheses of philosophers in regard to Perception. In doing 
 this, I shall particularly consider the views which tt*td has 
 given of these hypotheses : his authority on this the most im- 
 portant part of his philosophy is entitled to high respect ; and 
 it is requisite to point out to you, both in what respects he ha> 
 misrepresented others, and in what been misrepresented him 
 self. 
 
 Before commencing this survey, it is proper to state, in a few 
 words, the one, the principal, point in regard to which opinion* 
 vary. The grand distinction of philosophers is determined by 
 the ahernntive they adopt on the question, Is our 
 
 or ourconsciousness_of external objects, mediate or immediate? 
 
 A* we have seen, those who maintain our knowledge of ex- 
 ternal objects to be immediate, accept implicitly the datum of 
 consciousness, which gives u? an ultimate fact in this act, an ego
 
 280 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 immediately known, and a non-ego immediately known. Those 
 again who deny that an external object can be immediately 
 known, do not accept one-half of the fact of consciousness, but 
 pubstitute some hypothesis in its place, not, however, always 
 the same. Cpnsciqi^s ness declares that we have _an immediate 
 knowledge of a non-ego, and of an external non-ego. 
 
 Two hypotheses of Mediate Perception. Now, of the phi- 
 losophers who reject this fact, some admit our immediate knowl- 
 edge of a non-ego, but not of an external nou-ego. They do 
 not limit the consciousness or immediate knowledge of the mind 
 to its own modes, but conceiving it impossible for the external 
 reality to be brought within the sphere of consciousness, they 
 hold that it is represented by a vicarious image, numerically 
 different from mind, but situated somewhere, either in the brain 
 or mind, within the sphere of consciousness. Others, again, 
 deny to the mind not only any consciousness of an external 
 non-ego, but of a non-ego at all, and hold that what the mind 
 immediately perceives, and mistakes for an external object, is 
 only the ego itself peculiarly modified. TJje_se two are the only 
 generic varieties possible of the representative hypothesis. 
 And they have each their respective advantages and disad- 
 vantages. They both equally afford a basis for Idealism. On 
 the former, Berkeley established his Theological, on the latter, 
 Fichte his Anthropological, Idealism. Both violate the testi- 
 mony of consciousness, the one the more complex and the 
 clumsier, in denying that we are conscious of an external non- 
 ego, though admitting that we are conscious of a non-ego 
 within the sphere of consciousness, either in the mind or brain. 
 The other, the simpler and more philosophical, outrages, how- 
 ever, still more flagrantly, the veracity of consciousness, in 
 denying not only that we are conscious of an external non-ego, 
 but that we are conscious of a non-ego at all.* 
 
 * [Nothing is easier than to show that, so far from refuting Idealism, this 
 
 doctrine affords it the best of all possible foundations An Egoisti- 
 
 ral Idealism is established on the doctrine that all our knowledge is merely 
 subjective, or of the mind itself; that the Ego has no immediate cognizance 
 of a Non-Ego as existing, but that the Non-Ego is only represented to \if
 
 . THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 281 
 
 Each of these hypotheses of a representative perception 
 admits of various subordinate hypotheses. Thus the former. 
 which holds that the representative or immediate object is a 
 tertiutn quid, different both from the mind and from the exter- 
 nal reality, is subdivided^ according as the immediate object is 
 viewed as materia^ as immaterial, or as neither^ or as both, as 
 something physical or as something hyperphysical, as propa- 
 gated from the external object, as generated in the medium, or 
 as fabricated in the soul itself; and this latter, either in the 
 intelligent mind or in the animal life, as infused by God or by 
 angels, or as identical with the divine substance, and so forth. 
 In the latter, the representative modification has been regarded 
 either as factitious, that is, a mere product of mind ; or as 
 innate, that is, as independent of any mental energy. 
 
 Reid's error. Reid. W-ho, as I shall hereafter endeavor to 
 show you, probably holds the doctrine of an Intuitive or Imiae 
 diate Perception, never generalized, never articulately under- 
 stood, the distinction of the two forms of the Representative 
 Hypothesis. This was the cause of the most important errors 
 on his part. Tn ftfce first place, it prevented him from drawing 
 the obtrusive and vital distinction between Perception, to him a 
 
 in a modification of the self-conscious Ego. This doctrine being admitted, 
 the Idealist has only to show, that the supposition of a Non-Ego, or an 
 external world really existent, is n groundless and unnecessary assump- 
 tion ; for, while the Law of Parcimony prohibits the multiplication of sub- 
 stances or causes beyond what the phenomena require, we have manifestly 
 no right to postulate for the Non-Ego the dignity of an independent sub- 
 Jtance beyond the Ego, seeing that this Non-Ego is, ex Ity/iot/usi, known to 
 
 us. consequently exists for us, only as a phenomenon of the Ego 
 
 All our knowledge of the Non-Ego is thus merely ideal and mediate; we 
 bave no knowledge of any really objective reality, except through a surv 
 ective representation or notion; in other words, we arc only immediate I j 
 cognizant of certain modes of our own minds, and, in and through their., 
 
 mediately warned of the phenomena of the material universe The 
 
 common sense of mankind only assures us of the existence of an external 
 and extended world, in assuring us that we arc conscious, not merely of th< 
 phenomena of mind in relation to matter, but of the phuMiomrna of mat- 
 ter in relation to mind ; in other words, that we are immediately pcreipi- 
 snt of extended things.] Notes to Reid. 
 84*
 
 282 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 faculty immediately cognitive, or presentative of external oh. 
 jects, and the faculties of Imagination and Memory, in which 
 external objects can only be known to the mind mediately, or in 
 a representation. In tho^econd place^this, as we shall see, 
 causes him the greatest perplexity, and sometimes leads him 
 into errors in his history of the opinions of previous philoso- 
 phers, in regard to which he has, independently of this, been 
 guilty of various mistakes. 
 
 firman's error ^ As to Brown, he holds the simple doctrine 
 of_a representative perception, a doctrine which Reid does 
 not seem to have understood ; and this opinion he not only 
 holds himself, but attributes, with one or two exceptions, to all 
 modern philosophers, nay, even to Reid himself, whose philoso- 
 phy he thus maintains to be one great blunder, both in regard 
 to the new truths it professes to establish, and to the old errors 
 it professes to refute. It turns out, however, that Brown in 
 relation to Reid is curiously wrong from first to last, not one 
 of Reid's numerous mistakes, historical and philosophical, does 
 he touch, far less redargue ; whereas, in every point on which 
 he assails Reid, he himself is historically or philosophically in 
 error. 
 
 Reid's historical review. The Platonic theory. This being 
 premised, I now proceed to follow Reid through his historical 
 view and scientific criticism of the various theories of Percep- 
 tion ; and I accordingly commence with the Platonic. In this, 
 however, he is unfortunate, for the simile of the cave, which is 
 applied by Plato in the seventh book of the Republic, was not 
 intended by him as an illustration of the mode of our sensible 
 perception at all. "Plato," says Reid, "illustrates our manner 
 ot perceiving the objects of sense in this manner. He sup- 
 poses a dark subterraneous cave, in which men lie bound in such 
 a manner that they can direct their eyes only to one part of the 
 cave : far behind, there is a light, some rays of which come 
 over a wall to that part of tlie cave which is before the 
 eyes of our prisoners. A number of persons, variously em- 
 ployed. pa~s between them and the light, whose shadows are 
 seen bj the prisoners, but not the persons themselves. In thii
 
 VARIOUS THEORIES OF t'ERCEPTIOW. 283 
 
 manner, that philosopher conceived that, by our senses, we per- 
 ceive the shadows of things only, and not things themselves. 
 He seems to have borrowed his notions on this subject from the 
 Pythagoreans, and they very probably from Pythagoras him- 
 self. If we make allowance for Plato's allegorical genius, his 
 sentiments on this subject correspond very well with those of 
 his scholar Aristotle, and of the Peripatetics. The shadows of 
 Plato may very well represent the species and phantasms 
 of the Peripatetic school, and the ideas and impression! of 
 modern philosophers." 
 
 Reid's account of the Platonic theory of perception is utterly 
 wrong. Plato's simile of the cave he completely misappre- 
 hends. By his cave, images, and shadows, this philosopher 
 intended only to illustrate the great principle of his philoso- 
 phy, that the sensible or ectypal world, ( the world phamome- 
 ual, transitory, ever becoming but never being (uit yip'Ofifvov, 
 urfltTtore ovji stands to the noetic or archetypal world, the 
 world substantial, permanent (OVTW*' 6V), in the same relation of 
 comparative unreality, in which the shadows or the images of 
 sensible existences themselves stand to the objects of which 
 they are the dim and distant adumbrations. 
 
 But not only is Reid wrong in regard to the meaning of the 
 cave, he is curiously wrong in regard to Plato's doctrine, at 
 least, of vision. For so far was Plato from holding that we 
 only perceive in consequence of the representations of objects 
 being thrown upon the percipient mind, he, on the contrary, 
 maintained, in the Timceus, that, in vision, a percipient power 
 of the sensible soul sallies out towards the object, the images of 
 which it carries back into the eye; an opinion, by the way, 
 held likewise by Empedocles, Alexander of Aphrodisias, [and 
 many others]. 
 
 The Aristotclic doctrine. The account which Reid gives of 
 the Aristotolic doctrine is, likewise, very erroneous. " Aristotle 
 seems to have thought that the soul consists of two parts, cr 
 rather, that we have two souls, the animal and the rational; 
 or, as he calls them, the soul and the intellect. To the Jirst, be- 
 long the senses, memory and imagination ; to the last, judgment.
 
 284 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 opinion, belief, and reasoning. The first we have in common 
 with brute animals ; the last is peculiar to man. The animal 
 soul he held to be a certain form of the body, which is insepar- 
 able from it, and perishes at death. To this soul the senses 
 belong ; and he defines a sense to be that which is capable of 
 receiving the sensible forms or species of objects, without any 
 of the matter of them ; as wax receives the form of the seal 
 without any of the matter of it. The forms of sound, cf cckr, 
 of taste, and of other sensible qualities, are, in a manner, re- 
 ceived by the senses. It seems to be a necessary consequence 
 of Aristotle's doctrine, that bodies are constantly sending forth, 
 in all directions, as many different kinds of forms without mat- 
 ter as they have different sensible qualities ; for the forms of 
 color must enter by the eye, the forms of sound by the ear, 
 and so of the other senses. This, accordingly, was main- 
 tained by the followers of Aristotle, though not, as far as I 
 know, expressly mentioned by himself. They disputed concern- 
 ing the nature of those forms of species, whether they were 
 real beings or nonentities ; and some held them to be of an in- 
 termediate nature between the two. The whole doctrine of the 
 Peripatetics and schoolmen concerning forms, substantial and 
 accidental, and concerning the transmission of sensible" species 
 from objects of sense to the mind, if it be at all intelligible, is 
 so far above my comprehension that I should perhaps do it 
 injustice by entering into it more minutely." 
 
 In regard to the statement of the Peripatetic doctrine of 
 species, I must observe, that it is correct only as applied to the 
 doctrine taught as the Aristotelic in the Schools of the middle 
 ages ; and even in these Schools, there was a large party who 
 not only themselves disavowed the whole doctrine of species, but 
 maintained that it received no countenance from the authority 
 of Aristotle. This opinion is correct; and I could easily prove 
 to you, had we time, that there is nothing in the metaphorical 
 expressions of eldo^ and Ti'rros 1 , which, on one or two occasions, 
 he cursorily uses to warrant tin; attribution to him of the doc- 
 trine of his disciples. This is even expressly maintained by 
 several of his Greek commentators, as the Aphrodisian
 
 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 285 
 
 Michael Ephesius, and Philoponus. In fact, Aristotle appears 
 to have held the same doctrine in regard to perception as Reid 
 himself. He was a Natural Realist. 
 
 Reid gives no account of the famous doctrine of Perception 
 held by Epicurus, and which that philosopher had borrowed 
 from Democritus, namely, that the eiSoala, dnooooicu, imag- 
 ines, simulacra rerum, etc., are like pellicles continually flying 
 off from objects ; and that these material likenesses, diffusing 
 themselves everywhere in the air, are propagated to the per- 
 ceptive organs. In the words of Lucretius, 
 
 " Qua, quasi membranae, sumrao de cortice rerum 
 Dereptae, volitant ultro citroque per auras." 
 
 The Cartesian doctrine, Reid's statement of the Cartesian 
 doctrine of perception is not exempt from serious error. After 
 giving a long, and not very accurate, account of the philosophy 
 of Descartes in general, he proceeds : 
 
 " There are two points, in particular, wherein I cannot recon- 
 cile him to himself: the Jirst^ regarding the place of the ideas 
 or images of external objects, which are the immediate objects 
 of perception ; the second, with regard to the veracity of our 
 external senses. 
 
 " As to the Jirst, he sometimes places the ideas of material 
 objects in the brain, not only when they are perceived, but when 
 they are remembered or imagined ; and this has always been 
 held to be the Cartesian doctrine ; yet_he sometimes says, that 
 we are not to conceive the images or traces in the brain to be 
 perceived, as if there were eyes in the brain ; these traces are 
 only occasions on which, by the laws of the union of soul and 
 body, ideas are excited in the mind ; and, therefore, it is not 
 necessary that there should be an exact resemblance between 
 the traces and the things represented by them, any more than 
 that words or signs should be exactly like the things signified 
 by them. 
 
 " These two opinions, I think, cannot be reconciled. For, if 
 the images or traces in the brain are perceived, they must bo 
 the objects of perception, and not the occasions of it only. On
 
 286 VARIOUS TTTEOniES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 the other hand, if they are only the occasions of our pe/ceiving, 
 they are not perceived at all. Descartes seems to have hesi- 
 tated between the two opinions, or to have passed from the one 
 to the other." 
 
 Reid's principal error consists in charging Descartes with 
 vacillation and inconsistency, and in possibly attributing to him 
 the opinion that the representative object, of which the mind is 
 conscious in perception, is something material, something in 
 the brain. This arose from his ignorance of the fundamental 
 principle of the Cartesian doctrine. 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 natu- 
 rally be construed to import, that Descartes 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 
 imaye and idea. Reid, who did not understand the Cartesian 
 philosophy as a system, was puzzled by these superficial ambi- 
 guities. Not jiware 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, therefore, 
 only be supernaturally maintained by the concourse of the 
 Deity, Reid was led into the error of attributing, by possibility, 
 to Descartes, the opinion that the soul was immediately cogni- 
 zant 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 proximately the occasions, but can 
 never constitute the immediate object?, of knowledge. 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, wholly misinterpreted Descartes, 
 who applies, almsively indeed, these terms to the occasion of 
 perception, th:it is, the motion in the sensorium, unknown in 
 itself and representing nothing; as well as to the object of 
 thought, that is, the representation of which we are conscious 
 in the mind itself. In the Leibnitzo-Wolfian system, two ele- 
 mcnte, both also denominated ideas, are in like manner accu- 
 rately to be contradistinguished in the process of perception-
 
 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 287 
 
 The idea in the brain, and the idea in the mind, are, to Des- 
 cartes, precisely what the " material idea " and the " sensual 
 idea " are to the Wblfians. In both philosophies, the two ideas 
 are harmonic modifications, correlative and coexistent ; but in 
 neither is the organic affection or semorial idea an object :t' 
 consciousness. It is merely the unknown and arbitrary condi- 
 tion of the mental representation ; and in the hypothesis, both 
 of Assistance and of Preestablished Harmony, the presence of 
 the one idea implies the concomitance of the other, only by vir- 
 tue of the hyperphysical determination. 
 
 Reidconfused in his account of Arnauld. In treating of 
 Arnauld's opinion, we see the confusion arisingjrom ReijTs noj 
 .distinctly apprehending t.hft twQ fpjTTig of the representative hy- 
 jiQthgaia. Arnauld held, and was the first of the philosophers 
 noticed by Reid or Brown who clearly held, thejiniplejLQf Jhese 
 forms, Now, injiisjstatement of Arnauld's doctrine, Reid was 
 perplexed, was puzzled. As opposing the philosophers who 
 maintained the more complex doctrine of representation, Ar- 
 nauld seemed to Reid to coincide in opinion with himself; but^ 
 yet, though he never rightly understood the simpler doctrine of 
 representation, he still feels that Arnauld did not hold with him 
 an intuitive perception. Dr. Brown is, therefore, wrong in as- 
 serting that Reid admits Arnauld's opinion on perception and 
 his own to be identical. 
 
 It cannot be maintained, that Reid admits a philosopher to 
 hold an opinion convertible with his own, whom he states to 
 " profess the doctrine, universally received, that we perceive 
 not material things immediately, that it is their ideas that aro 
 the immediate objects of our thoughts, and that it is in tho 
 idea of every. thing that we perceive its properties." This fun- 
 damental contrast being established, we may safely allow that 
 the original misconception, which caused Reid to overlook tho 
 difference of our intuitive and representative faculties, caused 
 him, likewise, to believe that Arnauld hud attempted to unite 
 two contradictory theories of perception. Not aware that it was 
 possible to maintain a doctrine of perception in which the idea 
 was not really distinguished from it-i cognition, and vet to hold
 
 288 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 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 existences really distinct 
 from the contemplative act of perception, coincided with him in 
 viewing the material reality as the immediate object of that 
 act; and, jiLthe_ 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 per- 
 ception. Arnauld's theory is one and indivisible ; and, as such, 
 no part of it is identical 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 modifica- 
 tion of the representative hypothesis. He saw no medium 
 between rejecting ideas as something different from thought, 
 and his own doctrine of an immediate knowledge of the mate- 
 rial object. Neither does Arnauld, as Reid supposes, ever assert 
 against Malebranche, " that we perceive external things imme- 
 diately," that is, in themselves : maintaining that all our per- 
 ceptions are modifications essentially representative, he every- 
 where avows, that he denies ideas only as existences distinct 
 from the act itself of perception. 
 
 Reid was, therefore, wrong, and did Arnauld less than jus- 
 tice, in viewing his theory " as a weak attempt to reconcile two 
 inconsistent doctrines : " he was wrong, and did Arnauld more 
 than justice, in supposing that one of these doctrines was not 
 incompatible 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 sub- 
 isting between his own and Arnauld's opinion, considered as a 
 whole ; and expo.-cs more glaringly Brown's general misconcep- 
 tion of Reid's philosophy, and his present gross misrepresenta- 
 tion, in affirming that tin; doctrines of the two philosophers were 
 identical, and by Reid admitted to be the same. 
 
 Reid.onJLocke. Locke is the philosopher next in order, and 
 it is principally against Reid's statement of the Lockian doc- 
 trine of ideas, that the most vociferous clamor has been raised,
 
 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 289 
 
 by those who deny that the cruder form of the representative 
 hypothesis was the one prevalent among philosophers, after the 
 decline of the Scholastic theory of species ; and who do not see 
 that, though Reid's refutation, from the cause I have already 
 not'ced, was ostensibly directed only against that cruder form, 
 ",t was virtually and in effect levelled against the doctrine of a 
 representative perception altogether. Even supposing that 
 Reid was wrong in attributing this particular modification of 
 the representative hypothesis to Locke, and the philosophers in 
 general, this would be a trivial error, provided it can be 
 shown that he was opposed to every doctrine of perception, 
 except that founded on the fact of the duality of consciousness. 
 But let us consider whether Reid be really in error when he 
 attributes to Locke the opinion in question. Both Priestley 
 and Brown strenuously contend against Reid's interpretation of 
 the doctrine of Locke, who states it as that philosopher's opin- 
 ion, "that images of external objects were conveyed to the 
 brain; but whether he thought with [Dr. Clarke] and New- 
 ton, 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, Brown, Priestley, and others pronounce a flagrant mis- 
 representation. Not only docs Brown maintain that Locke 
 never conceived the idea to be substantially different from the 
 mind, as a material image of the brain ; but that he never sup- 
 posed it to have an existence apart from the mental energy of 
 which it is the object. Locke, he asserts, like Arnauld, consid- 
 ered the idea perceived and the percipient act to constitute the 
 same indivisible modification of the conscious mind. This we 
 shall consider. 
 
 In his language, Locke is, of all philosophers, the most figura- 
 tive, ambiguous, vacillating, various, and even contradictory ; as 
 has been noticed by Reid and Stewart, and Brown himself, 
 indeed, we believe, by every philosopher who has had occasion 
 to animadvert on Locke. The opinions of such a writer are 
 not, therefore, to be assumed from isolated and casual expres- 
 sions, which tlnmselves require to be interpreted ou the genera] 
 25
 
 290 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 analogy of the system ; and yet this is the only ground on which 
 Dr. Brown attempts to establish his conclusions. Thus, on the 
 matter under discussion, though really distinguishing, Locke 
 verbally confounds, the objects of sense and of pure 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 converted with Per- 
 ception ; Perception with Idea; Idea with the object of Per- 
 ception, and with Notion, Conception, Phantasm, Representation, 
 Sense, Meaning, etc. Now, his language identifying ideas and 
 perceptions, appears conformable to a disciple of Arnauld; and 
 now it proclaims him a follower of Democritus and Digby, 
 explaining ideas by mechanical impulse and the propagation of 
 material particles from the external reality to the brain. In 
 one passage, the idea would seem an organic affection, the 
 mere occasion of a spiritual representation ; in another, a rep- 
 resentative image, in the brain itself. In employing thus indif- 
 ferently 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. 
 
 I 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 
 circumstances, I should have considered suspense more rational 
 than a dogmatic confidence in any conclusion, did not the follow- 
 ing passage, which ha;* never, 1 believe, been noticed, afford a 
 positive and explicit contradiction of Dr. Brown's interpreta- 
 tion. It is from Locke's Examination of Malebranche's Opin- 
 ioiiy which, as subsequent to the publication of the Essay, must 
 be held decisive in relation to the doctrines of that work. At 
 the same time, the statement is articulate and precise, and pos- 
 sesses all the authority of one cautiously emitted in the course 
 of a polemical discussion. Malebranche coincided with Arnauld, 
 Ik-id, and recent philosophers in general, and consequently with
 
 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 2'Jl 
 
 Locke, as interpreted by Brown, to the extent of supposing that 
 $ensalion proper is nothing but a state or modification of the 
 mind itself; and Locke had thus the opportunity of expressing, 
 in regard to this opinion, his agreement or dissent. An acqui- 
 escence in the doctrine, that the secondary qualities, of which 
 \ve 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. Malebranche, 
 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-resem- 
 bling 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 conclusive 
 , against Brown; and equally so whether we coincide or not in 
 all the doctrines it involves. " But to examine their doctrine of 
 modification a little further. Different sentiments (sensations) 
 are different modifications of the mind. The mind, or soul, 
 that perceives, is one immaterial indivisible substance. Now I 
 sec 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 unex- 
 tended 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 indi- 
 visible substance, one for black, another for white, and another 
 for red ideas, and so of the rest of those infinite sensations, 
 which we have in sorts and degrees ; all which ve can dis- 
 tinctly perceive, and so are distinct ideas, some whereof are 
 opposite, as heat and cold, which yet a man may fevl at the 
 same time? I was ignorant before, how sensation was performed 
 in us: this they call an explanation of it! Mu.-t I say now I 
 understand it better ? If this be to cure one's ignorance, it is a
 
 2U2 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 very slight disease, and the charm of two or three insignificant 
 words will at any time remove it ; probatum est." 
 
 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 ; it follows that Reid did him any thing but injustice, in 
 pupposing 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 hig 
 critics, and the one adopted from him by his disciples. Nor is 
 this to be deemed an opinion too monstrous to be entertained by 
 so enlightened a philosopher. It was the common opinion of 
 (he age ; the opinion, in particular, held by the most illustrious 
 philosophers, his countrymen and contemporaries, by Newton, 
 Clarke, Willis, Hook, etc. 
 
 Reid and Brown on Hobbes. To adduce Hobbes as an in- 
 stance 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 representation, under all its 
 modifications, is properly subordinate to the doctrine of a spir- 
 itual principle of thought ; and on the supposition, all but uni- 
 versally 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 imma- 
 terial subject, of an existence so disproportioned to its nature, 
 as the qualities of a material object. Contending, that an im- 
 mediate cognition of the accidents of matter, infers an essential 
 identity of matter and mind, Brown himself admits, that the 
 hypothesis of representation belongs exclusively to the doctrine 
 of dualism; whil-t Reid, assailing the hypothesis of ideas only 
 as flubvrting the reality of matter, could hardly regard it as 
 paiuel of that scheme, which acknowledges the reality of noth- 
 ing el-e. But though llobbes cannot be adduced as a competent 
 witnes-j against Reid, lie is, however, valid evidence against 
 Brown. Ilolibes, though a materialist, admitted no knowledge 
 of an external world. Like his friend Sorhiere, he was a kind 
 of Material Idealist. According to him, we know nothing of
 
 ARfOUS fHEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 2'3 
 
 the qualities or existence of any outward reality. All that we 
 know is the " seeming," the " apparition," the " aspect," th 
 " 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, dif- 
 fering from it simply in the degree of their vivacity ; and this 
 difference of intensity, with Hobbes as with Hume, is the only 
 discrimination between our dreaming and our waking thoughts. 
 A doctrine of perception identical with Reid's ! 
 
 Le Clerc and Orousaz. Dr. Brown at length proceeds to 
 consummate his victory, by " that most decisive evidence, found 
 not in treatises read only by a few, but in the popular elemen- 
 tary 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, " 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 percep- 
 tion. [" Others suppose," says Le Clerc, " that an idea and the 
 perception of an idea are the same thing, though they differ in 
 their relations- The idea, as they think, is properly referred to 
 the object which the mind considers, while the perception is re- 
 ferred to the mind itself which perceives; but this twofold rela- 
 tion belongs to one and the same modification of mind. There- 
 fore, according to these philosophers, there are not, properly 
 .speaking, any ideas distinct from the mind."J What is it I 
 may ask, which Dr. Reid considers himself as having added to 
 this very philosophical view of perception ? and if lie added 
 nothing, it is surely too much to ascribe to him the merit of 
 detecting errors, the counter-statement of which had long formed 
 a part of the elementary works of the schools." 
 
 Iu tlie first, place, Dr. Reid certainly " added " nothing " tc 
 25*
 
 294 VARIOUS THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 this very philosophical view of perception," but he exploded 
 it altogether. In the .second, it is false either that this doc- 
 trine of perception " 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 liim 
 to be the novel paradox of a single philosopher ; nay, 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 Jogma in the schools, was neither more nor less than a 
 statement of the contemporary hypothesis of Antony Arnauld, 
 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 coincides in " this very phi- 
 losophical view of perception." So far, however, from coin- 
 ciding with Arnauld, he pronounces his opinion to be false ; 
 controverts it upon very solid grounds ; and in delivering his 
 own doctrine touching ideas, though sufficiently cautious in tell- 
 ing us what they are, he has no hesitation in assuring us, 
 among other things which they cannot be, that they are not 
 mollifications or essential states of mind. ["The idea," says 
 Le Clerc, " is not a modification, nor is it the essence, of the 
 mind ; for, besides the fact that there is a great difference be- 
 tween the perception of an idea and a sensation, what is there 
 in the mind which is like a mountain, or many other ideas of 
 this sort ? "] Such is the judgment of that authority to which 
 Dr. Brown appealed as the most decisive. 
 
 In Crousaz, Dr. Brown has actually succeeded in finding one 
 example (he might have found twenty) of a philosopher, before 
 Reid, holding the sain? theory of ideas with Arnauld and him
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 111E PRESENT ATIVE FACULTY. PERCEPTION. WAS RUD A 
 NATURAL REALIST ? 
 
 IN the last chapter, I concluded the review of Reid's Histori 
 cal Account of the previous Opinions on Perception. In enter- 
 ing upon this review, I proposed the following ends. In the 
 first place, to afford you, not certainly a complete, but a compe- 
 tent insight into the various theories on this subject ; and this 
 was sufficiently accomplished by limiting myself to the opinions 
 touched upon by Reid. My aim, in the second place, was to 
 correct some errors of Reid arising from, and illustrative of, 
 those fundamental misconceptions which have infected his 
 whole doctrine of the cognitive faculties with confusion and 
 error ; and, in the third place, I had in view to vindicate Reid 
 from the attack made on him by Brown. Perception, as mat- 
 ter of psychological consideration, is of the very highest impor- 
 tance in philosophy ; as the doctrine in regard to the object 
 and operation of this faculty affords the immediate data for 
 determining the great question touching the existence or non- 
 existence of an external world ; and there is hardly a problem 
 of any moment in the whole compass of philosophy cf which 
 it does not mediately affect the solution. The doctrine of per- 
 ception may thus be viewed as a cardinal point of philosophy 
 It is also exclusively in relation to this faculty, that Reid must 
 claim his great, his distinguishing glory, as a philosopher; and 
 of this no one was more conscious than himself. " The merit/' 
 he says, in a letter to Dr. James Gregory, " of what you are 
 pleased to call my philosophy, lies, I think, chiclly in having 
 called in question the common theory of ideas or images of
 
 296 WAS REID A NATURAL R2ALIST? 
 
 tilings in the mind being the only objects of thought a theory 
 founded on natural prejudices, and so universally received, as 
 to be interwoven with the structure of language." " I think," 
 he add.*, " there is hardly any thing that can be called science 
 in the philosophy of the mind, which does not follow with ease 
 from the detection of this prejudice." 
 
 To enable you provisionally to understand ReicTs .errors, I 
 showed you how, holding himself the doctrine of an intuitive or 
 immediate perception of external things, he did not see that the 
 counter doctrine of a mediate or representative perception ad- 
 mitted of a subdivision into two forms, a simpler and a more 
 complex. The simpler, that the immediate or representative 
 object is a mere modification of the percipient mind, -the 
 - more complex, that this representative object is something dif- 
 ferent both from the reality and from the mind. His ignorance 
 of these two forms has caused him great confusion, and intro- 
 duced much subordinate error into his system, as he has often 
 confounded the simpler form of the representative -hypothesis 
 with the doctrine of an intuitive perception ; but if he be 
 allowed to have held the essential doctrine of an immediate 
 perception, his errors in regard to the various forms of the rep- 
 
 'jt^oL *T 
 
 ^ resentative hypothesis must be viewed as accidental, and com- 
 paratively unimportant. 
 
 Brown's errors, on the contrary, are vital. In the first place, 
 he is fundamentally wrong in holding, in the teeth of conscious- 
 ness, that the mind is incapable of an immediate knowledge of 
 aught but its own modes. He adopts the simpler form of a 
 representative perception. In the second place, he is wrong in 
 reversing Reid's whole doctrine, by attributing to him the ame 
 opinion, on this point, which he himself maintains. In the third 
 place, he is wrong in thinking that Reid only attacked the more 
 complex, and not the more dangerous, form of the representa- 
 tive hypothesis, and did not attack the hypothesis of representa- 
 tion altogether. In the fourth place, he is wrong in supposing 
 that modern philosophers, in general, hold the simpler for.a of 
 the representative hypothesis, and that Reid was, then Tore, 
 mistaken in supposing them to maintain the more complt .,
 
 WAS REID A NATURAL REALIST? 297 
 
 mistaken, in fact, in supposing them to maintain a doctrine dif- 
 ferent from his own. 
 
 Was Reid himself a Natural Realist? But a more impor- 
 tant historical question remains, and one which even more 
 affects the reputations of Reid and Brown. It is this : Did 
 Reid, as Brown supposes, hold, not the doctrine of Natural 
 Realism, but the finer hypothesis of a Representative Percep- 
 tion? 
 
 If Reid did hold this doctrine, I admit at once that Brown is 
 right. Reid accomplished nothing ; his philosophy is a blun- 
 der, and his whole polemic against the philosophers, too insig- 
 nificant for refutation or comment. The one form of repre- 
 sentation may be somewhat simpler and more philosophical 
 than the other ; but the substitution of the former for the latter 
 is hardly deserving of notice ; and of all conceivable hallucina- 
 tions, the very greatest would be that of Reid, in arrogating to 
 himself the merit of thus subverting the foundation of Idealism 
 and Scepticism, and of philosophers at large in acknowledging 
 the pretension. The idealist and sceptic can establish their 
 conclusions indifferently on either form of a representative per- 
 ception ; nay, the simpler form affords a securer, as the more 
 philosophical, foundation. The idealism of Fichte is accord- 
 ingly a system far more firmly founded than the idealism of 
 Berkeley ; and as the simpler involves a contradiction of con- 
 sciousness more extensive and direct, so it furnishes to the 
 Bceptic a longer and more powerful lever. 
 
 The distinction of Intuitive and Representative Knowledge. 
 Before, however, discussing this question, it may be proper here 
 to consider more particularly a matter of which we have 
 hitherto treated only by the way, I mean the distinction of 
 Immediate or Intuitive, in contrast to Mediate or Representa- 
 tive, Knowledge. This is a distinction of the most important 
 kind, and it is one which has, however, been almost wholly 
 overlooked by philosophers. This oversight is less to be won- 
 dered at in those who allowed no immediate knowledge to the 
 mind, except of its proper modes; in their systems the distinc- 
 tion, though it still subsisted, had little relevancy or effect, a$ it
 
 298 INTUITIVE AND REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 did not discriminate the faculty by which we are aware of the 
 presence of external objects, from that by which, when absent, 
 these are imaged to the mind. In neither case, on this doc- 
 trine, are we conscious or immediately cognizant of the external 
 reality, but only of the mental mode through which it is repre- 
 sented. But it is more astonishing that those who maintain 
 that the mind is immediately percipient of external things, 
 should not have signalized this distinction ; as on it is estab- 
 lished the essential difference of Perception as a faculty of 
 Intuitive, Imagination as a faculty of Representative, knowledge. 
 But the marvel is still more enhanced when we find that Reid 
 and Stewart (if to them this opinion really belongs), so far 
 from distinguishing Perception as an immediate and intuitive, 
 from Imagination (and under Imagination, be it observed, I 
 include both the Conception and the Memory of these philoso- 
 phers) as a mediate or representative, faculty, in language 
 make them both equally immediate. You will recollect the 
 refutation I formerly gave you of Reid's self-contradictory asser- 
 tion, that in Memory we are immediately cognizant of that 
 which, as past, is not now existent, and cannot, therefore, be 
 known in itself; and that, in Imagination, we are immediately 
 cognizant of that which is distant, or of that which is not, and 
 probably never was, in being. Here the term immediate is 
 either absurd, as contradictory ; or it is applied only, in a cer- 
 tain special meaning, to designate the simpler form of repre- 
 sentation, in which nothing is supposed to intervene between 
 the mental cognition and the external reality ; in contrast to the 
 more complex, in which the representative or vicarious image 
 is supposed to be something different from both. Thus, in con- 
 sequence of this distinction not only not having been traced by 
 Reid as the discriminative principle of his doctrine, but Laving 
 been even overlaid, obscured, and perplexed, his whole philoso- 
 phy has been involved in lia/e and confusion ; insomuch that a 
 philosopher of Brown's acutcness could (as we have seen and 
 phall see) actually so far misconceive, as even to reverse its 
 import. The di -tinction is, therefore, one which, on every ac 
 count, merits your most sedulous attention ; but though of
 
 INTUITIVE AND REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE. 299 
 
 primary importance, it is fortunately not of any considerable 
 difficulty. 
 
 T/tis <lisf inrf ion stated and illustrated. As i-vory cognitive 
 ftct which, in one relation, is a mediate or representative, is, in 
 another, an immediate or intuitive, knowledge, let us take a 
 particular instance of such an act ; as hereby we shall at once 
 obtain an example of the one kind of knowledge, and of the 
 other, and these also in proximate contrast to each other. I 
 call up an image of the High Church [a Cathedral edifice in 
 Edinburgh]. Now, in this act, what do I know immediately or 
 intuitively ; what mediately or by representation ? It is mani- 
 fest that I am conscious, or immediately cognizant, of all that is 
 known as an act or modification of my mind, and, consequently, 
 of the modification or act which constitutes the mental image 
 of the Cathedral. But as, in this operation, it is evident, that I 
 am conscious, or immediately cognizant, of the Cathedral at 
 imaged in my mind ; so it is equally manifest, that I am not 
 conscious or immediately cognizant of the Cathedral as existing. 
 But still I am said to know it ; it is even called the object of 
 my thought. I can, however, only know it mediately, only 
 through the mental image which represents it to consciousness ; 
 and it can only be styled the object of thought, inasmuch as a 
 reference to it is necessarily involved in the act of representa- 
 tion. From this example is manifest, what in general is meant 
 by immediate or intuitive, what, by mediate or representative 
 knowledge. All philosophers are at one in regard to the imme- 
 diate knowledge of our present mental modifications ; and all 
 are equally agreed, if we remove some verbal ambiguities, that 
 we are only mediately cognizant of all past thoughts, objects, 
 and events, and of every external reality not at the moment 
 iriiain the sphere of sense. There is but one point on which 
 they are now at variance, namely, whether the thinking sub- 
 ject is competent to an intuitive knowledge of aught but the 
 modifications of the mental self; in other words, whether we 
 can have any immediate perception of external tilings. Waiv- 
 ing, however, this question for the moment, let us articulately 
 etate what are the different conditions involved in the two kind* 
 of knowledge
 
 UITIVE .AND .REPRESENTATIVE 
 
 In the^rs^ place, considered at acts. n act of 
 knowledge is simple ; there is nothing beyond the mere con- 
 sciousness, by that which knows, of that which is known. Here 
 consciousness is simply contemplative. On the contrary, an act 
 of mediate knowledge is complex ; for the mind is not only con- 
 scious of the act as its own modification, but of this modification 
 as an object representative of, or relative to, an object beyond 
 the sphere of consciousness. In this act, consciousness is both 
 representative and contemplative of the representation. 
 
 In the second place, in relation to their objects. In an im- 
 mediate cognition, the object is single, and the term unequivocal. 
 Here, the object in consciousness and the object in existence are 
 the same ; in the language of the Schools, the esse intenlionale 
 or representativum coincides with the esse entitativum. In a 
 mediate cognition, on the other hand, the object is twofold, and 
 the term equivocal ; the object known and representing being 
 different from the object unknown, except as represented. The 
 immediate object, or object known in this act, should be called 
 the subjective object, or subject-object, in contradistinction to the 
 mediate or unknown object, which might be discriminated as the 
 object-object. A slight acquaintance with philosophical writings 
 will show you how necessary such a distinction is ; the want of 
 it has caused Reid to puzzle himself, and Kant to perplex his 
 readers. 
 
 In the third place, considered as judgments (for you will rec- 
 ollect that every act of Consciousness involves an affirmation). 
 In an intuitive act, the object known is known as actually 
 existing; the cognition, therefore, is assertory, inasmuch as the 
 reality of that, its object, is given unconditionally as a fact. In 
 a representative act, on the contrary, the represented object is 
 unknown as actually existing ; the cognition, therefore, is prob- 
 lematical, the reality of the object represented being only given 
 as a possibility, on the hypothesis of the object representing. 
 
 In tlie fourth place, in relation to their sphere. Representa- 
 tive knowledge is exclusively subjective, for its immediate object 
 is a mere mental modification, and its mediate object is unknown, 
 except ir so far as that modification represents it Inu-'iiee
 
 INTUITIVE AND REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE. 301 
 
 knowledge, on the other hand, if consciousness is to be credited, 
 is either subjective or objective, for its single object may be 
 either a phenomenon of the ego or of the non-ego, either 
 mental or material. 
 
 In thejifth place, considered in reference to their perfection. 
 An intuitive cognition, as an act, is complete and absolute, as 
 irrespective of aught beyond the dominion of consciousness ; 
 whereas, a representative cognition, as an act, is incomplete, 
 being relative to, and vicarious of, an existence beyond the 
 sphere of actual knowledge. The object likewise of the former 
 is complete, being at once known and real ; whereas, in the 
 latter, the object known is ideal, the real object unknown. .In 
 their relations to each other, immediate knowledge is complete, 
 as self-sufficient ; mediate knowledge, on the contrary, is incom- 
 plete, as dependent on the other for its realization. 
 
 [For the sake of distinctness, I shall state [over again and 
 more fully] the different momenta of the distinction in separate 
 Propositions ; and these for more convenient reference I shall 
 number. 
 
 1. A thing is known immediately or proximately, when we 
 cognize it in itself; mediately or remotely, when we cognize it 
 in or through something numerically different from itself. Im- 
 mediate cognition, thus the knowledge of a thing in itself, in- 
 volves the fact of its existence ; mediate cognition, thus the 
 knowledge of a thing in or through something not itself, involves 
 only the possibility of its existence. 
 
 2. An immediate cognition, inasmuch as the thing known 
 is itself presented to observation, may be called a presentative ; 
 and inasmuch as the thing presented is, as it were, viewed by the 
 mind face to face, may be called an intuitive cognition. A 
 mediate cognition, inasmuch as the thing known is held up or 
 mirrored to the mind in a vicarious representation, may be called 
 a representative cognition. 
 
 3. A thing known is called an object of knowledge. 
 
 4. In a presentative or immediate cognition there is one solt 
 object; the thing (immediately) known and the thing existing 
 being one and the same. In a representative or mediate coy 
 
 26
 
 302 INTUITIVE AND REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 nition there may be discriminated two objects ; the thing (imme- 
 diately) known and the thing existing being numerically dif- 
 ferent. 
 
 5. A thing known in itself is the (sole) presentatire or 
 intuitive object of knowledge, or the (sole) object of a presenta- 
 tive or intuitive knowledge. A thing known in and through 
 tomething else is the primary, mediate, remote,* real, existent, or 
 represented, object of (mediate) knowledge, objectum quod ; and 
 a thing through* which something else is known is the secondary, 
 immediate, proximate, ideal, vicarious, or representative, object 
 of (mediate) knowledge, objectum quo or per quod. The for- 
 mer may likewise be styled objectum entitativum. 
 
 6. If the representative object be supposed (according to 
 one theory) a mode of the conscious mind or self, it may be 
 distinguished as Egoistical; if it be supposed (according to 
 another) something numerically different from the conscious 
 mind or self, it may be distinguished as Non-Egoistical. The 
 former theory supposes two things numerically different : 1 , 
 the object represented, 2, the representing and cognizant 
 mind: the latter, three ; 1, the object represented, 2, the 
 object representing, 3, the cognizant mind. Compared 
 merely with each other, the former, as simpler, may, by contrast 
 to the latter, be considered, but still inaccurately, as an imme- 
 diate cognition. The latter of these, as limited in its application 
 to certain faculties, and now in fact wholly exploded, may be 
 thrown out of account. 
 
 7. ^External Perception, or Perception simply, is the faculty 
 presentative or intuitive of the phenomena of the Non-Ego or 
 
 * The distinction of proximate and remote object is sometimes applied to 
 perception in a different manner. Thus Color (the white of the wall for 
 instance) is said to be the proximate object of vision, because it is seen im- 
 mediately ; the colored tiling (the wall itself for instance) is said to be 
 the remote object of vision, because it is seen only through the mediation of 
 the color. This however is inaccurate. For the wall, that in which tho 
 color inheres, however mediately known, is never mediately seen. It is 
 not indeed an oly'ect of perception at all ; it is only the subject of such an 
 ul-jrct, and is reached by a cognitive process, different from the merclj 
 perceptive.
 
 INTUITTVE AND REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE. 303 
 
 matter if there be any intuitive apprehension allowed of the 
 Non-Ego at all. Internal Perception or Self-consciousness is 
 the faculty presentative or intuitive of the phenomena of the 
 Ego or mind. 
 
 8. Imagination or Phantasy ', in its most extensive meaning, 
 is the faculty representative of the phenomena both of the ex- 
 ternal and internal worlds. 
 
 9. A representation considered as an object is logically, not 
 really, different from a representation considered as an act. 
 Here, object and act are merely the same indivisible mode of 
 mind viewed in two different relations. Considered by refer- 
 ence to a (mediate) object represented, it is a representative 
 object ; considered by reference to the mind representing and 
 contemplating the representation, it is a representative act. A 
 representative object being viewed as posterior in the order of 
 nature, but not of time, to the representative act, is viewed as a 
 product; and the representative act being viewed as prior in 
 the order of nature, though not of time, to the representative 
 object, is viewed as a producing process. The same may be 
 said of Image and Imagination. 
 
 10. A thing to be known in itself must be known as act- 
 ually existing, and it cannot be known as actually existing unless 
 it be known as existing in its When and its Where. But the 
 When and Where of an object are immediately cognizable by 
 the subject, only if the When be now (i. e. at the same moment 
 with the cognitive act), and the Where be here (i. e. within the 
 sphere of the cognitive faculty) ; therefore a presentative or 
 intuitive knowledge is only competent of an object present to 
 the mind, both in time and in space. 
 
 11. E converse whatever is known, but not as actually 
 existing now and here, is known not in itself, as the presentative 
 object of an intuitive, but only as the remote object of a repr<>- 
 sensitive, cognition. 
 
 12. A representative object, considered irrespectively of 
 what it represents, and simply as a mode of the conscious sub- 
 ject, is an intuitive or presentative object. For it is known in 
 itself, as a mental mode, actually existing now and here.
 
 304 INTUITIVE AND REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 13. The actual modifications the present acts and affections 
 of the go, are objects of immediate cognition, as themselves 
 objects of consciousness. The past and possible modifications 
 of the Ego are objects of mediate cognition, as represented tc 
 consciousness in a present or actual modification. 
 
 14. A& not now present in time, an immediate knowledge 
 of the past Is impossible. The past is only immediately cogni- 
 zable in and through a present modification relative to, and 
 representative of, it as having been. To speak of an immediate 
 knowledge of the past involves a contradiction in adjecto. For 
 to know the past immediately, it must be known in itself; 
 and to be known in itself, it must be known as now existing. 
 But the past is just a negation of the now existent : its very 
 notion, therefore, excludes the possibility of its being imme- 
 diately known. So much for Memory, or Recollective Imagi- 
 nation. 
 
 15. In like manner, supposing that a knowledge of the 
 future were competent, this can only be conceived possible in 
 and through a now present representation ; that is, only as a 
 mediate cognition. For, as not yet existent, the future cannot 
 be known in itself, or as actually existent. As not here present, 
 an immediate knowledge of an object distant in space is like- 
 wise impossible. For, as beyond the sphere of our organs and 
 faculties, it cannot be known by them in itself; it can only, 
 therefore, if known at all, be known through something different 
 from itself, that is mediately, in a reproductive or a construe 
 live act of imagination. 
 
 16. A possible object an ens rationis is a mere fabn 
 cation of the mind itself; it exists only ideally in and through 
 an act of imagination, and has only a logical existence, apart 
 from that act with which it is really identical. It is therefore 
 an intuitive object in itself; but in so far as, not involving a 
 contradiction, it is conceived as prefiguring something which may 
 possibly exist some-where and some-when this something, 
 too, being constructed out of elements which had been previ- 
 ously given in Presentation - it is Representative.] J)is& 
 tup p. to Reid.
 
 WAS REID A NATURAL REALIST? 305 
 
 Such are the two kinds of knowledge which it is necessary to 
 distinguish, and such are the principal contrasts they present. 
 I said a little ago that this distinction, so far from being signal- 
 ized, had been almost abolished by philosophers. I ought, how 
 ever, to have excepted certain of the Schoolmen, by whom thii 
 discrimination was not only taken, but admirably applied ; and 
 though I did not originally borrow it from them, I was happy ta 
 find that what I had thought out for myself, was confirmed by 
 the authority of these subtle spirits. The names given in the 
 Schools to the immediate and mediate cognitions were intuitive 
 and abstractive, meaning by the latter term not merely what we, % J 
 with them, call abstract knowledge, but also the representations 
 of concrete objects in the imagination or memory. 
 
 Order of the discussion. Having now prepared you for the 
 question concerning Reid, I shall proceed to its consideration ; 
 and shall, in the first place, state the arguments that may be 
 adduced in favor of the opinion, that Reid did not assert a doc- 
 trine of Natural Realism, did not accept the fact of the dual- 
 ity of consciousness in its genuine integrity, but only deluded 
 himself with the belief that he was originating a new or an impor- 
 tant opinion, by the adoption of the simpler form of Represen- 
 - tation ; and,"in the second place, state the arguments that may 
 be alleged in support of the opposite conclusion, that his doctrine 
 is in truth the simple doctrine of Natural Realism. 
 
 Brown's interpretation of Reid's doctrine refuted'. But be- 
 fore proceeding to state the grounds on which alone I conceive 
 any presumption can be founded, that Reid is not a Natural 
 Realist, but, like Brown, a Cosmothetic Idealist, I shall state 
 and refute the only attempt made by Brown to support this, his 
 interpretation of Reid's fundamental doctrine. Brown's inter- 
 pretation of Reid seems, in fact, not grounded on any tiling 
 which he found in Reid, but simply on his own assumption of 
 what Reid's opinion must be. For, marvellous as it may sound, 
 Brown hardly seems to have contemplated the possibility of an 
 immediate knowledge of any thing beyond the sphere of self; 
 and I should say, without qualification, that he had never at all 
 imagined this possibility, were it not for the single attempt he 
 26*
 
 800 WAS REID A NATURAL REALIST? 
 
 makes at a proof of the impossibility of Reid holding such an 
 opinion, when on one occasion Reid's language seems for a mo- 
 ment to have actually suggested to him the question : Might 
 that philosopher not perhaps regard the external object as iden- 
 tical with the immediate object in perception ? 
 
 Now the, sum and substance of [Brown's] reasoning is, AS 
 far as I can comprehend it, to the following effect: To assert 
 an immediate perception of material qualities, is to assert an 
 identity of matter and mind; for that which is immediately 
 known must be the same in nature as that which immediately 
 knows. 
 
 But Reid was not a materialist, was a sturdy spiritualist 
 therefore he could not really maintain an immediate perception 
 of the qualities of matter. 
 
 The whole validity of this argument consists in the truth of 
 the major proposition (for the minor proposition, that Reid was 
 not a materialist, is certain), To assert an immediate percep- 
 tion of material qualities, is to assert an identity of matter and 
 mind ; for that which is immediately known must be the same 
 in essence as that which immediately knows. 
 
 Now, in support of the proposition which constitutes the 
 foundation of his argument, Brown offers no proof. He as- 
 sumes it as an axiom. But so far from his being entitled to do 
 so, by its being too evident to fear denial, it is, on the contrary 
 not only not obtrusively true, bat, when examined, precisely 
 the reverse of truth. 
 
 Ill ikvjirst placCj if we appeal to the only possible arbiter in 
 the case, the authority of consciousness, we find that con- 
 sciousness gives as an ultimate fact, in the unity of knowledge, 
 the duality of existence ; that is, it assures us that, in the act of 
 perception, the percipient subject is at once conscious of some- 
 thing which it distinguishes as a modification of self, and of 
 something which it distinguishes as a modification of not-self 
 Reid, therefore, as a dualist, and a dualist founding not on the 
 hypotheses of philosophers, but on the data of consciousness, 
 might safely maintain the fact of our immediate perception of 
 external objects, without fear of involving himself in ar asser- 
 tion of the identity of mind and matter.
 
 WAS REID A NATURAL REALIST? 30t 
 
 But, in the second place, if Reid did not maintain this imme- 
 diacy of perception, and assert the veracity of consciousness, he 
 would at once be forced to admit one or other of the Unitarian 
 conclusions of materialism or idealism. Our knowledge of 
 mind and matter, as substances, is merely relative ; they are 
 known to us only in their qualities ; and we can justify the fos- 
 tulation of two different substances, exclusively on the supposi- 
 tion of the incompatibility of the double series of phenomena 
 to coinhere in one. Is this supposition disproved ? The pre- 
 sumption against dualism is again decisive. Entities are not to 
 be multiplied without necessity ; a plurality of principles is not 
 to be assumed, where the phaenomena can be explained by one. 
 In Brown's theory of perception, he abolishes the incompati- 
 bility of the two series ; and yet his argument, as a dualist, for 
 an immaterial principle of thought, proceeds on the ground that 
 this incompatibility subsists. This philosopher denies us an 
 immediate knowledge of aught beyond the accidents of mind. 
 The accidents which we refer to body, as known to us, are only 
 states or modifications of the percipient subject itself; in other 
 words, the qualities we call material, are known by us to exist, 
 only as they are known by us to inhere in the same substance 
 as the qualities we denominate mental. There is an apparent 
 antithesis, but a real identity. On this doctrine, the hypothesis 
 of a double principle, losing its necessity, becomes philosophi- 
 cally absurd ; on the law of parcimony, a psychological unita- 
 rianism is established. To the argument, that the qualities of 
 the object, are so repugnant to the qualities of the subject, of 
 perception, that they cannot be supposed the accidents of the 
 same substance, the Unitarian whether materialist, idealist, or 
 absolutist has only to reply: that so far from the attri- 
 butes of the object being exclusive of the attributes of the sulv- 
 ject, in this act, the hypothetical dualist himself establishes, as the 
 fundamental axiom of his philosophy of mind, that the object 
 known is universally identical with the subject knowing. The 
 materialist may now derive the subject from the object, the 
 idealist derive the object from the subject, the absolutist suoli- 
 mate both into indifference, nay, the nihilist subvert the sub-
 
 808 WAS REID A NATURAL REALIST? 
 
 Btantial reality of either ; the hypothetical realist, so far from 
 being able to resist the conclusion of any, in fact accords their 
 assumptive premises to all. 
 
 So far, therefore, is Brown's argument from inferring the con 
 elusion, that Reid could not have maintained our immediate 
 perception of external objects, that not only is its inference ex- 
 pressly denied by Reid, but if properly applied, it would prove 
 the very converse of what Brown employs it to establish. 
 
 Second reason for supposing that Reid was not a Natural 
 Realist. But there is a ground considerably stronger than 
 that on which Brown has attempted to evince the identity of 
 Reid's opinion on perception with his own. This ground is hit 
 equalizing Perception and Imagination. (Under Imagination, 
 you will again observe that I include Reid's Conception and 
 Memory.) Other philosophers brought perception into unison 
 with imagination, by making perception a faculty of mediate 
 knowledge. Reid, on the contrary, has brought imagination 
 into unison with perception, by calling imagination a faculty of 
 immediate knowledge. Now, as it is manifest that, in an act of 
 imagination, the object-object is and can possibly be known 
 only, mediately, through a representation, it follows that we 
 must perforce adopt one of two alternatives; we may ejtliej 
 suppose that Reid means by immediate knowledge only that 
 simpler form of representation from which the idea or tertium 
 quid, intermediate between the external reality and the con- 
 scious mind, is thrown out, fir that, in his extreme horror of the 
 hypothesis of ideas, he has altogether overlooked the fundamen- 
 tal distinction of mediate and immediate cognition, by which 
 the faculties of perception and imagination are discriminated ; 
 and that thus his very anxiety to separate more widely his own 
 doctrine of intuition from the representative hypothesis of the 
 philosophers, has, in fact, caused him almost inextricably to 
 confound the two opinions. 
 
 Positive evidence that Reid held Natural Realism.,., That 
 this latter alternative is greatly the more probable, I shall now 
 proceed to show you ; and in doing thi^, I beg you to keep in 
 miiu] Uie necessary contrasts by which an immediate or intui-
 
 WAS KEID A NATURAL REALIST? 301- 
 
 live is opposed to a mediate or representative cognition. 
 
 to be solved. is, Jioes Reid hold that in perception 
 we immediately know the external reality, in its own qualities, 
 as existing ; or only mediately know them, through a represen- 
 tative modification of the mind itself? In the following proof, 
 I select only a few out of a great number of passages which 
 might be adduced from the writings of Reid, in support of the 
 same conclusions. I am, however, confident that they are suffi- 
 cient ; and quotations longer or more numerous would tend 
 rather to obscure than to illustrate. 
 
 Ttie conditions of Immediate Knowledge, applied to Reidtt 
 $tatements. In the Jtrst place, knowledge and existence are 
 then only convertible when the reality is known in itself; for 
 then only can we say, that it is known because it exists, and 
 exists since it is known. And this constitutes an immediate or 
 intuitive cognition, rigorously so called. Nor did Reid contem- 
 plate any other. " It seems admitted," he says, " as a first 
 principle, by the learned and the unlearned, that what is really 
 perceived must exist, and that to perceive what does not exist 
 is impossible. So far the unlearned man and the philosopher 
 agree." 
 
 Jn the second place, philosophers agree, that the idea or rep- 
 resentative object, in their theory, is, in the strictest sense, imme- 
 diately perceived. And so Reid understands them. " I per- 
 ceive not, says the Cartesian, the external object itself (so far 
 he agrees with the Peripatetic, and differs from the unlearned 
 man) ; but I perceive an image, or form, or idea, in my own 
 mind, or in my brain. I am certain of the existence of the 
 idea, because I immediately perceive it." 
 
 In the third place, philosophers concur in acknowledging 
 that mankind at large believe that the external reality itself con- 
 $titu(es the immediate and only object of perception. So also 
 Reid : *' On the same principle, the unlearned man says, I per- 
 ceive the external object, and I perceive it to exist." "The 
 vulgar undoubtedly, believe that it is the external object which 
 we immediately perceive, and not a representative image of it 
 only. It is fur this reason that they look upon it as perfect
 
 510 WAS REID A NATURAL REALIST? 
 
 lunacy to call in question the existence of external objects." 
 "The vulgar are firmly persuaded that the very identical 
 objects which they perceive, continue to exist when they do not 
 perceive them : and are no less firmly persuaded, that when ten 
 men look at the sun or the moon they all see the same indi- 
 vidual object." Speaking of Berkeley, "The vulgar opinion 
 he reduces to this, that the very things which we perceive by 
 our senses do really exist. This he grants." "It is, there- 
 fore, acknowledged by this philosopher to be a natural instinct 
 or prepossession, a universal and primary opinion of all men, 
 that the objects which we immediately perceive by our senses 
 are not images in our minds, but external objects, and that their 
 existence is independent of us and our perception." 
 
 In the fourth place, all philosophers agree that consciousness 
 has an immediate knowledge, and affords an absolute certainty 
 of the reality, of its object. Reid, as we have seen, limits the 
 name of consciousness to self-consciousness, that is, to the im- 
 mediate knowledge we possess of the modifications of self; 
 whereas, he makes perception the faculty by which we are 
 immediately cognizant of the qualities of the not-self. 
 
 In these circumstances, if Reid either, 1, Maintain, that his 
 immediate perception of external things is convertible with 
 their reality; or, 2, Assert, that, in his doctrine of perception, 
 the external reality stands to the percipient mind face to face, 
 in the same immediacy of relation which the idea holds in the 
 representative theory of the philosophers ; or, 3, Declare the 
 identity of his own opinion with the vulgar belief, as thus ex- 
 pounded by himself and the philosophers; or, 4, Declare, that 
 his Perception affords us equal evidence of the existence of 
 external phenomena, as his Consciousness affords us of the 
 existence of internal ; in all and each of these suppositions, 
 he would unambiguously declare himself a Natural Realist, and 
 evince that his doctrine of perception is one not of a mediate 
 or representative, bat of an immediate or intuitive knowledge. 
 And he does all four. 
 
 The Jirst and second. " "We have before examined the 
 reasons given by philosophers to prove that ideas, and not ex-
 
 WAS REID A NATURAL REALIST? 311 
 
 ternal jbjects, are the immediate objects of perception We 
 shall only here observe, that if external objects be perceived 
 immediately " [and he had just before asserted for the hun- 
 dredth time that they were so perceived], " we have the same 
 reason to believe their existence, as philosophers have to believe 
 the existence of ideas, while they hold them to be the imme- 
 diate objects of perception." 
 
 The third. Speaking of the perception of the external 
 world, " We have here a remarkable conflict between two 
 contradictory opinions, wherein all mankind are engaged. On 
 the one side, stand all the vulgar, who are unpractised in phil- 
 osophical researches, and guided by the uncorrupted primary 
 instincts of nature. On the other side, stand all the philoso- 
 phers, ancient and modern ; every man, without exception, who 
 reflects. In this division, to my great humiliation, I find my- 
 self classed with the vulgar." 
 
 The fourth. "Philosophers sometimes say that we perceive 
 ideas, sometimes that we are conscious of them. I can have 
 no doubt of the existence of any thing which I either perceive, 
 or of which I am conscious ; but I cannot find that I either per- 
 ceive ideas or am conscious of them." 
 
 General conclusion and caution. On these grounds, there- 
 fore, I am confident that Reid's doctrine of Perception must be 
 pronounced a doctrine of Intuition, and not of Representation ; 
 and though, as I have shown you, there are certainly some 
 plausible arguments which might be alleged in support of the 
 opposite conclusion ; still, these are greatly overbalanced by 
 stronger positive proofs, and by the general analogy of his phi- 
 losophy. And here I would impress upon you an important 
 lesson. That Reid, a distinguished philosopher, and even the 
 founder of an illustrious school, could be so greatly miscon- 
 ceived, as that an eminent disciple of that school itself should 
 actually reverse the fundamental principle of his doctrine, 
 this may excite your wonder, but it ought not to move you to 
 disparage either the talent of the philosopher misconceived, or 
 of the philosopher misconceiving. It ought, however, to prove 
 tO}OUthe permanent importance, not only in speculation, but
 
 3J2 WAS REID A NATURAL REALIST? 
 
 in practice, of precise thinking. You ought never to rest con- 
 tent, so long as there is aught vague or indefinite in your rea- 
 sonings, so long as you have not analyzed every notion into 
 its elements, and excluded the possibility of all lurking ambigu- 
 ity in your expressions. One great, perhaps the one greatest 
 advantage, resulting from the cultivation of Philosophy, is the 
 habit it induces of vigorous thought ; that is, of allowing nothing 
 to pass without a searching examination, either in your own 
 speculations, or in those of others. We may never, perhaps, 
 arrive at truth, but we can always avoid self-contradiction.
 
 CHAPTER* XVIII. 
 
 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. THE DISTINCTION OF PER- 
 CEPTION PROPER FROM SENSATION PROPER. PRIMABT 
 AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 
 
 OF the doctrine of an intuitive perception of external ob- 
 jects, which, as a fact of consciousness, ought to be uncon- 
 ditionally admitted, Reid has the merit, in these latter times, 
 of being the first champion. I have already noticed that, among 
 the Scholastic philosophers, there were some who maintained the 
 same doctrine, and with far greater clearness and comprehen- 
 sion than Reid. These opinions are, however, even at this 
 moment, I may say, wholly unknown ; and it would be ridicu- 
 lous to suppose that their speculations had exerted any influence, 
 direct or indirect, upon a thinker so imperfectly acquainted with 
 what had been done by previous philosophers, as Reid. Since 
 the Revival of Letters, I have met with only two, anterior to 
 Reid, whose doctrine on the present question coincided with his. 
 One of these [John SeYgeant] may, indeed, be discounted ; for 
 he has stated his opinions in so paradoxical a manner, that his 
 authority is hardly worthy of notice. The other, [Peter Poiret,] 
 who nourished about a century before Reid, has, on the con- 
 trary, stated the doctrine of an intuitive, and refuted the coun- 
 ter hypothesis of a representative, perception, with a brevity, 
 perspicuity, and precision far superior to the Scottish philoso- 
 pher. Both of these authors, I may say, are at present wholly 
 unknown. 
 
 Having concluded the argument by which I endeavored to 
 satisfy you that Reid's doctrine is Natural Realism, I should 
 now proceed to show that Natural Realism is a more philosoph- 
 27 '-313)
 
 314 PERCEPTION AND SENSATION. 
 
 ical doctrine than Hypothetical Realism. Before, however, 
 taking up the subject, I think it better to dispose of certain 
 subordinate matters, with which it is proper to have some pre- 
 paratory acquaintance. 
 
 Of these the first is the distinction of Perception Proper from 
 Sensation Proper. 
 
 Use of the term Perception previously to Reid. I have had 
 occasion to mention, that the word Perception is, in the language 
 of philosophers previous to Reid, used in a very extensive sig 
 nification. By Descartes, Malebranche, Locke, Leibnitz, and 
 others, it is employed in a sense almost as unexclusive as Con- 
 sciousness in its widest signification. By Reid, this word was 
 limited to our faculty acquisitive of knowledge, and to that 
 branch of this faculty whereby, through the senses, we obtain a 
 knowledge of the external world. But his limitation did not 
 Btop here. In the act of external perception, he distinguished 
 two elements, to which he gave the names of Perception and 
 Sensation. He ought, perhaps, to have called these perception 
 proper and sensation proper, when employed in his special 
 meaning ; for, in the language of other philosophers, sensation 
 was a term which included his Perception, and perception a 
 term comprehensive of what he called Sensation. 
 
 Reid's account of Perception. There is a great want of 
 precision in Reid's account of Perception and Sensation. Of 
 Perception he says: " If, therefore, we attend to that act of 
 our mind, which we call the perception of an external object 
 of sense, we shall find in it these three things. First. Some 
 conception or notion of the object perceived. Secondly, A 
 strong and irresistible conviction and belief of its present exist- 
 ence ; and, Thirdly, That this conviction and belief are immedi- 
 ate, and not the effect of reasoning. 
 
 "First, it is impossible to perceive an object without having 
 some notion or conception of what we perceive. We may in- 
 deed conceive an object which we do not perceive; but when 
 we perceive the object, we must have some conception of it at 
 the same time ; and we have commonly a more clear and steady 
 notion of the object while we perceive it, than we have from
 
 PERCEPTION AND SENSATION. 315 
 
 memory or imagination, when it is not perceived. Yet, even ir 
 perception, the notion which our senses give of the object may 
 be more or less clear, more or less distinct in all possible de- 
 grees." 
 
 Now here you will observe that the " having a notion or con- 
 ception," by which he explains the act of perception, might at 
 first lead us to conclude that he held, as Brown supposes, the 
 doctrine of a representative perception ; for notion and concep 
 tion are generally used by philosophers for a representation or 
 mediate knowledge of a thing. But though Reid cannot escape 
 censure for ambiguity and vagueness, it appears, from the anal- 
 ogy of his writings, that by notion or conception he meant 
 nothing more than knowledge or cognition. 
 
 Reid's account of Sensation. Sensation he thus describes 
 " Almost all our perceptions have corresponding sensations, 
 which constantly accompany them, and, on that account, are 
 very apt to be confounded with them. Neither ought we to 
 expect that the sensation, and its corresponding perception, 
 should be distinguished in common language, because the pur- 
 poses of common life do not require it. Language is made to 
 serve the purposes of ordinary conversation ; and we have no 
 reason to expect that it should make distinctions that are not of 
 common use. Hence it happens that a quality perceived, and 
 the sensation corresponding to that perception, often go under 
 the same name. 
 
 " This makes the names of most of our sensations ambigu- 
 ous, and this ambiguity hath very much perplexed the philoso- 
 phers. It will be necessary to give some instances, to illustrate 
 the distinction between our sensations and the objects of per- 
 ception. 
 
 " When I smell a rose, there is in this operation both sensa- 
 tion and perception. The agreeable odor I feel, considered by 
 itself, without relation to any external object, is merely a sensa- 
 tion. It affects the mind in a certain way ; and this affliction 
 of the mind may be conceived, without a thought of the rose 
 or any oilier object. This sensation can be nothing else than it 
 is felt to be. Its very essence consists in being felt; mid when
 
 516 PERCEPTION AND SENSATION. 
 
 it is not felt, it is not. There is no difference between the 
 sensation and the feeling of it; they are one and the same 
 thing. It is for this reason, that we before observed, that in 
 sensation, there is no object distinct from that act of mind by 
 which it is felt ; and this holds true with regard to all sensations. 
 
 " Let us next attend to the perception which we have in 
 smelling a rose. Perception has always an external object; 
 and the object of my perception, in this case, is that quality in 
 the rose which I discern by the sense of smell. Observing that 
 the agreeable sensation is raised when the rose is near, and 
 ceases when it is removed, I am led, by my nature, to conclude 
 some quality to be in the rose which is the cause of this sensa- 
 tion. This quality in the rose is the object perceived ; and that 
 act of the mind, by which I have the conviction and belief of 
 this quality, is what in this case I call perception." 
 
 By perception, Reid, therefore, means the objective knowledge 
 we have of an external reality, through the senses ; by sensa- 
 tion, the subjective feeling of pleasure or pain, with which the 
 organic operation of sense is accompanied. This distinction of 
 the objective from the subjective element in the act is impor- 
 tant Reid is not, however, the author of this distinction. He 
 himself notices of Malebranche, that " he distinguished more 
 accurately than any philosopher had done before, the objects 
 which we perceive from the sensations in our own minds, which, 
 by the laws of nature, always accompany the perception of the 
 object. As in many things, so particularly in this, he has great 
 merit ; for this, I apprehend, is a key that opens the way to a 
 right understanding both of our external senses, and of other 
 powers of the mind." I may notice that Malebranche' s distinc- 
 tion is into Idee, corresponding to Reid's Perception, and Senti- 
 ment, corresponding to his Sensation ; and this distinction is as 
 precisely marked in Malebranche as in Reid. Subsequently to 
 Malebranche, the distinction became even common ; and there 
 is no reason for Mr. Stewart being struck when lie found it in 
 Crousaz and Hutcheson. 
 
 The nature of Perception and Sensation illustrated. Before 
 proceeding to state to you the great law which regulates the
 
 PERCEPTION AND SENSATION. 317 
 
 mutual relation of these phaenomeua, a law which has been 
 wholly overlooked by our psychologists, it is proper to say a 
 few words illustrative of the nature of the phaenomena them- 
 selves. 
 
 The opposition of Perception and Sensation is true, but it is 
 not a statement adequate to the generality of the contrast. Per- 
 ception is only a special kind of Knowledge, and Sensation only 
 a special kind of Feeling ; and Knowledge and Feeling, you will 
 recollect, are two out of the three great classes, into which we 
 primarily divided the phaenomena of mind. Conation was the 
 third. Now, as Perception is only a special mode of Knowl- 
 edge, and Sensation only a special mode of Feeling, so the 
 contrast of Perception and Sensation is only the special mani- 
 festation of a contrast, which universally divides the generic 
 phenomena themselves. It ought, therefore, in the first place, 
 to have been noticed, that the generic phaenomena of Knowledge 
 and Feeling are always found coexistent, and yet always dis- 
 tinct ; and the opposition of Perception and Sensation should 
 have been stated as an obtrusive, but still only a particular 
 example of the general law. But not only is the distinction of 
 Perception and Sensation not generalized, not referred to its 
 category, by our psychologists ; it is not concisely and precisely 
 stated. A Cognition is objective, that is, our consciousness is then 
 relative to something different from the present state of the mind 
 itself; a Feeling, on the contrary, is subjective, that is, our con- 
 sciousness is exclusively limited to the pleasure or pain expe- 
 rienced by the thinking subject. Cognition and feeling aie 
 always coexistent. The purest act of knowledge is always 
 colored by some feeling of pleasure or pain ; for no energy is 
 absolutely indifferent, and the grossest feeling exists only as it 
 is known in consciousness. This being the case of cognition and 
 feeling in general, the same is true of perception and sensation 
 in particular. Perception proper is the consciousness, through 
 the senses, of the qualities of an object known as different from 
 self; Sensation proper is the consciousness of the subjective 
 affection of pleasure or pain, which accompanies that act of 
 knowledge. Perception is thus the objective element in th# 
 27 *
 
 818 PERCEPTION AND SENSATION. 
 
 complex etate, the element of cognition ; Sensation is the 
 subjective element, the element of feeling.* 
 
 * [A word as to the various meanings of the terms here prominent 
 Perception, Sensation, Sense. 
 
 i. Perception (Perceptio, Wahrnehmung) has different significations; 
 but under all and each of these, the term has a common ambiguity, denot- 
 ing as it may, either 1 the perceiving Faculty, 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 rela- 
 tion, of Percept, leaving Perception to designate botli the Faculty and it 
 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. Perception, 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 appre/iension, 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 Descartes. 
 
 Under this second meaning, it is proper to say a word in regard to a 
 special employment of the term. The Lcibnitzio-Wolfians distinguish 
 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, represcntamen , itself as an (immediate or vicarious) object 
 exhibited to the mind ; 3 the act by irfn'ch the mind is conscious, immediately 
 of the representative object, and, through it, mediately of the remote object 
 lepresented. They called the first Perception ; the last Apperception; the 
 eecond Jdui sensual, to wit; for what they styled the material Idea was 
 only an organic motion propagated to the brain, which, on the doctrine of 
 ihc Preestablished Harmony, is, in sensitive cognition, the arbitrary con- 
 comitant 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 
 Reid, for no very cogent reason besides convenience ; and thereafter by 
 Kant. Kant, ngain, was not nltojrcthcr consistent; for he employs 'Per- 
 ception' in the second meaning, for the consciousness of any mental presen- 
 tation, and thus in a sense corresponding to the Apperception of the Leib- 
 nitzians ; while its vernacular, synonym, 'Wahrnehmung' he defines in 
 conformity with the third, as Utc consciotisncss of an empirical intuition
 
 PERCEPTION AND SENSATION. 319 
 
 Perception and Sensation in their reciprocal relation. The 
 most remarkable defect, however, in the present doctrite upon 
 this point, is the ignorance of our psychologists in regard to the 
 law by which the phaenomena of Cognition and Feeling, of 
 Perception and Sensation, are governed, in their reciprocal re- 
 lation. This law is simple and universal ; and, once enounced, 
 
 Imposed by such authorities, this is now the accredited signification of these 
 terms, in the recent philosophies of Germany, Britain, France, &c. 
 
 4. But under this third meaning, it is again, since the time and through 
 the authority of Reid, frequently employed in a still more restricted accep- 
 tation, namely, as Perception (proper) in contrast to Sensation (proper). 
 The import of these terms, as used by Reid and other philosophers on the 
 one hand, and by myself on the other, is explained in the text. 
 
 ii. Sensation (Sensatio; Sentiment; Empfindung) has various significa- 
 tions; and in all of these, like Perception, Conception, Imagination, and 
 other analogous terms in the philosophy of mind, it is ambiguously ap- 
 plied ; 1, for a Faculty 2, for its Act 3, for its Object. Hero 
 there is no available term, like Percept, Concept, etc., whereby to discrim- 
 inate the last. 
 
 There are two principal meanings in which this term has been em 
 ployed. 
 
 1. Like the Greek (Esthesis, it was long and generally used to comprehend 
 the process of sensitive appreJiension , both in its subjective and its objective rela- 
 tions. 
 
 2. As opposed to Idea, Perception, etc., it was limited, first in the Carte- 
 sian school, and thereafter in that of Reid, to the subjective phasis of our 
 sensitive cognitions ; that is, to our consciousness of the affections of our ani- 
 mated or y an ism, or on the Neo-PIatonic, Cartesian, and Leibnit/.ian hy- 
 potheses, to the affections of the mind corrcspondiin/ to, but not caused ly, the 
 unknown mutations of the bodi/. 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, that is, our 
 intellectual and moral, feelings. 
 
 i\i. Sense (Sensus; Sens; Sinn) is employed in a looser and in a 
 Itrietcr application. 
 
 Under the former head, it has two applications ; 1, a psychological, ai 
 a popular term for Intelligence: 2, a logical, as a synonym for Meaning. 
 
 Under the latter head, Sense is employed ambiguously; 1, for the 
 Faculty of sensitive apprehension ; 2, for its Act; 3, for its Organ. 
 
 In this relation, Sense has been distinguished into External and Inter- 
 nal ; but under the second term, in so many vague .ind various meanings, 
 that I cannot here either explain or enumerate them.] /)/. st/;>/>. to Reid
 
 320 PERCEPTION AND SENSATION. 
 
 its proof is found in every mental manifestation. It is this : 
 Knowledge and Feeling, Perception and Sensation, though 
 always coexistent, are always in the inverse ratio of each other. 
 That these two elements are always found in coexistence, as it 
 is n old and a notorious truth, it is not requisite for me to 
 prove. But that these elements are always found to coexist in 
 an inverse proportion, in support of this universal fact, it 
 will he requisite to adduce proof and illustration. 
 
 In doing this I shall, however, confine myself to the relation 
 of Perception and Sensation. These afford the hest examples 
 of the generic relation of Knowledge and Feeling ; and we must 
 not now turn aside from the special faculty with which we are 
 engaged. 
 
 The first proof I shall take from a comparison of the several 
 senses ; and it will he found that, precisely as a sense has more 
 of the one element, it has less of the other. Laying Touch aside 
 for the moment, as this requires a special explanation, the other 
 four Senses divide themselves into two classes, according as 
 Perception, the objective element, or Sensation, the subjective 
 element, predominates. The two in which the former element 
 prevails, are Sight and Hearing ; the two in which the latter, 
 are Taste and Smell. 
 
 Now, here, it will be at once admitted, that Sight, at the same 
 instant, presents to us a greater number and a greater variety 
 of objects and qualities, than any other of the senses. In this 
 sense, therefore, Perception, the objective element, is at its 
 maximum. But Sensation, the subjective element, is here at 
 its minimum ; for, in the eye, we experience less organic pleas- 
 ure or pain from the impressions of its appropriate objects 
 (colors), than we do in any other sense. 
 
 Next to Sight, Hearing affords us, in the shortest interval, 
 the greatest variety and multitude of cognitions; and as sight 
 divides space almost to infinity, through color, so hearing does 
 the same to time, through sound. Hearing is, however, much 
 less extensive in its sphere of Knowledge or Perception than 
 sight ; but in the same proportion is its capacity of Feeling or 
 Sensation more intensive. We have greater pleasure and
 
 PERCEPTION AND SENSATION. 321 
 
 greater pain from single sounds than from single colors ; and, 
 in like manner, concords and discords, in the one sense, affect 
 us more agreeably or disagreeably, than any modifications of 
 light in the other.* 
 
 In Taste and Smell, the degree of Sensation, that is, of pleas- 
 ure or pain, is great in proportion as the Perception, that is, the 
 information they afford, is small. In all these senses, therefore, 
 
 Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell, it will be admitted that tho 
 principle holds good. 
 
 The sense of Touch, or Feeling, strictly so called, I have 
 reserved, as this requires a word of comment. Some philoso- 
 phers include under this name all our sensitive perceptions, not 
 obtained through some of the four special organs of sense, that 
 is, sight, hearing, taste, smell ; others, again, divide the sense into 
 several. To us, at present, this difference is of no interest : for it 
 is sufficient for us to know, that in those parts of the body where 
 Sensation predominates, Perception is feeble ; and in those 
 where Perception is lively, Sensation is obtuse. In the finger 
 points, tactile perception is at its height ; but there is hardly 
 another part of the body in which sensation is not more acute. 
 Touch, or Feeling strictly so called, if viewed as a single sense, 
 belongs, therefore, to both classes, the objective and subjective. 
 But it is more correct, as we shall see, to regard it as a plurality 
 of senses, in which case Touch, properly so called, having a prin- 
 cipal organ in the finger points, will belong to the first class, 
 the class of objective senses, the perceptions, that class in 
 which Perception proper predominates. 
 
 Tliis law governs also the several impressions of the same seme 
 
 The analogy, then, which we have thus seen to hold good in 
 the several senses in relation to each other, prevails likewise 
 among the several impressions of the same sense. Impressions 
 
 * [In regard to the subjective and objective nature of the sensations of 
 the several senses, or rather the perceptions wo have through them, it may 
 be observed, that what is more objective is more easily remembered; 
 whereas, what is more subjective affords a much less distinct remembrance 
 Thus, what we perceive by the eye is better remembered thaii what we 
 bear.]
 
 822 PERCEPTION AND SENSATION. 
 
 in the same sense, differ both in degree and in quality or kind 
 By impression you will observe that I mean no explanation of 
 the mode by which the external reality acts upon the sense (the 
 metaphor you must disregard), but simply the fact of the agency 
 itself. Taking, then, their difference in degree, and supposing 
 that the degree of the impression determines the degree of 
 the sensation, it cannot certainly be said, that the minimum of 
 Sensation infers the maximum of Perception ; for Perception 
 always supposes a certain quantum of Sensation : but this is un- 
 deniable, that, above a certain limit, Perception declines, in pro- 
 portion as Sensation rises. Thus, in the sense of sight, if the 
 impression be strong we are dazzled, blinded, and consciousness 
 is limited to the pain or pleasure of the Sensation, in the inten- 
 sity of which, Perception has been lost. 
 
 Take now the difference, in kind, of impressions in the same 
 sense. Of the senses, take again that of Sight. Sight, as will 
 hereafter be shown, is cognizant of color, and, through color, of 
 figure. But though figure is known only through color, a very 
 imperfect cognizance of color is necessary, as is shown in the 
 case (and it is not a rare one) of those individuals who have 
 not the faculty of discriminating colors. These persons, who 
 probably perceive only a certain difference of light and shade, 
 have as clear and distinct a cognizance of figure, as others who 
 enjoy the sense of sight in absolute perfection. This being un- 
 derstood, you will observe, that, in the vision of color, there is 
 more of Sensation ; in that of figure, more of Perception. Color 
 affords our faculties of knowledge a far smaller number of dif- 
 ferences and relations than figure ; but, at the same time, yields 
 our capacity of feeling a far more sensual enjoyment. But if 
 the pleasure we derive from color be more gross and vivid, that 
 from figure is more refined and permanent. It is a law of our 
 nature, that the more intense a pleasure, the shorter is its dura- 
 lion. The pleasures of sense are grosser and more intense than 
 those of intellect; but, while the former alternate speedily with 
 disgust, with the latter we arc never satiated. The same ana 
 logy holds among the senses themselves. Those in which Sen- 
 sation predominates, in which nlca.-ure is nm>t intense, soor.
 
 PERCEPTION AND SENSATION. 823 
 
 [>all upon us ; whereas those in which Perception predominates, 
 and which hold more immediately of intelligence, afford us a 
 less exclusive but a more enduring gratification. How soon are 
 we cloyed with the pleasures of the palate, compared with those 
 of the eye ; and, among the objects of the former, the meats 
 that please the most are soonest objects of disgust. This is too 
 notorious in regard to taste to stand in need of proof. But it is 
 no less certain in the case of vision. In painting, there is a 
 pleasure derived from a vivid and harmonious coloring, and a 
 pleasure from the drawing and grouping of the figures. The 
 two pleasures are distinct, and even, to a certain extent, incom- 
 patible. For if we attempt to combine them, the grosser and 
 more obstrusive gratification, which we find in the coloring, dis- 
 tracts us from the more refined and intellectual enjoyment we 
 derived from the relation of figure ; while, at the same time, the 
 disgust we soon experience from the one tends to render us in- 
 sensible to the other. This is finely expressed by a modern 
 Latin poet of high genius [Johannes Secundus"] : 
 
 " Mensura rebus est sua dulcibus ; 
 Ut quodque mentes suuvius afficit, 
 Fastidium sic triste secum 
 Limitc proximiore ducit." 
 
 His learned commentator, Bosscha, has not, however, noticed 
 that these are only paraphrases of a remarkable passage of 
 Cicero. Cicero and Secundus have not, however, expressed 
 the principle more explicitly than Shakspeare : 
 
 " These violent delights have violent ends, 
 And in their triumph die. The sweetest honey 
 Is loathsome in its own dcliciousness, 
 And in the taste confounds the appetite. 
 Therefore, love moderately ; long love doth so. 
 To ; swift arrives as tardy as too slow." 
 
 The result of what I have now stated, therefore, is, in the 
 first place, that, as philosophers have observed, there is a dis- 
 tinction between Knowledge and Feeling, Perception and 
 Sensation, as between the objective and the subjective element ;
 
 824 PERCEPTION AND SENSATION 
 
 and, in the second, that this distinction is, moreover, governed 
 by the law, That the two elements, though each necessarily 
 supposes the other, are still always in a certain inverse propor- 
 tion to each other. 
 
 Why this distinction is important. Before leaving this sub- 
 ject, I may notice that the distinction of Perception proper and 
 Sensation proper, though recognized as phaenomenal by philoso- 
 phers who hold the doctrine of a representative perception, rises 
 into reality and importance only in the doctrine of an intuitive 
 perception. In the former doctrine, Perception is supposed to 
 be only apparently objective ; being, in reality, no less subjec- 
 tive than Sensation proper, the subjective element itself. 
 Both are nothing more than mere modes of the ego. The 
 philosophers who hold the hypothesis of a representative per- 
 ception, make the difference of the two to consist only in this ; 
 
 that in Perception proper, there is reference to an unknown 
 object, different from me ; in Sensation, there is no reference to 
 aught beyond myself. Brown, on the supposition that Reid 
 held that doctrine in common with himself and philosophers at 
 large, states Sensation, as understood by Reid, to be " the simple 
 feeling that immediately follows the action of an external body 
 on any of our organs of sense, considered merely as a feeling 
 of the mind ; the corresponding Perception being the reference 
 of this feeling to the external body as its cause." The distinc- 
 tion he allows to be a convenient one, if the nature of the com- 
 plex process which it expresses be rightly understood. " The 
 only question," he says, " that seems, philosophically, of impor- 
 tance, with respect to it, is whether the Perception in this sense, 
 
 the reference of the Sensation to its external corporeal cause, 
 
 implies, as Dr. Reid contends, a peculiar mental power, co- 
 extensive with Sensation, to be distinguished by a peculiar name 
 in the catalogue of our faculties ; or be not merely one of the 
 results of a more general power, which is afterwards to be con- 
 sidered by us, the power of Association, by which one feel- 
 ing suggests, or induces, other feelings that have formerly 
 coexisted with it." 
 
 If Brown be correct in his interpretation of Reid's general
 
 PERCEPTION AND SENSATION. 325 
 
 doctrine of perception, his criticism is not only true but trite. 
 In the hands of a Cosmothetic Idealist, the distinction is only 
 superficial, and manifestly of no import ; and the very fact, that 
 Reid laid so great stress on it, would tend to prove, independ- 
 ently of what we have already alleged, that Brown's interpre- 
 tation of his doctrine is erroneous. You will remark, likewise, 
 that Brown (and Brown only speaks the language of all phi- 
 losophers who do not allow the mind a consciousness of aught 
 beyond its own states) misstates the phenomenon, when he as- 
 serts that, in perception, there is a reference from the internal 
 to the external, from the known to the unknown. That this is 
 not the fact, an observation of this phenomenon will at once 
 convince you. In an act of perception, I am conscious of 
 something as self, and of something as not-self: this is the 
 simple fact. The philosophers, on the contrary, who will not 
 accept this fact, misstate it. They say that we are there con- 
 scious of nothing but a certain modification of mind ; but this 
 modification involves a reference to, in other words, a repre- 
 sentation of, something external, as its object. Now this is 
 untrue. We are conscious of no reference, of no represen- 
 tation ; we believe that the object of which we are conscious is 
 the object which exists. Nor could there possibly be such 
 reference or representation ; for reference or representation 
 supposes a knowledge already possessed of the object referred 
 to or represented ; but perception is the faculty by which our 
 first knowledge is acquired, and, therefore, cannot suppose a 
 previous knowledge as its condition. But this I notice only by 
 the way ; this matter will be regularly considered in the sequel. 
 Perception a primary, not a compound and derivative faculty. 
 I may here notice the false analysis, which has endeavored 
 to tuke perception out of the list of our faculties, as being only 
 a compound and derivative power. Perception, say Brown and 
 others, supposes memory and comparison and judgment ; there- 
 fore, it is not a primary faculty of mind. Nothing can be more 
 erroneous than this reasoning. In the first place, I have for- 
 merly shown you that consciousness supposes memory, and 
 discrimination, and judgment; and, as perception does not pre- 
 28
 
 326 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 
 
 tend to be simpler than consciousness, but in fact only a modifi- 
 cation of consciousness, that, therefore, the objection does not 
 apply. But, in the second place, the objection is founded on a 
 misapprehension of what a faculty properly is. It may be very 
 true, that an act of perception cannot be realized simply and 
 alone. I have often told you that the mental phenomena are 
 never simple, and that, as tissues are woven out of many threads, 
 BO a mental phenomenon is made up of many acts and affec- 
 tions, which we can only consider separately by abstraction, but 
 can never even conceive as separately existing. In mathemat- 
 ics, we consider a triangle or a square, the sides and the angles 
 apart from each other, though we are unable to conceive them 
 existing independently of each other. But because the angles 
 and sides exist only through each other, would it be correct to 
 deny their reality as distinct mathematical elements ? As in 
 geometry, so is it in psychology. We admit that no faculty can 
 exist itself alone ; and that it is only by viewing the actual 
 manifestations of mind in their different relations, that we are 
 able by abstraction to analyze them into elements, which we 
 refer to different faculties. Thus, for example, every judgment, 
 every comparison, supposes two- terms to be compared, and, 
 therefore, supposes an act of representative, or an act of acquis- 
 itive, cognition. But go back to one or other of these acts, and 
 you will find that each of them supposes a judgment and a 
 memory. If I represent in imagination the terms of compari- 
 son, there is involved a judgment ; for the fact of their repre- 
 sentation supposes the affirmation or judgment that they are 
 called up, that they now ideally exist ; and this judgment is 
 only possible, as a result of a comparison of the present con- 
 sciousness of their existence with a past consciousness of their 
 non-existence, which comparison, again, is only possible through 
 an act of memory. 
 
 The Primary and Secondary Qualities of matter. Con- 
 nected with the preceding distinction of Perception and Sensa- 
 tion, is the distinction of the Primary and Secondary Qualities 
 of matter. 
 
 It would only confuse you W<T" I to attempt to determine
 
 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUAUTKS. 327 
 
 how far this distinction was known to the Atomic physiologists, 
 prior to Aristotle, and how far Aristotle himself was aware of 
 the principle on which it proceeds. It is enough to notice, as 
 the most remarkable opinion of antiquity, that of Democritus, 
 who, except the common qualities of body which are known by 
 Touch, denied that the senses afforded us any information con- 
 cerning the real properties of matter. Among modern philoso- 
 phers, Descartes was the first who recalled attention to the dis- 
 tinction. According to him, the Primary qualities differ from 
 the Secondary in this, that our knowledge of the former is 
 more clear and distinct than of the latter. 
 
 " The qualities of external objects," says Locke, " are of two 
 sorts ; first, Original or Primary ; such are solidity, extension, 
 motion or rest, number, and figure. These are inseparable from 
 body, and such as it constantly keeps in all its changes and 
 alterations. Thus, take a grain of wheat, divide it into two 
 parts ; each part has still solidity, extension, figure, mobility ; 
 divide it again, and it still retains the same qualities ; and will 
 do so still, though you divide it on till the parts become insen- 
 sible. 
 
 " Secondly, Secondary qualities, such as colors, smells, tastes, 
 sounds, etc., which, whatever reality we by mistake may attrib- 
 ute to them, are, in truth, nothing in the objects themselves, but 
 powers to produce various sensations in us ; and depend on the 
 qualities before mentioned. 
 
 " The ideas of Primary qualities of bodies are resemblances 
 of them ; and their patterns really exist in bodies themselves : 
 but the ideas produced in us by Secondary qualities have no 
 resemblance of them at all: and what is sweet, blue, cr warm 
 in the idea, is but the certain bulk, figure, and motion of the 
 insensible parts in the bodies themselves, which we call so." 
 
 Reid adopted the distinction of Descartes : he holds that 
 our knowledge of the Primary qualities is clear and distinct, 
 whereas our knowledge of the Secondary qualities is obscure. 
 "Every man," he says, "capable of reflection, may easily sat- 
 isfy himself, that he has a perfectly clear and distinct notion or 
 extension, divisibility, figure, and motion. The solidity of a
 
 328 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 
 
 body means no more, but that it excludes other bodies from oc- 
 cupying the same place at the same time. Hardness, softness, 
 and fluidity are different degrees of cohesion in the parts of 
 body. It is fluid, when it has no sensible cohesion ; soft, when 
 the cohesion is weak ; and hard, when it is strong : of the cause 
 of this cohesion we are ignorant, but the thing itself we under- 
 stand perfectly, being immediately informed of it by the sense 
 of touch. It is evident, therefore, that of the Primary qualities 
 we have a clear and distinct notion ; we know what they arc, 
 though we may be ignorant of the causes." But he did more ; 
 he endeavored to show that this difference arises from the cir- 
 cumstance, that the perception, in the case of the Primary 
 qualities, is direct ; in the case of the Secondary, only relative. 
 This he explains : " I observe, further, that the notion we have 
 of Primary qualities is direct, and not relative only. A rela- 
 tive notion of a thing is, strictly speaking, no notion of the tiling 
 at all, but only of some relation which it bears to something 
 else. 
 
 " Thus, gravity sometimes signifies the tendency of bodies 
 towards the earth ; sometimes, it signifies the cause of that ten- 
 dency ; when it means the first, I have a direct and distinct 
 notion of gravity ; I see it, and feel it, and know perfectly what 
 it is ; but this tendency must have a cause ; we give the same 
 name to the cause ; and that cause has been an object of 
 thought and of speculation. Now, what notion have we of this 
 cause, when we think and reason about it? It is evident we 
 think of it as an unknown cause of a known effect. This is a 
 relative notion, and it must be obscure, because it gives us no 
 conception of what the thing is, but of what relation it bears to 
 something else. Every relation which a thing unknown bears 
 to eonu-thing that is known, may give a relative notion of it ; and 
 there are many objects of thought, and of discourse, of which 
 our faculties can give no better than a relative notion. 
 
 " I lav ing premised these tilings to explain what is meant by 
 a relative notion, it is evident, that our notion of Primary 
 Qualities is not of this kind; we know what they are, and not 
 barely what relation they bear to something else.
 
 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 329 
 
 "It is otherwise with Secondary Qualities. If you ask me, 
 what is that quality or modification in a rose which I call its 
 Finell, I am at a loss what to answer directly. Upon reflection, 
 I find, that I have a distinct notion of the sensation which it 
 produces in my mind. But there can be nothing like to this 
 sensation in the rose, because it is insentient. The quality in 
 the rose is something which occasions the sensation in me ; but 
 what that something is, I know not. My senses give me no 
 nformation upon this point. The only notion, therefore, my 
 senses give is this, that smell in the rose is an unknown quality 
 or modification, which is the cause or occasion of a sensation 
 which I know well. The relation which this unknown quality 
 bears to the sensation with which nature hath connected it, is 
 all I learn from the sense of smelling ; but this is evidently a 
 relative notion. The same reasoning will apply to every Sec- 
 ondary quality." 
 
 [The Primary Qualities of Matter or Body, now and here, 
 that is, in proximate relation to our organs, are objects of 
 immediate cognition to the Natural Realists, of mediate, to the 
 Cosmothetic Idealists ; the former, on the testimony of con- 
 sciousness, asserting to mind the capability of intuitively per- 
 ceiving what is not itself; the latter denying this capability, but 
 asserting to the mind the power of representing, and truly rep- 
 resenting, what it does not know. To the Absolute Idealists, 
 matter has no existence as an object of cognition, either imme- 
 diate or mediate. 
 
 The Secondary Qualities of Body, now and here, as only 
 present affections of the conscious subject, determined by an 
 unknown external cause, are, on every theory, now allowed 
 to be objects of immediate cognition.] Dins, siipp. to Reid. 
 
 You will observe that the lists of the primary qualities given 
 by Locke and Reid do not coincide. According to Locke, 
 these are Solidity, Extension, Motion, Hardness, Softness, 
 Roughness, Smoothness, and Fluidity. 
 
 Stewart's classification of qualities. Mr. Stewart proposes 
 another line of demarcation. "I distingui>h," he .-ays, " Exten- 
 sion and Figure by the title of the Mathematical Ajj'cctiuns (
 
 330 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 
 
 matter ; restricting the phrase, Primary Qualities, to Hardness 
 and Softness, Roughness and Smoothness, and other properties 
 of the same description. The line which I would draw between 
 Primary and Secondary Qualities is this, that the former neces- 
 sarily involve the notion of Extension, and consequently of 
 externality or outness ; whereas the latter are only conceived as 
 the unknown causes of known sensations ; and when first appre- 
 hended by the mind, do not imply the existence of any thing 
 locally distinct from the subjects of its consciousness." 
 
 The Primary Qualities reducible to two. All these Primary 
 Qualities, including Mr. Stewart's Mathematical Affections of 
 matter, may easily be reduced to two, Extension and Solid- 
 ity. Thus : Figure is a mere limitation of extension ; Hard- 
 ness, Softness, Fluidity, are only Solidity variously modified, 
 only its different degrees ; while Roughness and Smoothness 
 denote only the sensations connected with certain perceptions of 
 Solidity.* On the other hand, in regard to Divisibility, (which 
 
 * [The term Solidity (rd arepeov, solidum), as denoting an attribute of 
 body, is a word of various significations ; and the non-determination and 
 non-distinction of these have given rise to manifold error and confusion. 
 
 first Meaning. In its most unexclusivo signification, the Solid is that 
 which Jills or occupies space. In this meaning, it is simply convertible with 
 Body; and is opposed, 1, to the unextcnded in all or in any of the threo 
 dimensions of space ; and 2, to mere extension or empty space itself. 
 This we may call Solidity simply. 
 
 The occupation of space supposes two necessary conditions; and each 
 of these has obtained the common name of Solidity, thus constituting a 
 second and a third meaning. 
 
 Second Mianiny. What is conceived as occupying space, is necessarily 
 conceived as extended in the tltrec dimensions of spare. This is the phasis of 
 Solidity which the Geometer exclusively contemplates. Trinal extension 
 has, accordingly, by mathematicians, been emphatically called the Solid; 
 and this first partial Solidity wo may therefore distinguish as the Alath*- 
 mat! cat, or rather the G<omi.tricul. 
 
 Third Meaning. On the other hand, what is conceived as occupying 
 space, is necessarily conceived as ir/iat cannot be eliminated from space. But 
 this supposes a power of resisting such elimination. This is the plmsis of 
 Solidity considered exclusively from the physical point of view. Accord- 
 ingly, by the men of natural science, the impossibility of compressing a 
 body from an exte uled to an unextcnded has been emphatically styled
 
 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 331 
 
 is proper to Reid,) and to Motion, these can hardly be mere 
 data of sense. Divisibility supposes division, and a body 
 
 Solidity; and this second partial solidity wo may therefore distinguish aa 
 the Physical. The resisting force here involved has been called the Impen- 
 etrability of matter; but most improperly and most ambiguously. It 
 might more appropriately be termed its Ultimate or Absolute Inrompresn- 
 
 In a psychological point of view and this is that of Locke und meta- 
 physicians in general no attribute of body is Primary which is not neces- 
 ary in thought ; that is, which is not necessarily evolved out of, as neces- 
 sarily implied in, the very notion of body. And such is Solidity, in the one 
 total and the two partial significations heretofore enumerated. But in its 
 physical application, this term is not always limited to denote the ultimata 
 incompressibility of matter. Besides that necessary attribute, it is extended, 
 in common language, to express other powers of resistance in bodies, of a 
 character merely contingent in reference to thought. These may be re- 
 duced to the five following . 
 
 Fourth Meaning. The term Solid is very commonly employed to denote 
 not merely the absolutely, but also the relatively, incompressible, the Dense, 
 in contrast to the relatively compressible, the Rare, or Hollow. (In Latin, 
 moreover, Solidus was not only employed, in this sense, to denote that a 
 thing fully occupied the space comprehended within its circumference ; but 
 likewise to indicate, 1, its entireness in quantity that it was whole or com- 
 plete; and, 2, its entireness in quality that it was pure, uniform, homo- 
 geneous. This arose from the original identity of the Latin Solidum with 
 the Oscan sollum or solum, and the Greek 6Aov. 
 
 Fifth Meaning. Under the Vis Inertue, a body is said to h<s Solid, t. e. 
 Inert, Stable, Immovable, in proportion as it, whether in motion or at rest, 
 resists, in general, a removal from the place it would otherwise occupy in 
 pace. 
 
 Sixth Meaning. Under Gravity, a body is said to be Solid, t. e. Heavy, 
 in proportion as it resists, in particular, a displacement by being lifted up. 
 
 The two following meanings fall under Cohesion, the force with which 
 matter resists the distraction of its parts ; for a body is said in a 
 
 Seventh Meaning, to be Solid, i. e. Hard, in contrast to Soft; and in aa 
 
 Eighth Meaning, to be Solid, t. e. Concrete, in opposition to Fluid. 
 
 The term Solidity thus denotes, besides the absolute and necessary prop- 
 erty of occupying space, simply and in its two phases of Extension and 
 Impenetrability, also the relative and contingent qualities of the Dense, the 
 Inert, the Heavy, the Hard, the Concrete ; and the introduction of these 
 latter, with their correlative opposites, into the list of Primary Qualitiet 
 was facilitated by Locke's vacillating employment of the vague expression 
 Solid, in partial designation of the former.] Diss. supp. to litid.
 
 332 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALI1IES. 
 
 divided supposes memory ; for if we did not remember that 
 it had been one, we should not know that it is now two ; we 
 could not compare its present with its former state ; and it is 
 by this comparison alone that we learn the fact of division. 
 As to Motion, this supposes the exercise of memory, and the 
 notion of time, and, therefore, we do not owe it exclusively to 
 sense. Finally, as to Number, which is peculiar to Locke, it is 
 evident that this, far from being a quality of matter, is only an 
 abstract notion, the fabrication of the intellect, and not a 
 datum of sense. 
 
 Space known a priori ; Extension a posteriori. Thus, then, 
 we have reduced all primary qualities to Extension and Solid- 
 ity ; and we are, moreover, it would seem, beginning to see 
 light, inasmuch as the Primary qualities are those in which per- 
 ception is dominant, the Secondary those in which sensation pre- 
 vails. But here we are again thrown back : for extension is 
 only another name for space, and our notion of space is not 
 one which we derive exclusively from sense, not one which 
 is generalized only from experience ; for it is one of our neces- 
 sary notions, in fact, a fundamental condition of thought 
 itself. The analysis of Kant, independently of all that has 
 been done by other philosophers, has placed this truth beyond 
 the possibility of doubt, to all those who understand the mean- 
 ing and conditions of the problem. For us, however, this is 
 not the time to discuss the subject. But, taking it for granted 
 that the notion of space is native or a priori, and not adventi- 
 tious or a posteriori, are we not at once thrown back into 
 Idealism ? For if extension itself be only a necessary mental 
 mode, how can we make it a quality of external objects, known 
 to us by sense ; or how can we contrast the outer world, as the 
 extended, with the inner, as the unextended world? To this 
 difficulty, I see only one possible answer. It is this : It can- 
 not be denied that space, as a necessary notion, is native to the 
 mind; but does it follow, that, because there is an a priori 
 space, as a form of thought, we may not also have an empirical 
 knowledge of extension, as an element of existence ? The 
 former, indeed, may be only the condition through which the
 
 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 333 
 
 latter is possible. It is true that, if we did not possess the gen- 
 eral and necessary notion of space anterior to, or as the condi- 
 tion of, experience, from experience we should never obtain 
 more than a generalized and contingent notion of space. But 
 there seems to me no reason to deny, that because we have the 
 one, we may not also have the other. If this be admitted, the 
 whole difficulty is solved ; and AVC may designate by the name 
 of extension our empirical knowledge of space, and reserve the 
 term space for space considered as a form or fundamental law 
 of thought.* This matter will, however, come appropriately 
 to be considered, in treating of the Regulative Faculty. 
 
 General result. The following is the result of what I think 
 an accurate analysis would afford, though there are no doubt 
 many difficulties to be explained. That our knowledge of all 
 the qualities of matter is merely relative. But though the quali- 
 ties of matter are all known only in relation to our faculties, 
 and the total or absolute cognition in perception is only mattei 
 in a certain relation to mind, and mind in a certain relation tc 
 matter ; still, in different perceptions, one term of the relation 
 may predominate, or the other. Where the objective element 
 predominates, where matter is known as principal in its rela- 
 tion to mind, and mind only known as subordinate in its corre- 
 lation to matter, we have Perception Proper, rising superior 
 to Sensation ; this is seen in the Primary Qualities. Where, on 
 the contrary, the subjective element predominates, where mind 
 is known as principal in its relation to matter, and matter is only 
 known as subordinate in its relation to mind, we have Sensa- 
 tion Proper rising superior to Perception ; and this is seen in 
 the Secondary Qualities. 
 
 The adequate illustration of this will, however, require both 
 a longer, and a more abstruse, discussion, [which is here sub- 
 joined from the Dissertations supplementary to Rcid.~\ 
 
 [The Qualities cf Body I divide into three classes. 
 
 Adopting and adapting, as far as possible, the previous no- 
 
 * [So Causality. Causality depends, first, on the a priori necessity in the 
 muni to think sonio cause ; and, second, ou experience, as revealing to ui 
 tiie particular cause of any eftect.J
 
 834 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 
 
 menclature the first of these I would denominate the class of 
 Primary, or Objective, Qualities ; the second, the class of >$9- 
 cundo- Primary, or Subjective- Objective, Qualities ; the third, the 
 class of Secondary, or Subjective, Qualities. 
 
 The general point of view from which the Qualities of Mat- 
 ter are here considered is not the Physical, but the Psychologi- 
 cal. But, under this, the ground of principle on which these 
 qualities are divided and designated is, again, two-fold. There 
 are, in fact, within the psychological, two special points of view ; 
 that of Sense, and that of Understanding. 
 
 The point of view chronologically prior, or first to us, is that 
 of Sense. The principle of division is here the different cir- 
 cumstances under which the qualities are originally and imme- 
 diately apprehended. On this ground, as apprehensions or 
 immediate cognitions through Sense, the Primary are distin- 
 guished as objective, not subjective,* as percepts propei, not 
 sensations proper ; the Sccundo-primary, as olgective and sub- 
 jective, as percepts 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 ia 
 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 Sccundo-pri- 
 mary, being thought <os manifest or conceivable in tlieir own na- 
 ture, are distinguished from the Secondary, as in tJtcir own- 
 nature occult and inconceivable. For the notion of Matter 
 
 * All knowledge, in one respect, is subjictive; for all knowledge is an 
 energy of the Ego. But when I perceive a quality of the Non-ego, of tho 
 object-object, as in immediate, relation to my mind, I am Raid to have of it 
 an oiijf<-tive knowledge ; in contrast to the suliji-rtirr knowledge I am said 
 to have of it when supposing it only as the hypothetical or occult cause of 
 an all'ection of which 1 am conscious, or thinking it only mediately through 
 a subject-object or representation in, and of, the mind.
 
 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 335 
 
 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 knowing what they are objectively in themselves ; the 
 Recundo-primary Qualities, again, are recognized as a posteriori 
 or contingent modifications of the Primary, and we clearly con- 
 ceive 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 contingently 
 euperadded to the naked notion of matter. The Primary Qual- 
 ities thus fall more under the point of view of Understanding, 
 the Secundo-primary and Secondary more under the 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-exist- 
 ent ; we cannot but think it as existent. But we are not so 
 necessitated to imagine the reality of aught occupying space ; for 
 while unable to conceive as null the space in which the material 
 universe 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, ad- 
 ventitious, or a posteriori. Of this latter class is that of Body 
 or Matter. 
 
 Now we ask, what are the necessary or essential, in con 
 trast to the contingent or accidental, properties of Body, as ap- 
 prehended and conceived by us? The answer to this question 
 affords the class of Primary, as contradistinguished from the 
 iwo elates of Secundo-primary and Secondary Qualities.
 
 836 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 
 
 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. 
 
 I. The property of jilting space (Solidity in its unexclusive 
 signification, Solidity Simple) implies two correlative conditions : 
 (A) the necessity of trinal extension, in length, breadth, and 
 thickness (Solidity geometrical) ; and (B) the corresponding 
 impossibility of being reduced from what is to wJiat 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 
 relations: (i.) Number or Divisibility; (ii.) Size, Bulk, or 
 Magnitude ; (Hi.) Shape or Figure. 
 
 \. Body necessarily exists, and is necessarily known, either 
 as one body or as many bodies. Number, \. e. the alternative 
 attribution of unity or plurality, is, thus, in a first respect, a 
 primary attribute of matter. But again, every single body is 
 also, in different points of view, at the same time one and many. 
 Considered as a ichole, it is, and is apprehended, as actually 
 one ; considered 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, Divisibil- 
 ity or Number is thus likewise, in a second respect, a Primary 
 attribute of matter. 
 
 ii. Body (multo mnjus this or that body) is not infinitely 
 extended. Each body must therefore have a certain finite ex- 
 tendon, which, by comparison with that of other bodies, must be 
 less, or greater, or equal ; in oilier word-, it nm-t by relation have 
 a certain Size, Bulk, or Magnitude ; and tlii-, again, as estimated 
 both (a) by the quantity of -pace occupied, and (1)) by the quan- 
 tity of matter occupying, affords likcwi.-e the relative attributes 
 of Dense and Rare. 
 
 iii. Finally, bodies, as not infinitely extended, have, conse- 
 quently, their extension bounded. l>ut bounded extension if 
 necessarily of a certain Shape or Figure.
 
 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 337 
 
 B. The negative notion the impossibility of conceiving 
 the compression of body from an extended to an unextended, 
 its elimination out of space affords the positive notion of an 
 insuperable power in body of resisting such compression or 
 elimination. This force, which, as absolute, is a conception of 
 the Understanding, not an apprehension through Sense, has 
 received no precise and unambiguous name. "We might call 
 it Ultimate or Absolute Incompressibility. 
 
 II. The other most general attribute of matter that of 
 being contained in space in like manner affords, by explica- 
 tion, an absolute and a relative attribute : viz. (A) the Mobility, 
 that is, the possible motion, and, consequently, the possible rest, 
 of a body ; and (B) the Situation, Position, Ubication, that is, 
 the local correlation of bodies in space. For 
 
 A. Space being conceived as infinite (or rather being in- 
 conceivable as not infinite), and the place occupied by body as 
 finite, body in general, and, of course, each body in particular, 
 is conceived capable either of remaining in the place it now 
 holds, or of being translated from that to any then unoccupied 
 part of space. And 
 
 B. As every part of space, i.e. every potential place, holds 
 a certain position relative to every other, so, consequently, must 
 bodies, in so far as they are all contained in space, and as each 
 occupies, at one time, one determinate space. 
 
 The Primary Qualities of matter thus develop themselves with 
 rigid necessity out of the simple datum of substance occupying 
 space. In a certain sort, and by contrast to the others, they are, 
 therefore, notions a priori, and to be viewed, pro tanto, as pro- 
 ducts of the Understanding. The others, on the contrary, it is 
 manifestly impossible to deduce, i. e. to evolve out of such a 
 given notion. They must be induced, i. e. generalized from 
 experience ; are, therefore, in strict propriety, notions a poste- 
 riori, and, in the last resort, mere products of Sense. 
 
 Induction of the cluss of Sccundo-Primary Qualities. Thia 
 
 terminates in the following conclusions. These qualities are 
 
 modifications, but contingent modifications, of the Primary. 
 
 They suppose the Primary ; the Primary do not suppose them. 
 
 29
 
 888 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 
 
 They have all relation to space, and motion in space ; and are 
 all contained under the category of Resistance or Pressure. 
 For they are all only various forms of a relative or superable 
 resistance to displacement, which, we learn by experience, bodies 
 oppose to other bodies, and, among these, to our organism moving 
 through space ; a resistance similar in kind (and therefore 
 clearly conceived) to that absolute or insuperable resistance, 
 which we are compelled, independently of experience, to think 
 that every part of matter would oppose to any attempt to de- 
 prive it of its space, by compressing it into an inextended. 
 
 In so far, therefore, as they suppose the Primary, which are 
 necessary, while they themselves are only accidental, they ex- 
 hibit, on the one side, what may be called a quasi-Primary qual- 
 ity ; and, in this respect they are to be recognized as percepts, 
 not sensations, as objective affections of things, and not as sub- 
 jective affections of us. But, on the other side, this objective 
 element is always found accompanied by a Secondary quality or 
 eensorial passion. The Secundo-primary qualities have thus al- 
 ways two phases, both immediately apprehended. On their 
 Primary or objective phasis, they manifest themselves as degrees 
 of resistance opposed to our locomotive energy ; on their Second- 
 ary or subjective phasis, as modes of resistance or pressure af- 
 fecting our sentient organism. Thus standing between, and, in 
 a certain sort, made up of, the two classes of Primary and Sec- 
 ondary qualities, to neither of which, however, can they be re- 
 duced ; this their partly common, partly peculiar nature, vindi- 
 cates to them the dignity of a class apart from both the others, 
 and this under the appropriate appellation of the Secundo-pri 
 mary qualities. 
 
 They admit of a classification from two different points of 
 view. They may be physically, they may be psycltolwjically 
 distributed. Considered physically, or in an objective relation, 
 they are to be reduced to classes corresponding to the different 
 sources in external nature from which the resistance or pressure 
 pprings. And these sources are, in all, three: (I.) that of 
 Co-attraction; (II.) that of Repulsion ; (III.) that of Inertia. 
 
 L Of the resistance of Co-attraction there may be distin*
 
 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 339 
 
 guished, on the same objective principle, two subaltern genera ; 
 to wit (A) that of Gravity, or the co-attraction of the particles 
 of body in general; and (B) that of Cohesion, or the co- attrac- 
 tion of the particles of this and that body in particular. 
 
 A. The resistance of Gravity or Weight according to ita 
 degree (which, again, is in proportion to the Bulk and Density 
 of ponderable matter), affords, under it, the relative qualities of 
 Heavy and Light (absolute and specific). 
 
 B. The resistance of Cohesion (using that term in its most 
 unexclusive universality) contains many species and counter- 
 species. Without proposing an exhaustive, or accurately subor- 
 dinated, list ; of these there may be enumerated (i.) the Hard 
 and Soft ; (ii.) the Firm (Fixed, Stable, Concrete, Solid) and 
 Fluid (Liquid), the Fluid being again subdivided into the Thick 
 and Thin; (iii.) the Viscid and Friable; with (iv.) the Tough 
 and Brittle (Irruptile and Ruptile) ; (v.) the Rigid and Flexible ; 
 (vi.) the Fissile and Infissile; (vii.) the Ductile and Inductile 
 (Extensible and Inextensible) ; (viii.) the Retractile and Irre- 
 tractile (Elastic and Inelastic) ; (ix.) (combined with Figure) 
 the Rough and Smooth ; (x.) the Slippery and Tenacious. 
 
 II. The resistance from Repulsion is divided into the coun- 
 ter qualities of (A) the (relatively) Compressible and Incom- 
 pressible ; (B) the Resilient and Irresilient (Elastic and In- 
 elastic). 
 
 III. The resistance from Inertia (combined with Bulk and 
 Cohesion) comprises the counter qualities of the (relatively) 
 Movable and Immovable. 
 
 There are thus, at least, fifteen pairs of counter attributes 
 which we may refer to the Secundo-primary Qualities of Body; 
 all obtained by the division and subdivision of the resisting 
 forces of matter, considered in an objective or physical point of 
 view. 
 
 Considered psychologically, or in a subjective relation, they 
 are to be discriminated, under the, genus of tin* Rehttirr/i/ resist- 
 ing, [I.] according to the degree in which the resisting force 
 milit counteract our locomotive faculty or muscular force; and, 
 [II.] according to the mode in which it might :uTect our capacity
 
 340 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 
 
 of feeling or sentient organism. Of these species, the former 
 would contain under it the gradations of the quasi-Primary 
 quality, the latter the varieties of the Secondary quality these 
 constituting the two elements of which, in combination, every 
 Secundo-primary quality is made up. So much for the induc- 
 tion of the Secundo-primary qualities. 
 
 Induction of the Secondary Qualities. Its results are the 
 following. The Secondary, as manifested to us, are not, in 
 pr >priety, qualities of Body at all. As apprehended, they are 
 only subjective affections, and belong only to bodies in so far as 
 these are supposed furnished with the powers capable of specifi- 
 cally determining the various parts of our nervous apparatus to 
 the peculiar action, or rather passion, of which they are suscep- 
 tible ; which determined action or passion is the quality of which 
 alone we are immediately cognizant, the external concause of 
 that internal effect remaining to perception altogether unknown. 
 Thus, the Secondary qualities (and the same is to be said, mu- 
 tatis mutandis, of the Secundo-primary) are, considered subjec- 
 tively, and considered objectively, affections or qualities of things 
 diametrically opposed in nature of the organic and inorganic, 
 of the sentient and insentient, of mind and matter ; and though, 
 a? mutually correlative, and their several pairs rarely obtaining 
 in common language more than a single name, they cannot well 
 be considered, except in conjunction, under the same category 
 or general class ; still their essential contrast of character must 
 be ever carefully borne in mind. And in speaking of these 
 qualities, as we are here chiefly concerned with them on their 
 lubjcctive side, I request it may be observed, that I shall cm- 
 ploy the expression Secondary qualities to denote those phenom- 
 enal affections determined in our sentient organism by the 
 agency of external bodies, and not, unless when otherwise 
 Plated, the occult powers themselves from which that agency 
 proceeds. 
 
 Of the Secondary qualities, in this relation, there are various 
 kinds ; the variety principally depending on the differences of 
 the different parts of our nervous apparatus. Such are the 
 proper sensibles, the idiopathic affections of our several organ*
 
 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES. 341 
 
 of sense, as Color, Sound, Flavor, Savor, and Tactual sensation ; 
 Buch are the feelings from Heat, Electricity, Galvanism, etc. ; 
 nor need it be added, such are the muscular and cutaneous 
 sensations which accompany the perception of the Secundo-pri- 
 mary qualities. Such, though less directly the result of foreign 
 causes, are Titillation, Sneezing, Horripilation, Shuddering, the 
 feeling of what is called Setting-the-teeth-on-edge, etc., etc. ; 
 such, in fine, are all the various sensations of bodily pleasure 
 and pain determined by the action of external stimuli. 
 
 What they are in general. 1. The Primary are less prop- 
 erly denominated Qualities (Suchnesses), and deserve the name 
 only as we conceive them to distinguish body from not-body, 
 corporeal from incorporeal substance. They are thus merely 
 the attributes of body as body, carports ut corpus. The Se- 
 cundo-primary and Secondary, on the contrary, are in strict 
 propriety denominated Qualities, for they discriminate body 
 from body. They are the attributes of body as this or that kind 
 of body, corporis ut tale corpus. 
 
 2. The Primary determine the possibility of matter abso- 
 lutely ; the Secundo-primary, the possibility of the material 
 universe as actually constituted ; the Secondary, the possibility 
 of our relation as sentient existences to that universe. 
 
 3. Under the Primary, we apprehend modes of the Non-ego ; 
 under the Secundo-primary, we apprehend modes both of the 
 Ego and of the Non-ego ; under the Secondary, we apprehend 
 modes of the Ego, and infer modes of the Non-ego. 
 
 4. The Primary are apprehended as they are in bodies ; the 
 Secondary as they are in us ; the Secundo-primary as they are 
 in bodies, and as they are in us. 
 
 5. The Primary are conceived as necessary and perceived 
 as actual ; the Secundo-primary are perceived and conceived as 
 actual ; the Secondary are inferred and conceived as possible. 
 
 6. The Primary may be roundly characterized as mathemat- 
 ical ; the Secundo-primary, as mechanical; the Secondary, as 
 physiological.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. OBJECTIONS TO THE DOC- 
 TRINE OF NATURAL REALISM CONSIDERED. THE REPRR. 
 SENTATIVE HYPOTHESIS REFUTED. 
 
 FROM our previous discussions, you are now, in some meas- 
 ure, prepared for a consideration of the grounds on which 
 philosophers have so generally asserted the scientific necessity 
 of repressing the testimony of consciousness to the fact of our 
 immediate perception of external objects, and of allowing us 
 only a mediate knowledge of the material world : a procedure 
 by which they either admit, or cannot rationally deny, that 
 Consciousness is a mendacious witness ; that Philosophy and 
 the Common Sense of mankind are placed in contradiction ; 
 nay, that the only legitimate philosophy is an absolute and uni- 
 versal scepticism. That consciousness, in perception, affords us, 
 us I have stated, an assurance of an intuitive cognition of the 
 Non-ego, is not only notorious to every one who will interrogate 
 consciousness as to the fact, but is, as I have already shown you, 
 acknowledged not only by Cosmothetic Idealists, but even by 
 absolute Idealists and Sceptics. 
 
 Order of t/ie discussion. In considering this subject, it is 
 manifest that, before rejecting the testimony of consciousness to 
 our immediate knowledge of the Non-ego, the philosophers were 
 ' bound, in the first place, to evince the absolute necessity of their 
 rejection; and, in the second place, in substituting an hypothe- 
 sis in the room of the rejected fact, they are bound to substitute 
 a legitimate hypothesis, that is, one which does not violate 
 the laws under which an hypothesis CHU be rationally proposed. 
 I fahall, therefore, divide the discussion into two sections. lu
 
 OBJECTIONS TO NATURAL REALISM CONSIDERED. 343 
 
 the former, I shall state the reasons, as far as I have been able 
 to discover them, on which philosophers have attempted to man- 
 ifest the impossibility of acquiescing in the testimony of con- 
 sciousness and the general belief of mankind ; and, at the same 
 time, endeavor to refute these reasons, by showing that they do 
 not establish the necessity required. In_the latter, I shall at- 
 tempt to prove that the hypothesis proposed by the philosophers, 
 in place of the fact of consciousness, does not fulfil the condi- 
 tions of a legitimate hypothesis, in fact, violates them almost 
 all. In the first place, then, in regard to the reasons assigned 
 by philosophers for their refusal of the fact of our immediate 
 perception of external things, of these, I have been able to 
 collect in all five. 
 
 li$Jirs1^grQund of rejection-- The first, and highest, ground 
 on which it may be held, that the object immediately known in 
 perception is a modification of the mind itself, is the following: 
 Perception is a cognition or act of knowledge ; a cognition is an 
 immanent act of mind ; but to suppose the cognition of any 
 thing external to the mind, would be to suppose an act of the 
 mind going out of itself, in other words, a transcunt act ; but 
 action supposes existence, and nothing can act wkere it is not ; 
 therefore, to act out of self is to exist out of self, which is ab- 
 surd. 
 
 This argument, though I have never met with it explicitly 
 announced, is still implicitly supposed in the arguments of those 
 philosophers who hold, that the mind cannot be conscious of 
 aught beyond its own modifications. It will not stand examina- 
 tion. It is very true that we can neither prove, nor even con- 
 ceive, how the Ego can be conscious or immediately cognitive 
 of the Non-ego; but this, our ignorance, is no sufficient reason 
 on \\hich to deny the possibility of the fact. As a fact, and a 
 primary fact, of consciousness, we must be ignorant of the why 
 and the how of its reality, fur we have no higher notion through 
 whiih to comprehend it, and, if it involve no contradiction, we 
 are, philosophically, bound to accept it. But if we examine the 
 argument a little closer, we shall find that' it prove- too much ; 
 for, on the same principle, we should establish the impossibility
 
 844 OBJECTIONS TO NATUKAL REALISM CONSIDERED. 
 
 of any overt act of volition,. nay, even the impossibility of 
 all agency and mutual causation. For if, on the ground that 
 nothing can act out of itself, because nothing exists out of itself, 
 we deny to mind the immediate knowledge of things external ; 
 on the same principle, we must deny to mind the power of de- 
 termining any muscular movement of the body. And if the ac- 
 tion of every existence were limited to the sphere of that existence 
 itself, then, no one thing could act upon any other thing, and all 
 action and reaction, in the universe, would be impossible. This is 
 a general absurdity, which follows from the principle in question. 
 But there is a peculiar and proximate absurdity, into which 
 this theory runs, in the attempt it makes to escape the inexpli- 
 <o&.cable. It is this : The Cosmothetic Idealists, who found their 
 doctrine on the impossibility of mind acting out of itself, in re- 
 lation to matter, are obliged to admit the still less conceivable 
 possibility of matter acting out of itself, in relation to mind. 
 They deny that mind is immediately conscious of matter ; and, 
 to save the phenomenon of perception, they assert that the 
 Non-ego, as given in that act, is only an illusive representation 
 of the Non-ego, in, and by, the Ego. Well, admitting this, and 
 allowing them to belie the testimony of consciousness to the 
 reality of the Non-ego as perceived, what do they gain by this ? 
 They surrender the simple datum of consciousness, that the 
 external object is immediately known ; and, in lieu of that real 
 object, they substitute a representative object. But still they 
 hold (at least those who do not fly to some hyperphysical hy- 
 pothesis) that the mind is determined to this representation by 
 the material reality, to which material reality they must, there- 
 fore, accord the very transeunt efficiency which they deny to th* 
 immaterial principle. This first and highest ground, therefore, 
 on which it is attempted to establish the necessity of a repre- 
 sentative perception, is not only insufficient, but self-contradic- 
 tory. 
 
 The second ground of rejection. The second ground on 
 which it has been attempted to establish the necessity of this 
 hypothesis, is one which has been more generally and more openly 
 founded o \ than the preceding. Mind and matter, it is said, an 1
 
 OBJECTIONS TO NATURAL REALISM CONSIDERED. 343 
 
 substances, not only of different, but of the most opposite, na- 
 tures ; separated, as some philosophers express it, by the whole 
 diameter of being : but what immediately knows, must be of a 
 nature correspondent, analogous, to that which is known ; mind 
 cannot, therefore, be conscious or immediately cognizant of 
 what is so disproportioned to its essence as matter. 
 
 This principle is one whose influence is seen pervading tLe 
 whole history of philosophy, and the tracing of this influence 
 would form the subject of a curious treatise. To it we princi- 
 pally owe the doctrine of a representative perception, in one or 
 other of its forms ; and in a higher or lower potence, according 
 as the representative object was held to be, in relation to mind, 
 of a nature either the same or similar, Derivative from the 
 principle in its lower potence or degree, (that is, the immediate 
 object being supposed to be only something similar to the 
 mind,) we have, among other less celebrated and less definite 
 theories, the intentional species of the Schoolmen (at least as 
 generally held), and the ideas of Malebranche and Berkeley. 
 In its higher potence, (that is, where the representative object 
 is supposed to be of a nature not merely similar to, but identi- 
 cal with, mind, though it may be numerically different from 
 individual minds,) it affords us, among other modifications, the 
 gnostic reasons of the Platonists, the preexisting species of 
 Avicenna and other Arabian Aristotelians, the ideas of Des- 
 cartes, Arnauld, Leibnitz, Burner, and Cond iliac, the phainom- 
 na of Kant, and the external states of Dr. Brown. It is 
 doubtful to which head we should refer Locke, and Newton, 
 and Clarke, nay, whether we should not refer them to the 
 class of those who, like Democritus, Epicurus, and Digby, 
 viewed the representative or immediate object as a material 
 efflux or propagation from the external reality to (be braiiu 
 To the influence of the same principle, through the refusal of 
 the testimony of consciousness to the duality of our knowledge, 
 are also mediately to be traced the ujiiUiriuii systems of abso- 
 lute identity, materialism^ and idealism. 
 
 Refutation of this principle. But, if no principle was ever 
 more universal in its effects, none was ever more arbitrarily
 
 846 OBJECTIONS TO NATURAL REALISM CONSIDERED. 
 
 assumed. It not only can pretend to no necessity ; it has abso- 
 lutely no probability in its favor. Some philosophers, as Anax- 
 agoras, Heraclitus, Alcmaeon, have even held that the relation 
 of knowledge supposes, not a similarity or sameness between 
 subject and object, but, in fact, a contrariety or opposition ; and 
 Aristotle himself is sometimes in favor of this opinion, though, 
 sometimes, it would appear, in favor of the other. But, however 
 this may be, each assertion is just as likely, and just as unpin- 
 losophical, as its converse. We know, and can know, nothing a 
 priori of what is possible or impossible to mind, and it is only 
 by observation and by generalization a posteriori, that we can 
 ever hope to attain any insight into the question. But the very 
 first fact of our experience contradicts the assertion, that mind, 
 as of an opposite nature, can have no immediate cognizance of 
 matter ; for the primary datum of consciousness is, that in per- 
 ception, we have an intuitive knowledge of the Ego and of the 
 Non-ego, equally and at once. This second ground, therefore, 
 affords us no stronger necessity than the first, for denying the 
 possibility of the fact of which consciousness assures us. 
 
 The third ground of rejection. The third ground on which 
 the representative hypothesis of perception is founded, and that 
 apparently alone contemplated by Reid and Stewart, is, that 
 the mind can only know immediately that to which it is imme- 
 diately present ; but as external objects can neither themselves 
 come into the mind, nor the mind go out to them, such presence 
 is impossible ; therefore, external objects can only be mediately 
 known, through some representative object, whether that object 
 be a modification of mind, or soineihing in immediate relation 
 to the mind. It was this difficulty of bringing the subject and 
 object into proximate relation, that, in part, determined all the 
 various schemes of a representative perception ; but it seems 
 to have been the one which solely determined the peculiar form 
 of that doctrine in the philosophy of Democritus, Epicurus, 
 Digby, and others, under which it is held, that the immediate or 
 internal object is a representative emanation, propagated from 
 the external reality to the sensorium. 
 
 Now this objection to the immediate cognition of external
 
 OBJECTIONS TO NATURAL REALISM CONSIDERED. 347 
 
 objects, has, as far as I know, been redargued in three different 
 ways. In the Jirst place, it has been denied, that the external 
 reality cannot itself come into the mind. In the second, it has 
 been asserted, that a faculty of the mind itself does actually go 
 out to the external reality ; and, in the third place, it has been 
 maintained that, though the mind neither goes out, nor the real- 
 ity comes in, and though subject and object are, therefore, not 
 present to each other, still that the mind, through the agency 
 of God, has an immediate perception of the external object. 
 
 The Jirst mode of obviating the present objection to the possi- 
 bility of an immediate perception, might be thought too absurd 
 to have been ever attempted. But the observation of Varro, 
 that there is nothing so absurd which has not been asserted by 
 some philosopher, is not destined to be negatived in the present 
 instance. In opposition to Locke's thesis, " that the mind 
 knows not tilings immediately, but only by the intervention of 
 the ideas it has of them," and in opposition to the whole doc- 
 trine of representation, it is maintained, in terms, by Sergeant, 
 that " I know the very thing ; therefore, the very thing is_in 
 my act of knowledge ; but my act of knowledge is in my 
 understanding ; therefore, the thing which is in my knowledge, 
 is also in my understanding." We may suspect that this is 
 only a paradoxical way of stating his opinion ; but though this 
 author, the earliest and one of the most eloquent of Locke's 
 antagonists, be destitute neither of learning nor of acuteness, I 
 must confess, that Locke and Molyneux cannot be blamed in 
 pronouncing his doctrine unintelligible. 
 
 The second mode of obviating the objection, by allowing to 
 the mind a power of sallying out to the external reality, has 
 higher authority in its favor. That vision is effected by a per- 
 ceptive emanation from the eye, was held by Empedocles, the 
 Platonists, and Stoics, and was adopted also by Alexander the 
 Aphrodisiau, by Euclid, Ptolemy, Galen, and Alchindus. This 
 opinion, as held by these philosophers, was limited ; and, though 
 erroneous, is not to be viewed as irrational. But in the hands 
 of Lord Monboddo, it is carried to an absurdity which leaves 
 even Sergeant far behind. " The mind," says thu
 
 348 OBJECTIONS TO NATURAL REALISM CONSIDERED. 
 
 author of Ancient Metaphysics, " is not where the body is, when 
 it perceives what is distant from the body, either in time or 
 place, because nothing can act but when and where it is. Now 
 the mind acts when it perceives. The mind, therefore, of every 
 animal who has memory or imagination, acts, and, by conse- 
 nuence, exists, when and where the body is not ; for it per- 
 ceives objects distant from the body, both in time and place." 
 
 The third mode is apparently that adopted by Reid and 
 Stewart, who hold, that the mind has an immediate knowledge 
 of the external reality, though the subject and object may not 
 be present to each other; and, though this be not explicitly or 
 obtrusively stated, that the mind obtains this immediate knowl- 
 edge through the agency of God. Dr. Reid's doctrine o per- 
 ception is thus summed up by Mr. Stewart : " To what, then, 
 it may be asked, does this statement amount? Merely to this: 
 that the mind is so formed that certain impressions produced on 
 our organs of sense by external objects are followed by corre- 
 spondent sensations, and that these sensations, (which have no 
 more resemblance to the qualities of matter than the words of 
 a language have to the things they denote,) are followed by a 
 perception of the existence and qualities of the bodies by which 
 the impressions are made ; that all the steps of this process are 
 equally incomprehensible ; and that, for any thing we can prove 
 to the contrary, the connection between the sensation and the 
 perception, as well as that between the impression and the sen- 
 sation, may be both arbitrary ; that it is, therefore, by no means 
 impossible, that our sensations may be merely the occasions on 
 which the correspondent perceptions are excited ; and that, at 
 any rate, the consideration of these sensations, which are attri- 
 butes of mind, can throw no light on the manner in which we 
 acquire our knowledge of (lie existence and qualities of body. 
 From this view of the subject it follows, that it is the external 
 objects themselves, and not any species or images of the objects, 
 that the mind perceives; and that, alihough, by the constitution 
 of our nature, certain sensations art; rendered the constant ante- 
 cedents of our perceptions, yet it is just as difficult to explain 
 how our perceptions are obtained by their means, as it would be
 
 OBJECTIONS TO NATURAL REALISM CONSIDERED. 349 
 
 upon the supposition that the mind were all at once inspired 
 with them, without any concomitant sensations whatever." * 
 
 The doctrine of Occasional Causes. This statement, when 
 illustrated by the doctrine of these philosophers in regard to the 
 distinctions of Efficient and Physical Causes, might be almost 
 identified with the Cartesian doctrine of Occasional Causes 
 According to Reid and Stewart, and the opinion has been 
 more explicitly asserted by the latter, there is no really effi- 
 cient cause in nature but one, namely, the Deity. What are 
 called Physical causes and effects being antecedents and conse- 
 quents, but not in virtue of any mutual and necessary depen- 
 dence ; the only Efficient being God, who, on occasion of the 
 antecedent, which is called the physical cause, produces the 
 consequent, which is called the physical effect. So in the case 
 of perception ; the cognition of the external object is not, or 
 may not be, a consequence of the immediate and natural rela- 
 tion of that object to the mind, but of the agency of God, who, 
 as it were, reveals the outer existence to our perception. A 
 similar doctrine is held by a great German philosopher, Fred- 
 eric Henry Jacobi. 
 
 To this opinion many objections occur. In the first place, so 
 
 * [If an immediate knowledge of external things that is, a conscious- 
 ness of the qualities of the Non-ego be admitted, the belief of their exist- 
 ence follows of course. On this supposition, therefore, such a belief would 
 not be unaccountable ; for it would be accounted for by the fact of the 
 knowledge, in which it would necessarily be contained. Our belief, in this 
 case, of the existence of external objects would not be more inexplicable 
 than our belief that 2 + 2 = 4. In both cases, it would be sufficient to say, 
 we believe because we know ; for belief is only unaccountable when it is not 
 the consequent or concomitant of knowledge. By this, however, I do not, 
 of course, mean to say, that knowledge is not in itself marvellous and 
 unaccountable. 
 
 Mr. Stewart proposes a supplement to this doctrine of Reid, in order to 
 explain why wo believe in the existence of the qualities of external objects 
 when they are not the objects of our perception, [that is, why we believe 
 that they continue to exist afar we have ceased to perceive them]. This 
 lielief ho holds to be the result of experience, in combination with an orig 
 inul principle of our constitution, whereby we are determined to believe in 
 the permanence, of the laws of nature.] Notes to livid. 
 30
 
 350 OBJECTIONS TO NATURAL REALISM CONSIDERED. 
 
 far is it from being, as Mr. Stewart affirms, a plain statement of 
 the facts, apart from all hypothesis, it is manifestly hypothetical. 
 In the second place, the hypothesis assumes an occult princi- 
 ple ; it is mystical. In 'the third place, the hypothesis is 
 hyperphysical, calling in the proximate assistance of the 
 Deity, while the necessity of such intervention is not estab- 
 lished. In the fourth place, it goes even far to frustrate the 
 whole doctrine of the two philosophers in regard to perception, 
 as a doctrine of intuition. For if God has bestowed on me the 
 faculty of immediately perceiving the external object, there is 
 no need to suppose the necessity of an immediate intervention 
 of the Deity to make that act effectual ; and if, on the contrary, 
 the perception I have of the reality is only excited by the 
 agency of God, then I can hardly be held to know that reality, 
 immediately and in itself, but only mediately, through the 
 notion of it determined in my mind. 
 
 The doctrine of immediate perception not unintelligible. 
 Let us try, then, whether it be impossible, not to explain (for 
 that it would be ridiculous to dream of attempting), but to ren- 
 der intelligible, the possibility of an immediate perception of 
 external objects, without assuming any of the three preceding 
 hypotheses, and without postulating aught that can fairly be 
 refused. 
 
 Where the mind is situated. Now, in the first place, there 
 is no good ground to suppose, that the mind is situate solely in 
 the brain, or exclusively in any one part of the body. On the 
 contrary, the supposition that it is really present wherever we are 
 conscious that it acts, in a word, the Peripatetic aphorism, 
 the soul is all in the whole and all in every part, is more phi- 
 losophical, and, consequently, more probable, than any other 
 opinion. It has not been always noticed, even by those who 
 desm themselves the chosen champions of the immateriality of 
 mind, that ice materialize mind, when we attribute to it the rela- 
 tions if matter. Thus, we cannot attribute a local seat to the 
 soul, without clothing it with the properties of extension and 
 place, and those who suppose this seat to be but a point, only 
 aggravate the difficulty. Admitting the spirituality of mind, all
 
 OBJECTIONS TO NATURAL REALISM CONSIDERED. 351 
 
 <Lat we know of the relation of soul and body is, that the former 
 Is connected with the latter in a way of which we are wholly 
 ignorant ; and that it holds relations, different both in degree 
 and kind, with different parts of the organism. We have no 
 right, however, to say that it is limited to any one part of the 
 organism ; for even if we admit that the nervous system is the 
 part to which it is proximately united, still the nervous system 
 is itself universally ramified throughout the body ; and we 
 have no more right to deny that the mind feels at the finger- 
 points, as consciousness assures us, than to assert that it thinks 
 exclusively in the brain. 
 
 The sum of our knowledge of the connection of mind and 
 body is, therefore, this, that the mental modifications are de- 
 pendent on certain corporeal conditions ; but of the nature of 
 these conditions, we know nothing. For example, we know, 
 by experience, that the mind perceives only through certain 
 organs of sense, and that, through these different organs, it 
 perceives in a different manner. But whether the senses be 
 instruments, whether they be media, or whether they be only 
 partial outlets to the mind incarcerated in the body, on all 
 this, we can only theorize and conjecture. We have no reason 
 whatever to believe, contrary to the testimony of conscious- 
 ness, that there is an action or affection of the bodily sense 
 previous to the mental perception ; or that the mind only per- 
 ceives in the head, in consequence of the impression on the 
 organ. On the other hand, we have no reason whatever to 
 doubt the report of consciousness, that we actually perceive at 
 the external point of sensation, and that we perceive the mate- 
 rial reality. But what is meant by perceiving the material 
 reality ? 
 
 What is the total and real object of perception ? In the 'first 
 place, it does not mean that we perceive the material reality ab- 
 solutely and in itself, that is, out of relation to our organs and 
 faculties ; on the contrary, the total and real object of perception 
 is the external object under relation to our snise and faculty of 
 cognition. But though thus relative to us, the object is still no 
 representation, no modification of the Kg<>. It is the Noii-e^o,
 
 852 OBJECTIONS TO NATURAL REALISM CONSIDERED. 
 
 the Non-ego modified, and relative, it may be, but still the 
 Non-ego. I formerly illustrated this to you by a supposition. 
 Suppose that the total object of consciousness in perception is 
 =12; and suppose that the external reality contributes 6, the 
 material sense 3, and the mind 3 ; this may enable you to 
 form some rude conjecture of the nature of the object of per- 
 ception. 
 
 What is the external object perceived? But, in the second 
 place, what is meant by the external object perceived? Noth- 
 ing can be conceived more ridiculous than the opinion of philos- 
 ophers in regard to this. For example, it has been curiously 
 held (and Reid is no exception), that in looking at the sun, 
 moon, or any other object of sight, we are, on the one doctrine, 
 actually conscious of these distant objects ; or, on the other, that 
 these distant objects are those really represented in the mind. 
 Nothing can be more absurd : we perceive, through no sense, 
 aught external but what is in immediate relation and in immedi- 
 ate contact with its organ ; and that is true which Democritus 
 of old asserted, that all our senses are only modifications of touch. 
 Through the eye, we perceive nothing but the rays of light in 
 relation to, and in contact with, the retina ; what we add to this 
 perception must not be taken into account. The same is true 
 of the other senses.* 
 
 * [It is incorrect to say that "wo see the object," (meaning the thing 
 from which the rays come by emanation or reflection, but which is unknown 
 or incognizable by sight,) and so forth. It would be more correct to de- 
 scribe vision as a perception by which we take immediate cognizance of 
 light in relation to our organ that is, as diffused and figured upon the re- 
 tina, under various modifications of degree and kind (brightness and color) 
 
 md likewise as falling upon it in a particular direction. The image on 
 the retina is not itself an object of visual perception. It is only to be re- 
 garded as the complement of those points, or of that sensitive surface, on 
 which the rays impinge, and witli which they enter into relation. The total 
 object of visual perception is thus, neither the rays in themselves, nor the 
 organ in i'.sclf, but the rays and the living organ in reciprocity; this organ is 
 rot, however, to be viewed as merely the retina, but as the whole tract of 
 nervous fibre pertaining to the sense. In an act of vision, as also in the 
 other sensitive acts, I am thus conscious (the word should not be restricted 
 to tdf-consciuusiitss), or immediately cognizant, not only of the affeetioui of
 
 OBJECTIONS TO NATURAL REALISM CONSIDERED. 8b& 
 
 Now what is there monstrous or inconceivable in this doctrine 
 of an immediate perception ? The objects are neither carried into 
 the mind, nor the mind made to sally out to them ; nor do we 
 require a miracle to justify its possibility. In fact, the con- 
 sciousness of external objects, on this doctrine, is not more in- 
 conceivable than the consciousness of species or ideas on the 
 doctrine of the Schoolmen, Malebranche, or Berkeley. In either 
 case, there is a consciousness of the Non-ego, and, in either case, 
 he Ego and Non-ego are in intimate relation. There is, in fact, 
 on this hypothesis, no greater marvel, that the mind should be 
 cognizant of the external reality, than that it should be con- 
 nected with a body at all. The latter being the case, the former 
 is not even improbable ; all inexplicable as both equally remain. 
 " We are unable," says Pascal, " to conceive what is mind ; we 
 are unable to conceive what is matter ; still less are we able to 
 conceive how these are united ; yet this is our proper nature." 
 So much in refutation of the third ground of difficulty to the 
 doctrine of an immediate perception. 
 
 The fourth ground of objection is that of Hume. It is alleged 
 by him in the sequel of the paragraph of which I have already 
 quoted to you [see page 197] the commencement: "This uni- 
 versal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the 
 slightest philosophy, which teaches us, that nothing can ever be 
 present to the mind but an image or perception, and that the 
 senses are only the inlets, through which these images are con- 
 veyed, without being ever able to produce any immediate inter- 
 course between the mind and the object. The table which we 
 see, seems to diminish, as we remove further from it : but the 
 
 self, but of the phenomena of something different from itself, both, bow- 
 ever, always in relation to each other. According as, in different senses, 
 Jie subjective or the objective element preponderates, we have sensation or 
 perception, the secondary or the primary qualities of matter; distinctions 
 which are thus identified and carried up into a general law. 
 
 It is wrong to say that " a body is smell-d In/ means of efi/nrin." Nothing 
 is smelt but the effluvia themselves. They constitute the total object of 
 perception in smell ; and, in all the senses, the only object perceived is that 
 in immediate contact with the organ. There is, in reality, no medium iu 
 any sense.] Notes to Reid. 
 
 30*
 
 354 OBJECTIONS TO NATURAL REALISM CONSIDERED. 
 
 real table, which exists independent of us, suffers no alteration : 
 it was, therefore, nothing but its image, which was present to 
 the mind. These are the obvious dictates of reason ; and no 
 man, who reflects, ever doubted that the existences, which we 
 consider, when we say this house, and that tree, are nothing 
 but perceptions in the mind, and fleeting copies or represen- 
 tations of other existences, which remain uniform and inde- 
 pendent." 
 
 This objection to the veracity of consciousness will not occa 
 sion us much trouble. Its refutation is, in fact, contained in the 
 very statement of the real external object of perception. The 
 whole argument consists in a mistake of what that object is. 
 That a thing, viewed close to the eye, should appear larger and 
 differently figured, than when seen at a distance, and that, at too 
 great a distance, it should even become for us invisible altogether ; 
 this only shows that what changes the real object of sight, 
 the reflected rays in contact with the eye, also changes, as it 
 ought to change, our perception of such object. This ground 
 of difficulty could be refuted through the whole senses; but its 
 weight is not sufficient to entitle it to any further consideration. 
 
 The fifth ground^ on which the necessity of substituting a 
 representative for an intuitive perception has been maintained, 
 is that of Fichte. It asserts that the nature of the Ego, as an 
 intelligence endowed with will, makes it absolutely necessary, 
 that, of all external objects of perception, there should be rep- 
 resentative modifications in the mind. For as the Ego itself is 
 that which wills ; therefore, in so far as the will tends towards 
 objects, these must lie within the Ego. An external reality 
 cannot lie within the Ego ; there must, therefore, be supposed, 
 within the mind, a representation of this reality different from 
 the reality itself. 
 
 This fifth argument involves sundry vices, and is not of greater 
 value than the four preceding. In \\\efirsl place, it proceeds 
 on the assertion, that the objects on which the will is directed, 
 must lie within the willing Ego itself. But how is this assertion 
 proved ? That the will can only tend toward those things of 
 which tl^ Ego has itself a knowledge, is undoubtedly true. But
 
 THE REPRESENTATIVE HTPOTHESIS REFUTED. 353 
 
 from this it does not follow, that the object to which the knowl- 
 edge is relative, must, at the same time, be present with it in 
 the Ego ; but if there be a perceptive cognition, that is, a con- 
 sciousness of some object external to the Ego, this perception is 
 competent to excite, and to direct, the will, notwithstanding that 
 its object lies without the Ego. That, therefore, no immediate 
 knowledge of external objects is possible, and that conscious- 
 aess is exclusively limited to the Ego, is not evinced by this ar- 
 gument of Fichte, but simply assumed. 
 
 In the second place, this argument is faulty, hi that it takes no 
 account of the difference between those cognitions which lie at 
 the root of the energies of will, and the other kinds of knowl- 
 edge. Thus, our will never tends to what is present, to what 
 we possess, and immediately cognize ; but is always directed on 
 the future, and is concerned either with the continuance of those 
 states of the Ego which are already in existence, or with the 
 production of wholly novel states. But the future cannot be 
 intuitively, immediately, perceived, but only represented and 
 mediately conceived. That a mediate cognition is necessary, as 
 the condition of an act of will, this does not prove that every 
 cognition must be mediate. 
 
 We have thus found by an examination of the various grounds 
 on which it has been attempted to establish the necessity of re- 
 jecting the testimony of consciousness to the intuitive percep- 
 tion of the external world, that these grounds are, one and all, 
 incompetent. I shall [now] proceed to the second section of the 
 discussion, to consider the nature of the hypothesis of Repre- 
 sentation or Cosmothetic Idealism, by which it is proposed to 
 replace the fact of consciousness and the doctrine of Natural 
 Realism ; and shall show you that this hypothesis, though, under 
 various modifications, adopted in almost every system of philos- 
 ophy, fulfils none of the conditions of a legitimate hypothesis. 
 
 The hypothesis unnecessary. In the first place, from the 
 grounds on which the Cosmothetic Idealist would vindicate tiw 
 necessity of his rejection of the datum of consciousness, the 
 hypothesis itself is unnecessary. The examination of these 
 grounds proves, that the fact of consciousness is not shown U?
 
 356 THE REPRESENTATIVE HYPOTHESIS REFUTED. 
 
 be impossible. So far, therefore, there is no necessity made out 
 for its rejection. But it is said the fact of consciousness is in- 
 explicable ; we cannot understand how the immediate perception 
 of an external object is possible : whereas the hypothesis of rep- 
 resentation enables us to comprehend and explain the phaenom- 
 euon, and is, therefore, if not absolutely necessary, at least 
 entitled to favor and preference. But even on this lower, 
 this precarious ground, the hypothesis is absolutely unnecessary. 
 That, on the incomprehensibility of the fact of consciousness, it 
 is allowable to displace the fact by an hypothesis, is of all ab- 
 surdities the greatest. As a fact, an ultimate fact of con- 
 sciousness, it must be incomprehensible ; and were it compre- 
 hensible, that is, did we know it in its causes, did we know it 
 as contained in some higher notion, it would not be a primary 
 fact of consciousness, it would not be an ultimate datum of 
 intelligence. Every how (diort) rests ultimately on a that (oil) ; 
 every demonstration is deduced from something given and inde- 
 monstrable ; all that is comprehensible hangs from some revealed* 
 fact, which we must believe as actual, but cannot construe to the 
 reflective intellect hi its possibility. In consciousness, in the 
 original spontaneity of intelligence (vovt;, locus principioruni)^ 
 are revealed the primordial facts of our intelligent nature. 
 
 But the Cosmothctic Idealist has no right to ask the Natural 
 Realist for an explanation of the fact of consciousness ; suppos- 
 ing even that his own hypothesis were, in itself, both clear and 
 probable, supposing that the consciousness of self were intel- 
 ligible, and the consciousness of the not-self the reverse. For, 
 on this supposition, the intelligible consciousness of self could 
 not be an ultimate fact, but must be comprehended through a 
 higher cognition, a higher consciousness, which would again 
 be itself either comprehensible or not. If comprehensible, this 
 would, of course, require a still higher cognition, and so on, till 
 we arrive at some datum of intelligence, which, as highest, we 
 
 * This expression is not meant to imply any thing hyperphysical. It is 
 used to denote the ultimate and incomprehensible nature of the fact, of 
 the fact which must he believed, though it cannot be understood. cuunnt 
 be explainel.
 
 THE REPRESENTATIVE HYPOTHESIS REFUTED. 357 
 
 could not understand through a higher ; ,so that, at best, the hy- 
 pothesis of representation, proposed in place of the fact of con- 
 sciousness, only removes the difficulty by one or two steps. The 
 end to be gained is thus of no value; and, for this end, as we 
 have seen and shall see, there would be sacrificed the possibility 
 of philosophy as a rational knowledge altogether ; and, in the 
 possibility of philosophy, of course, the possibility of the very 
 hypothesis itself. 
 
 The hypothesis not more intelligible than the fact. But is the 
 hypothesis really, in itself, a whit more intelligible than the fact 
 which it displaces ? The reverse is true. What does the hy- 
 pothesis suppose ? It supposes that the mind can represent that 
 of which it knows nothing, that of which it is ignorant. Is 
 this more comprehensible than the simple fact, that the mind 
 immediately knows what is different from itself, and what is 
 really an affection of the bodily organism ? It seems, in truth, 
 not only incomprehensible, but contradictory. The hypothesis 
 of a representative perception thus violates the first condition of 
 a legitimate hypothesis, it is unnecessary ; nay, not only 
 unnecessary, it cannot do what it professes, it explains nothing, 
 it renders nothing comprehensible. 
 
 The second condition of a legitimate hypothesis is, that it shall 
 not subvert that which it is devised to explain ; that it shall not 
 explode the system of which it forms a part. But this, the hy- 
 pothesis in question does ; it annihilates itself in the destruction 
 of the whole edifice of knowledge. Belying the testimony of 
 consciousness to our immediate perception of an outer world, it 
 belies the veracity of consciousness altogether ; and the truth of 
 consciousness is the condition of the possibility of all knowledge. 
 
 The third condition of a legitimate hypothesis is, that the fact 
 or facts, in explanation of which it is devised, be ascertained 
 really to exist, and be not themselves hypothetical. But so far 
 is the principal fact, which the hypothesis of a representative 
 perception is proposed to explain, from being certain, that it.-* 
 reality is even rendered problematical by the proposed expla- 
 nation itself. The facts which this hypothesis supposes to be 
 ascertained and established are two first, the fact of an external
 
 858 THE REPRESENTATIVE HYPOTHESIS REFUTED. 
 
 world existing ; second, the fact of an internal world knowing. 
 These the hypothesis takes for granted. For it is asked, How 
 are these connected ? How can the internal world know the 
 external world existing ? And, in answer to this problem, the 
 hypothesis of representation is advanced as explaining the mode 
 of their correlation. This hypothesis denies the immediate 
 connection of the two facts ; it denies that the mind, the inter- 
 nal world, can be immediately cognizant of matter, the external ; 
 and between the two worlds it interpolates a representation, 
 which is at once the object known by mind, and as known, an 
 image vicarious or representative of matter, ex hypothesi, in 
 itself unknown. 
 
 The procedure vicious. But mark the vice of the procedure. 
 We can only, 1, Assert the existence of an external world, 
 inasmuch as we know it to exist ; and we can only, 2, Assert 
 that one thing is representative of another, inasmuch as the 
 thing represented is known independently of the representation. 
 But how does the hypothesis of a representative perception 
 proceed ? It actually converts the fact into an hypothesis j 
 actually converts the hypothesis into a fact. On this theory, 
 we do not know the existence of an external world, except on 
 the supposition that that which we do know, truly represent* 
 it as existing. The Hypothetical Realist cannot, therefore, 
 establish the fact of the external world, except upon the 
 fact of its representation. This is manifest. We have, there- 
 fore, next to ask him, how he knows the fact, that the ex- 
 ternal world is actually represented. A representation supposes 
 something represented, and the representation of the external 
 world supposes the existence of that world. Now, the Hypo- 
 thetical Realist, when asked how he proves the reality of the 
 outer world, which, ex hypothesi, he does not know, can only 
 gay that he infers its existence from the fact of its representation. 
 But the fact of the representation of an external world sup- 
 poses the existence of that world ; therefore, he is again at the 
 point from which he started. He has been arguing in a circle. 
 There is thus a see-saw between the hypothesis and the fact ; 
 the fact is assumed as an hypothesis ; the hypothesis explained
 
 THE REPRESENTATIVE HYPOTHESIS REFUTED. 359 
 
 as a fact ; each is established, each is expounded, by the other. 
 To account for the possibility of an unknown external world, 
 the hypothesis of representation is devised ; and to account for 
 the possibility of representation, we imagine the hypothesis of 
 an external world. 
 
 The Cosmothetic Idealist thus begs the fact which he would 
 explain. And, on the hypothesis of a representative perception, 
 it is admitted by the philosophers themselves who hold it, thai 
 the descent to absolute Idealism is a logical precipice, from 
 which they can alone attempt to save themselves by appealing 
 to the natural beliefs, to the common sense, of mankind, that 
 is, to the testimony of that very consciousness to which their own 
 hypothesis gives the lie. 
 
 The hypothesis subverts the ph&nomenon to be explained, 
 In the fourth place, a legitimate hypothesis must save the phae- 
 nomena which it is invented to explain ; that is, it must account 
 for them adequately and without exclusion, distortion, or muti- 
 lation. But the hypothesis of a representative perception pro- 
 poses to accomplish its end only by first destroying, and then 
 attempting to recreate, the phenomena, for the fact of which it 
 should, as a legitimate hypothesis, only afford a reason. The 
 total, the entire phenomenon to be explained, is the phenom- 
 enon given in consciousness of the immediate knowledge by 
 me, or mind, of an existence different from me, or mind. This 
 phenomenon, however, the hypothesis in question does not 
 preserve entire. On the contrary, it hews it into two ; into 
 the immediate knowledge by me, and into the existence of 
 something different from me ; or more briefly, into the intuition 
 and the existence. It separates, in its explanation, what is given 
 it to explain as united. This procedure is, at best, monstrous ; 
 but this is not the worst. The entire phenomenon being cut in 
 two, you will observe how the fragments are treated. The 
 existence of the Non-ego, the one fragment, it admit;; its 
 intuition, its immediate cognition by the Ego, the other frag- 
 ment, it disallows. Now mark what is the character of this 
 proceeding. TJie former fragment of the phenomenon, tho 
 fragment admitted, to us exists only through the other frugnieuf
 
 3 tO THE REPRESENTATIVE HYPOTHESIS REFUTED. 
 
 which is rejected. The existence of an external world is only 
 given us through its intuition ; we only believe it to exist 
 because we believe that we immediately know it to exist, or are 
 conscious of it as existing. The intuition is the ratio cognos 
 cendi, and, therefore, to us the ratio essendi, of a material 
 universe. Prove to me that I am wrong in regard t< my 
 intuition of an outer world, and I will grant at once, that I 
 have no ground for supposing I am right in regard to the 
 existence of that world. To annihilate the intuition, is to anni- 
 hilate what is prior and constitutive in the phenomenon ; and 
 to annihilate what is prior and constitutive in the phenomenon, 
 is to annihilate the phenomenon altogether. The existence of 
 a material world is no longer, therefore, even a truncated, 
 even a fractional, fact of consciousness ; for the fact of the 
 existence of a material world, given in consciousness, neces- 
 sarily vanished with the fact of the intuition on which it rested. 
 The^ absurdity is about the same as if we should attempt to 
 explain the existence of color, on an hypothesis which denied 
 the existence of extension. A representative perception is thus 
 an hypothetical explanation of a supposititious fact ; it creates 
 the nature it interprets.* 
 
 In the Jtfth place, the fact which a legitimate hypothesis ex- 
 plains, must be within the sphere of experience ; but the fact of 
 an external world, for which the Cosmothetic Idealist would 
 account, transcends, ex hypothesi, all experience, being unknown 
 in itself, and a mere hyperphysical assumption. 
 
 The hypothesis must be single. In the sixth place, an hypoth- 
 esis is probable in proportion as it works simply and naturally ; 
 that is, in proportion as it is dependent on no subsidiary hypotho.- 
 
 * [With the Hypothetical Realist or Cosmothetic Idealist, it has been a 
 puzzling problem to resolve how, on their doctrine of a representative percep- 
 tion, the mind can attain the notion of externality, or outness, far more, 
 be impressed with the invincible belief of the reality, and known reality, of 
 un external world. Their attempts at this solution are as unsatisfactory 
 as they are operose. On the doctrine of an intuitive perception, all this is 
 given in the fact of an immediate knowledge of the Non-ego. To as, 
 therefore, the problem does not exist.]
 
 THE REPRESENT ATI VE HYPOTHESIS REFUTED. 361 
 
 sis, as it involves nothing petitory, occult, supernatural, as 
 part and parcel of its explanation. In this respect, the doctrine 
 of a representative perception is not less vicious than in others; 
 to explain at all, it must not only postulate subsidiary hypothe- 
 ses, but subsidiary miracles. The doctrine in question attempts 
 to explain the knowledge of an unknown world, by the ratio 
 of a representative perception: but it is impossible, by any 
 conceivable relation, to apply the ratio to the facts. The mental 
 modification, of which, on the doctrine of representation, we 
 are exclusively conscious in perception, either represents a real 
 external world, or it does not. The hitter is a confession 
 of absolute Idealism ; we have, therefore, only to consider the 
 former. 
 
 The hypothesis of a representative perception supposes, that 
 the mind does not know the external world, which it represents; 
 for this hypothesis is expressly devised only on the supposed 
 impossibility of an immediate knowledge of aught different 
 from, and external to, the mind. The percipient mind must, 
 therefore, be, somehow or other, determined to represent the 
 reality of which it is ignorant. NqWjJiere one of two alterna- 
 tives is necessary ; either the mind blindly determines itself 
 to this representation, or it is determined to it by some intelli- 
 gent and knowing cause different from itself. The former 
 alternative would be preferable, inasmuch as it is the more 
 simple, and assumes nothing hyperphysical, were it not irrational, 
 as wholly incompetent to account for the phenomenon. On this 
 alternative, we should suppose, that the mind represented, and 
 truly represented, that of whose existence and qualities it knew 
 nothing. A great effect is here assumed, absolutely without a 
 rau^e; for we could as easily conceive the external world 
 ipringing into existence without a Creator, as mind representing 
 that external world to itself without a knowledge of that which it 
 represented. The manifest absurdity of this first alternative has 
 accordingly constrained the prolbundest Cosmothetic Idealists 
 to call in supernatural aid by embracing the second. To say 
 nothing of less illustrious schemes, the systems of Divine Assist- 
 ance, of a Preestablished Harmony, and of the Vision of all 
 31
 
 362 THE REPRESENTATIVE HYPOTHESIS REFUTED. 
 
 things in the Deity, are only so many subsidiary hypotheses; 
 so many attempts to bridge, by supernatural machinery, the 
 chasm between the representation and the reality, which all 
 human ingenuity had found, by natural means, to be insuperable. 
 The hypothesis of a representative perception thus presupposes 
 a miracle to let it work. Dr. Brown and others, indeed, reject, 
 as unphilosophical, these hyperphysical subsidiaries ; but they 
 only saw less clearly the necessity for their admission. The 
 rejection, indeed, is another inconsequence added to their doc- 
 trine. It is undoubtedly true that, without necessity, it is 
 unphilos Dphical to assume a miracle ; but it is doubly unphilo- 
 pophical first to originate this necessity, and then not to submit 
 to it. It is a contemptible philosophy that eschews the Deus ex 
 machina, and yet ties the knot which can only be loosed by his 
 interposition. Nor will it here do for the Cosmothetic Idealist 
 to pretend that the difficulty is of nature's, not of his, creation. 
 In fact, it only arises, because he has closed his eyes upon the 
 light of nature, and refused the guidance of consciousness : but 
 having swamped himself in following the ignis fatuus of a 
 theory, he has no right to refer its private absurdities to the 
 imbecility of human reason, or to excuse his self-contracted 
 ignorance by the narrow limits of our present knowledge. 
 
 So much for the merits of the hypothesis of a Representative 
 Perception, an hypothesis which begins by denying the 
 voracity of consciousness, and ends, when carried to its legiti- 
 mate issue, in absolute Idealism, in utter Scepticism. This hy- 
 pothesis has been, and is, one more universally prevalent among 
 philosophers than any other ; and I have given to its consider- 
 ation a larger share of attention than I should otherwise have 
 done, in consequence of its being one great source of the dis- 
 sensions in philosophy, and of the opprobrium thrown on con- 
 sciousness as the instrument of philosophical observation and 
 the standard of philosophical certainty and truth.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. GENERAL QUESTIONS BE- 
 LATINO TO THE SENSES. PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND 
 TOUCH. 
 
 WITH this terminates the most important of the discussions 
 to which the Faculty of Perception gives rise : the other ques- 
 tions are not, however, without interest, though their determin- 
 ation does not affect the vital interests of philosophy. 
 
 Whether we first obtain a knowledge of the whole, or of the 
 parts. Of these the first that I shall touch upon is the problem, 
 Whether, in Perception, do we first obtain a general knowl- 
 edge of the complex wholes presented to us by sense, and then, 
 by analysis and limited attention, obtain a special knowledge of 
 their several parts ; or do we not first obtain a particular knowl- 
 edge of the smallest parts to which sense is competent, and 
 then, by synthesis, collect them into greater and greater wholes ? 
 
 The second alternative hi this question is adopted by Mr 
 Stewart ; it is, indeed, involved in his doctrine in regard to At 
 tention, in holding that we recollect nothing without attention, 
 Jjmf, we can attend only to a single object at once, which one 
 object is the very smallest that is discernible through sense. 
 He says [see pp. 162, 163], that, in a concert of music, "the 
 mind is constantly varying its attention from the one part of 
 the music to the other, and that its operations are so rapid aa 
 to give us no perception of an interval of time." 
 
 "The same doctrine leads to some curious conclusions with 
 respect to vision. It is impossible tor the mind to attend to 
 more than one of the points [in the outline, of an object] al 
 once ; and as the perception of the tigure of the object implies
 
 864 QUESTIONS RESPECTING THE SENSES. 
 
 a knowledge of the relative situation of the different points 
 with respect to each other, we must conclude, that the percep- 
 tion of figure by the eye is the result of a number of different 
 acts of attention. These acts of attention, however, are per- 
 formed with such rapidity, that the effect with respect to us, is 
 the same as if the perception were instantaneous. If these 
 observations be admitted, it will follow, that, without the faculty 
 of memory, we could have had no perception of visible figure." 
 
 Mill's doctrine of Association. The same conclusion is at- 
 tained, through a somewhat different process, by Mr. James 
 Mill. This author, following Hartley and Priestley, has pushed 
 the principle of Association to an extreme which refutes its own 
 exaggeration, analyzing not only our belief in the relation of 
 effect and cause into that principle, but even the primary logi- 
 cal laws. According to Mr. Mill, the necessity under which 
 we lie of thinking that one contradictory excludes another, 
 that a thing cannot at once be and not be, is only the result of 
 association and custom. It is not, therefore, to be marvelled at, 
 that he should account for our knowledge of complex wholes in 
 perception by the same universal principle ; and this he accord- 
 ingly does. " Where two or more ideas have been often re- 
 peated together, and the association has become very strong, 
 they sometimes spring up in such close combination as not to be 
 distinguishable. Some cases of sensation are analogous. For 
 example ; when a wheel, on the seven parts of which the seven 
 prismatic colors are respectively painted, is made to revolve 
 rapidly, it appears not of seven colors, but of one uniform color, 
 white. By the rapidity of the succession, the several sensations 
 cease to be distinguishable ; they run, as it were, together, and 
 a new sensation, compounded of all the seven, but apparently a 
 simple one, is the result. Ideas, also, which have been so often 
 conjoined, that whenever one exists in the mind, the others im- 
 mediately exist along with it, seem to run into one anofher, to 
 coalesce, as it were, and out of many to form one idea; which 
 idea, however in reality complex, appears to be no less simple 
 than any one of tho-e of which it is compounded." 
 
 " It is to this great law of Association that we trace the lor-
 
 QUESTIONS RESPECTING THE SENSES. 86ft 
 
 mat inn of our ideas of what we call external objects ; that is, the 
 ideas of a certain number of sensations, received together so 
 frequently that they coalesce as it were, and are spoken of under 
 the idea of unity. Hence, what we call the idea of a tree, the 
 idea of a stone, the idea of a horse, the idea of a man. 
 
 " In using the names, tree, horse, man, the names of what I 
 call objects, I am referring, and can be referring, only to my 
 own sensations ; in fact, therefore, only naming a certain num- 
 ber of sensations, regarded as in a particular state of combina- 
 tion ; that is, concomitance. Particular sensations of sight, of 
 touch, of the muscles, are the sensations, to the ideas of which 
 color, extension, roughness, hardness, smoothness, taste, smell, 
 so coalescing as to appear one idea, I give the name, idea of w 
 tree." 
 
 " Some ideas are, by frequency and strength of association, so 
 closely combined, that they cannot be separated. If one exists, 
 the other exists along with it, in spite of whatever effort we 
 make to disjoin them. 
 
 " For example ; it is not in our power to think of color, with- 
 out thinking of extension ; or of solidity, without figure. We 
 have seen color constantly in combination with extension, 
 spread, as it were, upon a surface. We have never seen it except 
 in this connection. Color and extension have been invariably con- 
 joined. The idea of color, therefore, uniformly comes into the 
 mind, bringing that of extension along with it ; and so close is 
 the association, that it is not in our power to dissolve it. We 
 cannot, if we will, think of color, but in combination with exten- 
 sion. The one idea calls up the other, and retains it, so long as 
 the other is retained." 
 
 This doctrine implies that we know the parts better than the 
 whole. Now, in opposition to this doctrine, nothing appears to 
 me clearer than the first alternative, and that, in place of as- 
 cending upwards from the minimum of perception to its maxi- 
 ma, we descend from masses to details. If the opposite doctrine 
 were correct, what would it involve 9 It would involve, as a 
 primary inference, that, as we know the whole through the parts, 
 we should know the parts better than the whole. Thus, for ex- 
 31 *
 
 3G6 QUESTIONS RESPECTING THE SENSES. 
 
 ample, it is supposed that we know the face of a friend through 
 the multitude of perceptions which we have of the different 
 points of which it is made up ; in other words, that we should 
 know the whole countenance less vividly than we know the 
 forehead and eyes, the nose and mouth, etc., and that we should 
 know each of these more feebly than we know the various ulti- 
 mate points, in fact, unconscious minima, of perceptions, which 
 go to constitute them. According to the doctrine in question, 
 we perceive only one of these ultimate points at the same in- 
 stant, the others by memory incessantly renewed. Now let us 
 take the face out of perception into memory altogether. Let 
 us close our eyes, and let us represent in imagination the coun- 
 tenance of our friend. This we can do with the utmost vivac- 
 ity ; or, if we see a picture of it, we can determine, with a con- 
 sciousness of the most perfect accuracy, that the portrait is like 
 or unlike. It cannot, therefore, be denied that we have the 
 fullest knowledge of the face as a whole, that we are familiar 
 with its expression, with the general result of its parts. On the 
 hypothesis, then, of Stewart and Mill, how accurate should be 
 our knowledge of these parts themselves. But make the exper- 
 iment. You will find that, unless you have analyzed, unless 
 you have descended from a conspectus of the whole face to a 
 detailed examination of its parts, with a most vivid impres- 
 sion of the constituted whole, you are almost totally ignorant of 
 the constituent parts. You may probably be unable to say what 
 is the color of the eyes, and if you attempt to delineate the 
 mouth or nose, you will inevitably fail. Or look at the portrait. 
 You may find it unlike, but unless, as I said, you have analyzed 
 the countenance, unless you have looked at it with the analytic 
 scrutiny of a painter's eye, you will assuredly be unable to say 
 in what respect the artist has failed; you will be unable to 
 specify what constituent he has altered, though you are fully 
 conscious of the fact and effect of the alteration. What we 
 have shown from this example may equally be done from any 
 other, a house, a tree, a landscape, a concert of music, etc. 
 But it i? needless to multiply illustrations. In fact, on the doc- 
 trine of these philosopher*, if the mind, as they maintain, were
 
 THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 867 
 
 unable to comprehend more than one perceptible minimum at a 
 time, the greatest of all inconceivable marvels would be, how it 
 has contrived to realize the knowledge of wholes and masses 
 which it has. Another refutation of this opinion might be 
 drawn from the doctrine of latent modifications, the obscure 
 perceptions of Leibnitz, of which we have recently treated 
 But this argument I think unnecessary. 
 
 Resuming consideration of the more important psychological 
 questions that have been agitated concerning the Senses, I pro- 
 ceed to take up those connected with the sense of Touch. The 
 problems which arise under this sense may be reduced to two 
 opposite questions. The first asks, May not all the Senses be 
 analyzed into Touch? The second asks, Is not Touch or 
 Feeling, considered as one of the five senses, itself only a bun 
 die of various senses? 
 
 May all the Senses be analyzed -into Touch ? In regard to 
 the first of these questions, -it is an opinion as old at least as 
 Democritus, and one held by many of the ancient physiologists, 
 that the four senses of Sight, Hearing, Taste, and Smell are 
 only modifications of Touch. This opinion Aristotle records in 
 the fourth chapter of his book On Sense and the Object of 
 Sense, and contents himself with refuting it by the assertion 
 that its impossibility is manifest. So far, however, from being 
 manifestly impossible, and, therefore, manifestly absurd, it can 
 now easily be shown to be correct, if by Touch is understood the 
 contact of the external object of perception with the organ of 
 tense. The opinion of Democritus was revived, in modern 
 times, by Telesius, an Italian philosopher of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, and who preceded Bacon and Descartes, as a reformer of 
 pliilosophical methods. I say the opinion of Democritus can 
 easily be shown to be correct ; for it is only a confusion of ideas, 
 or of words, or of both together, to talk of the perception of a 
 distant object, that is, of an object not in relation to our senses. 
 An external object is only perceived inasmuch as it is in rela- 
 tion to our sense, and it is only in relation to our sense inasmuch 
 as it is present to it. To say, for example, that we perceive by 
 eight the sun or moon, is a false or an elliptical expression. We
 
 868 THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 
 
 perceive nothing but certain modifications of light in immediate 
 relation to our organ of vision ; and so far from Dr. Reid being 
 philosophically correct, when he says that " when ten men look 
 at the sun or moon, they all see the same individual object," the 
 truth is, that each of these persons sees a different object, 
 | because each person sees a different complement of rays, in 
 relation to his individual organ. In fact, if we look alternately 
 with each, we have a different object in our right, aid a differ- 
 ent object in our left, eye. It is not by perception but by a 
 process of reasoning, that we connect the objects of sense with 
 existences beyond the sphere of immediate knowledge. It is 
 enough that perception affords us the knowledge of the Non-ego 
 at the point of sense. To arrogate to it the power of immedi- 
 ately informing us of external things, which are only the causes 
 of the object we immediately perceive, is either positively erro- 
 neous, or a confusion of language, arising from an inadequate 
 discrimination of the phenomena. Such assumptions tend only 
 to throw discredit on the doctrine of an intuitive perception 
 and such assumptions you will find scattered over the works both 
 of Reid and Stewart I would, therefore, establish as a funda- 
 mental position of the doctrine of an immediate perception, the 
 opinion of Democritus, that all our senses are only modifications 
 of touch ; in other words, that the external object of perception 
 is always in contact with the organ of sense. 
 
 Does Touch comprehend a plurality of senses ? This deter- 
 mination of the first problem does not interfere with the con- 
 sideration of the second ; for, in the second, it is only asked, 
 Whether, considering Touch or Feeling as a special sense, there 
 arc not comprehended -under it varieties of perception and 
 sensation so different, that these varieties ought to be viewed as 
 constituting so many special senses. This question, I think, 
 oaght to be answered in the affirmative ; for, though I hold 
 that the other senses are not to be discriminated from Touch, in 
 BO far as Touch signifies merely the contact of the organ and 
 the object of perception, yet, considering Touch as a special 
 rense distinguished from the other four by other and peculiar 
 characters, it may easily, 1 think, be shown, that if Sight and
 
 THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 369 
 
 Hearing, if Smell and Taste, are to be divided from each other 
 and from Touch Proper, under Touch there must, on the same 
 analogy, be distinguished a plurality of special senses. This 
 problem, like the other, is of ancient date. It is mooted by 
 Aristotle in the eleventh chapter of the second book De Anima^ 
 but his opinion is left doubtful. Among modern philosophers, 
 Cardan distinguishes four senses of touch or feeling; one, of 
 the four primary tactile qualities of Aristotle (that is, of cold 
 and hot, and wet and dry) ; a second, of the light and heavy ; 
 a third, of pleasure and pain ; and a fourth, of titillation. His 
 antagonist, the elder Scaliger, distinguished as a sixth special 
 sense the sexual appetite, in which he has been followed by 
 Bacon, Voltaire, and others. From these historical notices, you 
 will see how marvellously incorrect is the statement that Locke 
 was the first philosopher who originated this question, in allow- 
 ing hunger and thirst to be the sensations of a sense different 
 from tactile feeling. Hutcheson, in his work on the Passions, 
 says, "the division of our external senses into five common 
 classes is ridiculously imperfect. Some sensations, such as 
 hunger and thirst, weariness and sickness, can be reduced to 
 none of them ; or if they are reduced to feelings, they are per- 
 ceptions as different from the other ideas of touch, such as cold, 
 heat, hardness, softness, as the ideas of taste or smell." Adam 
 Smith, in his posthumous Essays, observes that hunger and 
 thirst are objects of feeling, not of touch ; and that heat and 
 cold are felt not as pressing on the organ, but as in the organ. 
 Kant divides the whole bodily senses into two, into a Vital 
 Sense and an Organic Sense. To the former class belong the 
 sensations of heat and cold, shuddering, quaking, etc. The lat- 
 ter is divided into the five senses, of Touch Proper, Sight, 
 Hearing, Taste, and Smell. 
 
 This division has now become general in Germany, the Vital 
 Sense receiving from various authors various synonyms, as 
 coencesthesis, common feeliny, vital feeling, and sense of feeling, 
 tensu latiori, etc. ; and the sensations attributed to it are heat 
 and cold, shuddering, fee. ling of health, hunger and thirst, visce- 
 ral sensations, etc. This division is, likewise, adopted by Dr.
 
 370 THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 
 
 Brown. He divides our sensations into those which are less 
 definite, and into those which are more definite ; and these, hia 
 two classes, correspond precisely to the sensus vagus and sensus 
 jixus of the German philosophers. 
 
 Touch distinguished from sensible feeling. The propriety 
 of throwing out of the sense of Touch those sensations which 
 afford us indications only of the subjective condition of the body, 
 in other words, of dividing touch from sensible feeling, is ftp- 
 parent. In jhe first place, this is manifest on the analogy 3f 
 the other special senses. These, as we have seen, are divided 
 into two classes, according as Perception proper or Sensation 
 proper predominates ; the senses of Sight and Hearing pertaining 
 to the first, those of Smell and Taste to the second. Here each 
 is decidedly either perceptive or sensitive. But in Touch, under 
 the vulgar attribution of qualities, Perception and Sensation both 
 find their maximum. At the finger-points, this sense would 
 give us objective knowledge of the outer world, with the least 
 possible alloy of subjective feeling ; in hunger and thirst, etc., 
 on the contrary, it would afford us a subjective feeling of our 
 own state, with the least possible addition of objective knowledge. 
 On this ground, therefore, we ought to attribute to different 
 senses perceptions and sensations so different in degree. 
 
 But, iu the second place, it is not merely in the opposite degree 
 of these two counter elements that this distinction is to be founded, 
 but likewise on the different quality of the groups of the per- 
 ceptions and sensations themselves. There is nothing similar 
 between these different groups, except the negative circumstance 
 that there is no special organ to which positively to refer them - 
 and, therefore, they are exclusively slumped together under that 
 sense which is not obtrusively marked out and isolated by the 
 mechanism of a peculiar instrument. 
 
 Touch, its sphere and organic seat. Limiting, therefore, 
 the sfxjcial sense of Touch to that of objective information, it is 
 sufficient to say that this sense has its seat at the extremity of 
 the nerves which terminate in the skin ; its principal organs are 
 the finger-points, the toes, the lips, and the tongue. Of these, 
 the first is the most perfect. At the tips of the fingers, a tender
 
 PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT 4UD TOUCH. 371 
 
 akin covers the nervous papillae ; and here the nail serves not 
 only as a protecting shield to the organ, but, likewise, by afford- 
 ing an opposition to the body which makes an impression on 
 the finger-ends, it renders more distinct our perception of the 
 nature of its surface. Tin ough the great mobility of the fingers, 
 of the wrist, and of the shoulder-joint, we are able with one, 
 and still more effectually, with both hands, to manipulate an 
 object on all sides, and thereby to attain a knowledge of its 
 figure. We likewise owe to the sense of Touch a perception of 
 those conformations of a body, according to which we call it 
 rough or smooth, hard or soft, sharp or blunt. The repose or 
 motion of a body is also perceived through the touch. 
 
 To obviate misunderstanding, I should, however, notice that 
 the proper organ of Touch the nervous papillae requires, as 
 the condition of its exercise, the movement of the voluntary 
 muscles. This condition, however, ought not to be viewed as a 
 part of the organ itself. This being understood, the perception 
 of the weight of a body will not fall under this sense, as the 
 nerves lying under the epidermis or scurf skin have little or no 
 share in this knowledge. We owe it, almost exclusively, to the 
 consciousness we have of the exertion of the muscles, requisite 
 to lift with the hand a heavy body from the ground, or when it 
 is laid on the shoulders or head, to keep our own body erect, and 
 to carry the burden from one place to another. 
 
 I next proceed to consider two counter-questions, which are 
 still agitated by philosophers. The first is, Does Sight afford 
 us an original knowledge of extension, or do we not owe this 
 exclusively to Touch ? The second is, Does Touch afford us 
 an original knowledge of extension, or do we not owe this ex- 
 clusively to Sight? Both questions are still undetermined ; and, 
 consequently, the vulgar belief is also unostablished, that we ob- 
 tain a knowledge of extension originally both from sight and touch. 
 
 I commence, then, with the first, Does Vision afford us a 
 primary knowledge of extension^ or do we not owe this knowl- 
 edge exclusively to Touch ? But, before entering on its dis- 
 cussion, it is proper to state to you, by preamble, what kind of 
 extension it is that those would vindicate to sight, who answer
 
 372 PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND TOUCH. 
 
 this question in the affirmative. The whole primary objects of 
 eight, then, are colors, and extensions, and forms or figures of 
 extension. And here you will observe, it is not all kind of 
 extension and form that is attributed to sight. It is not figured 
 extension in all the three dimensions, but only extension as 
 involved in plane figures ; that is, only length and breadth. 
 
 It has generally been admitted by philosophers, after Aris- 
 totle, that color is the proper object of sight, and that extension 
 and figure, common to sight and touch, are only accidentally its 
 objects, because supposed in the perception of color. The first 
 philosopher, with whom I am acquainted, who doubted or denied 
 that vision is conversant with extension, was Berkeley. [Con- 
 dillac also, at one time,] maintained the same opinion. This, 
 however, he did not do either very explicitly or without change.* 
 Mr. Stewart maintains that extension is not an object of sight. 
 " I formerly," he says, " had occasion to mention several in- 
 stances of very intimate associations formed between two ideas 
 which have no necessary connection with each other. One of 
 the most remarkable is, that which exists in every person's 
 mind between the notions of color and extension. The former 
 of these words expresses (at least in the sense in which we 
 commonly employ it) a sensation in the mind, the latter denotes 
 a quality of an external object ; so that there is, in fact, no 
 more connection between the two notions than between those of 
 pain and of solidity ; and yet, in consequence of our always 
 perceiving extension at the same time at which the sensation of 
 color is excited in the mind, we find it impossible to think of 
 
 * Neither Oomlillac nor Berkeley goes so far as to say, that color, re- 
 garded as an affection of the visual organism, is apprehended as absolutely 
 uncxtended, a.s a mathematical point. Nor is this the <iestion in dispute. 
 But granting, as Condillae in his later view expressly asserts, that oo!or, us 
 a visual sensation, necessarily occupies space, do we, hy mean? of that 
 sensation, acquire also the proper idea of extension, as composed of parts 
 exterior to each other ? In other words, does the sensation of different 
 colors, which is necessary to the distinction of parts at all, necessarily sug- 
 gest different and contiguous localities ! This question is explicitly an- 
 swered in the negative hy Condillac, and in the atlinnative by Sir W 
 Hamilton. ENGLISH ED.
 
 PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND TOUCH. 373 
 
 that sensation without conceiving extension along with it," But 
 before and after Stewart, a doctrine, virtually the same, is main- 
 tained by the Hartleian school ; who assert, as a consequence 
 of their universal principle of association, that the perception 
 of color suggests the notion of extension. 
 
 Then comes Dr. Brown, who, after having repeatedly asserted, 
 tliat it is, and always has been, the universal opinion of philos- 
 ophers, that the superficial extension of length and breadth 
 becomes known to us by sight originally, proceeds, as he says, 
 for the first time, to controvert this opinion ; though it is wholly 
 impossible that he could have been ignorant that the same had 
 been done, at least by Condillac and Stewart. He says, " The 
 universal opinion of philosophers is, that it is not color merely 
 which it [the simple original sensation of vision] involves, but 
 extension also, that there is a visible figure, as well as a 
 tangible figure, and that the visible figure involves, in our 
 instant original perception, superficial length and breadth, as the 
 tangible figure, which we learn to see, involves length, breadth, 
 and thickness. 
 
 " That it is impossible for us, at present, to separate, in the 
 sensation of vision, the color from the extension, I admit ; 
 though not more completely impossible than it is for us to look 
 on the thousand feet of a meadow, and to perceive only the 
 small inch of greenness on our retina ; and the one impossibil- 
 ity, as much as the other, I conceive to arise only from intimate 
 association, subsequent to the original sensations of sight. Nor 
 do I deny, that a certain part of the retina which, being lim- 
 ited, must therefore have figure is affected by the rays of 
 light that fall on it, as a certain breadth of nervous expanse is 
 affected in all the other organs. I contend only, that the per- 
 ception of this limited figure of the portion of the retina affected 
 does not enter into the sensation itself, more than, in our sensa- 
 tions of any other species, there is a perception of the nervous 
 breadth affected. 
 
 " The immediate perception of visible figure has been assumed 
 as indisputable, rather than attempted to be proved ; as before 
 th time of Berkeley, the immediate visual perception of dis- 
 32
 
 374 PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND TOUCtt. 
 
 tance, and of the three dimensions of matter, was supposed, in 
 like manner, to be without any need of proof; and it is, there- 
 fore, impossible to refer to arguments on the subject. J_p_re- 
 eume, however, that the reasons which have led to this belief 
 of the immediate perception of a figure termed visible, as dis- 
 tinguished from that tangible figure which we learn to see, are 
 the following two, the only reasons which I can even imagine ; 
 that it is absolutely impossible, in our present sensations of 
 sight, to separate color from extension, and that there are, in fact, 
 a certain length and breadth of the retina, on which the light falls." 
 
 Summary of Brown's argument. He then goes on to argue, 
 at a far greater length than can be quoted, that the mere cir- 
 cumstance of a certain definite space, namely, the extended 
 retina, being affected by certain sensations, does not necessarily 
 involve the notion of extension. Indeed, in all those cases in 
 which it is supposed, that a certain diffusion of sensations ex- 
 cites the notion of extension, it seems to be taken for granted 
 that the being knows already, that he has an extended body, 
 over which these sensations are thus diffused. Nothing but the 
 sense of touch, however, and nothing but those kinds of touch 
 which imply the idea of continued resistance, can give us any 
 notion of body at all. All mental affections which are regarded 
 merely as feelings of the mind, and which do not give us a con- 
 ception of their external causes, can never be known to arise 
 from any thing which is extended or solid. So far, however, is 
 the mere sensation of color from being able to produce this, that 
 touch itself, as felt in many of its modifications, could give us no 
 idea of it. That the sensation of color is quite unfit to give us 
 any idea of extension, merely by its being diffused over a cer- 
 tain expanse of the retina, seems to be corroborated by what 
 we experience in the other senses, even after we are perfectly 
 acquainted with the notion of extension. In hearing, for in- 
 stance, a certain quantity of the tympanum of the ear must be 
 affected by the pulsations of the air ; yet it gives us no idea of 
 the dimensions of the part affected. The same may, in general, 
 be said of taste and smell. 
 
 Proof that siyht takes cognizance of extension. --^o\v, in all
 
 PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND TOUCH. 375 
 
 Jieir elaborate argumentation on this subject, these philosophers 
 *eem never yet to have seen the real difficulty of their doctrine. 
 It can easily^be shown that the percepjion of color involvesjhe 
 perception .of extension. ^j^aTtiesM-eyOf^course, jit one in 
 7 jregard to the fact^ that jwe_ jee ..color. Those who hold that we 
 .see extension, admit that we see it only as colored; and those 
 _who deny us any vision of extension, make color the exclusive 
 object of sight. In regard to this first position, all are, there- 
 fore, agreed. Nor are they less harmonious in regard to the 
 second ; that the power of perceiving color involves the power 
 of perceiving the differences of colors. By sight we, therefore, 
 perceive color, and discriminate one color, that is, one colored 
 body, one sensation of color, from another. This is admitted. 
 A third p< sition will also be denied by none, that the colors dis- 
 criminated in vision are, or may be, placed side by side in im- 
 mediate juxtaposition ; or, one may limit another by being 
 superinduced partially over it. 'A fourth position is equally in- 
 disputable, that the contrasted colors, thus bounding each 
 other, will form by their meeting a visible line, and that, if the 
 superinduced color be surrounded by the other, this line will 
 return upon itself, and thus constitute the outline of a visible 
 figure. 
 
 These four positions command a peremptory assent; they are 
 all self-evident. But their admission at once explodes the para- 
 dox under discussion. And thus : a line is extension in one 
 dimension, length ; a figure is extension in two, length and 
 breadth. Therefore, the vision of a line is a vision of extension 
 in length ; the vision of a figure, the vision of extension in length 
 and breadth. This is an immediate demonstration of the impos- 
 sibility of the opinion in question ; and it is curious that the in 
 genuity, which suggested to its supporters the petty and recon 
 elite objections they have so operost'ly combated, should not have 
 shown them this gigantic difficulty, which lay obtrusively before 
 them. 
 
 Extension cannot be imagined except as colored and shaped. 
 So far, in fact, is the doctrine which divorces the perceptions 
 of color and extension *rom beinjr true, that we cannot eveu
 
 876 PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND TOUCH. 
 
 represent extension to the mind except as colored* Wlien we 
 come to the consideration of the Representative Faculty, Im- 
 agination, I shall endeavor to show you (what has not been 
 observed by psychologists), that in the representation, in the 
 imagination of sensible objects, we always represent them in the 
 organ of Sense through which we originally perceived them 
 Thus, we cannot imagine any particular odor but in the nose ; 
 nor any sound but in the ear ; nor any taste but in the mouth ; 
 and if we would represent any pain we have ever felt, this can 
 only be done through the local nerves. In like manner, when 
 we imagine any modification of light we do so in the eye ; and 
 it is a curious confirmation of this, as is well known to physiol- 
 ogists, that when not only the external apparatus of the eye, 
 which is a mere mechanical instrument, but the real organ of 
 sight, the optic nerves and their thalami, have become dis- 
 eased, the patient loses, in proportion to the extent of the mor- 
 bid affection, either wholly or in part, the faculty of recalling 
 visible phenomena to his mind. I mention this at present in 
 order to show, that Vision is not only a sense competent to the 
 perception of extension, but the sense v.u.-i t^o-^v, if not exclu- 
 sively, so competent, and this in the following manner : You 
 either now know, or will hereafter learn, that no notion, whether 
 native and general, or adventitious and generalized, can be rep- 
 resented in imagination, except in a concrete or singular exam- 
 ple. For instance, you cannot imagine a triangle which is not 
 either an equilateral, or an isosceles, or a scalene, in short, 
 Borne individual form of a triangle; nay, more, you cannot im- 
 agine it, except either large or small, on paper, or on a board, 
 of wood or of iron, white or black or green ; in short, except 
 under all the special determinations which give it, in thought, as 
 in existence, singularity and individuality. The same happens, 
 too, with extension. Space I admit to be a native form of 
 thought, not an adventitious notion. We cannot but think it. 
 Yet I cannot actually represent space in imagination, striptof all 
 individualizing attributes. In this act, I can easily annihilate 
 all corporeal existence, 1 can imagine empty space. liut 
 there are two attributes of which I cannot divest it, that is,
 
 PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND TOUCH. 377 
 
 shape and color. This may sound almost ridiculous at first 
 statement ; but if you attend to the phenomenon, you will soon 
 be satisfied of its truth. And first as to shape. Your minds are 
 
 not intiiiitf, ami cannot, thc.reibre, positively conceive infinite. 
 jipace. Infinite space is only conceived negatively, only by 
 conceiving it inconceivable ; in other words, it cannot be con- 
 ceived at all. But if we do our utmost to realize this notion of 
 infinite extension by a positive act of imagination, how do wo 
 proceed ? Why, we think out from a centre, and endeavor to 
 carry the circumference of the sphere to infinity. But by no 
 one effort of imagination can we accomplish this ; and as we can- 
 not do it at once by one infinite act, it would require an eternity 
 of successive finite efforts, an endless series of imaginings 
 beyond imaginings, to equalize the thought with its object. The 
 very attempt is contradictory. But when we leave off, has the 
 imagined space a shape ? It has : for it is finite ; and a finitej 
 that is, a bounded, space, constitutes a figure. What, then, is 
 this figure? It is spherical, necessarily spherical; for as the 
 effort of imagining space is an effort outwards from a centre, 
 the space represented in imagination is necessarily circular. If 
 there be no shape, there lias been no positive imagination ; and 
 for any other shape than the orbicular, no reason can be as- 
 signed. Such is the figure of space in a free act of phantasy. 
 
 This, however, will be admitted without scruple ; for if real 
 space, as it is well described by St. Augustin, be a sphere whose 
 centre is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere, im- 
 agined space may be allowed to be a sphere whose circumfer- 
 ence is represented at any distance from its centre. But will ita 
 color be as easily allowed? In explanation of this, you will 
 observe, that under color, I of course include black as well as 
 white; the transparent as well as the opaque, in short, any 
 modification of light or darkness. This being understood. 1 main- 
 tain that it is impossible to imagine figure, extension, space, ex- 
 cept as colored in some determinate mode. You mav represent il 
 under any, but you must represent it under some, modification 
 of light, color. Make the experiment, and you will find 1 am 
 correct. But I anticipate; an objection Tl" 1 non-perception of 
 32*
 
 878 PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND TOUCH. 
 
 color, or the inability of discriminating colors, is a case of not 
 unfrequent occurrence, though the subjects of this deficiency are, 
 at the same time, not otherwise defective in vision. In cases of 
 this description, there is, however, necessarily a discrimination 
 of light and shade ; and the colors that to us appear in all " the 
 sevenfold radiance of effulgent light," to them appear only :is 
 different gradations of clare-obscure. Were this not the case, 
 there could be no vision. Such persons, therefore, have still 
 two great contrasts of color, black and white, and an indefinite 
 number of intermediate gradations, in which to represent space 
 to their imaginations. Nor is there any difficulty in the case of 
 the blind, the absolutely blind, the blind from birth. Blind- 
 ness is the non-perception of color ; the non-perception of color 
 is simple darkness. The space, therefore, represented by the 
 blind, if represented at all, will be represented black. Some 
 modification of ideal light or darkness is thus the condition of 
 the imagination of space. This of itself powerfully supports 
 the doctrine, that vision is conversant with extension as its ob- 
 ject. But if the opinion I have stated be correct, that an act 
 of imagination is only realized through some organ of sense, the 
 impossibility of representing space out of all relation to light 
 and color at once establishes the eye as the appropriate sense of 
 extension and figure. 
 
 U Alenibert on seeing extension. In corroboration of the 
 general view I have taken of the relation of Sight to extension, 
 I may translate to you a passage by a distinguished mathema- 
 tician and philosopher, who, in writing it, probably had in hi* 
 eye the paradoxical speculation of Condillac. " It is certain," 
 says D' Alembcrt, " that sight alone, and independently of touch, 
 affords us the idea of extension ; for extension is the necessary 
 object of vision, and we should see nothing if we did not see it 
 extended. I even believe that sight must give us the notion of 
 extension more readily than touch, because sight makes us re- 
 mark more promptly and perfectly than touch, that contiguity, 
 and, at the same time, that distinction, of parts in which exten- 
 sion consists. Moreover, vision alone gives us the idea of the 
 color of objects. Let us suppose now parts of space differently
 
 PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND TOUCH. 379 
 
 colored, and presented to oui eyes ; the difference of colors will 
 necessarily cause us to observe the boundaries or limits which 
 separate two neighboring colors, and, consequently, will give us 
 an idea of figure ; for we conceive a figure when we conceive a 
 limitation or boundary on all sides." 
 
 I am confident, therefore, that we may safely establish the 
 conclusion, that Sight is a sense principally conversant with ex- 
 tension ; whether it be the only sense thus conversant, remains 
 to be considered. 
 
 Does Touch afford us an original knowledge of extension. 
 I proceed, therefore, to the second of the counter-problems, 
 to inquire whether Sight be exclusively the sense which affords 
 ns a knowledge of extension, or whether it does this only con- 
 junctly with Touch. As some philosophers have denied to vision 
 all perception of extension and figure, and given this solely to 
 touch, so others have equally refused this perception to touch, 
 and accorded it exclusively to vision. 
 
 This doctrine is maintained among others by Plainer, a 
 man no less celebrated as an acute philosopher, than as a learned 
 physician, and an elegant scholar. I shall endeavor to render 
 his philosophical German into intelligible English, and translate 
 some of the preliminary sentences with which he introduces a 
 curious observation by him on a blind subject. " It is very true, 
 as my acute antagonist observes, that the gloomy extension 
 which imagination presents to us as an actual object, is by no 
 means the pure a priori representation of space. It is veiy 
 true, that this is only an empirical or adventitious image, whicl 
 itself supposes the pure or a priori notion of space (or of ex- 
 tension), in other words, the necessity to think every thing as 
 extended. But I did not wish to explain the origin of this 
 mental condition or form of thought objectively, through the 
 sense of sight, but only to say this much : that empirical space, 
 empirical extension, is dependent on the sense of sight, that, 
 allowing space or extension, as a form of thought, to be in us, 
 were there even nothing correspondent to it out of us, still the 
 unknown external things must operate upon us, and, in fact, 
 through the sense of sight, do operate upon us, if this uncou- 
 scions form is to be brought into consciousness."
 
 880 PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND TOUCH. 
 
 And after some other observations he goes on : "In regard 
 to the visionless representation of space or extension, the 
 attentive observation of a person born blind, which I formerly 
 instituted, in the year 1785, and, again, in relation to the point 
 in question, have continued for three whole weeks, this obser- 
 vation, I say, has convinced me, that the sense of touch, by 
 itself, is altogether incompetent to afford us the representation 
 of extension and space, and is not even cognizant of local ex 
 teriority ; in a word, that a man deprived of sight has absolutely 
 no perception of an outer world, beyond tho existence rf some- 
 thing effective, different from his own feeling of passivity, and 
 in general only of the numerical diversity, shall I say, of 
 impressions, or of things? In fact, to those born blind, time 
 serves instead of space. Vicinity and distance means in their 
 mouths nothing more than the shorter or longer time, the smaller 
 or greater number of feelings, which they find necessary to 
 attain from some one feeling to some other. That a person 
 blind from birth employs the language of vision, that may 
 occasion considerable error, and did, indeed, at the commence- 
 ment of my observations, lead me wrong ; but, in point of fact, 
 he knows nothing of things as existing out of each other ; and 
 (this in particular I have very clearly remarked), if objects, 
 and the parts of his body touched by them, did not make differ- 
 ent kinds of impression on his nerves of sensation, he would 
 take every thing external for one and the same. In his own 
 body, he absolutely did not discriminate head and foot at all by 
 their distance, but merely by the difference of the feelings (and 
 his perception of such difference was incredibly fine), which he 
 experienced from the one and from the other ; and, moreover, 
 through time. In like manner, in external bodies, he distin- 
 guished their figure merely by the varieties of impressed feel- 
 ings ; inasmuch, for example, as the cube, by its angles, affected 
 his feeling differently from the sphere. No one can conceive 
 how deceptive is the use of language accommodated to vision. 
 When my acute antagonist appeals to Cheselden's case, which 
 proves directly the reverse of what it is adduced to refute, he 
 does not consider that the first visual impressions which one
 
 PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND TOUCH. 381 
 
 born blind receives after couching, do not constitute vision. For 
 the very reason, that space and extension are empirically only 
 possible through a perception of sight, for that very reason, 
 must such a patient, after his eyes are freed from the cataract, 
 first learn to live in space ; if he could do this previously, then 
 would not the distant seem to him near, the separate would 
 not appear to him as one. These are the grounds which make 
 it impossible for me to believe empirical space in a blind person ; 
 and from these I infer, that this form of sensibility, as Mr. Kant 
 calls it, and which, in a certain signification, may very properly 
 be styled a pure representation, cannot come into consciousness 
 otherwise than through the medium of our visual perception ; 
 without, however, denying that it is something merely subjective, 
 or affirming that sight affords any thing similar to this kind of 
 representation. The example of blind geometers would like- 
 wise argue nothing against me, even if the geometers had been 
 born blind ; and this they were not, if, even in their early 
 infancy, they had seen a single extended object." 
 
 Phenomena that support Plainer 's doctrine. To what Plat- 
 ner has here stated I would add, from personal experiment and 
 observation upon others, that if any one who is not blind will 
 go into a room of an unusual shape, wholly unknown to him, 
 and into which no ray of light is allowed to penetrate, he may 
 grope about for hours, he may touch and manipulate every 
 side and corner of it; still, notwithstanding every endeavor, 
 notwithstanding all the previous subsidiary notions he brings to 
 the task, he will be unable to form any correct idea of the room. 
 In like manner, a blindfolded person will make the most curious 
 mistakes in regard to the figure of objects presented to him, if 
 these are of any considerable circumference. But if the sense 
 of touch in such favorable circumstances can effect so little, how 
 much less could it afford us any knowledge of forms, if the 
 assistance which it here brings with it from our visual con- 
 ceptions were wholly wanting? 
 
 This view is, I think, strongly confirmed by the famous case 
 of a young gentleman, blind from birth, couched by Cheselden; 
 a case remarkable for being perhaps, of those cured, that in
 
 882 PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND TOUCH. 
 
 which the cataract was most perfect (it only allowed of a dis- 
 tinction of light and darkness) ; and, at the same time, in which 
 the phenomena have been most distinctly described. In this 
 latter respect, it is, however, very deficient ; and it is saying but 
 little in favor of the philosophical acumen of medical men, that 
 Ihe narrative of this case, with all its faults, is, to the present 
 moment, the one most to be relied on. 
 
 Now I contend (though I am aware I have high authority 
 against me), that if a blind man had been able to form a con- 
 ception of a square or globe by mere touch, he would, on first 
 perceiving them by sight, be able to discriminate them from each 
 other ; for this supposes only that he had acquired the primary 
 notions of a straight and of a curved line. Again, if touch 
 afforded us the notion of space or extension in general, the 
 patient, on obtaining sight, would certainly be able to conceive 
 the possibility of space or extension beyond the actual boundary 
 of his vision. But of both of these Cheselden's patient was 
 found incapable. 
 
 " Though we say of this gentleman, that he was blind," ob- 
 serves Mr. Cheselden, " as we do of all people who have ripe 
 cataracts ; yet they are never so blind from that cause but that 
 they can discern day from night ; and for the most part, in a 
 strong light, distinguish black, white, and scarlet ; but they 
 cannot perceive the shape of any thing ; for the light by which 
 these perceptions are made, being let in obliquely through the 
 aqueous humor, or the anterior surface of the crystalline (by 
 which the rays cannot be brought into a focus upon the retina), 
 they can discern in no other manner than a sound eye can 
 through a glass of broken jelly, where a great variety of sur- 
 faces so differently refract the light, that the several distinct 
 pencils of rays cannot be collected by the eye into their proper 
 foci ; wherefore the shape of an object in such a case cannot be 
 at all discerned, though the color may ; and thus it was with 
 this young gentleman, who, though he knew those colors asunder 
 in a good light, yet when he saw them after he was couched, the 
 faint ideas he had of them before were not sufficient for him to 
 know them by afterwards ; and therefore he did not think them
 
 PERCEPTIONS BY SIGHT AND TOUCH. 383 
 
 the same which he had before known by those names 
 
 When he first saw, he was so far from making any judgment 
 about distances, that he thought all objects whatever touched his 
 eyes (as he expressed it), as what he felt did his skin ; and 
 thought no objects so agreeable as those which were smooth and 
 regular, though he could form no judgment of their shape, or 
 gusss what it was in any object that was pleas ing to him. lie 
 knew not the shape of any thing, nor any one thing from another, 
 however different in shape or magnitude :* but upon being told 
 what things were, whose form he before knew from feeling, he 
 would carefully observe, that he might know them again ; but 
 having too many objects to learn at once, he forgot many of 
 them ; and (as he said), at first learned to know, and again forgot 
 a thousand things in a day. One particular only (though it may 
 appear trifling), I will relate : Having often forgot which was 
 the cat, and which the dog, he was ashamed to ask ; but catch- 
 ing the cat (which he knew by feeling), he was observed to look 
 at her steadfastly, and then setting her down, said, ' So, puss ! I 
 
 shall know you another time.' We thought he soon 
 
 knew what pictures represented which were showed to him, but 
 we found afterwards we were mistaken ; for about two months 
 after he was couched, he discovered at once they represented 
 
 * [This cannot mean that he saw no difference between objects of differ- 
 ent shapes and sizes ; for if this interpretation were adopted, the rest of the 
 statement becomes nonsense. If he had been altogether incapable of appre- 
 hending differences, it could not be said that, " being told what things were 
 whose form lie before knew from fee-ling, he would carefully observe that 
 he might know them again ; " for observation supposes the power of dis- 
 crimination, and, in particular, the anecdote of the dog and cat would be 
 inconceivable on that hypothesis. It is plain that Cheselden only meant to 
 say, that the things which the patient could previously distinguish and 
 denominate by touch, he could not now identify and refer to their appellalions 
 by sight. And this is what we might, a priori, be assured of. A sphere 
 and a cube would certainly make different impressions on him ; but it is 
 probable that he could not assign to each its name, though, in this particular 
 case, there is good ground for holding, that the slightest consideration would 
 enable a person, previously acquainted with these figures, and aware that 
 the one was a cube and the other a sphere, to connect them with his anterior 
 experience, and to discriminate them by name.] iVcrft* to Rtid.
 
 384 VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DISTANCE. 
 
 solid bodies, when, to that time, he considered them only aa 
 parti-colored planes, or surfaces diversified with variety of paints ; 
 but even then he was no less surprised, expecting the pictures 
 would feel like the things they represented, and was amazed 
 when he found those parts, which by their light and shadow 
 appeared now round and uneven, felt only flat like the rest ; and 
 asked which was the lying sense, feeling or seeing." 
 
 The whole of this matter is still enveloped in great uncer- 
 tainty, and I should be sorry either to dogmatize myself, or to 
 advise you to form any decided opinion. Without, however, 
 going the length of Plainer, in denying the possibility of a 
 geometer blind from birth, we may allow this, and yet vindicate 
 exclusively to sight the power of affording us our empirical 
 notions of space. The explanation of this supposes, however, 
 an acquaintance with the doctrine of pure or a priori space 
 as a form of thought ; it must, therefore, for the present be 
 deferred. 
 
 How do ive perceive visual distance. The last question on 
 which I shall touch, and with which I shall conclude the con- 
 sideration of Perception in general, is, How do we obtain our 
 knowledge of Visual Distance ? Is this original, 6r acquired ? 
 With regard to the method by which we judge of distance, it 
 was formerly supposed to depend upon an original law of the 
 constitution, and to be independent of any knowledge gained 
 through the medium of the external senses. This opinion was 
 attacked by Berkeley in his New Theory of Vision, one of the 
 finest examples, as Dr. Smith justly observes, of philosophical 
 analysis to be found in our own or in any other language; and 
 in which it appears most clearly demonstrated, that our whole 
 information on this subject is acquired by experience and associ- 
 ation. This conclusion is supported by many circumstances of 
 frequent occurrence, in which we fall into the greatest mistakes 
 with respect to the distance of objects, when we form our judg- 
 ment solely from the vi.-ible impression made upon the retina, 
 without attending to the other circumstances which ordinarily 
 direct us in forming our conclu.-ions. It also obtains confirmation 
 from the case of Cheselden, which I have already quoted. It
 
 VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DISTANCK. 885 
 
 clearly appears that, in the first instance, the patient had no 
 correct ideas of distance ; and we are expressly told that he 
 supposed all objects to touch the eye, until he learned to correct 
 his visible, by means of his tangible, impressions, and thus grad- 
 nally to acquire more correct notions of the situation of sur- 
 rounding bodies with respect to his own person. 
 
 What enables us to estimate distance. On the hypothesis that 
 our ideas of distance are acquired, it remains for us to investi- 
 gate the circumstances which assist us in forming our judgment 
 respecting them. We shall find that they may be arranged 
 under two heads, some of them depending upon certain states 
 of the eye itself, and others upon various accidents that occur 
 in the appearance of the objects. With respect to distances 
 that are so short as to require the adjustment of the eye in order 
 to obtain distinct vision, it appears that a certain voluntary effort 
 is necessary to produce the desired effect : this effort, whatever 
 may be its nature, causes a corresponding sensation, the amount 
 of which we learn by experience to appreciate ; and thus, through 
 the medium of association, we acquire the power of estimating 
 the distance with sufficient accuracy. 
 
 When objects are placed at only a moderate distance, but not 
 such as to require the adjustment of the eye, in directing the two 
 eyes to the object we incline them inwards ; as is the case like- 
 wise with very short distances : so that what are termed the 
 axes of the eyes, if produced, would make an angle at the object, 
 the angle varying inversely as the distance. Here, as in the 
 former case, we have certain perceptions excited by the muscular 
 efforts necessary to produce a proper inclination of the aj~.es, and 
 these we learn to associate with certain distances. As proof 
 that this is the mode by which we judge of those distances where 
 the optic axes form an appreciable angle, when the eyes aio both 
 directed to the same object, while the effort of adjustment is 
 not perceptible, it has been remarked, that persons who are 
 deprived of the sight of one eye, are incapable of forming a 
 correct judgment in this case. 
 
 When we are required to judge of still greater distances, where 
 the object is so remote as that the axes of the two eyes are par- 
 83
 
 386 VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DISTANCE. 
 
 allel, we are no longer able to form our opinion from any seu 
 sation in the eye itself. In this case, we have recourse to a 
 variety of circumstances connected with the appearance of the 
 object ; for example, its apparent size, the distinctness with 
 which it is seen, the vividness of its colors, the number of inter- 
 vening objects, and other similar accidents, all of which obvi 
 ously depend upon previous experience, and which we are in 
 the habit of associating with different distances, without, in each 
 particular case, investigating the cause on which our judgment 
 is founded.* 
 
 But animals have an instinctive perception of distance. The 
 conclusions of science seem in this case to be decisive ; and yet 
 the whole question is thrown into doubt by the analogy of the 
 lower animals. If, in man, the perception of distance be not 
 original but acquired, the perception of distance must be also 
 acquired by them. But as this is not the case in regard to ani- 
 mals, this confirms the reasoning of those who would explain 
 the perception of distance in man as an original, not as an 
 acquired, knowledge. That the Berkeleian doctrine is opposed 
 
 * [We must be careful not, like Reid and philosophers in general, to 
 confound the perceptions of mere externality or outness, and the knowledge 
 we may have of distance, through the eye. The former may be, and prob- 
 ably is, natural ; while the latter, in a great but (inappreciable measure, is 
 acquired. In the case of Cheselden that in which the blindness previous 
 to the recovery of sight was most perfect, and therefore the most instructive 
 upon record the patient, though he had little or no perception of distance, 
 i. c. of the drtjrce of externality, had still a perception of that externality 
 absolutely. The objects, he said, seemed to "touch his eyes, as what he 
 felt did his skin ; " but they did not appear to him as if in his eyes, far less 
 as a mere affection of the organ. This natural perception of outness, which 
 is the foundation of our acquired knowledge of di>tance, seems given us in 
 the natural perception we have of the direction of the rays of light. 
 
 In like manner, we must not confound, as is commonly done, the fact of 
 the eye affording us a perception of ertetminn and plane figure, or outline, 
 in the perception of colors, and the fact of its being the vehicle of intima- 
 tions in regard to the comparative magnitude and cubical forms of the 
 objects from which these rays proceed. The one is a knowledge by sense 
 natural, immediate, and infallible; the other, like that of distance, is by 
 Inference acquired, mediate, and ut best, always insecure]. i\'o/<a to
 
 VISUAL PERCEPTION OF DISTANCE. 887 
 
 by the analogy of the lower animals, is admitted by one of ita 
 most intelligent supporters, Dr. Adam Smith. 
 
 " That, antecedent to all experience," says Smith, " the young 
 of at least the greater part of animals possess some instinctive 
 perception of this kind, seems abundantly evident. The hen 
 never feeds her young by dropping the food into their bills, as 
 the linnet and the thrush feed theirs. Almost as soon as her 
 chickens are hatched, she does not feed them, but carries theui 
 to the field to feed, where they walk about at their ease, it would 
 Beem. and appear to have the most distinct perception of all the 
 tangible objects which surround them. We may often see them, 
 accordingly, by the straightest road, run to and pick up any 
 little grains which she shows them, even at the distance of several 
 yards ; and they no sooner come into the light than they seem 
 to understand this language of Vision as well as they ever do 
 afterwards. The young of the partridge and the grouse seem 
 to have, at the same early period, the most distinct perceptions 
 ol the same kind. The young partridge, almost as soon as it 
 comes from the shell, runs about among long grass and corn, the 
 young grouse among long heath ; and both would most essen- 
 tially hurt themselves, if they had not the most acute as well aa 
 distinct perception of the tangible objects, which not only sur- 
 round them, but press upon them on all sides. This is the case, 
 too, with the young of the goose, of the duck, and, so f;ir as I 
 have been able to observe, with those of at least the greater 
 part of the birds which make their nests upon the ground, with 
 the greater part of those which are ranked by Linnaeus in the 
 orders of the hen and the goose, and of many of those long- 
 shanked and wading birds which he places in the order that h 
 distinguishes by the name of Gralla? 
 
 " It seems difficult to suppose that man is the only animal of 
 which the young are not endowed with some instinctive per- 
 ception of this kind. The young of the human species, however, 
 continue so long in a state of entire dependency, (hey must be 
 eo long carried about in the arms of their mothers or of their 
 nurses, that such an instinctive perception may serin less neces- 
 sary to them than to any other race oi animals. Before it could
 
 388 VISUAL TERCEPTION OF DISTANCE. 
 
 be of any use to them, observation and experience may, by the 
 known principle of the association of ideas, have sufficiently 
 connected in their young minds each visible object with the 
 corresponding tangible one which it is fitted to represent. Na- 
 ture, it may be said, never bestows upon any animal any fan- )*y 
 which is not either necessary or useful ; and an instinct of this 
 kind would be altogether useless to an animal which must neces- 
 sarily acquire the knowledge which the instinct is given t< 
 supply, long before that instinct could be of any use to it. 
 
 Children, however, appear at so very early a period to know 
 the distance, the shape, and magnitude of the different tangible 
 objects which are presented to them, that I am disposed to 
 believe that even they may have some instinctive perception of 
 this kind ; though possibly in a much weaker degree than the 
 greater part of other animals. A child that is scarcely a month 
 old, stretches out its hands to feel any little plaything that is 
 presented to it. It distinguishes its nurse, and the other people 
 who are much about it, from strangers. It clings to the former 
 and turns away from the latter. Hold a small looking-glass 
 before a child of not more than two or three monjhs old, and it 
 will stretch out its little arms behind the glass, in order to feel 
 the child which it sees, and which it imagines is &t the back of 
 the glass. It is deceived, no doubt ; but even this sort of 
 deception sufficiently demonstrates, that it has a tolerably dis- 
 tinct apprehension of the ordinary perspective of Vision, which 
 it cannot well have learnt from observation and experience." * 
 
 * [That animals should be enabled by instinct to see as soon as they are 
 born, while man, gifted with reason, is obliged to learn s'owly, through ex- 
 perience, how to see, is no more remarkable than that birds and spiders 
 ihould be taught by instinct, without experience or instruction, how to con- 
 struct their habitations and nets, while man can build neither excent he ha* 
 had opportunities to learn from others, or from his own unsuccessful efforts 
 It is the distinguishing peculiarity of instinct to learn noto 1 ^ from <>,xpeo 
 nee, and of reason to learn every thing from experience- ,. Am. Ed.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE PRESENTATIVE FACULTY. RECAPITULATION. II SELF 
 CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 HAVING concluded the consideration of External Perception, 
 I may now briefly recapitulate certain results of the discussion, 
 and state in what principal respects the doctrine I would main- 
 tain, differs from that of Reid and Stewart, whom I suppose 
 always to hold, in reality, the system of an Intuitive Percep- 
 tion. 
 
 [Author's doctrine of Perception, in contrast to that of Reid, 
 Stewart, Royer- Collard, and other philosophers of the Scottish 
 School* 1. [They hold that] Perception (proper) is the No- 
 tion or Conception of an object instinctively suggested, excited, in- 
 spired, or, as it were, conjured up, on occasion, or at the sign, of 
 a Sensation (proper). 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, in general, that as Perception, in either 
 form, is an immediate or presentative, not a mediate or repre- 
 sentative, cognition, that a Perception proper is not, and ought 
 not to be called, a Notion or Conception. And I hold in par- 
 
 * I here contrast my own doctrine of perception with that of the philos- 
 ophers in question, not because their views and mine tire those at farthest 
 variance on the point, but on the contrary, precisely because they thereoa 
 approximate the nearest. I have already shown that the doctrine touching 
 Perception held by Reid (and, in the present relation, he and his two illustri- 
 ous followers 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 Egoistical Representationism. Maintaining, as 1 uo, the former doc- 
 trine, it is, of course, only the positions conformable to the latter, which 
 it ia, at present, necessary to adduce. 
 
 33* (38;
 
 890 THE DOCTRINE OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 ticular, 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, etc. ; and on the other, as a cor- 
 relative contained in the consciousness of our voluntary motive 
 energy resisted, and not resisted by aught within the limits of 
 inind and its subservient organs, we have a Perception proper 
 ot the Secundo-primary quality of resistance, in an extra-or- 
 ganic force, as an immediate cognition, and not merely as a no- 
 tion 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 imagination, by which the whole complex 
 consciousness on the occasion is filled up. 
 
 2. [They hold that,] on occasion of the Sensation (proper) 
 along with the notion or conception which constitutes the Per- 
 ception (proper) of the external object, there is blindly created 
 in us, or instinctively determined, an invincible belief in its exist- 
 ence. 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, that we only believe in the existence 
 of what we perceive, as extended, figured, resisting, etc., inas- 
 much as we believe that we are conscious of these qualities at 
 existing ; consequently, that a belief in the existence of an ex- 
 tended world, external to the mind, and even external to the 
 organism, is not a faith blindly created or instinctively deter- 
 mined, in supplement of a representative or mediate cognition, 
 but exists in, as an integral constituent of, Perception proper, as 
 an act of intuitive or immediate knowledge. 
 
 3. [They hold thalj the object of Perception (proper) is a 
 conclusion, or inference, or result (instinctive, indeed, not ratioc- 
 jnative), from a Sensation proper. 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, that the object of Perception proper 
 is given immediately, in and along with the object of Sensation 
 proper. 
 
 4. [They hold that] Sensation (proper) precedes, Perception 
 (proper) fellows.
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF PERCEPTION. 891 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, that though Sensation prc per be the 
 condition of, and therefore anterior to, Perception proper in the 
 order of nature, that, in the order of time, both are necessarily 
 coexistent, the latter being only realized in and through the 
 present 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 extension. 
 
 5. [They hold that] Sensation (proper) is not only an ante- 
 cedent, but an arbitrary antecedent, of Perception (proper). The 
 former is only a sign on occasion of which the latter follows ; 
 they have no necessary or even natural connection ; and it is 
 only by the will of God, that we do not perceive the qualities of 
 external objects independently of any sensitive affection. This 
 last, indeed, seems to be actually the case in the perception of 
 visible extension and figure. 
 
 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 affec- 
 tions of our sentient organism, as a body extended, figured, etc. 
 As to color and visible extension, neither can be apprehended, 
 neither can be even imagined, apart from the other. 
 
 6. [They hold that,] in a Sensation (proper) of the Secondary 
 qualities, as affections in us, we have a Perception (proper) of 
 them as properties in objects and causes of the affections in us. 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, that as Perception proper is an im- 
 mediate cognition ; and as the Secondary qualities, in bodies, are 
 only inferred, and therefore only mediately known to exint, a 
 occult causes of manifest effects ; that these, at best only objects 
 of a mediate knowledge, are not objects of Perception. 
 
 7. [They hold that,] in like manner, in the case of various 
 other bodily affection-, as the toothache, gout, etc., we have not 
 only a Sensation proper of the painful feeling, but a conception 
 and belief, i. e. a Perception (proper), of its cause.
 
 892 THE DOCTRINE OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 On the contrary, and for the same reason, I hold, thai thera 
 Is in this case no such Perception. 
 
 8. [They hold that] Sensation (proper) is an affection purely 
 of the mind, and not in any way an affection of the body. 
 
 On the contrary, I hold with Aristotle, indeed, with philoso- 
 phers in general, that Sensation is an affection neither of the 
 body alone, nor of the mind alone, but of the composite of which 
 each is a constituent ; and that the subject of Sensation may be 
 indifferently said to be our organism (as animated), or our soul 
 (as united with an organism). For instance, hunger or color 
 are, as apprehended, neither modes of mind apart from body, 
 nor modes of body apart from mind. 
 
 9. [They hold that] Sensations (proper), as merely affections 
 of the mind, have no locality in the body, no locality at all. 
 From this the inference is necessary, that, though conscious of 
 the relative place and reciprocal outness of sensations, we do 
 not, in this consciousness, apprehend any real externality and 
 extension. 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, that Sensation proper, being the con- 
 sciousness of an affection, not of the mind alone, but of the 
 mind as it is united with the body, that in the consciousness of 
 sensations, relatively localized and reciprocally external, we have 
 a veritable apprehension, and consequently, an immediate per- 
 ception, of the affected organism, as extended, divided, figured, 
 etc. This alone is the doctrine of Natural Realism, of Common 
 Sense. 
 
 10. [They hold that,] in the case of Sensation (proper) and 
 the Secondary qualities, there is a determinate quality in certain 
 bodies, exclusively competent to cause a determinate sensation 
 in us, as color, odor, savor, etc. ; consequently, that from the 
 fact of a similar internal effect, we are warranted to infer the 
 existence of a similar external concause. 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, that a similar sensation only implies 
 a similar idiopathic affection of the nervous organism ; but such 
 affection requires only the excitation of an appropriate stimulus; 
 while such stimulus may be supplied by manifold agents of the 
 most opposite nature, both from within the body and from with- 
 out.
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF PERCEPTION. 393 
 
 11. [They hold that] Perception excludes memory ; Percep- 
 tion (proper) cannot therefore be apprehensive of motion. 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, that as memory, or a certain con- 
 tinuous representation, is a condition of consciousness, it is a 
 condition of Perception; and that motion, therefore, cannot, 
 on this ground, be denied as an object apprehended through 
 sense. 
 
 1 2. [They hold that] an apprehension of relations is not an 
 act of Perception (proper). 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, in general, that as all consciousness 
 is realized only in the apprehension of the relations of plurality 
 and contrast ; and as perception is a consciousness ; that the ap- 
 prehension of relation cannot, simpliciter, be denied to percep- 
 tion : and, in particular, that unless we annihilate Perception 
 proper, by denying to it the recognition of its peculiar objects, 
 Extension, Figure, and the other Primary qualities, we cannot 
 deny to it the recognition of relations ; for, to say nothing of the 
 others, Extension is perceived only in apprehending sensations 
 out of sensations a relation; and Figure is only perceived in 
 apprehending one perceived extension as limited, and limited in 
 a certain manner by another a complexus of relations. 
 
 13. [They hold that] distant realities are objects of Percep- 
 tion (proper). 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, that the mind perceives nothing ex- 
 ternal to itself, except the affections of the organism as animated, 
 the reciprocal relations of these affections, and the correlative 
 involved in the consciousness of its locomotive energy being re- 
 sisted. 
 
 14. [They hold that] objects not in contact with the organs 
 of sense are perceived by a medium. 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, that the only object perceived is tho 
 organ itself, as modified, or what is in contact with the organ, as 
 resisting. 
 
 15. [They hold that] Extension and Figure are first perceived 
 through the sensations of Touch. 
 
 On the contrary, T hold, that, (unless by Extension be under- 
 ciood only extension in the three dimensions, as Reid in facl
 
 894 THE DOCTRINE OF PERCEPTION. 
 
 Beems to do, but not Stewart,) this is erroneous ; for an extension 
 is apprehended hi the apprehension of the reciprocal externality 
 of all sensations. Moreover, to allow even the statement aa 
 thus restricted to pass, it would be necessary to suppose, that 
 under Touch, it is meant to comprehend the consciousness of the 
 Locomotive energy and of the Muscular feelings. 
 
 1 6. [They hold that] Externality is exclusively perceived on 
 occasion of the sensations of Touch. 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, that it is, primarily, in the conscious- 
 ness of our locomotive energy being resisted, and, secondarily, 
 through the sensations of mv jcular feeling, that the perception 
 of Externality is realized. All this, however, might be con- 
 fusedly involved in the Touch of the philosophers in question. 
 
 17. [They hold that] real (or absolute) magnitude is an ob- 
 ject of perception (proper) through Touch, but through Touch 
 only. 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, that the magnitude perceived through 
 touch is as purely relative as that perceived through vision or 
 any other sense ; for the same magnitude does not appear the 
 eame to touch at one part of the body and to touch at another. 
 
 18. [They hold that] Color, though a Secondary quality, is 
 an object, not of Sensation (proper), but of Perception (proper) ; 
 in other words, we perceive Color, not as an affection of our 
 own minds, but as a quality of external things. 
 
 On the contrary, I hold, that Color, in itself, as apprehended 
 or immediately known by us, is a mere affection of the sentient 
 organism ; and therefore, like the other Secondary qualities, an 
 object not of Perception, but of Sensation, proper. The only 
 distinguishing peculiarity in this case lies in the three following 
 circumstances: a) That the organic affection of Color, though 
 not altogether indifferent, still, being accompanied by compara- 
 tively little pleasure, comparatively little pain, the apprehension 
 of this affection, gun affection, i. c. its Sensation proper, is, con- 
 eequently, always at a minimum. b) That the passion of Color 
 first rising into consciousness, not from the amount of the inten- 
 sive quantity of the affection, but front the amount of the exten- 
 sive quantity of the organism affected, s necessarily apprehended
 
 INTERNAL PERCEPTION: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 395 
 
 tir Jer the condition of extension. c) That the isolation, tenu- 
 ity, and delicacy of the ultimate filaments of the optic nerve 
 afford us sensations minutely and precisely distinguished, sensa- 
 tions realized in consciousness only as we are conscious of them 
 AS out of each other in space. These circumstances show, that 
 while, in vision, Perception proper is at its maximum, and Sen- 
 sation proper at its minimum, the sensation of Color cannot be 
 realized apart from the perception of extension : but they do 
 not warrant the assertions, that Color is not, like the other Sec- 
 ondary qualities, apprehended by us as a mere sensorial affection, 
 and, therefore, an object, not of Sensation proper, but of Percep- 
 tion proper.] Diss. supp. to Reid. 
 
 Sensation and Perception do not always coexist in the same 
 degree of intensity, but they are equally original ; and it is only 
 by an act not of the easiest abstraction, that we are able to dis- 
 criminate them scientifically from each other. So much for 
 the first of the two faculties by which we acquire knowledge, 
 the faculty of External Perception. 
 
 The faculty of Self-consciousness. The second of these fac- 
 ulties is Self-consciousness, which has likewise received, among 
 others, the name of Internal or Reflex Perception. This facul- 
 ty will not occupy us long, as the principal questions regarding 
 its nature and operation have been already considered, in treat- 
 ing of Consciousness in general. 
 
 I formerly showed that it is impossible to distinguish Percep- 
 tion, or the other Special Faculties, from Consciousness, in 
 other words, to reduce Consciousness itself to a special faculty ; 
 and that the attempt to do so by the Scottish philosophers is 
 self-contradictory. I stated, however, that though it be incom- 
 petent to establish a faculty for the immediate knowledge of the 
 external world, and a faculty for the immediate knowledge of 
 the internal, as two ultimate powers, exclusive of each other, 
 ar.o. not merely subordinate forms of a higher immediate knowl- 
 edge, under which they are comprehended or carried up into 
 one, I stated, I say, that though the immediate knowledges of 
 matter and of mind are still only modifications of Consciousness, 
 yet that their discrimination, as subaltern faculties, is both al-
 
 896 INTERNAL PERCEPTION: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 lowable and convenient. Accordingly, in the scheme which I 
 gave you of the distribution of Consciousness into its special 
 modes, I distinguished a faculty of External, and a faculty of 
 Internal, Apprehension, constituting together a more general 
 modification of Consciousness, which I called the Acquisitive, or 
 Presentative, or Receptive Faculty. 
 
 In regard to Self-consciousness, the faculty of Internal 
 Experience, philosophers have been far more harmonious 
 than in regard to External Perception. In fact, their differ- 
 ences touching this faculty originate rather in the ambiguities of 
 language, and the different meanings attached to the same form 
 of expression, than in any fundamental opposition of opinion in 
 regard to its reality and nature. It is admitted equally by all 
 to exist, and to exist as a source of knowledge ; and the supposed 
 differences of philosophers in this respect are, as I shall show 
 you, mere errors in the historical. statement of their opinions. 
 
 Self-consciousness contrasted with Perception. The sphere 
 and character of this faculty of acquisition will be best illus- 
 trated by contrasting it with the other. Perception is the power 
 by which we are made aware of the phenomena of the Exter- 
 nal world ; Self-consciousness, the power by which we apprehend 
 the phenomena of the Internal. The objects of the former are 
 all presented to us in Space and Time ; space and time are thus 
 the two conditions, the two fundamental forms, of External 
 Perception.* The objects of the latter are all apprehended by 
 
 * [Kant, first, made our actual world one merely of illusion. Time and 
 Space, under which we must perceive and think, he reduced to mere sub- 
 jective spectral forms, which have no real archetype in the nournenal or 
 real universe. We can infer nothing from this, [the actual, world,] to that, 
 [the noumenal or real universe. The law of] Cause and Effect governs 
 thing and thought in the world of Space and Time ; [this law docs] not 
 subsist where Time and Space have no reality. Kant, secondly, made 
 Reason, Intelligence, contradict itself in its legitimate exercise. Antinomy 
 [contradiction] is part and parcel of its nature. Thus, scepticism the 
 conviction that we live in a world of unreality and illusion, and that our 
 very faculty of knowledge is only given us to mislead, is the result of 
 [Kant's philosophy]. 
 
 On the contrary, my doctrine holds, first, that Space and Time, as given,
 
 INTERNAL PERCEPTION: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 397 
 
 us in Time and in Self; time and self are thus the two condi- 
 tions, the two fundamental forms, of Internal Perception 01 
 Self-consciousness. Time is thus a form or condition common to 
 both faculties ; while Space is a form peculiar to the one, Self a 
 form peculiar to the other. What I mean by tlieform or con- 
 dition of a faculty, is that frame, that setting (if I may so 
 speak), out of which no object can be known. Thus, we only 
 know, through Self-consciousness, the phaenomena of the Internal 
 world, as modifications of the indivisible Ego or conscious unit ; 
 
 are real forms of thought and conditions of things ; and, secondly, that In- 
 telligence, Reason, witliin its legitimate limits, is legitimate ; witlu'n this 
 sphere, it nevci deceives ; and it is only when transcending this sphere, 
 when founding on its illegitimate as on its legitimate exercise, that it affords 
 a contradictory result. 
 
 Kant holds the subjectivity of Space (and Time), and, if he does not 
 deny, will not affirm the existence of a real space, external to our minds ; 
 because it is a mere form of our perceptive faculty. He holds that we have 
 no knowledge of any external tiling as really existing, and that all our 
 perceptions are merely appearances, i. e. subjective representations, sub- 
 jective modifications, which the mind is determined to exhibit, as an ap- 
 parently objective opposition to itself, its pure and real subjective modi- 
 fications. Yet, while he gives up the external existence of space, as beyond 
 the sphere of consciousness, he holds the reality of external material ex- 
 istences (things in themselves), which are equally beyond the sphere of 
 consciousness. It was incumbent on him to render a reason for this seem- 
 ing inconsistency, and to explain how his system was not, in its legitimate 
 conclusions, an universal Idealism ; and he has accordingly attempted to 
 establish, by necessary inference, what his philosophy could not accept aa 
 an immediate fact of consciousness. 
 
 Kant endeavored to evince that pure Reason, that Intelligence, is natu- 
 rally, is necessarily, repugnant with itself, and that speculation ends in a 
 series of insoluble antilogies. In its highest potcncc, in its very essence, 
 thought is thus infected with contradiction ; and the worst and most pervad- 
 ing scepticism is the melancholy result. If I have done any thing meritori- 
 ous in philosophy, it is in the attempt to explain the phenomena of these 
 contradictions ; in showing that they arise only when intelligence transcends 
 the limits to whbh its legitimate exercise is restricted ; and that, within 
 these bounds (the Conditioned), natural thought is neither fallible nor men- 
 dacious " Neque dccipitur, nee dccipit unu|ii:iin." It t!iis view be cor- 
 rect, Kant's antinomies, with their consequent scepticism, are solved ; and 
 the human mind, however weak, is shown not to be the work of a treacher- 
 ous Creator.] Appendix. 
 84
 
 V..8 1NTKKNAL PEKCEPTION: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 we only know, through Perception, the phsenomena of the Exter. 
 na[ world, under Space, or as modifications of the extended and 
 divisible Non-ego or known plurality. That the forms are na- 
 tive, not adventitious, to the mind, is involved in their necessity. 
 What I cannot but think, must be a priori, or original to 
 thought ; it cannot be engendered by experience upon custom. 
 But this is not a subject the discussion of which concerns us at 
 present. 
 
 It may be asked, if self, or Ego, be the form of Self-conscious- 
 ness, why is the not-self, the Non-ego, not in like manner called 
 tne form of Perception ? To this I reply, that the not-self is 
 only a negation, and, though it discriminates the objects of the 
 external cognition from those of the internal, it does not afford 
 to the former any positive bond of union among themselves. 
 This, on the contrary, is supplied to them by the form of Space, 
 out of which they can neither be perceived, nor imagined by the 
 mind ; Space, therefore, as the positive condition under which 
 the Non-ego is necessarily known and imagined, and through 
 which it receives its unity in consciousness, is properly said to 
 afford the condition, or form, of External Perception. 
 
 The mind itself is not extended. But a more important 
 question may be started. If Space, if extension, be a neces- 
 sary form of thought, this, it may be argued, proves that the 
 mind itself is extended. The reasoning here proceeds upon the 
 assumption, that the qualities of the subject knowing must be 
 similar to the qualities of the object known. This, as I have 
 already stated, is a mere philosophical crotchet, an assumption 
 without a shadow even of probability in its favor. That the 
 mind has the power of perceiving extended objects, is no ground 
 for holding that it is itself extended. Still less ean it be main- 
 tained, that because it has ideally a native or necessary concep- 
 tion of space, it must reullv occupy space. Nothing can be 
 more absurd. On this doctrine, to exi.-t as extended is supposed 
 necessary in order to think extension. But if this analogy hold 
 good, the sphere of ideal spjtce, which the mind can imagine, 
 ought to be limited to the sphere, of real space which the mind 
 actually fills. This is not, however, the case ; for though the
 
 INTERNAL PERCET TION: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 399 
 
 mind be not absolutely unlimited in its power of conceiving 
 space, still the compass of thought may be viewed as infinite in 
 this respect, as contrasted with the petty point of extension, 
 which the advocates of the doctrine in question allow it to oc- 
 cupy in its corporeal domicil. 
 
 Two modes of treating the phenomena of Self-consciousness 
 The faculty of self-consciousness affords us a knowledge of 
 the phaenomena of our minds. It is the source of internal ex- 
 perience. You will, therefore, observe, that, like External Per- 
 ception, it only furnishes us with facts ; and that the use we 
 make of these facts, that is, what we find in them, what we 
 deduce from them, belongs to a different process of intelli- 
 gence. Self-consciousness affords the materials equally to all 
 systems of philosophy ; all equally admit it, and all elaborate 
 the materials which this faculty supplies, according to their 
 fashion. And here I may merely notice, by the way, what, in 
 treating of the Regulative Faculty, will fall to be regularly dis- 
 cussed, that these fact?, these materials, may be considered in 
 two ways. We may employ either Induction alone, or also 
 Analysis. If we merely consider the phenomena which Self-con- 
 sciousness reveals, in relation to each other, merely compare 
 them together, and generalize the qualities which they display 
 in common, and thus arrange them into classes or groups gov- 
 erned by the same laws, we perform the process of Induction. 
 By this process, we obtain what is general, but not what is neces- 
 sary. For example, having observed that external objects pre- 
 sented in perception are extended, we generalize the notion of 
 extension or space. We have thus explained the possibility of 
 a conception of space, but only of space as a general and contin- 
 gent notion ; for if we hold that this notion exists in the mind 
 only as the result of such a process, we must hold it to be a pos 
 teriori or adventitious, and, therefore, contingent. Such is the 
 process of Induction, or of Simple Observation. The other 
 process, that of Analysis or Criticism, does not rest satisfied 
 with this comparison and generalization, which it, however 
 supposes. It proposes, not merely to find what is general in the 
 phaenomena, but what is necessary and universal. It, accordingly,
 
 400 INTERNAL PERCEPTION. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 takes mental phaenomena, and, by abstraction, throws aside all 
 that it is able to detach, without annihilating the phaenomtna 
 altogether ; in short, it analyzes thought into its essential or 
 necessary, and its accidental or contingent, elements. 
 
 All necessity to us is subjective. Thus, from Observation and 
 Induction, we discover what experience affords as its general 
 result ; from Analysis and Criticism, we discover what experi- 
 ence supposes as its necessary condition. You will notice, that 
 the critical analysis of which I now speak, is limited to the 
 objects of our internal observation ; for in the phaenomena of 
 mind alone can we be conscious of absolute necessity. All ne- 
 cessity is, in fact, to us subjective ; for a thing is conceived 
 impossible, only as we are unable to construe it in thought 
 Whatever does not violate the laws of thought is, therefore, not 
 to us impossible, however firmly we may believe that it will not 
 occur. For example, we hold it absolutely impossible, that a 
 thing can begin to be without a cause. Why? Simply because 
 the mind cannot realize to itself the conception of absolute com- 
 mencement. That a stone should ascend into the air, we firmly 
 believe will never happen ; but we find no difficulty in conceiv- 
 ing it possible. Why ? Merely because gravitation is only a 
 fact generalized by induction and observation ; and its negation, 
 therefore, violates no law of thought. When we talk, therefore, 
 of the necessity of any external phenomenon, the expression is 
 improper, if the necessity be only an inference of induction, and 
 not involved in any canon of intelligence. For Induction proves 
 to us only what is, not what must be, the actual, not the nec- 
 essary. 
 
 Use of the Inductive and Critical Methods in philosophy. 
 The two processes of Induction or Observation, and of Analysis 
 or Criticism, have been variously employed by different philos- 
 ophers. Locke, for instance, limited himself to the former, 
 overlooking altogether the latter. He, accordingly, discovered 
 nothing necessary, or a priori, in the phaenomena of our inter- 
 nal experience. To him, all axioms are only generalizations of 
 experience. In this respect, he was greatly excelled by Descar- 
 tes and Leibnitz. The latter, indeed, was the philosopher who
 
 INTERNAL PERCEPTION: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 401 
 
 dearly enunciated the principle, that the phenomenon of neces- 
 jity, in our cognitions, could not be explained on the ground of 
 experience. u All die examples," he says, " which confirm a gen- 
 eral truth, how numerous soever, would not suffice to establish the 
 universal necessity of this same truth ; for it does not follow, that 
 what has hitherto occurred will always occur in future." "If 
 Locke," he adds, " had sufficiently considered the difference be- 
 tween truths which are necessary or demonstrative, and those 
 which we infer from induction alone, he would have perceived 
 that necessary truths could only be proved from principles which 
 command our assent by their intuitive evidence ; inasmuch as 
 our senses can inform us only of what is, not of what must 
 necessarily be." Leibnitz, however, was not himself fully 
 aware of the import of the principle ; at least, he failed in 
 carrying it out to its most important applications ; and though 
 he triumphantly demonstrated, in opposition to Locke, the a 
 priori character of many of those cognitions which Locke had 
 derived from experience, yet he left to Kant the honor of having 
 been the first who fully applied the Critical analysis in the phi 
 losophy of mind. 
 
 Has Locke been misrepresented by his French disciples? 
 The faculty of Self-consciousness corresponds with the Reflec- 
 tion of Locke. Now, there is an interesting question concern- 
 ing this faculty ; whether the philosophy of Locke has been 
 misapprehended and misrepresented by Condillac, and other of 
 his French disciples, as Mr. Stewart maintains ; or, whether 
 Mr. Stewart has not himself attempted to vindicate the tendency 
 of Locke's philosophy on grounds which will not bear out his 
 conclusions. Mr. Stewart has canvassed this point at consider- 
 able length, [and by him] the point at issue is thus briefly 
 stated : " the objections to which Locke's doctrine concerning 
 the origin of our ideas, or, in other words, concerning the 
 sources of our knowledge, are, in my judgment, liable, I have 
 stated so fully in a former work, that I shall not touch on them 
 here. It is quite sufficient, on the present occasion, to remark, 
 how very unjustly this doctrine (imperfect, on the most favor- 
 able coi struction, as it undoubtedly is) has been confounded 
 84*
 
 4<>L> INTERNAL PERCEPTION: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 with those of Gassendi, of Condillac, of Diderot, and of Heine 
 Tooke. The substance of all that is common in the conclusions 
 of these last writers, cannot be better expressed than in the 
 words of their master, Gassendi. ' All our knowledge,' he ob- 
 serves in a letter to Descartes, ' appears plainly to derive its 
 origin from the senses ; and although you deny the maxim, 
 u Quicquid est intellectu praeesse debere in sensu," [Whatever 
 is in the intellect must have previously been in the faculty of 
 sense,] yet this maxim appears, nevertheless, to be true ; since 
 our knowledge is all ultimately obtained by an influx or incur- 
 sion from things external ; which knowledge afterwards under- 
 goes various modifications, by means of analogy, composition, 
 division, amplification, extenuation, and other similar processes, 
 which it is unnecessary to enumerate.' This doctrine of Gassen- 
 di's coincides exactly with that ascribed to Locke by Diderot and 
 by Home Tooke ; and it differs only verbally from the more 
 concise statement of Condillac, that ' our ideas are nothing more 
 than transformed sensations.' ' Every idea,' says the first of 
 these writers, ' must necessarily, when brought to its state of 
 ultimate decomposition, resolve itself into a sensible representa- 
 tion or picture ; and since every thing in our understanding has 
 been introduced there by the channel of sensation, whatever 
 proceeds out of the understanding is either chimerical, or must 
 be able, in returning by the same road, to reattach itself to it3 
 sensible archetype. Hence an important rule in philosophy, 
 that every expression which cannot find an external and a sen- 
 sible object, to which it can thus establish its affinity, is destitute 
 of signification.' Such is the exposition given by Diderot, of 
 what is regarded in France as Locke's great and capital discov- 
 ery ; and precisely to the same purpose we are told by Condor- 
 cet, that ' Locke was the first who proved that all our ideas are 
 compounded of sensations.' If this were to be admitted as a 
 fair account of Locke's opinion, it would follow that he has not 
 advanced a single step beyond Gassendi and Ilobbes ; both of 
 whom have repeatedly expressed themselves in nearly the same 
 words with Diderot and Condorcct. But although it must be 
 granted, in favor of their interpretation of his language, thai
 
 INTERNAL PERCEPTION: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 403 
 
 various detached passages may be quoted from his work, which 
 eeem, on a superficial view, to justify their comments ; yet of 
 what weight, it may be asked, are these passages, when com- 
 pared with the stress laid by the author on Reflection, as an 
 original source of our ideas, altogether different from Sensation ? 
 'The other fountain,' says Locke, 'from which experience fur 
 nisheth the understanding with ideas, is the perception of the 
 operations of our own minds within us, as it is employed about 
 the ideas it has got ; which operations, when the soul comes to 
 reflect on and consider, do furnish the understanding with an- 
 other set of ideas, which could not be had from things without ; 
 and such are Perception, Thinking, Doubting, Believing, Rea- 
 soning, Knowing, Willing, and all the different actings of our 
 own minds, which, we being conscious of, and observing in our- 
 selves, do from these receive into our understandings ideas as 
 distinct as we do from bodies affecting our senses. This source 
 of ideas every man has wholly in himself; and though it be not 
 sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is 
 very like it, and might properly enough be called Internal Sense. 
 But as I call the other Sensation, so I call this Reflection ; the 
 ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on 
 its own operations within itself.' Again, ' The understanding 
 seems to me not to have the least glimmering of any ideas 
 which it does not receive from one of these two. External 
 objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities ; 
 and the mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own 
 operations.' " 
 
 Stewart's vindication unsatisfactory. On these observations 
 I must remark, that they do not at all satisfy me ; and I cannot 
 but regard Locke and Gassendi as exactly upon a par, and both 
 as deriving all our knowledge from experience.* The French 
 philosophers are, therefore, in my opinion, fully justified in their 
 interpretation of Locke's philosophy; and Condillac mjst, I 
 think, be viewed as having simplified the doctrine of his master, 
 without doing the smallest violence to its spirit. In the first place, 
 
 * [True ; hut from experience by way both of sensation and reflection ; and 
 not from experience by way of sensation alone.] Am. Ed.
 
 404 INTERNAL PERCEPTION: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 I cannot concur with Mr. Stewart in allowing any weight to 
 Locke's distinction of Reflection, or Self-consciousness, as a 
 second source of our knowledge. Such a source of experience 
 no sensualist ever denied, because no sensualist ever denied that 
 sense was cognizant of itself. It makes no difference that Locke 
 distinguished Reflection from Sense, " as having nothing to do 
 with external objects," admitting, however, that " they are very 
 like," and that Reflection "might properly enough be called In- 
 ternal Sense," while Condillac makes it only a modification of 
 sense. It is a matter of no importance that we do not call 
 Self-consciousness by the name of Sense, if we allow that it is 
 only conversant about the contingent. Now, no interpretation 
 of Locke can ever pretend to find in his Reflection a revelation 
 to him of aught native or necessary to the mind, beyond the 
 capability to act and puffer in certain manners, a capability 
 which no philosophy ever dreamt of denying. And if this be 
 the case, it follows, that the formal reduction, by Condillac, of 
 Reflection to Sensation, is only a consequent following out of 
 the principles of the doctrine itself. 
 
 The philosophy of Gassendi. Of how little import is the 
 distinction of Reflection from Sensation, in the philosophy of 
 Locke, is equally shown in the philosophy of Gassendi ; in regard 
 to which I must correct a fundamental error of Mr. Stewart. I 
 had formerly occasion to point out to you the unaccountable 
 mistake of this very learned philosopher, in relation to Locke's 
 use of the term Reflection, which, both in his Essays and his 
 Dissertation, he states was a word first employed by Locke in 
 its psychological signification. Nothing, I stated, could be more 
 incorrect. AVhen adopted by Locke, it was a word of universal 
 currency, in a similar sense, in every contemporary sv.-tem of 
 philosophy, and had been so employed for at lea-t a thousand 
 years previously. This being understood, Mr. Stewart's mistake 
 in regard to Gassendi is less surprising. " The word Reflection" 
 says Mr. Stewart, "expresses the peculiar and characteristical 
 doctrine, by which Locke's system is distinguished from that of 
 the Gassendists and Ilobbists. All this, however, serves only to 
 prove still more clearly, how widely remote his real opinion on
 
 INTERNAL PERCEPTION: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 405 
 
 this subject was from that commonly ascribed to him by the 
 French and German commentators. For my own part, I do 
 not think, notwithstanding some casual expressions which may 
 seem to favor the contrary supposition, that Locke would have 
 hesitated for a moment to admit, with Cudworth and Price, that 
 the Understanding is itself a source of new ideas. That it is 
 by Reflection, (which, according to its own definition, moans 
 merely the exercise of the Understanding on the internal phe- 
 nomena,) that we get our ideas of Memory, Imagination, 
 Reasoning, and of all other intellectual powers, Mr. Locke has 
 again and again told us ; and from this principle it is so obvious 
 an inference, that all the simple ideas, which are necessarily 
 implied in our intellectual operations, are ultimately to be 
 referred to the same source, that we cannot reasonably suppose 
 a philosopher of Locke's sagacity to admit the former propo- 
 sition, ;ind to withhold his assent to the latter." 
 
 The inference which, in the latter part of this quotation, Mr 
 Stewart speaks of, is not so obvious as he supposes, seeing that 
 it was not till Leibnitz that the character of necessity was 
 enounced, and clearly enounced, as the criterion by which to 
 discriminate the native from the adventitious cognitions of the 
 mind. This is, indeed, shown by the example of Gassendi 
 himself, who is justly represented by Mr. Stewart as a Sen- 
 sationalist of the purest water ; but wholly misrepresented by 
 him, as distinguished from Locke by his negation of any faculty 
 corresponding to Locke's Reflection. So fur is this from being 
 correct, Gassendi not only allowed a faculty of Self-conscious- 
 ness analogous to the Reflection of Locke, he actually held such 
 a faculty, and even attributed to it far higher functions than did 
 the English philosopher ; nay, what is more, held it under the 
 very name of Reflection. In fact, from the French philosopher 
 Locke borrowed this, as he did the principal part of his whole 
 philosophy; and it is saying but little either for the patriotism 
 or intelligence of their countrymen, that the works of Gassendi 
 and Descartes should have been so long eclipsed in France by 
 those of Locke, who was in truth only a follower of the one, 
 and a mistaken refuter of the other. In respect to Gassendi.
 
 406 INTERNAL PERCEPTION: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 there are reasons that exnlain this neglect apart from any wanl 
 of merit in himself; for ne is a thinker fully equal to Locke in 
 independence and vigor of intellect, and, with the exception of 
 Leibnitz, he is, of all the great philosophers of modern times, 
 the most varied and profound in learning. 
 
 GassendCs division of the phenomena of mind. Now, in 
 regard to the point at issue, so far is Gassendi from assimilating 
 Reflection to Sense, as Locke virtually, if not expressly, does, 
 and for which assimilation he has been principally lauded by 
 those of his followers who analyzed every mental process into 
 Sensation, so far, I say, is Gassendi from doing this, that he 
 places Sense and Reflection at the opposite mental poles, making 
 the former a mental function wholly dependent upon the bodily 
 organism ; the latter, an energy of intellect wholly inorganic and 
 abstract from matter. The cognitive phenomena of mind Gas- 
 sendi reduces to three general classes of faculties: 1. Sense, 
 2. Phantasy (or Imagination), and 3. Intellect. The two 
 former are, however, virtually one, inasmuch as Phantasy, on 
 his doctrine, is only cognizant about the forms which it receives 
 from Sense, and is, equally with Sense, dependent on a corporeal 
 organ. Intellect, on the contrary, he holds, is not so dependent, 
 and that its functions are, therefore, of a kind superior to those 
 of an organic faculty. These functions or faculties of Intellect 
 he reduces to three. " The first," he says, " is Intellectual 
 Apprehension, that is, the apprehension of things which are 
 beyond the reach of Sense, and which, consequently, leaving no 
 trace in the brain, are also beyond the ken of Imagination. 
 Such, especially, is spiritual or incorporeal nature, as, for 
 example, the Deity. For although in speaking of God, we say 
 that He is incorporeal, yet in attempting to reali/e Him to 
 Phantasy, we only imagine something with the attributes of 
 body. It must not, however, be supposed that this is all ; for 
 besides and above the corporeal form which we thus imagine, 
 there is, at the same time, another conception, which that form 
 contributes, as it were, to veil and obscure. This conception is 
 not confined to the narrow limits of Phantasy; it is proper to 
 Intellect ; and, therefore, such an apprehension ought not to be
 
 INTERNAL PERCEPTION: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 407 
 
 called an imagination, but an intelligence or intellection." In his 
 doctrine of Intellect, Gassendi takes, indeed, far higher ground 
 than Locke ; and it is a total reversal of his doctrine, when it is 
 stated, that he allowed to the mind no different, no higher, appre- 
 hensions than the derivative images of Sense. He says, indeed, 
 and he says truly, that if we attempt to figure out the Deity in 
 imagination, we cannot depict Him in that faculty, except under 
 sensible forms as, for example, under the form of a venerable 
 old man. But does he not condemn this attempt as derogatory? 
 and does he not allow us an intellectual conception of the 
 Divinity, uperior to the grovelling conditions of Phantasy? 
 The Cartesians, however, were too well disposed to overlook 
 the limits under which Gassendi had advanced his doctrine, 
 that the senses are the source of all our knowledge ; and Mi 1 . 
 Stewart has adopted, from the Port Royal Logic, a statement 
 of Gassendi's opinion, which is, to say the least of it, partial and 
 incomplete. 
 
 The second function which Gassendi assigns to Intellect is 
 Reflection, and the third is Reasoning. It is with the former of 
 these that we are at present concerned. Mr. Stewart, you have 
 seen, distinguishes the philosophy of Locke from that of his 
 predecessor in this, that the former introduced Reflection or 
 Self-consciousness as a source of knowledge, which was over- 
 looked or disallowed by the latter. Mr. Stewart is thus wrong 
 in the fact of Gassendi's rejection of any source of knowledge 
 of the name and nature of Locke's Reflection. So far is this 
 from being the case, that Gassendi attributes far more to this 
 faculty than Locke ; for he not only makes it an original source 
 of knowledge, but founds upon the nature of its action a proof 
 of the immateriality of mind. " To the second operation," he 
 says, "belongs the Attention or Reflection of the intellect upon 
 its proper acts, an operation by which it understands that it 
 understands, and thinks that it thinks (qua se intelligere intelligit, 
 cogitatve se cogitare). " We have formerly," he adds, "shown 
 that it is above the power of Phantasy to imagine that it imag- 
 ines, because, being of a corporeal nature, it cannot act upon 
 itself; in fact, it is as absurd to ?ay that 1 imagine myself to
 
 408 INTERNAL PERCEPTION: SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 imagine, as that I see myself to see." He then goes on to show, 
 that the knowledge we obtain of all our mental operations and 
 affections is by this reflection of Intellect ; that it is necessarily 
 of an inorganic or purely spiritual character ; that it is peculiar 
 to man, and distinguishes him from the brutes ; and that it aids 
 as in the recognition of disembodied substances, in the confession 
 of a God, and in according to Him the veneration which we 
 owe Him. 
 
 From what I have now said, you will see, that the mere 
 admission of a faculty of Self-consciousness, as a source of 
 knowledge, is of no import in determining the rational, the 
 anti-sensual, character of a philosophy ; and that even thosf 
 philosophers who discriminated it the most strongly from Sense 
 might still maintain that experience is not only the occasion, but 
 the source, of all our knowledge. Such philosophers were Gas- 
 i and Locke.
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY. MEMORY PROPER. 
 
 THROUGH the powers of External and Internal Perception 
 we are enabled to acquire information, experience : but this 
 acquisition is not of itself independent and complete ; it sup- 
 poses that we are also able to retain knowledge acquired, for 
 we cannot be said to get what we are unable to keep. The 
 faculty of Acquisition is, therefore, only realized through an- 
 other faculty, the faculty of Retention or Conservation. Here 
 we have another example of what I have already frequently 
 had occasion to suggest to your observation ; we have two 
 faculties, two elementary phenomena, evidently distinct, and 
 yet each depending on the other for its realization. Without a 
 power of Acquisition, a power of Conservation could not be ex- 
 erted ; and without the latter, the former would be frustrated, 
 for we should lose as fast as we acquired. But as the faculty of 
 Acquisition would be useless without the faculty of Retention, so 
 the faculty of Retention would be useless without the faculties 
 of Reproduction and Representation. That the mind retained, 
 beyond the sphere of consciousness, a treasury of knowledge, 
 would be of no avail, did it not possess the power of bringing 
 out, and of displaying, in other words, of reproducing, and rep- 
 resenting, this knowledge in consciousness. But because the 
 faculty of Conservation would be fruitless without the ulterior 
 faculties of Reproduction and Representation, we are not to 
 confound these faculties, or to view the net of mind, which is 
 their joint result, as a simple and elementary phenomenon. 
 Though mutually dependent on each other, the faculties of 
 Conservation, Reproduction, and Representation are governed 
 85 (400)
 
 410 THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 by different laws, and, in different individuals, are found greatly 
 varying in their comparative vigor. 
 
 Use of the terms Memory and Recollection. The intimate 
 connection of these three faculties, or elementary activities, is 
 the cause, however, why they have not been distinguished in the 
 analysis of philosophers ; and why their distinction is not pre- 
 cisely marked in ordinary language. In ordinary language, we 
 have, indeed, words which, without excluding the other faculties, 
 denote one of these more emphatically. Thus, in the term Mem- 
 ory, the Conservative Faculty, the phenomenon of Retention, 
 is the central notion, with which, however, those of Reproduc- 
 tion and Representation are associated. In the term Recollec- 
 tion, again, the phenomenon of Reproduction is the principal 
 notion, accompanied, however, by those of Retention and Rep- 
 resentation as its subordinates. This being the case, it is evi- 
 dent what must be our course in regard to the employment of 
 common language. We must either abandon it altogether, or 
 take the term that more proximately expresses our analysis, and, 
 by definition, limit and specify its signification. Thus, in the 
 Conservative Faculty, we mav either content ourselves with the 
 scientific terms of Conservation and Retention alone, or we may 
 moreover use as a synonym the vulgar term Memory, determin- 
 ing its application, in our mouths, by a preliminary definition. 
 And that the word Memory principally and properly denotes the 
 power the mind possesses of retaining hold of the knowledge it 
 has acquired, is generally admitted by philologists, and is not de- 
 nied by philosophers. Of the latter, some have expressly avowed 
 this. Of these, I shall quote to you only two or three, which 
 happen to occur the first to my recollection. Plato considers 
 Memory simply as the faculty of Conservation. Aristotle dis- 
 tinguishes Memory (/rr/ju;), as the faculty of Conservation, fi im 
 Reminiscence (uvufivtjOis), the faculty of Reproduction. St. 
 Augustin, who is not only the ino-t illustrious of the Christian 
 fathers, but one of the profoundest thinkers of antiquity, finely 
 contrasts Memory with Recollection or Reminiscence, in one of 
 the most eloquent and philosophical chapters of his Conj'js- 
 tio/is. Joseph Scaliger, also, speaking of himself, is made, to
 
 THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY. 41) 
 
 say : " I have not a good memory, but a good reminiscence ; 
 proper names do not easily recur to me, but when I think on 
 them, I find them out." It is sufficient for our purpose that the 
 distinction is here taken between the Retentive Power, Mem- 
 ory, and the Reproductive Power, Reminiscence. Scaligei's 
 memory could hardly be called bad, though his reminiscence 
 might be better; and these elements in conjunction go to con- 
 stitute a good memory, in the comprehensive sense of the ex- 
 pression. I say the retentive faculty of that man is surely not 
 to be despised, who was able to commit to memory Homer in 
 twenty-one days, and the whole Greek poets in three months, 
 and who, taking him all in all, was the most learned man the 
 world has ever seen. I might adduce many other authorities to 
 the same effect ; but this, I think, is sufficient to warrant me in 
 using the term Memory exclusively to denote the faculty pos- 
 sessed by the mind of preserving what has once been present 
 to consciousness, so that it may again be recalled and represented 
 in consciousness. So much for the verbal consideration. 
 
 What is Memory 1 ? By Memory or Retention, you will see, 
 is only meant the condition of Reproduction ; and it is, there- 
 fore, evident that it is only by an extension of the term that it 
 can be called a faculty, that is, an active power. It is more a 
 passive resistance than an energy, and ought, therefore, perhaps 
 to receive rather the appellation of a capacity. But the nature 
 of this capacity or faculty we must now proceed to consider. 
 
 In the first place, then, I presume that the fact of retention 
 is admitted. We are conscious of certain cognitions as acquired, 
 and we are conscious of these cognitions as resuscitated. That, 
 in the interval, when out of consciousness, these cognitions do 
 continue to subsist in the mind, is certainly an hypothesis, be- 
 cause whatever is out of consciousness can only be assumed ; but 
 it is an hypothesis which we are not only warranted, but neces- 
 sitated, by the phenomena, to establish. I recollect, indeed, 
 that one philosopher has proposed another hypothesis. Avicen- 
 na, the celebrated Arabian philosopher and physician, denies to 
 the human mind the conservation of its acquired knowledge; 
 and he explains the process of recollection by an irradiation of
 
 412 THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 divine light, through which the recovered cognition is infused 
 into the intellect. Assuming, however, that the knowledge we 
 have acquired is retained in and by the human mind, we must, 
 of course, attribute to the mind a power of thus retaining it. 
 The fact of memory is thus established. 
 
 Retention admits of explanation. But if it cannot be denied 
 thai the knowledge we have acquired by Perception and Self- 
 consciousness does actually continue, though out of conscious- 
 ness, to endure ; can we, in the second place, find any ground 
 on which to explain the possibility of this endurance ? I think 
 we can, and shall adduce such an explanation, founded on the 
 general analogies of our mental nature. Before, however, com- 
 mencing this, I may notice some of the similitudes which have 
 been suggested by philosopher?, as illustrative of this faculty. It 
 has been compared to a storehouse, Cicero calls it " thesaurus 
 omnium rerum,'" provided with cells or pigeon-holes, in which 
 its furniture is laid up and arranged. It has been likened to a 
 tablet, on which characters were written or impressed. But of all 
 these sensible resemblances, none is so ingenious as that of Gas- 
 sendi, to the folds in a piece of paper or cloth ; though I do not 
 recollect to have seen it ever noticed. A sheet of paper, or 
 cloth, is capable of receiving innumerable folds, and the folds in 
 which it has been oftenest laid, it takes afterwards of itself. 
 
 All these resemblances, if intended as more than metaphors, 
 are unphilosophical. We do not even obtain any insight into 
 the nature of Memory from any of the physiological hypotheses 
 which have been stated ; indeed, all of them are too contempti- 
 ble even for serious criticism. " The mind," [says Schmid,] 
 "affords us, however, in itself, the very explanation which wo 
 vainly seek in any collateral influences. The phenomenon of 
 retention is, indeed, so natural, on the ground of the self-energy 
 of mind, that we have no need to suppose any special faculty 
 for memory; the conservation of the action of the mind being 
 involved in the very conception of its power of self-activity. 
 
 Ttie real difficulty of the problem. " Let us consider how 
 knowledge is acquired by the mind. Knowledge is not acquired 
 by a mere passive affection, but through the exertion of sponta-
 
 THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY. 413 
 
 neous activity on the part of the knowing subject ; for though 
 this activity be not exerted without some external excitation, 
 still this excitation is only the occasion on which the mind de- 
 velops its self-energy. But this energy being once determined, 
 it is natural that it should persist, until again annihilated by 
 other causes. This would, in fact, be the case, were the mind 
 merely passive in the impression it receives ; for it is a univer- 
 sal law of nature, that every effect endures as long as it is not 
 modified or opposed by any other effect. But the mental activ- 
 ity, the act of knowledge, of which I now speak, is more than 
 this ; it is an energy of the self-active power of a subject one and 
 indivisible : consequently, a part of the Ego must be detached 
 or annihilated, if a cognition once existent be again extinguished. 
 Hence it is, that the problem most difficult of solution is not, 
 how a mental activity endures, but how it ever vanishes. For as 
 we must here maintain, not merely the possible continuance of 
 certain energies, but the impossibility of the non-continuance of 
 any one, we, consequently, stand in apparent contradiction to 
 what experience shows us ; showing us, as it does, our internal 
 activities in a ceaseless vicissitude of manifestation and disap- 
 pearance. This apparent contradiction, therefore, demands 
 solution. If it be impossible that an energy of mind which has 
 once been should be abolished, without a laceration of the vital 
 unity of the mind as a subject one and indivisible ; on this 
 supposition, the question arises, How can the facts of our self- 
 consciousness be brought to harmonize with this statement, see- 
 ing that consciousness proves to us, that cognitions once clear 
 and vivid are forgotten ; that feelings, wishes, desires, in a word, 
 every act or modification, of which we are at one time aware, 
 are at another vanished ; and that our internal existence seems 
 daily to assume a new and different aspect. 
 
 The distribution of the, mental force explains forget fulness. ' 
 "The solution of this problem is to be sought for in the theory 
 of obscure or latent modifications, [that is, mental activities, real, 
 but beyond the sphere of consciousness, which I formerly ex- 
 plained.] Tlie disappearance of internal energies from the 
 view of internal perception does not warrant the conclusion, 
 45"
 
 414 THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 that they no longer exist ; for we are not always conscious of 
 all the mental energies whose existence cannot be disallowed 
 Only the more vivid changes sufficiently affect our consciousness 
 to become objects of its apprehension : we, consequently, are 
 only conscious of the more prominent series of changes in our 
 internal state ; the others remain for the most part latent. Thus 
 we take note of our memory only in its influence on our con- 
 sciousness ; and, in general, do not consider that the immense 
 proportion of our intellectual possessions consists of our delites- 
 cent cognitions. All the cognitions which we possess, or have 
 possessed, still remain to us, the whole complement of all our 
 knowledge still lies in our memory ; but as new acquisitions are 
 continually pressing in upon the old, and continually taking 
 place along with them among the modifications of the Ego, the 
 old cognitions, unless from time to time refreshed and brought 
 forward, are driven back, and become gradually fainter and 
 more obscure. This obscuration is not, however, to be conceived 
 as an obliteration, or as a total annihilation. The obscuration, 
 the delitescence of mental activities, is explained by the weak- 
 ening of the degree in which they affect our self-consciousness 
 or internal sense. An activity becomes obscure, because it is 
 no longer able adequately to affect this. To explain, therefore, 
 the disappearance of our mental activities, it is only requisite to 
 explain their weakening or enfeeblcment, which may be at- 
 tempted in the following way: Every mental activity belongs 
 to the one vital activity of mind in general ; it is, therefore, 
 indivisibly bound up with it, and can neither be torn from, nor 
 abolished in, it. But the mind is only capable, at any one mo- 
 ment, of exerting a certain quantity or degree of force. This 
 quantity must, therefore, be divided among the different activi- 
 ties, S3 that each has only a part; and the sum of force belong- 
 ing to all the several activities taken together, is equal to the 
 quantity or degree of force belonging to the vital activity of 
 mind in general. Thus, in proportion to the greater number of 
 activities in the mind, the less will be the proportion of force 
 which will accrue to each ; the feebler, therefore, each will be, 
 and the fainter the vivacity with which it can affect self-con-
 
 THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY. 415 
 
 aciousncss. This weakening of vivacity can, in consequence of 
 the indefinite increase in the number of our mental activities, 
 caused by the ceaseless excitation of the mind to new knowl- 
 edge, be carried to an indefinite tenuity, without the activities, 
 therefore, ceasing altogether to be. Thus it is quite natural, that 
 the great proportion of our mental cognitions should have waxed 
 too feeble to affect our internal perception with the competent 
 intensity ; it is quite natural that they should have become ob- 
 scure or delitescent. In these circumstances, it is to be supposed, 
 that every new cognition, every newly-excited activity, should 
 be in the greatest vivacity, and should draw to itself the great- 
 est amount of force : this force will, in the same proportion, be 
 withdrawn from the other earlier cognitions ; and it is they, con- 
 sequently, which must undergo the fate of obscuration. Thus 
 is explained the phenomenon of Forgctfulness or Oblivion. 
 And here, by the way, it should perhaps be noticed, that forget- 
 fulness is not to be limited merely to our cognitions : it applies 
 equally to the feelings and desires. 
 
 " The same principle illustrates, and is illustrated by, the 
 phenomenon of Distraction and Attention, If a great number 
 of activities are equally excited at once, the disposable amount 
 of mental force is equally distributed among this multitude, so 
 that each activity only attains a low degree of vivacity ; the 
 state of mind which results from this is Distraction. Attention 
 is the state the converse of this ; that is, the state in which the 
 vital activity of mind is, voluntarily or involuntarily, concen- 
 trated, say, in a single activity ; in consequence of which con- 
 centration, this activity waxes stronger, and, therefore, clearer. 
 On this theory, the proposition with which I started, that all 
 mental activities, all acts of knowledge, which have been once 
 excited, persist, becomes intelligible; \ve never wholly lose 
 them, but they become obscure. This obscuration can be con- 
 ceived in every infinite degree, between incipient latescence and 
 iro^overr.ble latency. The obscure cognition may exist simply 
 out of consciousness, so that it can be recalled by a common act 
 of reminiscence. Again, it may be impossible to recover it by 
 an act of voluntary recollection ; but some association may ro-
 
 416 THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 vivify it, enough to make it flash after a long oblivion into con- 
 sciousness. Further, it may be obscured so far that it can only 
 be resuscitated by some morbid affection of the system ; or, 
 finally, it may be absolutely lost for us in this life, and destined 
 only for our reminiscence in the life to come. 
 
 Conservation of all the mental phenomena. " That this 
 doctrine admits of an immediate application to the faculty of 
 Retention, or Memory Proper, has been already signified. And 
 in further explanation of this faculty, I would annex two obser- 
 vations, which arise out of the preceding theory. The first is, 
 that retention, that memory, does not belong alone to the cogni- 
 tive faculties, but that the same law extends, in like manner, 
 over all the three primary classes of the mental phenomena. 
 It is not ideas, notions, cognitions only, but feelings and cona- 
 tions, which are held fast, and which can, therefore, be again 
 awakened. This fact, of the conservation of our practical mod- 
 ifications, is not indeed denied ; but psychologists usually so 
 represent the matter, as if, when feelings or conations are re- 
 tained in the mind, that this takes place only through the medium 
 of the memory ; meaning by this, that we must, first of all, have 
 had notions of these affections, which notions being preserved, 
 they, when recalled to mind, do again awaken the modification 
 they represent From the theory I have detailed to you, it must 
 be seen, that there is no need of this intermediation of notions, 
 but that we immediately retain feelings, volitions, and desires, 
 no less than notions and cognitions ; inasmuch as all the three 
 classes of fundamental phaenomena arise equally out of the VI.A\ 
 manifestations of the same one and indivisible subject. 
 
 Memory dependent on corporeal conditions. " The second 
 result of this theory is, that the various attempts to explain 
 memory by physiological hypotheses are as unnecessary as they 
 are untenable. This is not the place to discuss the general 
 problem touching the relation of mind and body. But in prox- 
 imate reference to memory, it may be satisfactory to show, that 
 this faculty does not stand in need of such crude modes of 
 explanation. It must be allowed, that no faculty affords a more 
 tempting subject for materialistic conjecture. No other menial
 
 THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY. 417 
 
 power betrays a greater dependence on corporeal conditions 
 than memory. Not only, in general, does its vigorous or feeble 
 activity essentially depend on the health and indisposition of the 
 body, more especially of the nervous systems ; but there i3 
 manifested a connection between certain functions of memory 
 and certain parts of the cerebral apparatus." This connection, 
 however, is such as affords no countenance to any particular 
 hypotheses at present in vogue. For example, after certain 
 diseases, or certain affections of the brain, some partial loss of 
 memory takes place. Perhaps the patient loses the whole of 
 his stock of knowledge previous to the disease, the faculty of 
 acquiring and retaining new information remaining entire. 
 Perhaps he loses the memory of words, and preserves that of 
 things. Perhaps he may retain the memory of nouns, and lose 
 that of verbs, or vice versa ; nay, what is still more marvellous, 
 though it is not a very unfrequent occurrence, one language 
 may be taken neatly out of his retention, without affecting his 
 memory of others. " By such observations, the older psycholo- 
 gists were led to the various physiological hypotheses by which 
 they hoped to account for the phenomena of retention, as, 
 for example, the hypothesis of permanent material impressions 
 on the brain, or of permanent dispositions in the nervous fibres 
 to repeat the same oscillatory movements, of particular organs 
 for the different functions of memory, of particular parts of 
 the brain as the repositories of the various classes of ideas, or 
 even of a particular fibre, as the instrument of every several 
 notion. But all these hypotheses betray only an ignorance of 
 the proper object of philosophy, and of the true nature of th 
 thinking principle. They are at best but useless ; for if the 
 unity and self-activity of mind be not denied, it is manifest, that 
 the mental activities, which have been once determined, must 
 persist, and these corporeal explanations are superfluous. Nor 
 can it be argued, that the limitations to which the Retentive, or 
 rather the Reproductive, Faculty is subjected in its energies, in 
 consequence of its bodily relations, prove the absolute depend- 
 ence of memory on organixation, and legitimate the explanation 
 of this faculty by corporeal agencies ; for the incompeteicy of
 
 418 THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 this inference can be shown from the contradiction in which it 
 stands to the geno.ral laws of mind, which, howbeit conditioned 
 by bodily relations, still ever preserves its self-activity and inde- 
 pendence." 
 
 Two qualities requisite to a good memory, There is perhaps 
 no mental power in which such extreme differences appear, in 
 different individuals, as in memory. To a good memory there 
 are certainly two qualities requisite, 1, The capacity of Re- 
 tention, and 2, The faculty of Reproduction. But the former 
 quality appears to be that by which these marvellous contrasts 
 are principally determined. I should only fatigue you, were I 
 to enumerate the prodigious feats of retention, which are proved 
 to have been actually performed. Of these, I shall only select 
 the one which, upon the whole, appears to me the most extra- 
 ordinary. 
 
 The sum of the statement is, that at Padua there dwelt, 
 [near Muretus,] a young man, a Corsican by birth, and of a 
 good family in that island, who had come thither for the culti- 
 vation of Civil law, in which he was a diligent and distinguished 
 Btudent. He was a frequent visitor at the house and gardens 
 of Muretus, who, having heard that he possessed a remarkable 
 art, or faculty of memory, took occasion, though incredulous in 
 regard to reports, of requesting from him a specimen of his 
 power. He at once agreed ; and having adjourned with a 
 considerable party of distinguished auditors into a saloon, Mu- 
 retus began to dictate words, Latin, Greek, barbarous, significant 
 and non-significant, disjointed and connected, until he wearied 
 himself, the young man who wrote them down, and the audience 
 who were present ; " we were all," he says, " marvellously 
 tired." The Corsican alone was the one of the whole company 
 alert and fresh, and continually desired Muretus for more words ; 
 who declared he would be more than satisfied, if he could 
 repeat the half of what had been taken down, and at length he 
 ceased. The young man, with his ga/e fixed upon the ground, 
 stood silent fora brief season, and then, says Muretus, " vidi 
 facinus mirificissimmn." Having begun to speak, he absolutely 
 repeated th^ whole words, in the same order in which they had
 
 THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY. 419 
 
 been delivered, without the slightest hesitation ; then, com- 
 mencing from the last, he repeated them backwards till he came 
 to the first. Then again, so that he spoke the first, the third, 
 the fifth, and so on ; did this in any order that was asked, and 
 all without the smallest error. Having subsequently become 
 familiarly acquainted with him, I have had other and frequent 
 experience of his power. He assured me (and he had nothing 
 of the boaster in him) that he could recite, in the manner I 
 have mentioned, to the amount of thirty-six thousand words. 
 And what is more wonderful, they all so adhered to the mind 
 that, after a year's interval, he could repeat them without trouble. 
 I know, from having tried him, he could do so after a consider- 
 able time. 
 
 Before passing from the faculty of Memory, considered simply 
 as the power of conservation, I may notice two opposite doc- 
 trines, that have been maintained, in regard to the relation of 
 this faculty to the higher powers of mind. One of these doc- 
 trines holds, that a great development of memory is incompatible 
 with a high degree of intelligence ; the other, that a high degree 
 of intelligence supposes such a development of memory as its 
 condition. 
 
 Great memory and sound judgment not incompatible. The 
 former of these opinions is one very extensively prevalent, not 
 only among philosophers, but among mankind in general ; and 
 the words bead memoria, expectantes judicium have been 
 applied to express the supposed incompatibility of great memory 
 and sound judgment. There seems, however, no valid ground 
 for this belief. If an extraordinary power of retention is fre- 
 quently not accompanied with a corresponding power of intelli- 
 gence, it is a natural, but not a very logical procedure, to jump 
 to the conclusion, that a great memory is inconsistent with a 
 Bound judgment. The opinion is refuted by the slightest 
 induction; for we immediately find, that many of the individ- 
 uals who towered above their fellows in intellectual superiority, 
 were almost equally distinguished for the capacity of their 
 memory. I recently quoted to you a passage, in which Joseph 
 Scaliger is made to say that he had not a good memory, but a
 
 420 THE CONSERVATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 good reminiscence ; and he immediately adds, " never, or rarely 
 are judgment and a great memory found in conjunction." Of 
 this opinion Scaliger himself affords the most illustrious refu- 
 tation. During his lifetime, he was hailed as the Dictator of 
 the Republic of Letter?, and posterity has ratified the decision 
 of his contemporaries, in crowning him as the prince of philol- 
 ogers and critics. But to elevate a man to such an eminence, 
 it is evident, that the most consummate genius and ability wen 
 conditions. 
 
 For intellectual power of the highest order, none were dis- 
 tinguished above Grotius and Pascal ; and Grotius and Pascal 
 forgot nothing they had ever read or thought. Leibnitz and 
 Euler were not less celebrated for their intelligence than for 
 their memory, and both could repeat the whole of the ^Eneid. 
 Donellus knew the Corpus Juris by heart, and yet he was one 
 of the prolbundest and most original speculators in jurisprudence. 
 Muratori, though not a genius of the very highest order, was 
 still a man of great ability and judgment ; and so powerful was 
 his retention, that in making quotations, lie had only to read his 
 passages, put the books in their place, and then to write out 
 from memory the words. 
 
 But if there be nt> ground for the vulgar opinion, that a 
 strong faculty of retention is incompatible with intellectual 
 capacity in general, the converse opinion is not better founded, 
 which has been maintained, among others, by Iloffbauer. 
 This doctrine does not, however, deserve an articulate refutation ; 
 for the common experience of every one sufficiently proves, that 
 intelligence and memory hold no necessary proportion to each 
 other.
 
 CHAPTER XXIU 
 
 THE REPRODUCTIVE FACULTY. LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. - 
 SUGGESTION AND REMINISCENCE. 
 
 I NOW pass to the next faculty in order, the faculty which 
 I have called the Reproductive. I am not satisfied with this 
 name ; for it does not precisely, of itself, mark what I wish to 
 be expressed, namely, the process by which what is lying dor- 
 mant in memory is awakened, as contradistinguished from the 
 representation in consciousness of it as awakened. The two 
 processes certainly suppose each other ; for we cannot awaken 
 a cognition without its being represented, the representation 
 being, in fact, only its state of waking ; nor can a latent thought 
 or affection be represented, unless certain conditions be fulfilled, 
 by which it is called out of obscurity into the light of conscious- 
 ness. The two processes are relative and correlative, but not 
 more identical than hill and valley. I am not satisfied, I say, 
 with the term reproduction for the process by which the dormant 
 thought or affection is aroused ; for it does not clearly denote 
 what it is intended to express. Perhaps the Resuscitative Fac- 
 ulty would have been better; and the term reproduction might 
 have been employed to comprehend the whole process, made up 
 of the correlative acts of Retention, Resuscitation, and Represen- 
 tation. I>e this, however, as it may, I shall at present continue to 
 employ the term, in the limited meaning I have already assigned. 
 
 The phaMiomenou of Reproduction is one of the most won- 
 derful in the whole compass of psychology ; and it is one in the 
 explanation of which philosophy has been more successful than 
 in almost any other. The Scholastic psychologists seem to have 
 regarded the succession in the train of thought, or, as they called 
 3o (4-21)
 
 422 THE REPRODUCTIVE FACU1 TT. 
 
 it, the excitation of the species, with peculiar wonder, as one of 
 the most inscrutable mysteries of nature ; and yet, what is 
 curious, Aristotle has left almost as complete an analysis of the 
 laws by which this phenomenon is regulated, as has yet been 
 accomplished. It required, however, a considerable progress in 
 the inductive philosophy of mind, before this analysis of Aris- 
 totle could be appreciated at its proper value ; and in fact, it 
 was only after modern philosophers had rediscovered the prin- 
 cipal laws of Association, that it was found that these laws had 
 been more completely given two thousand years before. 
 
 The faculty of Reproduction is governed by the laws which 
 regulate the Association of the mental train ; or, to speak more 
 correctly, Reproduction is nothing but the result of these laws. 
 Every one is conscious of a ceaseless succession or train of 
 thoughts, one thought suggesting another, which again is the 
 cause of exciting a third, and so on. In what manner, it may 
 be asked, does the presence of any thought determine the 
 introduction of another ? Is the train subject to laws, and if so, 
 by what laws is it regulated? 
 
 The train of thought subject to laws. That the elements of 
 the mental train are not isolated, but that each thought forms a 
 link of a continuous and uninterrupted chain, is well illustrated 
 by Hobbes. " In a company," he says, " in which the conver- 
 sation turned upon the late civil war, what could be conceived 
 more impertinent than for a person to ask abruptly, what was 
 the value of a Roman denarius? On a little reflection, how- 
 ever, I was easily able to trace the train of thought which 
 suggested tlu; question ; for the original subject of discourse 
 nat'irally introduced the history of the king, and of the treach- 
 ery of those who surrendered his person t his enemies; this 
 again introduced the treachery of Judas Iscariot, and the sum 
 of mon?y which he received for his reward." 
 
 But it' thoughts, and feelings, and conations (for you must 
 observe, that the train is not limited to the phenomena of 
 cognition only), do not arise of themselves, hut only in casual 
 connection with preceding and subsequent modifications of mind, 
 it remains to be ask(-d and answered. Do the links of this
 
 THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 423 
 
 ,hain follow each other under any other condition than that of 
 imple connection ? in other words, may any thought, feeling, 
 or desire be connected with any other 1 ? Or, is the succession 
 regulated by other and special laws, according to which certain 
 kinds of modification exclusively precede, and exclusively fol- 
 low, each other ? The slightest observation of the phenomenon 
 shows, that the latter alternative is the case ; and on this all 
 philosophers are agreed. Nor do philosophers differ in regard 
 1o what kind of thoughts are associated together. They differ 
 almost exclusively in regard to the subordinate question, of how 
 these thoughts ought to be classified, and carried up into system. 
 This, therefore, is the question to which I shall address myself. 
 
 The laws of Association how classified. I have explained 
 to you how thoughts, once experienced, remain, though out of 
 consciousness, still in possession of the mind ; and I have now 
 to show, how these thoughts retained in memory may, without 
 any excitation from without, be again retrieved by an excitation 
 or awakening from other thoughts within. Philosophers having 
 observed, that one thought determined another to arise, and that 
 this determination only took place between thoughts which stood 
 in certain relations to each other, set themselves to ascertain and 
 classify the kinds of correlation under which this occurred, in 
 order to generalize the laws by which the phamomenon of Re- 
 production was governed. Accordingly it lias been established, 
 that thoughts are associated, that is, are able to excite each 
 other; 1, If coexistent, or immediately successive, in time; 
 2, If their objects are conterminous or adjoining in space ; 3, 
 If they hold the dependence to each other of cause and effect, 
 or of mean and end, or of whole and part ; 4, If they stand in 
 * relation either of contrast or of similarity ; 5, If they are the 
 operations of the same power, or of different powers conversant 
 ibout the same object ; 6, If their objects are the sign and the 
 lignified ; or, 7, Even if their objects are accidentally denoted 
 by the saiae sound. 
 
 Tliese, as far as 1 recollect, are all the classes to which phi- 
 losophers have, attempted to reduce the principles of Mental 
 Association. Aristotle recalled the laws of this connection to
 
 424 THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 
 
 four, or rather to three, Contiguity in time and space, Reseui 
 blunce, and Contrariety. He even seems to have thought they 
 might all be carried up into the one law of Coexistence. St. 
 Augustin explicitly reduces association to a single canon, 
 namely, Thoughts that have once coexisted in the mind are af- 
 terwards associated. This law, which I would call the law of 
 Redintegration, was afterwards enounced by Malebranche, Wolf, 
 and Bilfinger; but without any reference to St. Austin. Hume, 
 who thinks himself the first philosopher who had ever attempted 
 to generalize the laws of association, makes them three, Re- 
 semblance, Contiguity in time and place, and Cause and Effect. 
 Stewart, after disclaiming any attempt at a complete enumera- 
 tion, mentions two classes of circumstances as useful to be 
 observed. " The relations," he says, " upon which some of them 
 are founded, are perfectly obvious to the mind ; those which are 
 the foundation of others, are discovered only in consequence of 
 particular efforts of attention. Of the former kind are the rela- 
 tions of Resemblance and Analogy, of Contrariety, of Vicinity 
 in time and place, and those which arise from accidental coinci- 
 dences in the sound of different words. These, in general, con- 
 nect our thoughts together, when they are suffered to lake their 
 natural course, and when we are conscious of little or no active 
 exertion. Of the latter kind are the relations of Cause and 
 Effect, of Means and End, of Premises and Conclusion ; and 
 those others which regulate the train of thought in the mind 
 of the philosopher, when he is engaged in a particular investi- 
 gation." 
 
 Brown divides the circumstances affecting association into 
 primary and secondary. Under the primary laws of Suggestion, 
 he includes Resemblance, Contrast, Contiguity in time and place, 
 a classification identical with Aristotle's. By the secondary, 
 he means the vivacity, the recentness, and the frequent repeti- 
 tion of our thoughts ; circumstances which, though they exert 
 an influence on the recurrence of our thoughts, belong to a 
 different order of causes from those we are at present consider- 
 big. 
 
 These laws reduced to two- and even t<> one. Now all the
 
 rHE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 425 
 
 laws which I have hitherto enumerated may be easily reduced 
 to two, the law of the Simultaneity, and the law of the Resem- 
 blance or .Affinity, of Thought. Under Simultaneity I include 
 Immediate Consecution in time; to the other category of Affin- 
 ity every other circumstance may be reduced. I shall take the 
 several cases I have above enumerated, and having exemplified 
 their influence as associating principles, I shall show how they 
 are all only special modifications of the two laws of Simulta- 
 
 icity and Affinity ; which two laws, I shall finally prove to you, 
 are themselves only modifications of one supreme law, the 
 law of Redintegration. 
 
 The law of Simultaneity. The first law, that of Simul- 
 taneity, or of Coexistence and Immediate Succession in time, 
 is too evident to require any illustration. " In passing along a 
 road," as Mr. Stewart observes, " which we have formerly trav- 
 elled in the company of a friend, the particulars of the conver- 
 sation in which we were then engaged, are frequently suggested 
 to us by the objects we meet with. In such a scene, we recol- 
 lect that a particular subject was started ; and in passing the 
 different houses, and plantations, and rivers, the arguments we 
 were discussing when we last saw them recur spontaneously to 
 the memory. The connection which is formed in the mind be- 
 tween the words of a language and the ideas they denote ; the 
 connection which is formed between the different words of a 
 discourse we have committed to memory ; the connection be- 
 tween the different notes of a piece of music in the mind of the 
 musician, are all obvious instances of the same general law of 
 our nature." 
 
 The law of Affinity. The second law, that of the Affinity 
 of thoughts, will be best illustrated by the cases of which it 
 
 s the more general expression. In the first place, in the case 
 of resembling, or analogous, or partially identical objects, it will 
 not be denied that these virtually suggest each oilier. The im- 
 agination of Alexander carries me to the imaginMion of C;i>sar, 
 Cu-sar to Charlemagne, Charlemagne to Napoleon. The vision 
 of a portrait suggests tin; image of the person port raved. In u 
 company one anecdote suggests another analogous. That r* 1
 
 42G THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 
 
 eembling, analogous, or partially identical objects stand in recip- 
 rocal Affinity, is apparent ; they are its strongest exemplifications. 
 So far there is no difficulty. 
 
 In the second place, thoughts standing to each other in the 
 relation of contrariety or contrast are mutually suggestive. 
 Thus the thought of vice suggests the thought of virtue ; and, 
 in the mental world, the prince and the peasant, kings and beg- 
 gars, are inseparable concomitants. On this principle are de- 
 pendent those associations which constitute the charms of 
 antithesis and wit. Thus the whole pathos of Milton's apos- 
 trophe to light lies in the contrast of his own darkness to the 
 resplendent object he addresses. And in what else does the 
 beauty of the following line consist, but in the contrast and 
 connection of life and death ; life being represented as but a 
 wayfaring from grave to grave ? 
 
 Tif jBiof ; in TVfijBoio dopuv, Irrl TVfj.j3ov 66rvu. 
 
 Who can think of Marias sitting amid the ruins of Carthage, 
 without thinking of the resemblance of the consul and the city, 
 without thinking of the difference between their past and 
 present fortunes ? And in the incomparable epigram of Molsa 
 on the great Pompey, the effect is produced by the contrast of 
 the life and death of the hero, and in the conversion of the very 
 fact of his posthumous dishonor into a theme of the noblesf 
 panegyric. 
 
 "Dux, Pharia quamvis jaceas inhumatus arena, 
 
 Non idco fati cst stevior ira tui : 
 Indignum fticrat tcllus tibi victa scpulcrum ; 
 Non decuit coelo, tc, nisi, Magnc, tegi." 
 
 Thus that objects, though contrasted, are still akin, still 
 stand to each other in a relation of Affinity, depends on their 
 logical analogy. The axiom, that the knowledge of contraries 
 is one, proves that the thought of the one involves the thought 
 of the other. 
 
 In the third place, objects contiguous in place are associated. 
 YON "collf't the famous passage of Cicero in the first chapter
 
 THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 427 
 
 of the fifth book De Finibus, of which the following is the con- 
 clusion : " Tanta vis admonitionis est in locis, ut, non sine 
 
 causa, ex his memoriae deducta sit disciplina Id quideru 
 
 infinitum in hac urbe ; quocumque enim ingredimur, in aliquam 
 historiam vestigium ponimus." But how do objects adjacent in 
 place stand in Affinity to each other? Simply because local 
 contiguity binds up objects, otherwise unconnected, into a single 
 object of perceptive thought. 
 
 In the fourth place, thoughts of the whole and the parts, of 
 the thing and its properties, of the sign and the thing signified^ 
 of these it is superfluous to illustrate either the reality of the 
 influence, or to show that they are only so many forms of Affin- 
 ity both are equally manifest. But in this case Affinity is not 
 tho only principle of association ; here Simultaneity also occurs. 
 One observation I may make to show, that what Mr. Stewart 
 promulgates as a distinct principle of association, is only a sub- 
 ordinate modification of the two great laws I have laid down ; 
 I mean his association of objects arising from accidental coinci- 
 dences in the sound of the words by which they are denoted. 
 Here the association between the objects or ideas is not immedi- 
 ate. One object or idea signified suggests its term signifying. 
 But a complete or partial identity in sound suggests another 
 word, and that word suggests the thing or thought it signifies. 
 The two things or thoughts are thus associated, only mediately, 
 through the association of their signs, and the several immedi- 
 ate associations are very simple examples of the general laws. 
 
 In the fifth place, thoughts of causes and effects reciprocally 
 suggest each other. Thus the falling snow excites the imag- 
 ination of an inundation ; a shower of hail, a thought of the 
 destruction of the fruit ; the sight of wine carries us back to 
 the grapes, or the sight of the grapes carries us forward to the 
 wine ; and so forth. But cause and effect not only naturally, 
 but necessarily, suggest each other; they stand in the closest 
 Affinity ; and, therefore, whatever phaMiomena are subsumed 
 under this relation, as indeed under all relations, are, conse- 
 quently, also in Ailinily. 
 
 One grand iatv of Redintegration. 1 have now, I think,
 
 428 THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 
 
 gone through all the circumstances which philosophers have 
 constituted into separate laws of Association ; and shown that 
 they easily resolve themselves into the two laws of Simultaneity 
 and Affinity. I now proceed to show you, that these two laws 
 themselves are reducible to that one law, which I would call the 
 law of Redintegration or Totality, which, as I already stated, I 
 have found incidentally expressed by St. Augustin. This law 
 may be thus enounced, Those thoughts suggest each other which 
 had previously constituted parts of the same entire or total act 
 of cognition. Now to the same entire or total act belong, as 
 integral or constituent parts, in the first place, those thoughts 
 which arose at the same time, or in immediate consecution ; and 
 in the second, those thoughts which are bound up into one by 
 their mutual affinity. Thus, therefore, the two laws of Simul- 
 taneity and Affinity are carried up into unity, in the higher law 
 of Redintegration or Totality ; and by this one law the whole 
 phenomena of Association may be easily explained. 
 
 The law of Redintegration explained. But this law being 
 established by induction and generalization, and affording an 
 explanation of the various phenomena of Association, it may 
 be a.sked, How is this law itself explained ? On what principle 
 of our intellectual nature is it founded ? To this no answer can 
 be legitimately demanded. It is enough for the natural philos- 
 opher, to reduce the special laws of the attraction of distant 
 bodies to the one principle of gravitation ; and his theory is not 
 invalidated, because he can give no account of how gravitation 
 is itself determined. In all our explanations of the phenomena 
 of mind and matter, we must always arrive at an ultimate fact 
 or law, of which we are wholly unable to afford an ulterior ex- 
 planation. We are, therefore, entitled to decline attempting any 
 illustration of the ground on which the supreme fact or law of 
 Association reposes; and if we do attempt such illustration, and 
 fail in the endeavor, no presumption is, therefore, justly to be 
 raised against the truth of the fact or principle itself. 
 
 But an illustration of this great law is involved in the princi- 
 ple of the unity of the mental energies, as the activities of the 
 subject one and indivisible, to which I have had occasion to
 
 THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 429 
 
 refer. " The various acts of mind," [says Schmid,] " must not 
 be viewed as single, as isolated, manifestations ; they all belong 
 to the one activity of the Ego : and, consequently, if our various 
 mental energies are only partial modifications of the same general 
 activity, they must all be associated among themselves. Every 
 mental energy, every thought, feeling, desire that is excited, 
 excites at the same time all other previously existent activities, 
 in a certain degree ; it spreads its excitation over the whole 
 activities of the mind, as the agitation of one place of a sheet 
 of water expands itself, in wider and wider circles, over the 
 whole surface of the fluid, although, in proportion to its eccen- 
 tricity, it is always becoming fainter, until it is at last not to be 
 perceived. The force of every internal activity exists only in 
 a certain limited degree ; consequently, the excitation it deter- 
 mines has only likewise a certain limited power of expansion, 
 and is continually losing in vigor in proportion to its eccentricity. 
 Thus there are formed particular centres, particular spheres, 
 of internal unity, within which the activities stand to each other 
 in a closer relation of action and reaction ; and this, in proportion 
 as they more or less belong already to a single energy, in 
 proportion as they gravitate more or less proximutely to the 
 same centre of action. A plurality, a complement, of several 
 activities forms, in a stricter sense, one whole activity for itself; 
 an invigoration of any of its several activities is, therefore, an 
 invigoration of the part of a whole activity ; and as a part 
 cannot be active for itself alone, there, consequently, results an 
 invigoration of the whole, that is, of all the other parts of which 
 it is composed. Thus the supreme law of association, that 
 activities excite each other in proportion as they have previously 
 belonged, as parts, to one whole activity, is explained from 
 the still more universal principle of the unity of all our mental 
 energies in general. 
 
 ' But on the same principle, we can dlso explain the two subal- 
 tern laws of Simultaneity and Affinity. The phenomena of 
 mind are manifested under a twofold condition or form ; for they 
 are only revealed, 1, As occurrences in time; and, 2, As the 
 energies or modifications of the E^o. aa their cause and subject.
 
 430 THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Time and Self arc thus the two forms of the internal world. 
 By these two forms, therefore, every particular, every limited, 
 unity of operation, must be controlled ; on them it must depend. 
 And it is precisely these two forms that lie at the root of the 
 two laws of Simultaneity and Affinity. Thus acts which are 
 exerted at the same time belong, by that very circumstance, to 
 the same particular unity, to the same definite sphere of 
 mental energy ; in other words, constitute through their simul- 
 taneity a single activity. Thus energies, however heterogeneous 
 in themselves, if developed at once, belong to the same activity, 
 constitute a particular unity ; and they will operate with a 
 greater suggestive influence on each other, in proportion as they 
 are more closely connected by the bond of time. On the other 
 hand, the affinity of mental acts or modifications will be deter- 
 mined by their particular relations to the Ego, as their cause or 
 subject. As all the activities of mind obtain a unity in being 
 all the energies of the same soul or active principle in general, 
 so they are bound up into particular unities, inasmuch as they 
 belong to some particular faculty, resemble each other in the 
 common ground of their manifestation. Thus cognitions, feel- 
 ings, and volitions severally awaken cognitions, feelings, and 
 volitions ; for they severally belong to the same faculty, and, 
 through that identity, are themselves constituted into distinct 
 unities : or again, a thought of the cause suggests a thought of 
 the effect, a thought of the mean suggests a thought of the end, 
 a thought of the part suggests a thought of the whole ; for cause 
 and effect, end and mean, whole and parts, have subjectively an 
 indissoluble affinity, as they are all so many forms or organi- 
 zations of thought. In like manner, the notions of all resembling 
 objects suggest each other, for they possess some common quality, 
 through which they are in thought bound up in a single act of 
 thought. Kven the notions of oppo.-ite and contrasted objects 
 mutually excite each other upon the same principle; for these 
 are logically associated, inasmuch as, by the laws of thought, 
 the notion of one oppo.-ite nt'crs.-arily involves the notions of the 
 other; and it is also a psychological law, that contrasted objects 
 relieve -;ach other. Opposita,juxtaposita, se invicein collustrant.
 
 TUB LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 431 
 
 When the operations of different faculties are mutually sug- 
 gestive, they are, likewise, internally connected by the nature of 
 their action ; for they are either conversant with the same object, 
 and hare thus been originally determined by the same affection 
 from without, or they have originally been associated through 
 some form of the mind itself; thus moral cognitions, moral 
 feelings, and moral volitions, may suggest each other, through 
 the common bond of morality ; the moral principle in this case 
 uniting the operations of the three fundamental powers into one 
 general activity." 
 
 How thoughts apparently unassociated succeed each other. 
 It sometimes happens, that thoughts seem to follow each other 
 immediately, between which it is impossible to detect any bond 
 of association. If this anomaly be insoluble, the whole theory 
 of association is overthrown. Philosophers have accordingly 
 set themselves to account for this phenomenon. To deny the 
 fact of the phenomenon is impossible ; it must, therefore, be 
 explained on the hypothesis of association. Now, in their at- 
 tempts at such an explanation, all philosophers agree in regard 
 to the first step of the solution, but they differ in regard to the 
 second. They agree in this, that, admitting the apparent, the 
 phenomenal, immediacy of the consecution of the two unasso- 
 ciated thoughts, they deny its reality. They all affirm, that 
 there have actually intervened one or more thoughts, through 
 the mediation of which, the suggestion in question has been 
 affected, and on the assumption of which intermediation, the 
 theory of association remains intact. For example, let us sup- 
 pose that A and C are thoughts, not on any law of association 
 suggestive of each other, and that A and C appear to our con- 
 sciousness as following each other immediately. In this case, I 
 say, philosophers agree in supposing, that a thought B, associ- 
 ated with A and with C, and which consequently could be 
 awakened by A, and could awaken C, has intervened. So far 
 they are at one. But now comes their separation. It is asked, 
 how can a thought be supposed to intervene, of which conscious- 
 ness gives us no indication ? In reply to this, two answers have 
 been made. By one set of philosophers, among whom I
 
 4S2 THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 
 
 particularly specify Mr. Stewart, it is said, that (he immediate 
 thought B, having been awakened by A, did rise into conscious- 
 ness, suggested C, and was instantly forgotten. This solution 
 is apparently that exclusively known in Britain. Other philos- 
 ophers, following the indication of L ;ibnitz, by whom the theory 
 of obscure or latent activities was first explicitly promulgated, 
 maintain that the intermediate thought never did rise into con- 
 sciousness. They hold that A excited B, but that the excite- 
 ment was not strong enough to rouse B from its state of latency, 
 though strong enough to enable it obscurely to excite C, whose 
 latency was less, and to afford it vivacity sufficient to rise into 
 consciousness. 
 
 Explained through (he latent modifications of mind. Of 
 these opinions, I have no hesitation in declaring for the latter. 
 I formerly showed you an analysis of some of the most palpable 
 and familiar phenomena of mind, which made the supposition 
 of mental modifications latent, but not inert, one of absolute 
 necessity. In particular, I proved this in regard to the phenom- 
 ena of Perception. But the fact of such latencies being estab- 
 lished in one faculty, they afford an easy and philosophical 
 explanation of the phenomena in all. In the present instance, 
 if we admit, as admit we must, that activities can endure, and 
 consequently can operate, out of consciousness, the question is 
 at once solved. On this doctrine, the whole theory of associa- 
 tion obtains an easy and natural completion ; as no definite line 
 can be drawn between clear and obscure activities, which melt 
 insensibly into each ; and both, being of the same nature, must 
 be supposed to operate under the same laws. In illustration of 
 the mediatory agency of latent thoughts in the process of sug- 
 gestion, I formerly alluded to an analogous phenomenon under 
 the laws of physical motion, which I may again call to your 
 remembrance. If a series of elastic balls, say of ivory are 
 placed in a straight line, and in mutual contact, and if the tfrst 
 be sharply struck, what happens? The intermediate balls re- 
 main at rest; the last alone is moved. 
 
 The other doctrine, which proceeds upon the hypothesis that 
 we can be conscious of a thought and that thought be instantly
 
 SUGGESTION AND REMINISCENCE. 433 
 
 forgotten, has every thing against it, and nothing in its fa\or. 
 In the first place, it does not, like the counter hypothesis of la- 
 tent agencies, only apply a principle which is already proved to 
 exist; it, on the contrary, lays its foundation in a fact which is 
 not shown to be real. But in the second place, this fact is not 
 only not shown to be real : it is improbable, nay, impossible ; 
 forh contradicts the whole analogy of the intellectual phenomena. 
 The memory or retention of a thought is in proportion to its 
 vivacity in consciousness ; but that all trace of its existence 
 so completely perished with its presence, that reproduction be- 
 csune impossible, even the instant after, this assumption vio- 
 lates every probability, in gratuitously disallowing the established 
 law of the proportion between consciousness and memory. But 
 on this subject, having formerly spoken, it is needless now again 
 to dwell. 
 
 So much for the Laws of Association, the laws to which the 
 faculty of Reproduction is subjected. 
 
 Spontaneous Suggestion and Reminiscence. This faculty, 1 
 formerly mentioned, might be considered as operating, either 
 spontaneously, without any interference of the will, or as modi- 
 fied in its action by the intervention of volition. In the one 
 case, as in the other, the Reproductive Faculty acts in subservi- 
 ence to its own laws. In the former case, one thought is allowed 
 to suggest another according to the greater general connection 
 subsisting between them ; in the latter, the act of volition, by 
 concentrating attention upon a certain determinate class of as- 
 sociating circumstances, bestows on these circumstances an ex- 
 traordinary vivacity, and, consequently, enables them to obtain 
 the preponderance, and exclusively to determine the succession 
 of the intellectual train. The former of these cases, where the 
 Reproductive Faculty is left wholly to itself, may not improperly 
 be called Spontaneous Suggestion, or Suggestion simply ; the 
 latter ought to obtain the name of Reminiscence or Recollection, 
 (in Creek '/< rrfii*;}. The employment of these terms in 
 these significations corresponds with the meaning they obtain 
 in common usage. Philosophers have not, however, always so 
 applied them. But as I have not entered on a criticism of tha 
 47
 
 434 SUGGESTION AND REMINISCENCE. 
 
 analyses attempted by philosophers of the faculties, so I shall say 
 nothing in illustration of their perversion of the terras by which 
 they have denoted them. 
 
 Recollection or Reminiscence supposes two things. " First, it 
 is necessary that the mind recognize the ijcntity of two repre- 
 sentations, and then, it is necessary that the mind be conscious 
 of something different from the first impression, in consequence 
 of which it affirms to itself that it had formerly experienced 
 this modification. It is passing marvellous, this conviction that 
 we have of the identity of two representations ; for they are 
 only similar, not the same. Were they the same, it would be 
 impossible to discriminate the thought reproduced from the 
 thought originally experienced." This circumstance justly ex- 
 cited the admiration of St. Augustin, and he asks how, if we 
 had actually forgotten a tiling, we could so categorically affirm, 
 it is not that, when some one named to us another; or, it is 
 that, when it is itself presented. The question was worthy of 
 his subtlety, and the answer does honor to his penetration. His 
 principle is, that we cannot seek in our own memory for that of 
 which we have no sort of recollection. We do not seek what hai 
 been our first reflective thought in infancy, the first reasoning 
 *ve have performed, the first free act which raised us above the 
 rank of automata. We are conscious that the attempt would 
 be fruitless ; and even if modifications thus lost should chance 
 to recur to our mind,, we should not be able to say with truth 
 that we had recollected them, for we should have no criterion by 
 which to recognize them. And what is the consequence he de- 
 duces? It is worthy of your attention. 
 
 From the moment, then, that we seek aught in our memory, 
 we declare, by that very act, that we have not altogether for 
 gotten it ; we still hold of it, as it were, a part, and by this part, 
 which we hold, we seek that which we do not hold. And what 
 is the secret motive which determines us to this research ? It 
 is that our memory feel-, that it does not see together all that it 
 was accustomed to see together. It feels with regret that it still 
 only discovers a part of itself, and hence its disquietude to seek 
 out what is missing, in order to reannex.it to the whole; like to
 
 SUGGESTION AND REMINISCENCE. 435 
 
 those reptiles, if the comparison may be permitted, whose mem- 
 bers, when cut asunder, seek again to reunite. But when this 
 detached portion of our memory at length presents itself, the 
 name, for example, of a person, which had escaped us, how 
 shall we proceed to reannex it to the other ? We have only to 
 allow nature to do her work. For if the name, being pro- 
 nounced, goes of itself to reunite itself to the thought of the 
 person, and to place itself, so to speak, upon his face, as upon 
 its ordinary seat, we will say, without hesitation, there it is. 
 And if, on the contrary, it obstinately refuses to go there to 
 place itself, in order to rejoin the thought to which we had else 
 attached it, we will say peremptorily and at once, no, it does 
 not suit. But when it suits, where do we discover this luminous 
 accordance which consummates our research ? And where can 
 we discover it, except in our memory itself, in some back 
 chamber, I mean, of that labyrinth where what we considered 
 as lost had only gone astray. And the proof of this is manifest. 
 When the name presents itself to our mind, it appears neither 
 novel nor strange, but old and familiar, like an ancient property 
 of which we have recovered the title-deeds. 
 
 Such is the doctrine of one of the profotindest thinkers of 
 antiquity, and whose philosophical opinions, were they collected, 
 arranged, and illustrated, would raise him to as high a rank 
 among metaphysicians, as he already holds among theologians. 
 
 The consecutive order of association not tJie only one. 
 u Among psychologists," [says Cardaillac,] " those who have 
 written on Memory and Reproduction with the greatest detail 
 and precision, have still failed in giving more than a meagre 
 outline of these operations. They have taken account only of 
 the notions which suggest each other with a distinct and palpa- 
 ble notoriety. They have viewed the associations onlv in the 
 order in which language is competent to express them; and at 
 lanr/itttyf, which renders them still more palpable and distinct, 
 can only esprcss tliem in a consecutive order. can onlv express 
 them one after another, they have been led to s>'/>/>ofie thai 
 thoi(i/h/s only awaken in succession. Thus, a series of ideas 
 mutually associated resembles, on the doctrine of philosophers,
 
 430 SUGGESTION AND REMINISCENCE. 
 
 a chain, in which every link draws up that which follows ; and 
 it is by means of these links that intelligence labors through, in 
 the act of reminiscence, to the end which it proposes to attain. 
 
 " There are some, indeed, among them, who are ready to ac- 
 knowledge, that every actual circumstance is associated to sev- 
 eral fundamental notions, and, consequently, to several chains, be- 
 tween which the mind may choose ; they admit even, that eviry 
 link is attached to several others, so that the whole forms a kind 
 of trellis, a kind of net-work, which the mind may traverse in 
 every direction, but still always in a single direction at once, 
 always in a succession similar to that of speech. This manner 
 of explaining reminiscence is founded solely on this, that, 
 confent to have observed all that is distinctly manifest in the 
 phenomenon, they have paid no attention to the under play of 
 the latescent activities, paid no attention to all that custom 
 conceals, and conceals the more effectually in proportion as it is 
 more completely blended with the natural agencies of mind. 
 
 T7ie movement of thought from one order of subjects to another. 
 " Thus their theory, true in itself, and departing from a well- 
 established principle, the Association of Ideas, explains in a 
 satisfactory manner a portion of the phsenomena of Reminis- 
 cence ; but it is incomplete, for it is unable to account for the 
 prompt, easy, and varied operation of this faculty, or for all tho 
 marvels it performs. On the doctrine of the philosophers, we 
 can explain how a scholar repeats, without hesitation, a lo^oon 
 he has learned, for all the words are associated in his mind 
 according to the order in which he lias studied them ; how he 
 demonstrates a geometrical theorem, the parts of which are 
 connected together in the same manner; these and similar 
 reminiscences of simple successions present no difficulties which 
 the common doctrine cannot resolve. But it is impossible, on 
 tliis doctrine, to explain the rapid and certain movement of 
 thought, which, with a marvellous facility, passes from one order 
 of subjects to another, only to return again to the first ; which 
 advance-, retrogrades, deviates, and reverts, sometimes marking 
 all the points on its route, again clearing, as if in play, immense 
 intervals; which runs over, now in a manifest order, now in a
 
 SUGGESTION AND REMINISCENCE. 437 
 
 seeming irregularity, all the notions relative to an object, often 
 relative to several, between which no connection could be sus- 
 pected ; and this without hesitation, without uncertainty, without 
 error, as the hand of a skilful musician expatiates over the keys 
 of the most complex organ. All this is inexplicable on the 
 meagre and contracted theory on which the phenomena of Re- 
 production have been thought explained. 
 
 Two conditions of Reminiscence. " To form a correct notion 
 of the phenomena of Reminiscence, it is requisite, that we 
 consider under what conditions it is determined to exertion. In 
 the first place, it is to be noted that, at every crisis of our exist- 
 ence, momentary circumstances are the causes which awaken 
 our activity, and set our recollection at work to supply the nec- 
 essaries of thought. In the second place, it is as constituting a 
 want (and by want, I mean the result either of an act of desire 
 or of volition), that the determining circumstance tends princi- 
 pally to awaken the thoughts with which it is associated. This 
 being the case, we should expect that each circumstance which 
 constitutes a want should suggest, likewise, the notion of an 
 object, or objects, proper to satisfy it ; and this is what actually 
 happens. It is, however, further to be observed, that it is not 
 enough that the want suggests the idea of the object ; for if that 
 idea were alone, it would remain without effect, since it could 
 not guide me in the procedure I should follow. It is necessary, 
 at the same time, that, to the idea of this object there should be 
 associated the notion of the relation of this object to the want, 
 of the place where I may find it, of the means by which I may 
 procure it, and turn it to account, etc. For instance, I wish to 
 make a quotation: this want awakens in me the idea of the 
 author in whom the passage is to be found, which I am desirous 
 of citing ; but this idea would be fruitless, unless there were 
 conjoined, at the same time, the representation of the volume, 
 of the place where I may obtain it, of the means 1 must em- 
 ploy, etc. 
 
 Accessory notions awakened. " Hence I infer, in the first 
 place, that a want does not awaken an idea of iN object alone, 
 but that it awakens it accompanied with a number, more or l^sa 
 37*
 
 438 SUGGESTION AND REMINISCENCE. 
 
 considerable, of accessory notions, which form, as it were, its 
 train or attendance. This train may vary according to the nature 
 of the want which suggests the notion of an object ; but the 
 train can never fall wholly off, and it becomes more indissolubly 
 attached to the object, in proportion as it has been more fre- 
 quently called up in attendance. 
 
 " I infer, in the second place, that this accompaniment of 
 accessory notions, simultaneously suggested with the principal 
 idea, is far from being as vividly and distinctly represented in 
 consciousness as that idea itself; and when these accessories 
 have once been completely blended with the habits of the mind, 
 and its reproductive agency, they at length finally disappear, 
 becoming fused, as it were, in the consciousness of the idea to 
 which they are attached. Experience proves this double effect 
 of the habits of Reminiscence. If we observe our operations 
 relative to the gratification of a want, we shall perceive that we 
 are far from having a clear consciousness of the accessory 
 notions ; the consciousness of them is, as it were, obscured, and 
 yet we cannot doubt that they are present to the mind, for it is 
 they that direct our procedure in all its details. 
 
 These accessory notions unknown to consciousness. " We 
 must, therefore, I think, admit that the thought of an object 
 immediately suggested by a desire, is always accompanied by 
 an escort, more or less numerous, of accessory thoughts, equally 
 present to the mind, though, in general, unknown in themselves 
 to consciousness ; that these accessories are not without their 
 influence in guiding the operations elicited by the principal 
 notion ; and, it may even be added, that they are so much the 
 more calculated to exert an effect in the conduct of our proced- 
 ure, in proportion as, having become more part and parcel cf 
 our habits of Reproduction, the influences they exert are further 
 withdrawn, in ordinary, from the ken of consciousness." The 
 same thing may be illustrated by what happens to us in the case 
 of reading. Originally, each word, each letter, was a separate 
 object of consciousness. At length, the knowledge of letters 
 and word* and lines being, as it wore, fused into our habits, we 
 no longer have any distinct consciousness of them, as severally
 
 SUGGESTION AND REMINISCENCE. 439 
 
 concurring to the result, of which alone we are conscious. But 
 that each word and letter has its effect, an effect which can, at 
 any moment, become an object of consciousness, is shown by the 
 following experiment. If we look over a book for the occurrence 
 of a particular name or word, we glance our eye over a page 
 from top to bottom, and ascertain, almost in a moment, that it is 
 or is not to be found therein. Here the mind is hardly con- 
 scious of a single word, but that of which it is in quest ; but yet 
 it is evident, that each other word and letter must have pro- 
 duced an obscure effect, and which effect the mind was ready 
 to discriminate and strengthen, so as to call it into clear con- 
 sciousness, whenever the effect was found to be that which the 
 letters of the word sought for could determine. But, if the 
 mind be not unaffected by the multitude of letters and words 
 which it surveys, if it be able to ascertain whether the combi- 
 nation of letters constituting the word it seeks, be or be not 
 actually among them, and all this without any distinct conscious- 
 ness of all it tries and finds defective, why may we not sup- 
 pose, why are we not bound to suppose, that the mind may, 
 in like manner, overlook its book of memory, and search among 
 its magazines of latescent cognitions for the notions of which it 
 is in want, awakening these into consciousness, and allowing the 
 others to remain in their obscurity? 
 
 Each accessor;/ thought calls up other thoughts. "A more 
 attentive, consideration of the subject," [continues Cardaillae,] 
 " will show, that we have not yet divined the faculty of Remin- 
 iscence in its whole extent. Let us make a single rctlcction. 
 Continually struck by relations of every kind, continually as- 
 sailed by a crowd of perceptions and sensations of every variety, 
 and, at the same time, occupied with a complement of thoughts ; 
 we experience at once, and we are more or less distinctly con- 
 scious of, a considerable number of wants, wants sometimes 
 real, sometimes factitious or imaginary, phenomena, however, 
 all stamped with the same characters, and all simulating u> to 
 act with more or less of energv. And a- we choo.-e among the 
 different wauls which we would satisfy, as well as among the 
 different means oi satisfying that want which we determine to
 
 440 SUGGESTION AND REMINISCENCE. 
 
 prefer ; and as the motives of this preference are taken ehhef 
 from among the principal ideas relative to each of these several 
 wants, or from among the accessory ideas which habit has estab- 
 lished into their necessary escorts ; in all these cases, it is re- 
 quisite that all the circumstances should at once, and from the 
 moment they have taken the character of wants, produce an 
 effect correspondent to that which, we have seen, is caused by 
 each in particular. Hence we are compelled to conclude, that 
 the complement of the circumstances by which we are thus 
 affected, has the effect of rendering always present to us, and, 
 consequently, of placing at our disposal, an immense number of 
 thoughts; some of which certainly are distinctly recognized, 
 being accompanied by a vivid consciousness, but the greater 
 number of which, although remaining latent, are not the less 
 effective in continually exercising their peculiar influence on 
 our modes of judging and acting. 
 
 " We might say, that each of these momentary circumstances 
 is a kind of electric shock which is communicafcd to a certain 
 portion, to a certain limited sphere, of intelligence ; and the 
 sum of all these circumstances is equal to so many shocks, which, 
 given at once at so many different points, produce a general 
 agitation. We may form some rude conception of this phenom- 
 enon by an analogy. We may compare it, in the former case, 
 to those concentric circles which are presented to our observa- 
 tion on a smooth sheet of water, when its surface is agitated by 
 tin-owing in a pebble ; and, in the latter case, to the same sur 
 face when agitated by a number of pebbles thrown simultan 
 eously at different points. 
 
 "To obtain a clearer notion of this phenomenon, I may add 
 eome observations on tfie relations of our thoughts among them- 
 telves, and with the determining circumstances of the moment. 
 
 " 1, Among the thoughts, notions, or ideas which belong to 
 the different groups, attached to the principal representations 
 simultaneously awakened, there are some reciprocally connected 
 by relations proper to themselves; so that, in this whole com- 
 plement of coexistent activities, these tend to excite each other 
 to higher vigor, and, consequently, to obtain for themselves a
 
 SUGGESTION AND REMINISCENCE. 441 
 
 kind of preeminence in the group or particular circle of activity 
 to which they belong. 
 
 " 2, There are thoughts associated, whether as principals or 
 accessories, to a greater number of determining circumstances, 
 or to circumstances which recur more frequently. Hence they 
 present themselves oftener than the others, they enter more 
 completely into our habits, and take, in a more absolute manner, 
 the character of customary or habitual notions. It hence results, 
 that they are less obtrusive, though more energetic, in their in- 
 fluence, enacting, as they do, a principal part in almost all our 
 deliberations ; and exercising a stronger influence on our deter- 
 minations. 
 
 "3, Among this great crowd of thoughts, simultaneously 
 excited, those which are connected with circumstances which 
 more vividly affect us, assume not only the ascendant over others 
 of the same description with themselves, but likewise predomi- 
 nate over all those which are dependent on circumstances of a 
 feebler determining influence. 
 
 " From these three considerations, we ought, therefore, to 
 infer, that the thoughts connected with circumstances on which 
 our attention is more specially concentrated, are those which 
 prevail over the others; for the effect of attention is to render 
 dominant and exclusive the object on which it is directed, and 
 during the moment of attention, it is the circumstance to which 
 we attend t'^at necessarily obtains the ascendant. 
 
 " Thus if we appreciate correctly the phaenomena of Repro- 
 duction or Reminiscence, we shall recognize, as an incontestable 
 fact, that our thoughts suggest each other, not one by one suc- 
 cessively, as the order to which language is astricted might 
 lead us to infer; but that the complement of circumstance* 
 under which we at every moment exist, awakens simultaneouslj 
 a great number of thoughts ; these it calls into the prc-ence of 
 the mind, either to place them at our dispo-al, if \ve lind it re 
 quisite to employ them, or to make them cooperate in our de- 
 liberations, by giving them, according to their nature and our 
 habits, an influence, more or less active, on our judgments and 
 consequent acts
 
 442 SUGGESTION AND REMINISCENCE. 
 
 " It is also to be observed, that in this great crowd of thoughts 
 always present to the mind, there is only a small number of 
 which we are distinctly conscious : and that in this small num- 
 ber, we ought to distinguish those which, being clothed in lan- 
 guage oral or mental, become the objects of a more fixed atten- 
 tion ; those which hold a closer relation to circumstances more 
 impressive than others ; or which receive a predominant char- 
 acter by the more vigorous attention we bestow on them. As 
 to the others, although not the objects of clear consciousness, 
 they are nevertheless present to the mind, there to pericim a 
 very important part as motive principles of determination ; and 
 the influence which they exert in this capacity is even the uiore 
 powerful in pr' portion as it is less apparent, being more en*- 
 guised by habit
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY. IMAGINATION. 
 
 HAVING terminated the separate consideration of the two 
 first of the three correlative processes of Retention, Reproduc- 
 tion, and Representation, I proceed to the special discussion of 
 the last, the Representative Faculty. 
 
 By the faculty of Representation, as I formerly mentioned, I 
 mean strictly the power the mind has of holding up vividly 
 before itself the thoughts which, by the act of Reproduction, it 
 Las recalled into consciousness. Though the processes of Rep- 
 resentation and Reproduction cannot exist independently of 
 each other, they are nevertheless not more to be confounded 
 into one than those of Reproduction and Conservation. They 
 are, indeed, discriminated by differences sufficiently decisive. 
 Reproduction, as we have seen, operates, in part at least, 
 out of consciousness. Representation, on the contrary, is 
 only realized as it is realized in consciousness ; the degree 
 or vivacity of the representation being always in proportion 
 to the degree or vivacity of our consciousness of its reality. 
 Nor are the energies of Representation and Reproduction al- 
 ways exerted by the same individual in equal intensity, any 
 more than the energies of Reproduction and Retention. Some 
 minds are distinguished for a higher power of manifesting one 
 of these phoenomena; others, for manifesting another; and as 
 it is not always the person who forgets nothing, who can most 
 promptly recall what he retains, so neither is it always the per- 
 son who recollects most easily and correctly, who can exhibit 
 what he remembers in the most vivid colors. It is to be recol- 
 lected, however, that Retention, Reproduction, and Represent*- 
 
 (443)
 
 114 THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 tion, though not in different persons of the same relative vigoi 
 are, however, in the same individuals, all strong or weak in 
 reference to the same classes of objects. For example, if a 
 man's memory be more peculiarly retentive of words, his verbal 
 reminiscence and imagination will, in like manner, be more par- 
 ticularly energetic. 
 
 In common language, it is not of course to be expected that 
 there should be found terms to express the result of an analysis, 
 which had not even been performed by philosophers ; and, ac- 
 cordingly, the term Imagination, or Phantasy, which denotes 
 most nearly the Representative process, does this, however, not 
 without an admixture of other processes, which it is of conse- 
 quence for scientific precision that we should consider apart. 
 
 Improper division of Imagination. Philosophers have di- 
 vided Imagination into two, what they call the Reproductive 
 and the Productive. By the former, they mean Imagination 
 considered as simply reexhibiting, representing, the objects pre- 
 sented by perception, that is, exhibiting thorn without addition 
 or retrenchment, or any change in the relations which they 
 reciprocally held when first made known to us through sense. 
 This operation Mr. Stewart has discriminated as a separate fac- 
 ulty, and bestowed on it the name of Conception. This dis- 
 crimination and nomenclature I think unfortunate. The dis- 
 crimination is unfortunate, because it is unphilosophical to 
 distinguish, as a separate faculty, what is evidently only a 
 special application of a common power. The nomenclature is 
 unfortunate, for the term Conception, which means a taking up 
 in bundles, or grasping into unity, this term, I say, ought to 
 have been left to denote, what it previously was, and only prop- 
 perly could be, applied to express, the notions we have of 
 classes of objects, in other words, what have been called our 
 general ideas. Be this, however, as it may, it is evident, that 
 the Reproductive Imagination (or Concept ion, in the abusive 
 language of the Scottish philosophers) is nut a simple faculty. 
 It comprises two processes: first, an art of representation 
 strictly so called ; and, secondly, an act of reproduction arbi- 
 trarily limited bv certain contingent circumstances ; and it is
 
 THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 44$ 
 
 from the arbitrary limitation of this second constituent, that the 
 faculty obtains the only title it can exhibit to an independent 
 existence. Nor can the Productive Imagination establish a 
 better claim to the distinction of a separate faculty than the 
 Reproductive. The Productive or Creative Imagination is 
 that which is usually signified by the term Imagination or 
 fancy, in ordinary language. Now, in the first place, it is to 
 be observed, that the terms productive or creative are very im- 
 properly applied to Imagination, or the Representative Faculty 
 of mind. It is admitted on all hands, that Imagination creates 
 nothing, that is, produces nothing new ; and the terms in ques- 
 tion are, therefore, by the acknowledgment of those who em- 
 ploy them, only abusively applied to denote the operations of 
 Fancy, in the new arrangement it makes of the old objects fur- 
 nished to it by the senses. We have now, therefore, only to 
 consider, whether, in this corrected meaning. Imagination, as a 
 plastic energy, be a simple or a complex operation. And that 
 it is a complex operation, I do not think it will be at all difficult 
 to prove. 
 
 What is Representation? In the view I take of the funda- 
 mental processes, the act of Representation is merely the energy 
 of the mind in holding up to its own contemplation what it is 
 determined to represent. I distinguish, as essentially different, 
 the Representation, and the determination to represent. I ex- 
 clude from the Faculty of Representation all power of prefer- 
 ence among the objects it holds up to view. This is the func- 
 tion of faculties wholly different from that of Representation, 
 which, though active in representing, is wholly passive as to 
 what it represents. 
 
 Two conditions of Representation. "What, then, it may be 
 asked, are the powers by which the Representative Faculty is 
 determined to represent, and to represent this particular object, 
 or this particular complement of objects, and not any other? 
 These an- two. The jirst of these is the Reproductive Fac- 
 ulty. This faculty is the great immediate source, from which 
 the Representative receives both the materials and the deter- 
 mination to represent ; and the laws by which the Reproductive 
 38
 
 *46 THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY 
 
 Faculty is governed, govern also the Representative. Accord 
 ingly, if there were no other laws in the arrangement and com- 
 bination of thought than those of association, the Representative 
 Faculty would be determined in its manifestations, and in the 
 character of its manifestations, by the Reproductive Faculty 
 alone ; and, on this supposition, Representation could no more 
 be distinguished from Reproduction than Reproduction from 
 Association. 
 
 The Faculty of Relations. But there is another elementary 
 process which we have not yet considered, Comparison, or 
 the Faculty of relations, to which the representative act is 
 likewise subject, and which plays a conspicuous part in deter- 
 mining in what combinations objects are represented. By the 
 process of Comparison, the complex objects, 7 the congeries 
 of phenomena called up by the Reproductive Faculty, undergo 
 various operations. They are separated into parts, they are 
 analyzed into elements ; and these parts and elements are again 
 compounded in every various fashion. In all this the Repre- 
 sentative Faculty cooperates. It, first of all, exhibits the phe- 
 nomena so called up by the laws of ordinary association. In 
 this it acts as handmaid to the Reproductive Faculty. It then 
 exhibits the phenomena as variously elaborated by the analysis 
 and synthesis of the Comparative Faculty, to which, in like 
 manner, it performs the part of a subsidiary. 
 
 Imagination a complex process. This being understood, you 
 will easily perceive, that the Imagination of common language, 
 the Productive Imagination of philosophers, is nothing but 
 the Representative process, plus the process to which I would 
 give the name of the Comparative. In this compound opera- 
 tion, it is true that (lie representative act is the most conspicu- 
 ous, perhaps the most essential, element. For, in (\\ejirst place, 
 it is a condition of the possibility of the act of comparison, 
 of the act of analytic synthesis, that the material on which it 
 operates (that is, the objects reproduced in their natural connec- 
 tions) should be held up to its observation in a clear light, in 
 order that it may take note of their various circumstances of 
 relation ; and, in the second, that the result of its own elabora-
 
 TliE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 447 
 
 lion, tliat is, the new arrangements which it proposes, sLculd be 
 realized in a vivid act of Representation. Thus it is, that, in 
 the view both of the vulgar and of philosophers, the more ob- 
 trusive, though really the more subordinate, element in this 
 compound process has been elevated into the principal constitu- 
 ent; whereas, the act of Comparison, the act of separation 
 and reconstruction, has been regarded as identical with the act 
 of Representation. 
 
 Thus Imagination, in the common acceptation of the term, is 
 not a simple but a compound faculty, a faculty, however, in 
 which Representation, the vivid exhibition of an object, 
 forms the principal constituent. If, therefore, we were obliged 
 to find a common word for every elementary process of our 
 analysis, Imagination would be the term, which, with the 
 least violence to its meaning, could be accommodated to express 
 the Representative Faculty. 
 
 Imagination not limited to objects of sense. By Imagina- 
 tion, thus limited, you are not to suppose that the faculty of 
 representing mere objects of sense alone is meant. On the 
 contrary, a vigorous power of Representation is as indispensable 
 a condition of success in the abstract sciences, as in the poetical 
 and plastic arts ; and it may, accordingly, be reasonably doubted 
 whether Aristotle or Homer were possessed of the more power- 
 ful Imagination. " We may, indeed, affirm, that there are as 
 many different kinds of imagination as there are different kinds 
 of intellectual activity. There is the imagination of abstrac- 
 tion, which represents to us certain phases of an object to the 
 exclusion of others, and, at the same time, the sign by which 
 the phases are united; the imagination of wit, which represents 
 differences and contrasts, and the resemblances by which these 
 are again combined ; the imagination of judgment, which repre- 
 sents tlie various qualities of an object, and binds them together 
 under the relations of substance, of attribute, of mode ; the 
 imagination of reason, which represents a principle in connec- 
 tion with its consequences, the effect in dependence on its cause; 
 the imagination of feeling, which represents the accessory im- 
 ages, kindred to some particular, and which therefore confer on
 
 448 THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 it greater compass, depth, and intensity ; the imagination of TO- 
 lition, which represents all the circumstances which concur to 
 persuade or dissuade from a certain act of will ; the imagination 
 of the passions, which, according to the nature of the affection, 
 represents all that is homogeneous or analogous ; finally, the 
 imagination of the poet, which represents whatever is new, or 
 beautiful, or sublime, whatever, in a word, it is determined 
 to represent by any interest of art." * The term Imagination, 
 however, is less generally applied to the representations of the 
 Comparative Faculty considered in the abstract, than to the 
 representations of sensible objects concretely modified by com- 
 parison. The two kinds of imagination are, in fact, not fre- 
 quently combined. Accordingly, using the term in this its 
 ordinary extent, that is, in its limitation to objects of sense, it is 
 finely said by Mr. Hume : " Nothing is more dangerous to 
 reason than the flights of imagination, and nothing has been the 
 occasion of more mistakes among philosophers. Men of bright 
 fancies may, in this respect, be compared to those angels whom 
 the Scriptures represent as covering their eyes with their 
 wings." 
 
 Considering the Representative Faculty in subordination to 
 its two determinants, the faculty of Reproduction and the fac- 
 ility of Comparison or Elaboration, we may distinguish thret 
 principal orders in which Imagination represents ideas : " 1 '. 
 The Natural order ; 2, The Logical order ; 3, The Poetical 
 order. The Natural order is that in which we receive the im- 
 pression of external objects, or the order according to which 
 our thoughts spontaneously group themselves. The Logical 
 order consists in presenting what is universal, prior to what is 
 contained under it as particular, or in presenting the particulars 
 first, and then ascending to the universal which they constitute. 
 The former is the order of Deduction, the latter that of Induc- 
 tion. These two orders have this in common, that they deliver 
 tc us notions in the dependence in which the antecedent ex- 
 plains the subsequent. The Poetical order consists in seizing 
 
 * [Translated by Hamilton, together with the other citations in this 
 chapter, unless otherwise credited, from Ancillon's Kxsais PhilotiOp\i]uu]
 
 THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 449 
 
 individual circumstances, and in grouping them in such a man- 
 ner that the Imagination shall represent them so as they might 
 be offered by the sense. The Natural order is involuntary ; it 
 is established independently of our concurrence. The Logical 
 order is a child of art, it is the result of our will ; but it is con- 
 formed to the laws of intelligence, which tend always to recall 
 the particular to the general, or the general to the particular. 
 The Poetical order is exclusively calculated on effect. Pindar 
 would not be a lyric poet, if his thoughts and images followed 
 each other in the common order, or in the logical order. The 
 state of mind in which thought and feeling clothe themselves 
 in lyric forms, is a state in which thoughts and feelings are 
 associated in an extraordinary manner, in which they have, 
 in fact, no other relation than that which groups and moves 
 them around the dominant thought or feeling which forms 
 the subject of the ode." 
 
 Imagination as affected by different trains of association. 
 " Thoughts which follow each other only in the natural order, 
 or as they are associated in the minds of men in general, form 
 tedious conversations and tiresome books. Thoughts, on the 
 other hand, whose connection is singular, capricious, extraordi- 
 nary, are unpleasing; whether it be that they strike us as im- 
 probable, or that the effort which has been required to produce, 
 supposes a corresponding effort to comprehend. Thoughts 
 whose association is at once simple and new, and which, though 
 not previously witnessed in conjunction, are yet approximated 
 without a violent exertion, such thoughts please universally, 
 by affording the mind the pleasures of novelty and exercise at 
 once." 
 
 "A peculiar kind of Imagination, determined by a peculiar 
 order of association, is usually found in every period of life, in 
 every sex, in every country, in every religion. A knowledge 
 of men principally consists in a knowledge of the principles by 
 U'hich their thoughts are linked and represented. The study 
 of this is of importance to the instructor, in order to direct the 
 character and intellect of his pupils; to the statesman, that IIH 
 may exert his influence on the public opinion and manners of 
 38
 
 450 THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY 
 
 a people ; to the poet, that he may give truth and reality to his 
 dramatic situations ; to the orator, in order to convince and per- 
 suade ; to the man of the world, if he would give interest to 
 his conversation. 
 
 " Authors who have made a successful study of this subject 
 ekim over a multitude of circumstances under which an occur- 
 rence has taken place, because they are aware that it is 
 proper to reject what is only accessory to the object which 
 they would present in prominence. A vulgar mind forgets 
 and spares nothing ; he is ignorant that conversation is always 
 but a selection ; that every story is subject to the laws of dra- 
 matic poetry, festinat ad eventum ; and that all which does 
 not concur to the effect, destroys or weakens it. The invol- 
 untary associations of their thoughts are imperative on minds of 
 this description ; they are held in thraldom to the order and cir- 
 cumstances in which their perceptions were originally obtained." 
 This has not, of course, escaped the notice of the greatest ob- 
 server of human nature. Mrs. Quickly, in reminding Falstatf 
 of his promise of marriage, supplies a good example of this 
 peculiarity. ' Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt gob- 
 let, sitting in my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a 
 sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun week, when the 
 prince broke thy head for likening his father to a singing man 
 of Windsor,' and so forth. 
 
 " Dreaming, Somnambulism, Reverie, are so many effects of 
 imagination determined by association, at least, states of mind 
 in which these have a decisive influence. If an impression on 
 the sense often commences a dream, it is by imagination and 
 suggestion that it is developed and accomplished. Dreams 
 have frequently a degree of vivacity which enables them to 
 compete with the reality; and if the events which they repre- 
 sent to us were in accordance with the circumstances of time 
 and place in which we stand, it would be almost impossible to 
 distinguish a vivid dream from a sensible perception." "If," 
 says Pascal, "we dreamt every night the same thing, it would 
 perhaps affect us as powerfully as the objects which we perceive 
 'very day. And if an artisan were certain of dreaming every
 
 THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 451 
 
 night for twelve hours that he was king, I am convinced that he 
 would be almost as happy as a king, who dreamt for twelve 
 hours that he was an artisan. If we dreamt every night that 
 we were pursued by enemies and harassed by horrible phan- 
 toms, we should suffer almost as much as if that were true, and 
 we should stand in as great dread of sleep, as we should of wak- 
 ing, had we real cause to' apprehend these misfortunes 
 
 It is only because dreams are different and inconsistent, that 
 wo can say, when we awake, that we have dreamt ; for life is a 
 dream a little less inconstant." Now the case which Pascal 
 here hypothetically supposes, has actually happened. In a very 
 curious German work, by Abel, I find the following case, 
 which I abridge : A young man had a cataleptic attack, in 
 consequence of which a singular effect was operated in his men- 
 tal constitution. Some six minutes after falling asleep, he 
 began to speak distinctly, and almost always of the same objects 
 and concatenated events, so that he carried on from night to 
 night the same history, or rather continued to play the same 
 part. On wakening, he had no reminiscence whatever of his 
 dreaming thoughts, a circumstance, by the way, which distin- 
 guishes this as rather a case of somnambulism than of common 
 dreaming. Be this, however, as it may, he played a double 
 part in his existence. By day, he was the poor apprentice of a 
 merchant ; by night, he was a married man, the father of a 
 family, a senator, and in affluent circumstances. If, during his 
 vision, any thing was said in regard to his waking state, he de- 
 clared it unreal and a dream. This case, which is established 
 on the best evidence, is, as far as I am aware, unique. 
 
 The influence of dreams upon our character is not without 
 its interest. A particular tendency may be strengthened in a 
 man solely by the repeated action of dreams. Dreams do net, 
 however, as is commonly supposed, afford any appreciable indi- 
 cation of tht- character of individuals. It is not always the 
 subjects that occupy us most, when awake, that form the matter 
 of our dreams ; and it is curious that the persons the dearest 
 to us are precisely those about whom we dream most rarely. 
 
 Somnambulism is a phenomenon still more astonishing. In
 
 452 THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 this singular state, a person performs a regular series of rational 
 actions, and those frequently of the most difficult and delicate 
 nature, and what is still more marvellous, with a talent to which 
 he could make no pretension when awake. His memory and 
 reminiscence supply him with recollections of words and things, 
 which perhaps were never at his disposal in the ordinary state ; 
 he speaks more fluently a more refined language ; and, if we 
 are to credit what the evidence on which it rests hardly allows 
 us to disbelieve, he has not only perceptions through other 
 channels than the common organs of sense, but the sphere of 
 his cognitions is amplified to an extent far beyond the limits to 
 which sensible perception is confined. This subject is one of 
 the most perplexing in the whole compass of philosophy ; for, 
 on the one hand, the phenomena are so marvellous that they 
 cannot be believed, and yet, on the other, they are of so unam- 
 biguous and palpable a character, and the witnesses to their 
 reality are so numerous, so intelligent, and so high above every 
 suspicion of deceit, that it is equally impossible to deny credit 
 to what is attested by such ample and unexceptionable evidence. 
 
 " The third state, that of Reverie or Castle-building, is a 
 kind of waking dream, and does not differ from dreaming, ex- 
 cept by the consciousness which accompanies it. In this state, 
 the mind abandons itself without a choice of subject, without 
 control over the mental train, to the involuntary associations of 
 imagination. The mind is thus occupied without being prop- 
 erly active ; it is active, at least, without effort. Young per- 
 sons, women, the old, the unemployed, and the idle, are all dis- 
 posed to reverie. There is a pleasure attached to its illusions, 
 which render it as seductive as it is dangerous. The mind, by 
 indulgence in this dissipation, becomes enervated; it acquires 
 the habit of a pleasing idleness, loses its activity, and at length 
 even the power and the desire of action." 
 
 Influence of imagination on human life. " The happiness 
 and misery of every individual of mankind depends almost ex- 
 clusively on the particular character of his habitual associations, 
 and the relative kind and intensity of his imagination. It is 
 rauch less what we actually are, and what we actually possess.
 
 THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 453 
 
 than what we imagine ourselves to be and have, that is decisive 
 of our exiscrnce and fortune." Apicius committed suicide to 
 avoid starvation, when his fortune was reduced to somewhere, 
 in English money, about 100,000. The Roman epicure im- 
 agined that he could not subsist on what, to men in general, 
 would seem more than affluence. 
 
 "Imagination, by the attractive or repulsive pictures with 
 which, according to our habits and associations, it fills the frame 
 of our life, lends to reality a magical charm, or despoils it of all 
 its pleasantness. The imaginary happy and the imaginary 
 miserable are common in the world, but their happiness and 
 misery are not the less real ; every thing depends on the mode 
 in which they feel and estimate their condition. Fear, hope, 
 the recollection of past pleasures, the torments of absence and 
 of desire, the secret and almost resistless tendency of the mind 
 towards certain objects, are the effects of association and imagi- 
 nation. At a distance, things seem to us radiant with a celes- 
 tial beauty, or in the lurid aspect of deformity. Of a truth, in 
 either case, we are equally wrong. When the event which we 
 dread, or which we desire, takes place, when we obtain, or 
 when there is forced upon us, an object environed with a thou- 
 sand hopes, or with a thousand fears, we soon discover that we 
 have expected too much or too little ; we thought it by antici- 
 pation infinite in good or evil, and we find it in reality not only 
 finite, but contracted. 'With the exception,' says Rousseau, 
 'of the self-existent Being, there is nothing beautiful, but that 
 which is not.' In the crisis, whether of enjoyment or suffering, 
 happiness is not so much happiness, nor misery so much misery, 
 as we had anticipated. In the past, thanks to a beneficent 
 Creator, our joys reappear as purer and more brilliant than 
 they had been actually experienced ; and sorrow loses not only 
 its bitterness, but is changed even into a source of pleasing rec- 
 ollection. In early youth, the present and the future are dis- 
 played in a factitious magnificence ; for at this period of life, 
 imagination is in its spring and freshness, and a cruel experience 
 has not yet exorcised its brilliant enchantments. Hence the 
 fair picture of a golden age, which all nations concur in placing
 
 454 THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 in the past ; it is the dream of the youth of mankind." In old 
 age, again, where the future is dark and short, imagination carries 
 us back to the reenjoyment of a past existence. " The young," 
 says Aristotle, " live forwards in hope, the old live backwards in 
 memory." 
 
 From all this, however, it appears, that the present is the only 
 time in which we never actually live; we live either in the 
 future, or in the past. So long as we have a future to antici- 
 pate, we contemn the present ; and when we can no longer look 
 forward to a future, we revert and spend our existence in the 
 past. 
 
 Organs of Imagination. I shall terminate the consideration 
 of Imagination Proper by a speculation concerning the organ 
 which it employs in the representations of sensible objects. The 
 organ which it thus employs seems to be no other than the 
 organs themselves of Sense, on which the original impressions 
 were made, and through which they were originally perceived. 
 Experience has shown, that Imagination depends on no one 
 part of the cerebral apparatus exclusively. There is no portion 
 of the brain which has not been destroyed by mollification, or 
 induration, or external lesion, without the general faculty of 
 Representation being injured. But experience equally proves, 
 that the intracranial portion of any external organ of sense can- 
 not be destroyed, without a certain partial abolition of the Imag- 
 ination Proper. For example, there are many cases recorded 
 by medical observers, of persons losing their sight, who have 
 also lost the faculty of representing the images of visible objects. 
 They no longer call up such objects by reminiscence, they no 
 longer dream of them. Now in these cases, it is found that not 
 merely the external instrument of sight, the eye, has been 
 disorganized, but that the disorganization has extended to those 
 parts of the brain which constitute the ink-null instrument of 
 this sense, that is, the optic nerves and thalami. If the latter, 
 the real organ of vision, remain sound, the eye alone 
 being destroyed, the imagination of colors and forms remains 
 as vigorous as when vision was entire. Similar cases are re- 
 corded in regard to the deaf. These facts, added to the observa-
 
 THE REPRESENTATIVE FACULTY. 455 
 
 tion of the internal phenomena which take place during our 
 acts of representation, make it, I think, more than probable 
 that there are as many organs of Imagination as there 
 are organs of Sense. Thus I have a distinct conscious- 
 ness, that, in. the internal representation of visible objects, the 
 eame organs are at work which operate in the external percep- 
 tion of these ; and the same holds good in an imagination of tho 
 objects of Hearing, Touch, Taste, and Smell. 
 
 But not only sensible perceptions, voluntary motions likewise 
 are imitated in and by the imagination. I can, in imagination 
 represent the action of speech, the play of the muscles of the 
 countenance, the movement of the limbs ; and when I do this, I 
 feel clearly that I awaken a kind of tension in the same nerves 
 through which, by an act of will, I can determine an overt and 
 voluntary motion of the muscles ; nay, when the play of imagi- 
 nation is very lively, this external movement is actually deter- 
 mined. Thus we frequently see the countenances of persons 
 under the influence of imagination undergo various changes ; 
 they gesticulate with their hands, they talk to themselves, and 
 all this is in consequence only of the imagined activity going out 
 into real activity. I should, therefore, be disposed to conclude, 
 that, as in Perception the living organs of sense are from with- 
 out determined to energy, so in Imagination they are determined 
 to a similar energy by an influence from within.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE ELADORATIVE FACULTY. CLASSIFICATION. - ABSTRAC- 
 TION AND GENERALIZATION. NOMINALISM AND CONCEP- 
 TUALISM. 
 
 THE faculties with which we have been hitherto engaged 
 may be regarded as subsidiary to that whic 1 ., we are now about 
 to consider. This, to which I gave the vime of the Elabora- 
 tive Faculty, the Faculty of Relations, or Comparison, 
 constitutes what is properly denominated Thought. It supposes 
 always at least two terms, and its act results in a judgment, 
 that is, an affirmation or negation of one of these terms of the, 
 other. You will recollect that, when treating of Consciousness 
 in general, I stated to you, that consciousness necessarily invokes 
 a judgment ; and as every act of mind is an act of conscious- 
 ness, every act of mind, consequently, involves a judgment. A 
 consciousness is necessarily the consciousness of a determinate 
 something ; and we cannot be conscious of any thing without 
 virtually affirming its existence, that is, judging it to be. Con- 
 iclousncss is thus primarily a judgment or affirmation of exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Again, consciousness is not merely the affirmation of naked 
 existence, but the affirmation of a certain qualified or determinate 
 existence. We are conscious that we exist, only in and through 
 our consciousness that we exist in this or that particular state, 
 that we are so or so affected, so or so active ; and we are 
 only conscious of this or that particular state of existence, inas- 
 much as we discriminate it as different from some other state of 
 existence, of which we have been previously conscious and are 
 now reminiscent ; but such a discrimination supposes, in con- 
 sciousness, the affirmation of the existence of one state of a 
 (450)
 
 THE ELABORATIVE FACULTY. 457 
 
 specific character, and the negation of another. On this ground 
 it was that I maintained, that consciousness necessarily involves, 
 besides recollection, or rather a certain continuity of represen- 
 tation, also judgment or comparison ; and, consequently, that, so 
 far from comparison or judgment being a process always subse- 
 quent to the acquisition of knowledge, through perception and 
 self-consciousness, it is involved as a condition of the acquisitive 
 process itself. In point of fact, the various processes of Acqui- 
 sition (Apprehension), Representation, and Comparison, are all 
 mutually dependent. Comparison cannot judge without some- 
 thing to compare ; we cannot originally acquire, apprehend, 
 we cannot subsequently represent our knowledge, without in 
 either act attributing existence, and a certain kind of existence, 
 both to the object known and to the subject knowing, that is, 
 without enouncing certain judgments and performing certain 
 acts of comparison ; I say, without performing certain acts of 
 comparison, for taking the mere affirmation that a thing is, 
 this is tantamount to a negation that it is not, and necessarily 
 supposes a comparison, a collation, between existence and 
 non-existence. 
 
 Comparison supposed in every act of Thought. What I 
 have now said may perhaps contribute to prepare you for what 
 I am hereafter to say of the faculty or elementary process of 
 Comparison, a faculty which, in the analysis of philosophers. 
 is exhibited only in part ; and even that part is not preserved 
 in its integrity. They take into account only a fragment of the 
 process, and that fragment they again break down into a plural 
 ity of faculties. In opposition to the views hitherto promul- 
 gated in regard to Comparison, I will show, that this faculty is 
 at work in every, the simplest, act of mind ; and that, from the 
 primary affirmation of existence in an original act of conscious- 
 ness, to the judgment contained in the conclusion of an act of 
 reasoning, every operation is only an evolution of the same ele- 
 mentary process, that there is a difference in the complexity, 
 none in the nature, of the act ; in short, that the various pro- 
 ducts of Analysis and Synthesis, of Abstraction and General- 
 ization, are all merely the results of Comparison, and that the 
 39
 
 458 THE ELABORATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 operations of Conception or Simple Apprehension, of Judg- 
 ment, and of Reasoning, are all only acts of Comparison in 
 various applications and degrees. 
 
 "What I have, therefore, to prove is, in the first place, that 
 Comparison is supposed in every, the simplest, act of knowl- 
 edge ; in the second, that our factitiously simple, our factitiously 
 complex, our abstract, and our generalized notions are all 
 merely so many products of Comparison ; in the third, that 
 Judgment, and, in the fourth, that Reasoning, is identical with 
 Comparison. In doing this, I shall not formally distribute the 
 discussion into these heads, but shall include the proof of what 
 I have now advanced, while tracing Comparison from its sim- 
 plest to its most complex operations. 
 
 Primary acts of Comparison. Thejirst or most elementary 
 act of Comparison, or of that mental process in which the 
 relation of two terms is recognized and affirmed, is the judg- 
 ment virtually pronounced, in an act of Perception, of the 
 Non-ego, or, in an act of Self-consciousness, of the Ego. This 
 is the primary affirmation of existence. The notion of exist- 
 ence is one native to the mind. It is the primary condition of 
 thought. The first act of experience awoke it, and the first act 
 of consciousness was a subsumption of that of which we were 
 conscious under this notion ; in other words, the first act of 
 consciousness was an affirmation of the existence of something. 
 The first or simplest act of Comparison is thus the discrimina- 
 tion of existence from non-existence ; and the first or simplest 
 judgment is the affirmation of existence, in other words, the 
 denial of non-existence. 
 
 But the something of which we are conscious, and of which 
 we predicate existence, in the primary judgment, is twofold, 
 the Ego and the Non-ego. We are conscious of both, and affirm 
 existence of both. But we do more ; we do not merely affirm 
 the existence of each out of relation to the other, but, in affirm- 
 ing their existence, we affirm their existence in duality, in dif- 
 ference, in mutual contrast ; that is, we not only affirm the Ego 
 to exist, but deny it existing as the Non-ego ; we not only affirm 
 the Non-ego to exist, but deny it existing as the Ego. The sec-
 
 CLASSIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION. 459 
 
 ond act of Comparison is thus the discrimination of the Ego and 
 the Non-ego ; and the second judgment is the affirmation, that 
 each is not the other. 
 
 The third gradation in the act of Comparison, is in the recog- 
 nition of the multiplicity of the coexistent or successive phae- 
 nomena, presented either to Perception or Self-consciousness, 
 and the judgment in regard to their resemblance or dissimi- 
 larity. 
 
 The fourth is the Comparison of the phenomena with th 
 native notion of Substance, and the judgment is the grouping 
 of these phenomena into different bundles, as the attributes of 
 different subjects. In the external world, this relation consti- 
 tutes the distinction of things ; in the internal, the distinction 
 of powers. 
 
 The fifth act of Comparison is the collation of successive 
 phaenomena under the native notion of Causality, and the 
 affirmation or negation of their mutual relation as cause and 
 effect, 
 
 Classification an act of Comparison. So far, the process 
 of Comparison is determined merely by objective conditions 
 hitherto, it has followed *only in the footsteps of nature. In 
 those, again, we are now to consider, the procedure is, in a cer- 
 tain sort, artificial, and determined by the necessities of the 
 thinking subject itself. The mind is finite in its powers of com- 
 prehension ; the objects, on the contrary, which are presented 
 to it, are, in proportion to its limited capacities, infinite in num- 
 ber. How then is this disproportion to be equalized ? How 
 can the infinity of nature be brought down to the finitude of 
 man ? This is done by means of Classification. Objects, 
 though infinite in number, are not infinite in variety ; they are 
 all, in a certain sort, repetitions of the same common qualities, 
 and the mind, though lost in the multitude of particulars, in- 
 dividuals, can easily grasp the classes into which their resem- 
 bling attributes enable us to assort these. This whole process 
 of Classification is a mere act of Comparison, as the following 
 deduction will show. 
 
 In the first place, this may be shown in regard to the forma-
 
 460 CLASSIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION. 
 
 tion of Complex notions, with which, as the simplest species of 
 classification, we may commence. By Complex or Collective 
 notions, I mean merely the notion of a class formed by the rep- 
 etition of the same constituent notion. Such are the notions 
 of an army, a forest, a town, a number. These are names of 
 classes, formed by the repetition of the notion of a soldier, of a 
 tree, of a house, of a unit. You are not to confound, as has 
 sometimes been done, the notion of an army, a forest, a town, a 
 number, with the notions of army, forest, town, and number ; 
 the former, as I have said, are complex or collective, the latter 
 are general or universal notions. 
 
 It is evident that a Collective notion is the result of Compari- 
 son. The repetition of the same constituent notion supposes 
 that these notions were compared, their identity or absolute 
 similarity affirmed. 
 
 How language aids Classification. In the whole process of 
 classification, the mind is in a great measure dependent upon 
 language for its success ; and in this, the simplest of the acts 
 of classification, it may be proper to show how language affords 
 to mind the assistance it requires. Our complex notions being 
 formed by the repetition of the sam notion, it is evident that 
 the difficulty we can experience in forming an adequate concep- 
 tion of a class of identical constituents, will be determined by 
 the difficulty we have in conceiving a multitude. " But the 
 comprehension of the mind," [says Degerando,] " is feeble and 
 limited ; it can embrace at once but a small number of objects. 
 It would thus seem that an obstacle is raised to the extension 
 of our complex ideas at the very outset of our combinations. 
 But here language interposes, and supplies the mind with the 
 force of which it, is naturally destitute." We have formerly 
 seen that the mind cannot, in one act, embrace more than five or 
 six, at the utmost seven, several units. How then does it pro- 
 ceed ? " When, by a first combination, we have obtained a 
 complement of notions as complex as the mind ran embrace, 
 we give this complement a name. This being done, we regard 
 the assemblage of units thus bound up under a collective name 
 a-; itself a unit, and proceed, by a second combination, to a^u-
 
 CLASSIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION. 461 
 
 raulafe these into a new complement of the same extent. To 
 this new complement we give another name ; and then again 
 proceed to perform, on this more complex unit, the same opera- 
 tion we had performed on the first ; and so we may go on rising 
 from complement to complement to an indefinite extent. Thus, 
 a merchant, having received a large unknown sum of money 
 in crowns, counts out the pieces by fives, and having done this 
 till he has reached twenty, he lays them together in a heap ; 
 around these, he assembles similar piles of coin, till they amount, 
 let us say, to twenty ; and he then puts the whole four hundred 
 into a bag. In this manner he proceeds, until he fills a number 
 of bags, and placing the whole in his coffers, he will have a 
 complex or collective notion of the quantity of crowns which 
 he has received." It is on this principle that arithmetic pro 
 eeeds, tens, hundreds, thousands, myriads, hundreds of thou- 
 sands, millions, etc., are all so many factitious units, which ena- 
 ble us to form notions, vague indeed, of what otherwise we 
 could have obtained no conception at all. So much for com- 
 plex or collective notions, formed without decomposition, a 
 process which I now go on to consider. 
 
 Two modes of decomposing thought. Our thought, that 
 is, the sum total of the perceptions and representations which 
 occupy us at any given moment, is always, as I have frequently 
 observed, compound. The composite objects of thoughts may 
 be. decomposed in two ways, and for the sake of two different 
 interests. In the first place, we may decompose in order that 
 we may recombine, influenced by the mere pleasure which this 
 plastic operation affords us. This is poetical analysis and syn- 
 thesis. On this process it is needless to dwell. It is evidently 
 the work of comparison. For example, the minotaur, cr chi- 
 rmera, or centaur, or gryphon (hippogryph), or any other poet- 
 ical combination of different animals, could only have been 
 effected by an act in which the representations of these animals 
 were compared, and in which certain parts of one were affirmed, 
 compatible with certain parts of another. IIo\v, again, is the 
 imagination of all ideal beauty or perfection formed? Simply 
 by comparing the various beauties or excellences of which wo
 
 462 CLASSIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION. 
 
 have had actual experience, and thus being enabled to pro- 
 nounce in regard to their common and essential quality. 
 
 In the second place, we may decompose in the interest of 
 science ; and as the poetical decomposition was principally ac- 
 complished by a separation of integral parts, so this is princi- 
 pally accomplished by an abstraction of constituent qualities. 
 On this process it is necessary to be more particular. 
 
 Abstraction through the senses. Suppose an unknown body 
 is presented to my senses, and that it is capable of affecting each 
 of these in a certain manner. " As furnished with five different 
 organs," [says Laromiguiere,] " each of which serves to intro- 
 duce a certain class of perceptions and representations into the 
 mind, we naturally distribute all sensible objects into five species 
 of qualities. The human body, if we may so speak, is thus itself 
 a kind of abstractive machine. The senses cannot but abstract. 
 If the eye did not abstract colors, it would see them confounded 
 with odors and with tastes, and odors and tastes would necessa- 
 rily become objects of sight." 
 
 " The abstraction of the senses is thus an operation the most 
 natural ; it is even impossible for us not to perform it. Let us 
 now see whether abstraction by the mind be more arduous than 
 that of the senses." We have formerly found that the compre- 
 hension of the mind is extremely limited ; that it can only take 
 cognizance of one object at a time, if that be known with full 
 intensity ; and that it can accord a simultaneous attention to a 
 very small plurality of objects, and even that imperfectly. Thus 
 it is that attention fixed on one object is tantamount to a with- 
 drawal, to an abstraction, of consciousness from every other. 
 Abstract ion is thus not a positive act of mind, as it is often 
 erroneously described in philosophical treatises ; it is merely 
 a negation to one or more objects, in consequence of its concen- 
 tration on another. 
 
 This being the case, Abstraction is not only an easy and 
 natural, but a necessary result. "In studying an object," [con- 
 tinues Laromiguiere,] " we neither exert all our faculties at 
 once, nor at once apply them to all the qualities of an object. 
 We know from experience, that the effect of such a mode of
 
 CLASSIFICATION AND ABSTRACTION. 463 
 
 procedure is confusion. On the contrary, we converge our at- 
 tention on one alone of its qualities, nay, contemplate this 
 quality only in a single point of view, and retain it in that aspect 
 until we have obtained a full and accurate conception of it. 
 The human mind proceeds from the confused and complex to 
 the distinct and constituent, always separating, always dividing, 
 always simplifying ; and this is the only mode in which, from 
 the weakness of our faculties, we are able to apprehend and tn 
 represent with correctness." 
 
 " It is true, indeed, that after having decomposed every thing, 
 we must, as it were, return on our steps by recomposing e\uy 
 thing anew ; for unless we do so, our knowledge would not be 
 conformable to the reality and relations of nature. The simple 
 qualities of body have not each a proper and independent exist- 
 ence ; the ultimate faculties of mind are not so many distinct 
 and independent existences. On either side, there is a being 
 one and the same ; on that side, at once extended, solid, colored, 
 etc. ; on this, at once capable of thought, feeling, desire, etc." 
 
 " But although all, or the greater number of, our cognitions 
 comprehend different fasciculi of notions, it is necessary to com- 
 mence by the acquisition of these notions one by one, through 
 a successive application of our attention to the different attri- 
 butes of objects. The abstraction of the intellect is thus as 
 natural as that of the senses. It is even imposed upon us by 
 the very constitution of our mind." 
 
 " I am aware that the expression, abstraction of the senses, is 
 incorrect ; for it is the mind always which acts, be it through 
 the medium of the senses. The impropriety of the expression 
 is not, however, one which is in danger of leading into error ; 
 and it serves to point out the important fact, that Abstraction is 
 not always performed in the same manner. In Perception, 
 in the presence of physical objects, the intellect abstracts colors 
 by the eyes, sounds by the ear, etc. In Representation, and 
 when the external object is absent, the mind operates on ita 
 reproduced cognitions, and looks at them successively in their 
 different points of view." 
 
 " However abstraction be performed, the result is notions
 
 464 ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION. 
 
 whi A are simple, or which approximate to simplicity ; and if 
 we apply it with consistency and order to the different qualities 
 of objects, we shall attain at length to a knowledge of these 
 qualities and of their mutual dependencies ; that is, to a knowl- 
 edge of objects as they really are. In this case, abstraction be- 
 comes analysis, which is the method to which we owe all our 
 cognitions." 
 
 The process of abstraction is familiar to the most uncultivated 
 minds ; and its uses are shown equally in the mechanical arts as 
 in the philosophical sciences. "A carpenter," says Kames, 
 speaking of the great utility of abstraction, " considers a log of 
 wood with regard to hardness, firmness, color, and texture ; a 
 philosopher, neglecting these properties, makes the log undergo 
 a chemical analysis, and examines its taste, its smell, and com- 
 ponent principles ; the geometrician confines his reasoning to 
 the figure, the length, breadth, and thickness ; in general, every 
 artist, abstracting from all other properties, confines his observa- 
 tions to those which have a more immediate connection with hia 
 profession." 
 
 But is Abstraction, or rather, is exclusive attention, the work 
 of Comparison ? This is evident. The application of attention 
 to a particular object, or quality of an object, supposes an act of 
 will, a choice or preference, and this again supposes Com- 
 parison and Judgment. But this may be made more manifest 
 from a view of the act of Generalization, on which we are about 
 to enter. 
 
 Generalization. Abstract individual ideas. The notion of 
 the figure of the desk before me is an abstract idea, an idea 
 that makes part of the total notion of that body, and on which I 
 have concentrated my attention, in order to consider it exrlu- 
 sively. This idea is abstract, but it is at the same time individ- 
 ual ; it represents the figure of this particular desk, and not the 
 figure of any other body. But had we only individual abstract 
 notions, what would be our knowledge? "We should be cog- 
 ni/ant only of qualities viewed apart from their subjects (and 
 of separate phaenomena there exists none in nature); and as 
 these qualities arc also separate from each other, we should
 
 ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION. *C5 
 
 have no knowledge of their mutual relations. We should also 
 be overwhelmed with their number. 
 
 Abstract General notions. It is necessary, therefore, that 
 we should form Abstract General notions. This is done 
 when, comparing a number of objects, we seize on their 
 resemblances ; when we concentrate our attention on these 
 points of similarity, thus abstracting the mind from a con- 
 sideration of their differences ; and when we give a name 
 to our notion of that circumstance in which they all agree. 
 The General Notion is thus one which makes us know a 
 quality, property, power, action, relation ; in short, any 
 point of view, under which we recognize a plurality of objects 
 as a unity. It makes us aware of a quality, a point of view, 
 common to many things. It is a notion of resemblance ; hence 
 the reason why general names or terms, the signs of general 
 notions, have been called terms of resemblance (termini similitu- 
 dinis). In this process of generalization, we do not stop short 
 at a first generalization. By a first generalization, we have 
 obtained a number of classes of resembling individuals. But 
 these classes we can compare together, observe their similarities, 
 abstract from their differences, and bestow on their common cii 
 cumstance a common name. On these second classes we can 
 again perform the same operation, and thus ascending the scale 
 of general notions, throwing out of view always a greater num- 
 ber of differences, and seizing always on fewer similarities in 
 the formation of our classes, we arrive at length at the limit of 
 our ascent in the notion of being or existence. Thus placed 
 on the summit of the scale of classes, we descend by a process 
 the reverse of that by whicl we have ascended ; we divide and 
 subdivide the classes, by introducing always more and more 
 characters, and laying always fewer differences aside ; the 
 notions become more and more composite, until we at length 
 arrive at the individual. 
 
 Twofold quantity in notions. I may here notice, that there 
 is a twofold kind of quantity to be considered in notions. It is 
 evident, that, in proportion as the class is high, it will, in the 
 first place, contain under it a greater number of classes, and, in 
 the second, will M^-l'iilo tlip smallest complement of attribute*.
 
 466 ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION. 
 
 Thua, being or existence contains under it every class ; and yet, 
 when we say that a thing exists, we say the very least of it 
 that is possible. On the other hand, an individual, though it 
 contain nothing but itself, involves the largest amount of predi- 
 cation. For example, when I say, this is Richard, I not 
 only affirm of the subject every class from existence down to 
 man, but likewise a number of circumstances proper to Richard 
 as an individual. Now, the former of these quantities, the 
 external, is called the Extension of a notion ; the latter, the 
 internal quantity, is called its Comprehension or Intension. 
 The extension of a notion is, likewise, styled its circuit, region, 
 domain, or sphere, also its breadth. On the other hand, the 
 comprehension of a notion is likewise called its depth. These 
 names we owe to the Greek logicians. The internal and ex- 
 ternal quantities are in the inverse ratio of each other. The 
 greater the Extension, the less the Comprehension ; the greater 
 the Comprehension, the less the Extension. 
 
 I have noticed the improper use of the term abstraction by 
 many philosophers, in applying it to that on which attention is 
 converged. This we may indeed be said to prescind, but not 
 to abstract. Thus, let A, B, C, be three qualities of an object. 
 "We prescind A, in abstracting it from B and C ; but we cannot, 
 without impropriety, simply say that we abstract A. Thus, by 
 attending to one object to the abstraction from all others, we, in 
 a certain sort, decompose or analyze the complex materials pre- 
 sented to us by Perception and Self-consciousness. This analy- 
 sis or decomposition is of two kinds. In the first place, by 
 concentrating attention on one integrant part of an object, we, 
 as it were, withdraw or abstract it from the others. For exam- 
 ple, we can consider the head of an animal to the exclusion cf 
 the other members. This may be called Partial or Concrete 
 Abstraction. The process here noticed has, however, been 
 overlooked by philosophers, insomuch that they have opposed 
 the terms concrete and abstract as exclusive contraries. In the 
 second place, we can rivet our attention on some particular 
 mode of a tiling, as its smell, it.s color, its figure, its motion, its 
 size, etc., and abstract it from the others. This may be called 
 Modal Abstraction.
 
 ABSTRACTION AND GENERALIZATION. 467 
 
 The Abstraction we have been now speaking of is performed 
 n individual objects, and is consequently particular. There is 
 nothing necessarily connected with Generalization in Abstrac- 
 tion. Generalization is indeed dependent on Abstraction, which 
 it supposes ; but Abstraction does not involve Generalization. I 
 remark this, because you will frequently find the terms abstract 
 and general applied to notions, used as convertible. Nothing, 
 however, can be more incorrect. "A person," says Mr. Stewart, 
 u who had never seen but one rose, might yet have been able to 
 consider its color apart from its other qualities ; and, therefore, 
 there may be such a thing as an idea which is at once abstract 
 and particular. After having perceived this quality as belong- 
 ing to a variety of individuals, we can consider it without refer- 
 ence to any of them, and thus form the notion of redness or 
 whiteness in general, which may be called a general abstract 
 idea. The words abstract and general, therefore, when applied 
 to ideas, are as completely distinct from each other as any two 
 words to be found in the language." 
 
 Generalization is the process through which we obtain what 
 are called general or universal notion?. A general notion is 
 nothing but the abstract notion of a circumstance in which a 
 number of individual objects are found to agree, that is, to 
 resemble each other. In so far as two objects resemble each 
 other, the notion we have of them is identical, and, therefore, 
 to us the objects may be considered as the same. Accordingly, 
 having discovered the circumstance in which objects agree, we 
 arrange them by this common circumstance into classes, to 
 which we also usually give a common name. 
 
 I have explained how, in the prosecution of this operation, 
 commencing with individual objects, we generalized these into 
 a lowest class. Having found a number of such lowest classes, 
 we then compare these again together, as we had originally 
 compared individuals ; we abstract their points of resemblance, 
 and by these points generalize them into a higher class. The 
 same process we perform upon these higher classes ; and thus 
 proceed, generalizing class from classes, until we are at last 
 arrested in the one highest class, that of being. Thus we find
 
 468 NOMINALISM AND CONCEPTUALISM. 
 
 Peter, Paul, Timothy, etc., all agree in certain common attri- 
 butes, which distinguish them from other animated beings. 
 We accordingly collect them into a class, which we call man. 
 In like manner, out of the other animated beings which we ex- 
 clude from man, we form the classes, horse, dog, ox, etc. These 
 and man form so many lowest classes or species. But these 
 epecies, though differing in certain respects, all agree in others. 
 Abstracting from their diversities, we attend only to their 
 resemblances ; and as all manifest life, sense, feeling, etc., 
 this resemblance gives us a class, on which we bestow the name 
 animal. Animal, or living sentient existences, we then com- 
 pare with lifeless existences, and thus going on abstracting from 
 differences, and attending to resemblances, we arrive at naked 
 or undifferenced existence. Having reached the pinnacle of 
 generalization, we may redescend the ladder ; and this is done 
 by reversing the process through which we ascended. Instead 
 of attending to the similarities, and abstracting from the differ- 
 ences, we now attend to the differences, and abstract from the 
 similarities. And as the ascending process is called Generali- 
 zation, this is called Division or Determination ; Division, be- 
 cause the higher or wider classes are cut down into lower or 
 narrower; Determination, because every quality added on to 
 a class limits or determines its extent, that is, approximates it 
 more to some individual, real, or determinate existence. 
 
 Question between the Nominalists and the Conceptualists. 
 Having given you this necessary information in regard to the na- 
 ture of Generalization, I proceed to consider one of the most sim- 
 ple, and, at the same time, one of the most perplexed, problems in 
 philosophy, in regard to the object of the mind, the object 
 of consciousness, when we employ a general term. In the ex- 
 planation of the process of generalization, all philosophers are 
 at one ; the only differences that arise among them relate to the 
 point, whether we can form an adequate idea of that which 
 is denoted by an abstract, or abstract and general term. In the 
 discussion of this question, I shall pursue the following order: 
 jirsl of all, I shall state the arguments of the Nominalist^, 
 of those who hold, that we are unable to form an idea corro-
 
 NOMINALISM AND CONCEPTUALISM. 469 
 
 spending to the abstract and general term ; in the second place, 
 I shall state the arguments of the Conceptualists, of those 
 x who maintain that we are so competent; and, in the last, I 
 shall show that the opposing parties are really at one, and that 
 the whole controversy has originated in the imperfection and 
 ambiguity of our philosophical nomenclature. In this discus- 
 sion, I avoid all mention of the ancient doctrine of Realism. 
 This is curious only in an historical point of view ; and is 
 wholly irrelevant to the question at issue among modern philos 
 ophers. 
 
 This controversy has been principally agitated in [Great 
 Britain] and in France, for a reason that I shall hereafter ex- 
 plain ; and, to limit ourselves to Great Britain, the doctrine of 
 Nominalism has, among others, been embraced by Hobbes, 
 Berkeley, Hume, Principal Campbell, and Mr. Stewart ; while 
 Conceptualism has found favor with Locke, Reid, and Brown. 
 
 Throwing out of view the antiquities of the question, (and 
 this question is perhaps more memorable than any other in the 
 history of philosophy), laying, I say, out of account opinions 
 which have been long exploded, there are two which still divide 
 philosophers. Some maintain, that every act and every object of 
 mind is necessarily singular, and that the name is that alone 
 which can pretend to generality. Others again hold, that the 
 mind is capable of forming notions, representations, correspond- 
 ent in universality to the classes contained under, or expressed 
 by, the general term. 
 
 Nominalism. The former of these opinions, the doctrine, 
 as it is called, of Nominalism, maintains that every notion, 
 considered in itself, is singular, but becomes, as it were, general, 
 through the intention of the mind to make it represent every 
 resembling notion, or notion of the same class. Take, for ex- 
 ample, the term man. Here we can call up no notion, no idea, 
 corresponding to the universality of the class or term. This is 
 manifestly impossible. For as man involves contradictory attri- 
 butes, and as contradictions cannot coexist in one representation, 
 an idea or notion adequate to man cannot be realixed in thought. 
 The class man includes individuals, male and female, white, and 
 40
 
 470 NOMINALISM AND CONCEPTUALISM. 
 
 black and copper-colored, tall and short, fat and thin, straight 
 and crooked, whole and mutilated, etc., etc. ; and the notion of 
 the class must, therefore, at once represent all and none of these. 
 It is, therefore, evident, though the absurdity was maintained 
 by Locke, that we cannot accomplish this ; and, this being im- 
 possible, we cannot represent to ourselves the class man by any 
 equivalent notion or idea. All that we can do is to call up 
 some individual image, and consider it as representing, though 
 inadequately representing, the generality. This we easily do, 
 for as we can call into imagination any individual, so we can 
 make that individual image stand for any or for every other 
 which it resembles in those essential points which constitute the 
 identity of the class. This opinion, which, after Hobbes, has 
 been maintained, among others, by Berkeley, Hun: 3, Adam 
 Smith, Campbell, and Stewart, appears to me not only true, but 
 self-evident. 
 
 No one has stated the case of the Nominalists more clearly 
 than Bishop Berkeley, and his whole argument is, as far as it 
 goes, irrefragable. " It is agreed," [he says,] " on all hands, 
 that the qualities or modes of things do never really exist each 
 of them apart by itself, and separated from all others, but are 
 mixed, as it were, and blended together, several in the same 
 object. But we are told, the mind, being able to consider each 
 quality singly, or abstracted from those other qualities with 
 which it is united, does by that means frame to itself abstract 
 ideas. For example, there is perceived by sight an object ex- 
 tended, colored, and moved : this mixed or compound idea the 
 mind resolving into its simple, constituent parts, and viewing 
 each by itself, exclusive of the rest, does frame the abstract ideas 
 of extension, color, and motion. Not that it is possible for color 
 or motion to exist without extension ; but only that the mind 
 can frame to itself, by abstraction, the idea of color exclusive of 
 extension, and of motion exclusive of both color and extension. 
 
 " Again, the mind having observed that, in the particular ex- 
 tensions perceived by sense, there is something common and 
 alike in all, and some other things peculiar, as this or that figure 
 or magnitude, which distinguish thorn one from another; it con
 
 NOMINALISM AM) vJONCEPTUALISM. 471 
 
 eiders apart or singles out by itself that which is common, mak- 
 ing thereof a most abstract idea of extension, which is neither 
 line, surface, nor solid, nor has any figure or magnitude, but is 
 an idea entirely prescinded from all these. So, likewise, the 
 mind, by leaving out of the particular colors perceived by sense 
 that which distinguishes them one from another, and retaining 
 that only which is common to all, makes an idea of color in 
 abstract which is neither red, nor blue, nor white, nor any other 
 determinate color. And in like manner, by considering motion 
 abstractedly not only from the body moved, but likewise from 
 the figure it describes, and all particular directions and veloci 
 ties, the abstract idea of motion is framed ; which equally cor- 
 responds to all particular motions whatsoever that may be per 
 ceived by sense. 
 
 " Whether others have this wonderful faculty of abstracting 
 their ideas, they best can tell : for myself I find, indeed, I have 
 a faculty of imagining, or representing to myself the ideas of 
 those particular things I have perceived, and of variously com- 
 pounding and dividing them. I can imagine a man with two 
 heads, or the upper parts of a man joined to the body of a horse. 
 I can consider the hand, the eye, the nose, each by itself ab- 
 stracted or separated from the rest of the body. But then 
 whatever hand or eye I imagine, it must have some particular 
 shape and color. Likewise, the idea of man that I frame to 
 myself must be either of a white, or a black, or a tawny, a 
 straight or a crooked, a tall or a low, or a middle-sized man. 1 
 cannot by any effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above 
 described. And it is equally impossible for me to form the 
 abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving, and 
 which is neither swift nor slow, curvilinear nor rectilinear ; and 
 the like may be said of all other abstract general ideas what- 
 soever. To be plain, I own myself able to abstract in one 
 sense, as when I consider some particular parts or qualities sep- 
 arated from others, with which, though they are united in some 
 object, yet it is possible they may really exist without them. 
 But I deny that I can abstract one from another, or conceive 
 separately, those qualities which it is impossible should exist so
 
 *72 \OMINALISM AND CONCEPTUALISM. 
 
 separated : or that I can frame a general notion by abstracting 
 from particulars in the manner aforesaid. Which two last are 
 the proper acceptations of abstraction. And there are grounds 
 to think most men will acknowledge themselves to be in my 
 case. The generality of men, which are simple and illiterate, 
 never pretend to abstract notions. It is said they are difficult, 
 and not to be attained without pains and study. We may there- 
 fore reasonably conclude, that, if such there be, they are confined 
 only to the learned." 
 
 Such is ihe doctrine of Nominalism, as asserted by Berkeley, 
 and as subsequently acquiesced in by the principal philosophers 
 of [Great Britain]. Reid himself is, indeed, hardly an excep- 
 tion, for his opinion on this point is, to say the least of it, ex- 
 tremely vague. 
 
 Conceptual} sm. The counter-opinion, that of Conceptual- 
 ism, as it is called, has, however, been supported by several 
 philosophers of distinguished ability. Locke maintains the 
 doctrine in its most revolting absurdity, boldly admitting that 
 the general notion must be realized, in spite of the principle of 
 Contradiction. " Does it not require," he says, " some pains 
 and skill to form the general idea of a triangle (which is yet 
 none of the most abstract, comprehensive, and difficult), for it 
 must be neither oblique or rectangle, neither equilateral, equi- 
 crural, nor scalenon ; but all and none of these at once. In 
 effect, it is something imperfect, that cannot exist ; an idea 
 wherein some parts of several different and inconsistent ideas 
 are put together." 
 
 This doctrine was, however, too palpably absurd to obtain 
 any advocates ; and Conceptualism, could it not find a firmer 
 basis, behoved to be abandoned. Passing over Dr. ReidV 
 speculations on the question, which are, as I have said, wavering 
 and ambiguous, I solicit your attention to the principal state- 
 ment and defence of Conceptualism by Dr. Brown, in whom the 
 doctrine has obtained a strenuous advocate. The following is 
 the seventh, out of nine recapitulations, he has given us of it in 
 his Lectures. ' If then the generalizing process be, first, the 
 perception or conception of two or more objects ; secondly, the
 
 NOMINALISM AND CONCEPTUALISM. 473 
 
 relative feeling of their resemblance in certain respects ; thirdly, 
 the designation of these circumstances of resemblance by an 
 appropriate name, the doctrine of the Nominalists, which in- 
 cludes only two of these stages, the perception of particular 
 objects, and the invention of general terms, must be false, as 
 excluding that relative suggestion of resemblance in certain re- 
 ppects, which is the second and most important step of the pro- 
 cess ; since it is this intermediate feeling alone that leads to the 
 ise of the term, which, otherwise, it would be impossible to 
 limit to any set of objects." 
 
 This contains, in fact, both the whole of his own doctrine, and 
 the whole ground of his rejection of that of the Nominalists. 
 Now, upon this, I would, first of all, say, in general, that what 
 in it is true is not new. But I hold it idle to prove, that his 
 doctrine is old and common, and to trace it to authors with 
 whom Brown has shown his acquaintance, by repeutedly quot- 
 ing them in his Lectures; it is enough to show that it is erroneous. 
 
 The first point I shall consider is his confutation of the Nomi- 
 nalists. In the passage I have just adduced, and in ten others, 
 he charges the Nominalists with excluding " the relative sug- 
 gestion of resemblance in certain respects, which is the second 
 and most important step in the process." This, I admit, is a 
 weighty accusation, and I admit at once that if it do not prove 
 that his own doctrine is right, it would at least demonstrate 
 theirs to be sublimely wrong. But is the charge well founded? 
 Let us see whether the Nominalists, as he assures us, do really 
 exclude the apprehension of resemblance in certain respects, aa 
 one step in their doctrine of generalization. I turn first to 
 Hobbes as the real father of this opinion, to him, as Leibnitz 
 truly says, " nominalibus ipsis nominaliorem." The classical 
 place of this philosopher on the subject is the fourth chapter of 
 the Leviathan; and there we have the following passage 
 " One universal name is imposed on many things for their simil- 
 itude in some quality or other accident ; and whereas u proper 
 name bringeth to mind one thing only, universals recall any one 
 of those many." There are other passages to the same ellect 
 in Hobbes, but I look no further. 
 40*
 
 474 NOMINALISM AND CONCEPTDALISM. 
 
 The second great Nominalist is Berkeley ; [from whom,] out 
 of many similar passages, I select the two following. In both, 
 he is stating his own doctrine of Nominalism. In the Introduc- 
 tion, sect. 22 : " To discern the agreements or disagreements that 
 are between my ideas, tj see what ideas are included in any 
 compound idea, etc." In the Minute Philosopher, sect. 7 : " But 
 may not words become general by being made to stand indis- 
 criminately for all particular ideas, which, from a mutual resem- 
 blance, belong to the same kind, without the intervention of any 
 abstract general idea ? " 
 
 I next take down Hume. In glancing over [his] expositioi 
 of the doctrine, I see the following : " When we have found 
 a resemblance among several objects, we apply the same name 
 to all of them," etc. Again : "As individuals are collected 
 together and placed under a general term, with a view to that 
 resemblance which they bear to each other," etc. In the last 
 page and a half of the section, it is stated, no less than four 
 times, that perceived resemblance is the foundation of classifica- 
 tion. 
 
 Adam Smith's doctrine is to the same effect as his predeces- 
 sor's. [He says], " It is this application of the name of an in- 
 dividual to a great number of objects, whose resemblance natu- 
 rally recalls the idea of that individual, and of the name which 
 expresses it, that seems originally to have given occasion to the 
 formation of these classes and assortments, which in the Schools 
 we called genera and species, and of which the ingenious and 
 eloquent Rousseau finds himself so much at a loss to account for 
 the origin. What constitutes a species is merely a number of 
 objects bearing a certain degree of resemblance to one another, 
 and on that account denominated by a single appellation, which 
 may be applied to express any one of them." 
 
 From the evidence I have already quoted, you will see how 
 marvellously wrong is Brown's assertion. I assure you, that 
 not only no Nominalist ever overlooked, ever excluded, the 
 manifested resemblance of objects to each other, but that every 
 Nominalist explicitly founded his doctrine of classification on 
 this resi mblance, and on this resemblance alone. No Nominalist
 
 NOMINALISM AU CONCEPTUALISM. 473 
 
 ever dreamt of disallowing the notion of relativity, the con- 
 ception of similarity between things ; this they maintain not less 
 strenuously than the Conceptionalist ; they only deny that this 
 could ever constitute a general notion. , 
 
 Brown is wrong in holding that the notion of similitude it 
 general, and constitutes the general notion. But perhaps it may 
 be admitted, that Brown is wrong in asserting that the Nomi- 
 nalist excludes resemblance as an element of generalization, and 
 yet maintained, that he is right in holding, against the Nominal- 
 ists, that the notion, or, as he has it, the feeling, of the similitude 
 of objects in certain respects, is general, and constitutes whut is 
 called the general notion. I am afraid, however, that the mis- 
 conception in regard to this point will be found not inferior to 
 that in regard to the other. 
 
 Resemblance is often an individual, not a general, relative. - 
 In the first place, then, resemblance is a relation ; and a rela- 
 tion necessarily supposes certain objects as related terms, ^here 
 can thus be no relation of resemblance conceived, apart from 
 certain resembling objects. This is so manifest, that a f rnnal 
 enumeration of the principle seems almost puerile. I ?t it, 
 however, be laid down as a first axiom, that the notion o r simi- 
 larity supposes the notion of certain similar objects. 
 
 In the second place, objects cannot be similar without being 
 eimilar in some particular mode or accident, say in o-^lor, in 
 figure, in size, in weight, in smell, in fluidity, in life, etc., etc. 
 This is equally evident, and this I lay down as a second -vxiom. 
 
 In the third place, I assume, as a third axiom, that a resem 
 blance is not necessarily and of itself universal. On t)-e con- 
 trary, a resemblance between two individual objects, in deter- 
 minate quality, is as individual and determinate as the -objects 
 end their resembling qualities themselves. Who, for example, 
 will maintain that my actual notion of the likeness of a ^articu- 
 lar snowball and a particular egg, is more general than the 
 representations of the several objects and their re.-^mbling 
 accidents of color? 
 
 Now let us try Dr. Brown's theory on these grourds. In 
 reference to the first, he does not pretend that what he N Us the
 
 476 NOMINALISM AND CONCEPTUALISM. 
 
 general feeling of resemblance can exist except between indi- 
 vidual objects and individual representations. The universal- 
 ity, which he arrogates to this feeling, cannot accrue to it from 
 any universality in the relative or resembling ideas. This nei- 
 ther he nor any other philosopher ever did or could pretend. 
 They are supposed, ex hypothesi, to be individual, singular. 
 
 Neither, in reference to the second axiom, does he pretend to 
 derive the universality which he asserts to his feeling of resem- 
 blance from the universality of the notion of the (cmmon qual- 
 ity, in which this resemblance is realized. He does not, with 
 Locke and others, maintain this ; on the contrary, it is on the 
 admitted absurdity of such a foundation that he attempts to 
 establish the doctrine of Conceptualism on another ground. 
 
 But if the universality, assumed by Dr. Brown for his " feel- 
 ing of resemblance," be found neither in the resembling objects, 
 nor in the qualities through which they are similar, we must look 
 for it in the feeling of resemblance itself, apart from its actual 
 realization ; and this, in opposition to the third axiom which we 
 laid down as self-evident. In these circumstances, we have cer- 
 tainly a right to expect that Dr. Brown should have brought 
 cogent proof for an assertion so contrary to all apparent evi- 
 dence, that although this be the question which perhaps has 
 been more ably, keenly, and universally agitated than any other, 
 Etill no philosopher before himself was found even to imagine 
 Buch a possibility. But in proof of this new paradox, Dr. 
 Brown has not only brought no evidence ; he does not even 
 attempt to bring any. lie assumes and he asserts, but he haz- 
 ards no argument. In this state of matters, it is perhaps super- 
 fluous to do more than to rebut assertion by assertion ; and as 
 Dr. Brown is not in posscssorio, and as his opinion is even 
 opposed to the universal consent of philosophers, the counter 
 assertion, if not overturned by reasoning, must prevail. 
 
 But let us endeavor to conceive on what grounds it could pos- 
 sibly be supposed by Dr. Brown, that the feeling of resemblance 
 between certain objects, through certain resembling qualities, 
 has in it any tiling of universal, or can, as he says, constitute the 
 general notion. This to me is, indeed, not easy ; and every hy-
 
 NOMINALISM AXD CONCEPT UALISM. 477 
 
 pothesis J can make is so absurd, that it appears almost a libel 
 to attribute it, even by conjecture, to so ingenious and acute a 
 thinker. 
 
 In the first place, can it be supposed that Dr. Brown believed 
 that a feeling of rssemblance between objects in a certain qual- 
 ity or respect was general, because it was a relation ? Then 
 must every notion of a relation be a general notion ; which 
 neither he nor any other philosopher ever asserts. 
 
 In the second place, does he suppose that there is any thing 
 hi the feeling or notion of the particular relation called similar- 
 ity, which is more general than the feeling or notion of any 
 other relation ? This can hardly be conceived. What is a 
 feeling or notion of resemblance ? Merely this ; two objects 
 affect us in a certain manner, and we are conscious they affect 
 us in the same way that a single object does, when presented at 
 different times to our perception. In either case, we judge that 
 the affections of which we are conscious are similar or the same. 
 There is nothing general in this consciousness, or in this judg- 
 ment. At all events, the relation recognized between the con- 
 sciousness of similarity produced on us by two different eggs, is 
 not more general than the feeling of similarity produced on us 
 by two successive presentations of the same egg. If the one is 
 to be called general, so is the other. Again, if the feeling or 
 notion of resemblance be made general, so must the feeling or 
 notion of difference. They ure absolutely the same notion, 
 only in different applications. You know the logical axiom, 
 the science of contraries is one. We know the like only as we 
 know the unlike. Every affirmation of similarity is virtually 
 an affirmation that difference does not exist ; every affirmation 
 of difference is virtually an affirmation that similarity is not to 
 be found. But neither Brown nor any other philosopher has 
 pretended, that the apprehension of difference is either general, 
 or a ground of generalization. On the contrary, the apprehen- 
 sion of difference is the negation of generalization, and a descent 
 from the universal to the particular. But if the notion or feel- 
 ing of the dissimilarity is not general, neither is the feeling or 
 notion of the similarity.
 
 478 NOMINALISM AND CONCEPTUAL1SM. 
 
 In the third place, can it be that Dr. Brown supposes the 
 particular feeling or consciousness of similarity between certain 
 objects in certain respects to be general, because we have, in 
 general, a capacity of feeling or being conscious of similarity ? 
 This conjecture is equally improbable. On this ground, every 
 act of every power would be general ; and we should not be 
 obliged to leave Imagination, in order to seek for the universal- 
 ity, which we cannot discover in the light or definitude of tha 
 faculty, in the obscurity and vagueness of another. 
 
 Conceptions distinguished from imaginations, or concept* 
 from images. In the fourth place, only one other supposition 
 remains ; and this may perhaps enable us to explain the possi- 
 bility of Dr. Brown's hallucination. A relation cannot be 
 represented in Imagination. The two terms, the two relative 
 objects, can be severally imaged in the sensible phantasy, but 
 not the relation itself. This is the object of the Comparative 
 Faculty, or of Intelligence Proper. To objects so different as 
 the images of sense and the unpicturable notions of intelligence, 
 different names ought to be given ; and, accordingly, this haa 
 been done wherever a philosophical nomenclature of the slight- 
 est pretensions to perfection has been formed. In the German 
 language, which is now the richest in metaphysical expressions 
 of any living tongue, the two kinds of objects are carefully dis- 
 tinguished. In our language, on the contrary, the idea, concep- 
 tion, notion, are used almost as convertible for either ; and the 
 vagueness and confusion which is thus produced, even within 
 the narrow sphere of speculation to which the want of the dis- 
 tinction also confines us, can be best appreciated by those who 
 are conversant with the philosophy of the different countries. 
 
 Dr. Brown seems to have had some faint perception of tho 
 difference between intellectual notions and sensible representa- 
 tions ; and if he had endeavored to signalize their contrast by 
 a distinction of terms, he would have deserved well of English 
 philosophy. But he mistook the nature of the intellectual no- 
 tion, which connects two particular qualities by the bond of 
 similarity, and imagined that there lurked under this intangible 
 relation the universality which, he clearly saw, could not be
 
 NOMINALISM AND CONCEPTUALISM. 479 
 
 found in a representation of the related objects, or of their re- 
 sembling qualities. At least, if this do not assist us in account- 
 ing for his misconception, I do not know in what way we other- 
 wise can. 
 
 What I have now said is, I think, sufficient in regard to the 
 nature of Generalization. It is notoriously a mere act of Com- 
 parison. We compare objects ; we find them similar in certain 
 respects, that is, hi certain respects they affect us in the same 
 manner ; we consider the qualities in them, that thus affect us 
 in the same manner, as the same ; and to this common quality 
 we give a name ; and as we can predicate this name of all and 
 each of the resembling objects, it constitutes them into a class. 
 Aristotle has truly said that general names are only abbreviated 
 definitions, and definitions, you know, are judgments. For ex- 
 ample, animal is only a compendious expression for organized 
 and animated body ; man, only a summary of rational anitnal, 
 etc.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 HIE ELAbORATIVE FACULTY. THE PRIMUM COGNITUM. - 
 JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 
 
 What does Language originate in? I proceed now to a 
 very curious question, which has likewise divided philosophers. 
 ft is this, Does Language originate in General Appellatives, 
 tr by Proper Names ? Did mankind in the formation of* lan- 
 guage, and do children in their first applications of it, commence 
 ivith the one kind of words or with the other ? The deter- 
 mination of thb question, the question of the Primiim Cog- 
 nittim, as it was called in the Schools, is not involved in the 
 doctrine of Nominalism. Many illustrious philosophers have 
 maintained that all terms, as at first employed, are expressive 
 of individual objects, and that these only subsequently obtain a 
 general acceptation. 
 
 1. That our Jirst ideas and names are of particulars. This 
 opinion I find maintained by Vives, Locke, Rousseau, Condillac, 
 Adam Smith, and others. "The order of learning" (I trans- 
 late from Vives) " is from the senses to the imagination, and 
 from this to the intellect ; such is the order of life and of 
 nature. We thus proceed from the simple to the complex, from 
 the singular to the universal. This is to be observed in chil- 
 dren, who first of all express the several parts of different things, 
 and then conjoin them. Things general they call by a singular 
 name ; for instance, they call all smiths by the name of that in- 
 dividual smitJt whom they have first known, and all meats, beef 
 or jjorf:, as they have happened to have heard the one or the 
 other first, when they begin to speak. Thereafter the mind col- 
 lects univeivals from particulars, and then again reverts to partic
 
 THE PRIMUM COGNITDM 481 
 
 nlar- from universals." The same doctrine, without probably 
 any knowledge of Vives, is maintained by Locke. " There is 
 nothing more evident," he says, " than that the ideas of the 
 persons children converse with, (to instance in them alone), are, 
 like Ihe persons themselves, only particular. The ideas of the 
 nurse and the mother are well framed in their minds ; and, 
 like pictures of them there, represent only those individuals. 
 The names they first gave to them are confined to these indi- 
 viduals ; and the names of nurse and mamma, the child uses, 
 determine themselves to those persons. Afterwards, when time 
 and a larger acquaintance have made them observe that there 
 are a great many other things in the world, that, in some com- 
 mon agreements of shape, and several other qualities, resem- 
 ble their father and mother, and those persons they have been 
 used to, they frame an idea which they find those many par 
 ticulars do partake in ; and to that they give, with others, the 
 name man, for example. And thus they come to have a general 
 name, and a general idea." 
 
 Adam Smith has, however, the merit of having applied this 
 theory to the formation of language ; and his doctrine is too 
 important not to be fully stated, and in his own powerful lan- 
 guage. " The assignation," says Smith, " of particular names, 
 to denote particular objects, that is, the institution of nouns 
 substantive, would probably be one of the first steps towards 
 the formation of language. Two savages, who had never been 
 taught to speak, but had been bred up remote from the societies 
 of men, would naturally begin to form that language by which 
 they would endeavor to make their mutual wants intelligible to 
 each other, by uttering certain sounds whenever they meant to 
 d ! nr>te certain objects. Those objects only which were most 
 familiar tc them, and which they had most frequent occasion to 
 mentor, would have particular names assigned to them. The 
 particular cave whose covering sheltered them from the weather, 
 the particular tree whose fruit relieved their hunger, the par- 
 ticular fountain whose water allayed their thirst, would first be 
 denominated by the words, cave, tree, fountain, or by whatever 
 appellations they might think proper, in that primitive jargon, 
 41
 
 42 THE PRIMUM COGNITDM 
 
 to mark them. Afterwards, when the more enlarged expe- 
 rience of these savages had led them to observe, and their nec- 
 essary occasions obliged them to make mention of other caves, 
 and other trees, and other fountains, they would naturally be- 
 stow upon each of those new objects the same name by which 
 ttey had been accustomed to express the similar o_bject they 
 were first acquainted with. The new objects had none of 
 tjem any name of its own, but each of them exactly resem- 
 bled another object, which had such an appellation. It was 
 impossible that those savages could behold the new objects, 
 without recollecting the old ones, and the name of the old 
 ones, to which the new bore so close a resemblance. When 
 they had occasion, therefore, to mention or to point out to each 
 other any of the new objects, they would naturally utter the 
 name of the correspondent old one, of which the idea could not 
 fail, at that instant, to present itself to their memory in the 
 strongest and liveliest manner. And thus those words, which 
 were originally the proper names of individuals, would each of 
 them insensibly become the common name of a multitude. A 
 child that is just learning to speak, calls every person who 
 comes to the house its papa, or its mamma ; and thus bestows 
 upon the whole species those names which it had been taught 
 to apply to two individuals. I have known a clown who did 
 not know the proper name of the river which ran by his own 
 door. It was the river, he said, and lie never heard any other 
 name for it. His experience, it seems, had not led him to 
 observe any other river. The general word river, therefore, 
 was, it is evident, in his acceptance of it, a proper name signify- 
 ing an individual object. If this person had been carried to 
 another river, would lie not readily have called it a river? 
 Could we suppose a person living on the banks of the Thames 
 so ignorant as not to know the general word river, but to be 
 acquainted only with the particular word Thames, if he was 
 brought to any other river, would he not readily call it a 
 Thames? This, in reality, is no more than what they who are 
 well acquairtcd with the general word are very apt to do. An 
 Knglishman, describing any great river which he may have
 
 THE PRIMUM COGNITUM. 483 
 
 % 
 
 seen in some foreign country, naturally says, that it is another 
 Thames. The Spaniards, when they first arrived upon the 
 coast of Mexico, and observed the wealth, populousness, and 
 habitations of that fine country, so much superior to the savage 
 nations which they had been visiting for some time before, cried 
 out that it was another Spain. Hence it was called New 
 Spain ; and this name has stuck to that unfortunate country ever 
 since. We say, in the same manner, of a hero, that he is an 
 Alexander ; of an orator, that he is a Cicero ; of a philosopher 
 that he is a Newton. This way of speaking, which the gram- 
 marians call an Antonomasia, and which is still extremely 
 common, though now not at all necessary, demonstrates hov 
 much mankind are naturally disposed to gi^e to one object the 
 name of any other which nearly resembles it ; and thus, to de- 
 nominate a multitude by what originally was intended to expre?r 
 an individual. 
 
 " It is this application of the name of an individ'm' to a gre^ 
 multitude of objects, whose resemblance naturally recalls the 
 idea of that individual, and of the name which expresses it, tha* 
 seems originally to have given occasion to the formation of thosp 
 classes and assortments which, in the Schools, are called genera 
 and species." 
 
 2. That we first use general terms. On the other hand, a* 
 opposite doctrine is maintained by many profound philosopher? 
 A large section of the Schoolmen embraced it ; and, among mor* 
 modern thinkers, it is adopted by Leibnitz, who says, that " gen- 
 eral terms serve not only for the perfection of language*, bu> 
 are even necessary for their essential constitution. For if bv 
 particulars be understood things individual, it would be impos 
 sible to speak, if there were only proper names, and no appel 
 latives, that is to say, if there were only names for tilings indi 
 vidual, since, at every moment, we are met by new ones, whep 
 we treat of persons, of accidents, and especially of actions, which 
 are those that we describe the most ; but if by particulars be 
 meant the lowest species (species, infimas), besides that it is 
 frequently very difficult to determine them, it is manifest that 
 these are already universals, founded on similarity. Now, as
 
 484 THE PRIMUM COGNITDM. 
 
 9 
 
 the only difference of species and genera lies in a similarity of 
 greater or less extent, it is natural to note every kind of simi- 
 larity or agreement, and, consequently, to employ general terms 
 of every degree ; nay, the most general being less complex Avith 
 regard to the essences which they comprehend, although more 
 extensive in relation to the things individual to which they 
 apply, are frequently the easiest to form, and are the most use- 
 ful. It is likewise seen that children, and those who know but 
 little of the language which they attempt to speak, or little of 
 the subject on which they would employ it, make use of general 
 terms, as thing, plant, animal, instead of using proper names, 
 of which they are destitute. And it is certain that all proper 
 or individual names have been originally appellative or general." 
 In illustration of this latter most important doctrine, he, in a 
 subsequent part of the work, says : " I would add, in conformity 
 to what I have previously observed, that proper names have 
 been originally appellative, that is to say, general in their origin, 
 as Brutus, Caesar, Augustus, Capito, Lentulus, Piso, Cicero, 
 Elbe, Rhine, Rhur, Leine, Ocker, Bucephalus, Alps, Pyrenees, 
 etc.," and, after illustrating this in detail, he concludes : "Thus 
 I would make bold to affirm that almost all words have been 
 originally general terms, because it would happen very rarely 
 that men would invent a name, expressly and without a reason, 
 to denote this or that individual. We may, therefore, assert 
 that the names of individual things were names of species, which 
 were given par excellence, or otherwise, to some individual, as 
 Uie name Great Head to him of the whole town who had the 
 largest, or who was the man of most consideration, of the Great 
 Heads known. It is thus, likewise, that men give the names of 
 genera to species, that is to say, that they content themselves 
 with a term more general or vague to denote more particular 
 classes, when they do not care about the differences. As, for 
 example, we content ourselves with the general name absinthium 
 (wormwood), although there are so many species of the plant 
 that one of the Bauhins has filled a whole book with them." 
 
 That this was likewise the opinion of the. great Tnrgot, we 
 learn from his biographer. " M. Turgot," says Condorcet,
 
 THE PRIMUM COGNITUM. 485 
 
 "believed that the opinion was wrong, which held that, in gen- 
 eral, the mind only acquired general or abstract ideas by the 
 comparison of more particular ideas. On the contrary, our 
 first ideas are very general ; for, seeing at first only a small num- 
 ber of qualities, our idea includes all the existences to which 
 these qualities are common. As we acquire knowledge, our 
 ideas become more particular, without ever reaching the last 
 limit ; and, what might have deceived the metaphysicians, it ia 
 precisely by this process that we learn that these ideas are more 
 general than we had at first supposed." 
 
 Here are two opposite opinions, each having nearly equal 
 authority in its favor, maintained on both sides with equal abil- 
 ity and apparent evidence. Either doctrine would be held 
 established were we unacquainted with the arguments in favoi 
 of the other. 
 
 3. That our first ideas and terms are only vague and confused. 
 But I have now to state to you a third opinion, intermediate 
 between these, which conciliates both, and seems, moreover, to 
 carry a superior probability in its statement. This opinion 
 maintains, that as our knowledge proceeds from the confused 
 to the distinct, from the vague to the determinate, so, in 
 the mouths of children, language at first expresses neither the 
 precisely general nor the detcrminately individual, but the vague 
 and confused ; and that, out of this, the universal is elaborated 
 by gencrification, the particular and singular by specification 
 and individual zati on. 
 
 I formerly explained why I view the doctrine held by Mr. 
 Stewart and others in regard to perception in general and vision 
 in particular, as erroneous ; inasmuch as they conceive that our 
 sensible cognitions are formed by the addition of an almost in- 
 finite number of separate and consecutive acts of attentive per- 
 ception, each act being cognizant of a certain minimum sensibile. 
 On the contrary, I showed that, instead of commencing with 
 minima, perception commences with masses; that, though our 
 capacity of attention be very limited in regard to the number 
 of objects on which a faculty can be. simultaneously directed, 
 yet these objects may be large or small. We may make, f" 
 41
 
 486 THE PRIMUM COGNITUM. 
 
 example, a single object of attention either of a whole man, or 
 of his face, or of his eye, or of the pupil of his eye, or of a 
 speck upon the pupiL To each of these objects there can only 
 be a certain amount of attentive perception applied, and we 
 can concentrate it all on any one. In proportion as the object 
 is larger and more complex, our attention can cf course be less 
 applied to any part of it, and consequently, our knowledge of it 
 in detail will be vaguer and more imperfect. But having first 
 acquired a comprehensive knowledge of it as a whole, we can 
 descend to its several parts, consider these both in themselves, 
 and in relation to each other, and to the whole of which they 
 are constituents, and thus attain to a complete and articulate 
 knowledge of the object. We decompose, and then we recom- 
 pose. 
 
 The mind proceeds by analysis, from the whole to the parts. - 
 But in this we always proceed first by decomposition or analysis. 
 All analysis indeed supposes a foregone composition or synthesis, 
 because we cannot decompose what is not already composite, 
 But in our acquisition of knowledge, the objects are presented 
 to us compounded ; and they obtain a unity only in the unity of 
 our consciousness. The unity of consciousness is, as it were, 
 the frame in which objects are seen. I say, then, that the first 
 procedure of mind hi the elaboration of its knowledge is always 
 analytical. It descends from the whole to the parts, from 
 the vague to the definite. Definitude, that is, a knowledge of 
 minute difference?, is not, as the opposite theory supposes, the 
 first, but the last, term of our cognitions. Between two sheep 
 an ordinary spectator can probably apprehend no difference, 
 and if they were twice presented to him, he would be unable 
 to discriminate the one from the other. But a shepherd can 
 distinguish every individual sheep ; and why ? Because he 
 has descended from the vague knowledge which we all have of 
 eheep, from the vague knowledge which makes every sheep, 
 as it were, only a repetition of the same undififerenced unit, 
 to a definite knowledge of qualities by which each is contrasted 
 from its neighbor. Now, in this example, we apprehend the 
 sheep by marks not less individual than those by which the
 
 THE PRIMUM COGNITUM. 487 
 
 shepherd discriminates them ; but the whole of each sheep be- 
 ing made an object, the marks by which we know it are the 
 same in each and all, and cannot, therefore, afford the principle 
 by which we can discriminate them from each other. Now thia 
 is what appears to me to take place with children. They first 
 know, they first cognize, the things and persons presented to 
 them as wholes. But wholes of the same kind, if we do not 
 descend to their parts, afford us no difference, no mark by 
 which we can discriminate the one from the other. Children, 
 thus, originally perceiving similar objects, persons, for exam- 
 ple, only as wholes, do at first hardly distinguish them. They 
 apprehend first the more obtrusive marks that separate species 
 from species and, in consequence of the notorious contrast of 
 dress, men from women ; but they do not as yet recognize the 
 finer traits that discriminate individual from individual. But, 
 though thus apprehending individuals only by what we now call 
 their specific or their generic qualities, it is not to be supposed 
 that children know them by any abstract general attributes, that 
 is, by attributes formed by comparison and attention. On the 
 other hand, because their knowledge is not general, it is not to 
 be supposed to be particular or individual, if by particular be 
 meant a separation of species from species, and by individual, 
 the separation of individual from individual; for children are 
 at first apt to confound individuals together, not only in name 
 but in reality. " A cliild " [says Degerando] " who has been 
 taught to say papa, in pointing to his father, will give at first, 
 as Locke [and Aristotle before him] had remarked, the name 
 of papa to all the men whom he sees. As he only at first seizes 
 on the more striking appearances of objects, they would appear 
 to him all similar, and he denotes them by the same names. 
 But when it has been pointed out to him that he is mistaken, or 
 when he has discovered this by the consequences of his lan- 
 guage, he studies to discriminate the objects which he had con- 
 founded, and he takes hold of their differences. The child 
 commences, like the savage, by employing only i-olated words 
 in place of phrases ; he commences by taking verbs and nouns 
 only in their absolute state. But as these imperfect attempts at
 
 488 THE FRIMUM COGNITUM. 
 
 speech express at once many and very different things, and pro- 
 duce, in consequence, manifold ambiguities, he soon discovers 
 the necessity of determining them with greater exactitude ; he 
 endeavors to make it understood in what respects the thing 
 which he wishes to denote, is distinguished from those with 
 which it is confounded ; and, to succeed in this endeavor, he 
 tries to distinguish them himself. Thus when, at this age, the 
 child seems to us as yet unoccupied, he is in reality very busy ; 
 he is devoted to a study which differs not in its nature from that 
 to which the philosopher applies himself; the child, like the 
 philosopher, observes, compares, and analyses." 
 
 In support of this doctrine I can appeal to high authority ; it 
 is that maintained by Aristotle. Speaking of the order of pro- 
 cedure in physical science, he says, " We ought to proceed from 
 the better known to the less knoAvn, and from what is clearer to 
 us to that which is clearer in nature. But those things are first 
 known and clearer, which are more complex and confused ; for 
 it is only by subsequent analysis that we attain to a knowledge 
 of the parts and elements of which they are composed. We 
 ought, therefore, to proceed from universals to singulars ; for the 
 whole is better known to sense than its parts ; and the universal 
 is a kind of whole, as the universal comprehends many things 
 as its parts. Thus it is that names are at first better known to 
 us than definitions ; for the name denotes a whole, and that in- 
 determinately ; whereas the definition divides and explicates its 
 parts. Children, likewise, at first call all men fathers and all 
 women mothers ; but thereafter they learn to discriminate each 
 individual from another." 
 
 T have terminated the consideration of the faculty of Com- 
 parison in its process of Generalization. lam now to consider it 
 in those of its operations, which have obtained the special names 
 of Judgment and Reasoning. 
 
 In these processes, the act of Comparison is a judgment of 
 something more than a mere affirmation of the existence of a 
 phenomenon, something more than a mere discrimination of 
 one phenomenon from another; and, accordingly, while it ha# 
 happened, that the intervention of judgment in every, even the
 
 JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 489 
 
 simplest, act of primary cognition, as monotonous and rapid, 
 has been overlooked, the name has been exclusively limited to 
 the more varied and elaborate comparison of one notion with 
 another, and the enouncement of their agreement or disagree- 
 ment. It is in the discharge of this, its more obtrusive, func- 
 tion, that we are now about to consider the Elaborative Faculty. 
 Why Judgment and Reasoning are necessary. Considering 
 the Elaborative Faculty as a mean of discovering truth, by a 
 comparison of the notions we have obtained from the Acquisi- 
 tive Powers, it is evident that, though this faculty be the attri- 
 bute by which a man is distinguished as a creation higher than 
 the animals, it is equally the quality which marks his inferiority 
 to superior intelligences. Judgment and Reasoning are ren- 
 dered necessary by the imperfection of our nature. Were we 
 capable of a knowledge of things and their relations at a single 
 view, by an intuitive glance, discursive thought would be a su- 
 perfluous act. It is by such an intuition that we must suppose 
 that the Supreme Intelligence knows all things at oncv. 
 
 I have already noticed that our knowledge does not com- 
 mence with the individual and the most particular objects of 
 knowledge, that we do not rise in any regular progress from 
 the less to the more general, first considering the qualities which 
 characterize individuals, then those which belong to species and 
 genera, in regular ascent. On the contrary, our knowledge 
 commences with the vague and confused, in the way which 
 Aristotle has so well illustrated. This I may further explain 
 by another analogy. We perceive an object approaching from 
 i distance. At first, we do not know whether it be a living or 
 in inanimate thing. By degrees, we become avare that it is an 
 animal ; but of what kind, whether man or beast, we aro 
 iot as yet able to determine. It continues to advance, we dis- 
 cover it to be a quadruped, but of what species we cannot yet 
 say. At length, we perceive that it is a horse, and again, after 
 a season, we find that it is Bucephalus. Thus, as I t'oniurly 
 observed, children, first of all, take note of the generic differ- 
 ences, and they can distinguish species long before they are able 
 to discriminate individuals. In all this, however, 1 must again
 
 490 JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 
 
 remark, that our knowledge does not properly commence with 
 the general, but with the vague and confused. Out of this the 
 general and the individual are both equally evolved. 
 
 What is an act of judgment. " In consequence of this gene- 
 alogy of our knowledge," [says Crousaz,] "we usually com- 
 mence by bestowing a name upon a whole object, or congeries 
 of objects, of which, however, we possess only a partial and 
 indefinite conception. In the sequel, this vague notion becomes 
 somewhat more determinate ; the partial idea which we had, 
 becomes enlarged by new accessions ; by degrees, our concep- 
 tion waxes fuller, and represents a greater number of attributes. 
 With this conception, thus amplified and improved, we compare 
 the last notion which has been acquired, that is to say, we com- 
 pare a part with its whole, or with the other parts of this whole, 
 and finding that it is harmonious, that it dovetails and nat- 
 urally assorts with other parts, we acquiesce in this union ; and 
 this we denominate an act of judgment. 
 
 " In learning arithmetic, I form the notion of the number six, 
 as surpassing Jive by a single unit, and as surpassed in the same 
 proportion by seven. Then I find that it can be divided into 
 two equal halves, of which each contains three units. By this 
 procedure, the notion of the number six becomes more complex ; 
 the notion of an even number is one of its parts. Comparing 
 this new notion with that of the number, six becomes fuller by 
 its addition. I recognize that the two notions suit, in other 
 words I judge that six is an even number. 
 
 " I have the conception of a triangle, and this conception is 
 composed in my mind of several others. Among these partial 
 notions, I select that of two sides greater than the third, and 
 this notion, which I had at first, as it were, taken apart, I reu- 
 nite with the others from which it had been separated, saying 
 the triangle contains always two sides, which together are 
 greater than the third. 
 
 " When I say, body is divisible among the notions which 
 concur in forming my conception of body, I particularly attend 
 to that of divisible, and finding that it really agrees with the 
 r>thers I judge accordingly that body is divisible.
 
 JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 491 
 
 Subjtct. Predicate. Copula. " Every time we judge, we 
 compare a total conception with a partial, and we recognize that 
 the latter really constitutes a part of the former. One of these 
 conceptions has received the name of subject, the other, that of 
 attribute or predicate." The verb which connects these two 
 parts is called the copula. The quadrangle is a double triangle ; 
 nine is an odd number ; body is divisible. Here quadrangle, 
 nine, body, are subjects ; a double triangle, an odd number, divis- 
 ible, are predicates. The whole mental judgment, formed by the 
 subject, predicate, and copula, is called, when enounced in words, 
 proposition. 
 
 " In discourse, the parts of a proposition are not always found 
 placed in logical order ; but to discover and discriminate them, 
 it is only requisite to ask, What is the thing of which something 
 else is affirmed or denied 1 ? The answer to this question will 
 point out the subject ; and we shall find the predicate if we 
 inquire, What is affirmed or denied of the matter of which wt 
 speak ? 
 
 " A proposition is sometimes so enounced that each of itv 
 tenns may be considered as subject and as predicate. Thus, 
 when we say, Death is the wages of sin ; we may regard sin 
 as the subject of which we predicate death, as one of its conse- 
 quences, and we may likewise view death as the subject of 
 which we predicate sin, as the origin. In these cases, we must 
 consider the general tenor of the discourse, and determine from 
 the conte-it what is the matter of which it principally treats." 
 
 " In fine, when we judge, we must have, in the first place, at 
 least two notions; in the second place, we compare these; in 
 the third, we recognize that one contains or excludes the other ; 
 8ml, in the fourth, we acquiesce in this recognition." 
 
 Reasoning is complex and mediate judgment. Simple Com- 
 parison or Judgment is conversant with two notions, the one of 
 which is contained in the other. But it often happens, that one 
 notion is contained in another not immediately, but mediately, 
 and we may be able to recognize the relation of these to each 
 other only through a third, which, as it immediately contains 
 the one, is immediately contained in the other. Take the
 
 492 JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 
 
 notion?, A, B, C. A contains B; B contains C; A, there 
 fore, also contains C. But as, ex hypothesi, we Jo not at once 
 and directly know C as contained in A, we cannot immediately 
 compare them together, and judge of their relation. We, there- 
 fore, perform a double or complex process of comparison ; we 
 compare B with A, and C with B, and then C with A, through 
 B. We say B is a part of A ; C is a part of B ; therefore, C 
 is a part of A. This double act of comparison has obtained the 
 name of Reasoning ; the term Judgment being left to express 
 the simple act of comparison, or rather its result. 
 
 If this distinction between Judgment and Reasoning were 
 merely a verbal difference, to discriminate the simpler and more 
 complex act of comparison, no objection could be raised to it on 
 the score of propriety, and its convenience would fully warrant 
 its establishment. But this distinction has not always been 
 meant to express nothing more. It has, in fact, been generally 
 supposed to mark out two distinct faculties. 
 
 Two kinds of Reasoning. Reasoning is either from the 
 Vhole to its parts ; or from all the parts, discretively, to the 
 whole they constitute, collectively. The former of these is De- 
 ductive, the latter is Inductive, Reasoning. The statement you 
 will find, in all logical books, of reasonings from certain parts to 
 the whole, or from certain parts to certain parts, is erroneous. 
 I shall first speak of the reasoning from the whole to its parts, 
 or of the Deductive Inference. 
 
 Axiom of Deductive Reasoning. 1, It is self-evident, that 
 whatever is the, part of a part, is a part of the whole. This one 
 axiom is the foundation of all reasoning from the whole to the 
 parts. There are, however, two kinds of whole and parts ; and 
 these constitute two varieties, or rather two phases, of deductive 
 -easoning. This distinction, which is of the most important 
 kind, has nevertheless been wholly overlooked by logicians, in 
 consequence of which the utmost perplexity and confusion have 
 been introduced into the science. 
 
 I have formerly stated that a proposition consists of two 
 terms, the one called subject, the other predicate, the subject 
 being that of which some attribute is said, the predicate being
 
 JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 493 
 
 the attribute so said. Now, in different relations, we may re- 
 gard the subject as the whole, and the predicate as its part, or 
 the predicate as the whole and the subject as its part. 
 
 Let us take the proposition, milk is white. Now, here we 
 may either consider the predicate white as one of a number of 
 attributes, the whole complement of which constitutes the sub- 
 ject milk. In this point of view, the predicate is a part of the 
 subject. Or, again, we may consider the predicate white as the 
 name of a class of objects, of which the subject is one. In this 
 point of view, the subject is a part of the predicate. 
 
 Comprehension and Extension applied to Reasoning. You 
 will remember the distinction, which I formerly stated, of the 
 twofold quantity of notions or terms. The Breadth or Exten- 
 sion of a notion or term corresponds to the greater number of 
 subjects contained under a predicate ; the Depth, Intension, or 
 Comprehension of a notion or term, to the greater number of 
 predicates contained in a subject. These quantities or wholes 
 are always in the inverse ratio of each other. Now, it is sin- 
 gular, that logicians should have taken this distinction between 
 notions, and yet not have thought of applying it to reasoning. 
 But so it is, and this is not the only oversight they have com- 
 mitted in the application of the very primary principles of their 
 science. The great distinction we have established between the 
 subject and predicate considered severally, as, in different rela- 
 tions, whole and as part, constitutes the primary and principal 
 division of Syllogisms, both Deductive and Inductive ; and ita 
 introduction wipes off a complex mass of rules and qualifications, 
 which the want of it rendered necessary. I can, of course, at 
 present, only explain in general the nature of this distinction ; 
 its details belong to the science of the Laws of Thought, or 
 Logic, of which we are not here to treat. 
 
 Essential and Integral wholes. I shall first consider the 
 process of that Deductive Inference in which the subject is 
 viewed as the whole, the predicate as the part. In this reason- 
 ing, the whole is determined by the Comprehension, and is, 
 again, either a Physical or Essential whole, or an Integral or 
 Mathematical whole. A Physical or Essential whole is thai 
 42
 
 494 JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 
 
 which consists of not really separable parts, of or pertaining tc 
 its substance. Thus, man is made up of two substantial parts, 
 a mind and a body ; and each of these has again various quali- 
 ties, which, though separable only by mental abstraction, are 
 considered as so many parts of an essential whole. Thus, the 
 attributes of respiration, of digestion, of locomotion, of color, are 
 go many parts of the whole notion we have of the human body ; 
 cognition, feeling, desire, virtue, vice, etc., so many parts of the 
 whole notion we have of man. A Mathematical, or Integral, or 
 Quantitative whole is that which has part out of part, and 
 which, therefore, can be really partitioned. The Integral or, 
 as it ought to be called, Integrate whole, is composed of inte- 
 grant parts which are either homogeneous or heterogeneous. 
 An example of the former is given in the division of a square 
 into two triangles ; of the latter, of the animal body into head, 
 trunk, extremities, etc. 
 
 These wholes (and there are others of less importance 
 which I omit), are varieties of that whole which we may call a 
 Comprehensive, or Metaphysical ; it might be called a Natural, 
 whole. 
 
 Reasoning in the whole of Comprehension. This being un- 
 derstood, let us consider how we proceed when we reason from 
 the relation between a Comprehensive whole and its parts. 
 Here, as I have said, the subject is the whole, the predicate its 
 part ; in other words, the predicate belongs to the subject. 
 Now here it is evident, that all the parts of the predicate must 
 also be parts of the subject ; in other terms, all that belongs to 
 the predicate must also belong to the subject. In the words of 
 the scholastic adage, Nota notce est nota rei ipsius ; Predi- 
 catuin predicati est predicatum subjecti. An example of thia 
 reasoning : 
 
 Europe contains England ; 
 
 England contains Middlesex ; 
 
 Therefore, Europe contains Middlesex. 
 
 In other words, England is an integrant part of Europe , 
 Middlesex is an integrant part of England : therefore, Middle- 
 sex is an integrant part of Europe. This is an example from a 
 mathematical whnl^ and p.-vrts. A -rain :
 
 JUDGMENT ANfc REASONING. 495 
 
 Socrates is just (that is, Socrates contains justice as a qual 
 
 *y); 
 
 Justice is a virtue (that is, justice contains virtue as a con- 
 stituent part) ; 
 
 Therefore, Socrates is virtuous. 
 
 In other words ; justice is an attribute or essential part of 
 Socrates ; virtue is an attribute or essential part of justice ; 
 therefore, virtue is an attribute or essential part of Socrates. 
 This is an example from a physical or essential whole and 
 parts. 
 
 What I have now said will be enough to show, in general, 
 what I mean by a deductive reasoning, in which the subject is 
 the whole, the predicate the part. 
 
 Reasoning in the whole of Extension. I proceed, in the sec- 
 ond place, to the other kind of Deductive Reasoning, that in 
 which the subject is the part, the predicate is the whole. This 
 reasoning proceeds under that species of whole which has been 
 called the Logical, or Potential, or Universal. This whole is 
 determined by the Extension of a notion ; the genera having 
 species, and the species individuals, as their parts. Thus, ani- 
 mal is a universal whole, of which bird and beast are immedi- 
 ate, eagle and sparrow, dog and horse, mediate, parts ; while 
 man, which, in relation to animal, is a part, is a whole in rela- 
 tion to Peter, Paul, Socrates, etc. The parts of a logical or 
 universal whole, I should notice, are called the subject parts. 
 
 From what you now know of the nature of generalization, 
 you are aware, that general terms are terms expressive of attri- 
 butes which may be predicated of many different objects ; and 
 inasmuch as these objects resemble each other in the common 
 attribute, they are considered by us as constituting a class. 
 Thus, when I say, that a horse is a quadruped ; Bucephalus is 
 a horse; therefore, Bucephalus is a quadruped; I virtually 
 say, horse, the subject, is a part of the predicate quadruped; 
 Bucephalus, the subject, is part of the predicate horse; there- 
 fore, Bucephalus, the subject, is part of the predicate quadruped. 
 In the reasoning under this whole, you will observe that the 
 aim? word, as it is whole or part, changes from predicate to
 
 496 JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 
 
 subject ; horse, when viewed as a part of quadruped, being the 
 subject of the proposition ; whereas when viewed as a whole, 
 containing Bucephalus, it becomes the predicate. 
 
 Axiom of Inductive Reasoning. Such is a general view of 
 the process of Deductive Reasoning under the two great varie- 
 ties determined by the two different kinds of whole and parts. 
 I now proceed to the counter process, that of Inductive 
 Reasoning. The Deductive is founded on the axiom, that what 
 is part of the part, is also part of the containing whole ; the In- 
 ductive on the principle, that what is true of every constituent 
 part belongs, or does not belong, to the constituted whole. 
 
 Induction proceeds in the two wholes. Induction, like Deduc- 
 tion, may be divided into two kinds, according as the whole 
 and parts about which it is conversant, are a Comprehensive or 
 Physical or Natural, or an Extensive or Logical whole. Thus, 
 in the former: 
 
 Gold is a metal, yellow, ductile, fusible in aqua regia, of a 
 certain specific gravity, and so on ; 
 
 These qualities constitute this body (are all its parts) ; 
 
 Therefore this body is gold. 
 
 In the latter; Ox, horse, dog, etc., are animals, that is, 
 are contained under the class animal ; 
 
 Ox, horse, dog, etc., constitute (are all the constituents of) 
 the class quadruped ; 
 
 Therefore, quadruped is contained under animal. 
 
 Both in the Deductive and Inductive processes, the inference 
 must be of an absolute necessity, in so far as the mental illation 
 is concerned ; that is, every consequent proposition must be 
 evolved out of every antecedent proposition with intuitive evi- 
 dence. I do not mean by this, that the antecedent should be 
 necessarily true, or that the consequent be really contained in 
 it ; it is sufficient that the antecedent be assumed as true, and 
 that the consequent be, in conformity to the laws of thought, 
 evolved out cf it as its part or its equation. This last is called 
 Logical or Formal or Subjective truth ; and an inference may 
 be subjectively or formally true, which is objectively or really 
 fahe. *
 
 JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 497 
 
 The account given of Induction in all works of Logic is ut- 
 terly erroneous. Sometimes we find this inference described 
 as a precarious, not a necessary reasoning. It is called an illa- 
 tion from some to all. But here the some, as it neither contains 
 nor constitutes the all, determines no necessary movement, and 
 a conclusion drawn under these circumstances is logically 
 vicious. Others again describe the Inductive process thus : 
 
 "What belongs to some objects of a class belongs to the whole 
 class ; 
 
 This property belongs to some objects of the class ; 
 
 Therefore, it belongs to the whole class. 
 
 This account of Induction, which is tne one you will find in 
 all the English works on Logic, is not an inductive reasoning at 
 all. It is, logically considered, -a deductive syllogism ; and, log- 
 ically considered, a syllogism radically vicious. It is logically 
 vicious to say, that, because some individuals of a class have 
 certain common qualities apart from that property which consti- 
 tutes the class itself, therefore the whole individuals of the class 
 should partake in these qualities. For this there is no logical 
 reason, no necessity of thought. The probability of this in- 
 ference, and it is only probable, is founded on the observation 
 of the analogy of nature, and. therefore, not upon the laws of 
 thought by which alone reasoning, considered as a logical pro- 
 cess, is exclusively governed. To become a formally legitimate 
 induction, the objective probability must be clothed with a sub- 
 jective necessity, and the some must be translated into the all 
 which it is supposed to represent. 
 
 In the deductive syllogism we proceed by analysis, that is, 
 hy decomposing a whole into its parts ; but as the two wholes 
 with which reasoning is conversant arc in the invc.se ratio of 
 each other, so our analysis tn the one will correspond to our syn- 
 thesis in the other. For example, when I divide a whole 'jf ex- 
 tension into its parts, when 1 divide a genus into the species, 
 a species into the individuals it contains, I do so bv adding 
 new differences, and thus go on accumulating in the pails a 
 complement of qualities which did not belong to the wholes. 
 This, therefore, which, in point of extension, is an analysis, is.
 
 498 JUDGMENT AND REASONING. 
 
 in point of comprehension, a synthesis. In like manner, when 
 1 decompose a whole of comprehension, that is, decompose a 
 complex predicate into its constituent attributes, I obtain by this 
 process a simpler and more general quality, and thus this, 
 which, in relation to a comprehensive whole, is an analysis, is, 
 in relation to an extensive whole, a synthesis. As the deduc- 
 tive inference is Analytic, the inductive is Synthetic. But as 
 induction, equally as deduction, is conversant with both wholes, 
 so the Synthesis of induction on the comprehensive whole is a 
 reversed process to its synthesis on the extensive whole. 
 
 From what I have now stated, you will, therefore, be aware, 
 that the terms analysis and synthesis, when used without quali- 
 fication, may be employed at cross purposes, to denote opera- 
 tions precisely the converse of each other. And so it has 
 happened. Analysis, in the mouth of one set of philosophers, 
 means precisely what synthesis denotes in the mouth of an- 
 other; nay, what is even still more frequent, these words are 
 perpetually converted with each other by the same philosopher. 
 I may notice, what has rarely, if ever, been remarked, that syn- 
 thesis in the writings of the Greek logicians is equivalent to the 
 analysis of modern philosophers : the former, regarding the ex- 
 tensive whole as the principal, applied analysis, xz' t^o^v, to 
 its division ; the latter, viewing the comprehensive whole as the 
 principal, in general limit analysis to its decomposition. This, 
 however, has been overlooked, and a confusion the most inextri- 
 cable prevails in regard to the use of these words, if the thread 
 to the labyrinth is not obtained.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE 
 CONDITIONED. 
 
 I NOW enter upon the last of the Cognitive Faculties, the 
 faculty which I denominated the Regulative. Here the term 
 faculty, you will observe, is employed in a somewhat peculiar 
 signification, for it is employed not to denote the proximate 
 cause of any definite energy, but the pqwer the mind has of 
 being the native source of certain necessary or a priori cogni- 
 tions ; which cognitions, as they are the conditions, the forms, 
 under which our knowledge in general is possible, constitute so 
 many fundamental laws of intellectual nature. It is in this 
 sense that I call the power which the mind possesses of modify- 
 ing the knowledge it receives, in conformity to its proper nature, 
 its Regulative Faculty. The Regulative Faculty is, however, 
 in fact, nothing more than the complement of such laws ; it is 
 the locus principiorum. It thus corresponds to what was known 
 in the Greek philosophy under the name of vov, when that 
 term was rigorously used. To this faculty has been latterly 
 applied the name Reason ; but this term is so vague and am- 
 biguous, that it is almost unfitted to convey any definite mean- 
 mg. 
 
 Proper use of the term Common Sense. The term Common 
 Sense has likewise been applied to designate the place of prin- 
 ciples. This word is also ambiguous. In the first place, it was 
 the expression used in the Aristotelic philosophy to denote the 
 Central or Common Sensory, in which the different external 
 senses met and were united. In the second place, it was em- 
 ployed to signify a sound understanding applied to vulgar ob- 
 
 '4991
 
 500 THE ARGUMENT FROM COMMON SENSE. 
 
 jects, in contrast to a scientific or speculative intelligence ; and it 
 is in this signification that it has been taken by those who have 
 derided the principle on which the philosophy, which has been 
 distinctively denominated the Scottish, professes to be estab- 
 lished. This is not, however, the meaning which has always, or 
 even principally, been attached to it; and an incomparably 
 stronger case might be made out in defence of this expression 
 than has been done by Reid, or even by Mr. Stewart. It is, in 
 fact, a term of high antiquity and very general acceptation. 
 We find it in Cicero, in several passages not hitherto observed. 
 It is found in the meaning in question in Phcedrus, and not in 
 the signification of community of sentiment, which it expresses 
 in Horace and Juvenal. And in the same meaning the term 
 Sensus Communis is employed by St. Augustin. In modern 
 times, it is to be found in the philosophical writings of every 
 country of Europe. In fact, so far as use and wont may be 
 allowed to weigh, there is perhaps no philosophical expression 
 in support of which a more numerous array of authorities may 
 be alleged. The expression, however, is certainly exceptiona- 
 ble, and it can only claim toleration in the absence of a better. 
 
 I may notice that Pascal and Hemsterhuis have applied Intu- 
 ition and Sentiment in this sense ; and Jacobi originally em- 
 ployed Belief or Faith in the same way, though he latterly 
 superseded this expression by that of Reason. 
 
 [Our cognitions, it is evident, are not all at second hand. 
 Consequents cannot, by an infinite regress, be evolved out of an- 
 tecedents, which are themselves only consequents. Demonstra- 
 tion, if proof be possible, behooves us to repose at last on proposi- 
 tions, which, carrying their own evidence, necessitate their own 
 admission ; and which being, as primary, inexplicable, as inex- 
 plicable, incomprehensible, must consequently manifest them- 
 selves less in the character of cognitions than of facts, of which 
 consciousness assures us under the simple form Q$ feeling 01 
 belief. 
 
 Without at present attempting to determine the character 
 number, and relations waiving, in short, all attempt at an 
 articulate analysis and classification, of the primary elements of
 
 THE ARGUMENT FROM COMMON SENSE. 501 
 
 cognition, as carrying us into a discussion beyond our limits, and 
 not of indispensable importance for the end we have in view ; 
 it is sufficient to have it conceded, in general, that such elements 
 there are ; and this concession of their existence being supposed, 
 I shall proceed to hazard some observations, principally in re- 
 gard to their authority as warrants and criteria of truth. Nor 
 can this assumption, of the existence of some original basis of 
 knowledge in the mind itself, be refused by any. For even 
 those philosophers who profess to derive all our knowledge from 
 experience, and who admit no universal truths of intelligence 
 but such as are generalized from individual truths of fact 
 even these philosophers are forced virtually to acknowledge, at 
 the root of the several acts of observation from which their gen- 
 eralization starts, some law or principle to which they can 
 appeal as guaranteeing the procedure, should the validity of 
 these primordial acts themselves be called in question. This 
 acknowledgment is, among others, made even by Locke ; and 
 on such fundamental guarantee of induction he even bestows 
 the name of Common Sense. 
 
 Limiting, therefore, our consideration to the question of au- 
 thority ; how, it is asked, do these primary propositions these 
 cognitions at first hand these fundamental facts, feelings, be- 
 liefs, certify us of their own veracity ? To this the only possible 
 answer is that as elements of our mental constitution as 
 the essential conditions of our knowledge they must by us be 
 accepted as true. To suppose their falsehood, is to suppose that 
 we are created capable of intelligence, in order to be made the 
 victims of delusion ; that God is a deceiver, and the root of our 
 nature a lie. But such a supposition, if gratuitous, is manifestly 
 illegitimate. For, on the contrary, the data of our original con- 
 sciousness must, it is evident, in the first instance, be presumed 
 true. It is only, if proved false, that their authority can, in 
 consequence of that proof , be, in the second instance, disallowed. 
 Speaking, therefore, generally, to argnc from Common Sense is 
 timply to s/tow, that t/te denial of a given proposition would 
 involve the denial of some original datum of consciousness ; hut 
 as errry original datum of consciousness is to be presumed true.
 
 502 THE ARGUMENT FROM COMMON SENSlu 
 
 that the proposition in question, as dependent on such a principle, 
 must be admitted. 
 
 Though the argument from Common Sense be an appeal to 
 the natural convictions of mankind, it is not an appeal from 
 philosophy to blind feeling. It is only an appeal, from the 
 heretical conclusions of particular philosophies, to the catholic 
 principles of all philosophy. The prejudice which, on this sup- 
 position, has sometimes been excited against the argument, is 
 groundless. 
 
 Nor is it true, that the argument from Common Sense denies 
 the decision to the judgment of philosophers, and accords it to 
 the verdict of the vulgar. Nothing can be more erroneous. 
 We admit nay we maintain, as D'Alembert well expresses 
 it, " that the truth in metaphysic, like the truth in matters of 
 taste, is a truth of which all minds have the germ within them- 
 selves ; to which, indeed, the greater number pay no attention, 
 but which they recognize the moment it is pointed out to them. 
 . . . But if, in this sort, all are able to understand, all are not 
 able to instruct. The merit of conveying easily to others true 
 and simple notions, is much greater than is commonly supposed ; 
 for experience proves how rarely this is to be met with. Sound 
 metaphysical ideas are common truths, which every one appre- 
 hends, but which few have the talent to develop. So difficult is 
 it on any subject to make our own what belongs to every one." 
 Or, to employ the words of the ingenious Lichtenberg, " Philoso- 
 phy, twist the matter as we may, is always a sort of chemistry. 
 The peasant employs all the principles of abstract philosophy, 
 only inveloped, latent, engaged, as the men of physical science 
 express it; the Philosopher exhibits the pure principle." 
 
 The first problem of Philosophy and it is one of no easy 
 accomplishment being thus to seek out, purify, and establish 
 by intellectual analysis and criticism, the elementary feeling? 
 or beliefs, in which are given the elementary truths of which 
 all are in possession ; and the argument from Common Sense 
 being the allegation of these feelings or beliefs as explicated 
 and ascertained, in proof of the relative truths and their neces- 
 sary consequences ; this argument is manifestly dependent on
 
 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. 503 
 
 philosophy, as an art, as an acquired dexterity, and cannot, not- 
 withstanding the errors which they have so frequently com- 
 mitted, be taken out of the hands of the philosophers. Common 
 Sense is like Common Law. Each may be laid down as the 
 general rule of decision ; but in the one case, it must be left to 
 the jurist, in the other, to the philosopher, to ascertain what are 
 the contents of the rule ; and though, in both instances, the com- 
 mon man may be cited as a witness for the custom or the fact, 
 in neither can he be allowed to officiate as advocate or as judge. 
 
 It must be recollected, also, that in appealing to the conscious- 
 ness of mankind in general, we only appeal to the consciousness 
 of those not disqualified to pronounce a decision. " In saying," 
 (to use the words of Aristotle), " simply and without qualifica- 
 tion, that this or that is a known truth, we do not mean that it 
 is in fact recognized by all, but only by such as are of sound 
 understanding; just as in saying absolutely that a thing is 
 wholesome, we must be held to mean, to such as are of a hale 
 constitution." We may, in short, say of the true philosopher 
 what Erasmus, in an epistle to Hutten, said of Sir Thomas 
 More : " Nemo minus ducitur vulgi judicio ; sed rursus nemo 
 minus abest a sensu communi."] Diss. supp. to Reid. 
 
 Nomenclature of the Regulative Faculty. Were it allowed 
 in metaphysical philosophy, as in physical, to discriminate sci- 
 entific differences by scientific terms, I would employ the word 
 noetic, as derived from vovg, to express all those cognitions 
 that originate in the mind itself, dianoetic to denote the opera- 
 tions of the Discursive, Elaborative, or Comparative Faculty. 
 So much for the nomenclature of the faculty itself. 
 
 On the other hand, the cognitions themselves, of which it ia 
 the source, have obtained various appellations. They have 
 been denominated first principles* common anticipations, prin- 
 
 * [Without entering on the various meanings of the term Principle, which 
 Aristotle defines, in general, that from whence any tiling exists, is jrroductd, or 
 is known, it is sufficient to say that it is always used for that on which some- 
 thing else depends ; and thus both for an original law and for an original 
 dement. 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 
 crin ; nal cognitions.] Diss. supp. to lieid.
 
 604 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 ciples of common sense, self-evident or intuitive* truths, primitive 
 notions, native notions, innate cognitions, natural knowledges 
 (cognitions), fundamental reasons, metaphysical or transcendental 
 truths, ultimate or elemental laws of thought, primary or funda- 
 mental laws of Jiu man belief, or primary laws of human reason,^ 
 
 * [The term Intuition is not unambiguous. Besides its original and 
 proper meaning (as a visual perception), it lias been employed to denote a 
 kind of apprehension and a kind of judgment. 
 
 Under the former head, Intuition, or intuitive knowledge, has been used 
 in the following significations : 
 
 a. To denote a perception of the actual and present, in cp position to 
 the "abstractive" knowledge which we have of the possible in imagination, 
 and of the past in memory. 
 
 b. To denote an immediate apprehension of a thing in itself, in contrast 
 to a representative, vicarious, or mediate, apprehension of it, in or through 
 something else. 
 
 c. To denote the knowledge which we can adequately represent in im- 
 agination, in contradistinction to the " symbolical " knowledge which we 
 cannot image, but only think or conceive, through and under a sign or 
 word. 
 
 Under the latter head, it has only a single signification ; namely: 
 
 To denote the immediate affirmation by the intellect, that the predicate 
 does or does not pertain to the subject, in what are called self-evident prop- 
 ositions. 
 
 All these meanings, however, have this in common, that they express the 
 condition of an immediate, in opposition to a mediate knowledge.] Dins, 
 siipp. to Reid. 
 
 t [Reason is a very vague, vacillating, and equivocal word. Throwing 
 aside various accidental significations which it has obtained in particular 
 languages, as in Greek denoting not only the ratio, but the oratio, of the 
 Latins ; throwing aside its employment, in most languages, for causr., mo- 
 ' tire, an/nun at, priuci/ile of j>robation, or middle ttnn of a s>/Hi/ism, and con- 
 sidering it only as a philosophical word denoting a faculty or comple- 
 ment of faculties; in this relation, it is found employed in the following 
 meaning . 
 
 It has, both in ancient and modern times, been very commonly employed, 
 like nndrrstandiiKj and intJlid, to denote our intelligent nature in general; 
 and this nnally as distinguished from the lower cognitive faculties, as 
 Sense, Imagination, Memory but alwavs, and emphatically, as in con- 
 trast to the Feelings and Desires. In this signification, to follow the Aris- 
 totelic division, it comprehends 1, Conception or Simple Apprehension ; 
 2, the Comjibsitivc ainl Divisive process, Affirmation and Negation, Judgment ,
 
 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. 505 
 
 pure or transcendental* or a priori cognitions, categories of 
 thought, natural beliefs, rational instincts, f etc. 
 
 3, Reasoning or the Discursive faculty ; 4, Intellect or Intelligence proper, 
 either as the intuition, or as the place, of principles or self-evident truths. 
 
 In modern times, though we frequently meet with Reason, as a general 
 faculty, distinguished from Reasoning, as a particular; yet until Kant, I 
 am not aware that Reason (Vernunft) was ever exclusively, or even em- 
 phatically, used in a signification corresponding to the noetic faculty, in its 
 strict and special meaning, and opposed to understanding ( Verstand), viewed 
 as comprehending the other functions of thought. 
 
 Though Common Sense be not therefore opposed to Reason, still the 
 term Reason is of so general and ambiguous an import, that its employment 
 in so determinate a meaning as a synonym of Common Sense ought to be 
 avoided. It is only, we have seen, as an expression for the noetic faculty, 
 or Intellect proper, that Reason can be substituted for Common Sense.] 
 Diss. sitpp. to Reid. 
 
 * [In the Schools, ft anscendentalis and transcendens were convertible ex- 
 pressions, 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 example, is Being, of which the ten cate- 
 gories are only subdivisions. Kant, according to his wont, twisted these 
 old terms into a new signification. First of all, he distinguished them from 
 each other. Transcendent ho employed to denote what is wholly beyond 
 experience, being given neither as an a posteriori nor a priori element of 
 cognition what therefore transcends every category of thought. Tran 
 tcendental he applied to signify the a priori or necessary cognitions which, 
 though manifested in, as affording the conditions of, experience, 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.] Diss. supp. to Reid. 
 
 t \Instincts, rational or intellectual. 
 
 These terms are intended tp express not so much the light, as the dark, 
 side which the elementary facts of consciousness exhibit. They therefore 
 stand opposed to the conceivable, the understood, the known. 
 
 As to the impropriety, though, like most other psychological terms, these 
 are not unexceptionable, they are however less so than many, nay than 
 most, others. An Instinct is an agent which performs blindly and igno- 
 rantly a work of intelligence and knowledge. The terms, Instinctive be- 
 lief judgment cot/nition are therefore expressions not ill adapted to char- 
 acterize a belief, judgment, cognition, which, as the result of no anterior 
 consciousness, is, like the products of animal instinct, the intelligent effect 
 of (as far as we arc concerned) an unknowing cause. In like manner, we 
 can hardly find more suitable expressions to indicate those incomprehensi- 
 43
 
 506 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 Criterion for distinguishing Native from Adventitious Knowl- 
 edge. The history of opinions touching the acceptation, or 
 rejection, of such native notions, is, in a manner, the history of 
 philosophy : for as the one alternative, or the other, is adopted 
 in this question, the character of a system is determined. At 
 present, I content myself with stating, that, though from the 
 earliest period of philosophy, the doctrine was always common, 
 if not always predominant, that our knowledge originated, in 
 part at least, in the mind, yet it was only at a very recent date 
 that the criterion was explicitly enounced, by which the native 
 may be discriminated from the adventitious elements of knowl- 
 edge. Without touching on some ambiguous expressions in 
 more ancient philosophers, it is sufficient to say, that the char- 
 acter of universality and necessity, as the quality by which the 
 two classes of knowledge are distinguished, was first explicitly 
 proclaimed by Leibnitz. I have already frequently had occasion 
 incidentally to notice, that we should carefully distinguish be- 
 tween those notions or cognitions which are primitive facts, and 
 those notions or cognitions which are generalized or derivative 
 facts. The former are given us ; they are not, indeed, obtru- 
 sive, they are not even cognizable of themselves. They lie 
 hid in the profundities of the mind, until drawn from their 
 obscurity by the mental activity itself employed upon the mate- 
 rials of experience. Hence it is, that our knowledge has ita 
 commencement in sense, external or internal, but its origin in 
 intellect. The latter, the derivative cognitions, are of our own 
 fabrication ; we form them after certain rules ; they are the 
 tardy result of Perception and Memory, of Attention, Reflection, 
 Abstraction. The primitive cognitions, on the contrary, seem to 
 leap ready armed from the womb of reason, like Pallas from the 
 head of Jupiter ; sometimes the mind places them at the com- 
 mencement of its operations, in order to have a point of support 
 
 hie spontaneities themselves, of which the primary facts of consciousness 
 are the manifestations, than rational or intellectual Instincts. In fact, if 
 Reason can justly be called a developed Feeling, it may with no less pro- 
 priety be called an illuminated Instinct.] Diss. supp. to Keul. 
 
 Et quod nunc Ratio, Impetus ante fuit.
 
 TILE REGULATIVE FACULTY. 507 
 
 and a fixed basis, without which the operations would be impos- 
 sible ; sometimes they form, in a certain sort, the crowning, the 
 consummation of all the intellectual operations. The derivative 
 or generalized notions are an artifice of intellect, an ingenious 
 mean of giving order and compactness to the materials of our 
 knowledge. The primitive and general notions are the root of 
 all principles, the foundation of the whole edifice of human 
 science. But how different soever be the two classes of our cog 
 nitions, and however distinctly separated they may be by the cir 
 cumstance, that we cannot but think the one, and can easily 
 annihilate the other in thought, this discriminative quality 
 was not explicitly signalized till done by Leibnitz. The older 
 philosophers are at best undeveloped. Descartes made the first 
 Btep towards a more perspicuous discrimination. He frequently 
 enounce? that our primitive notions (besides being clear and dis- 
 tinct) are universal. But this universality is only a derived 
 circumstance ; a notion is universal (meaning thereby that a 
 notion is common to all mankind), because it is necessary to the 
 thinking mind, because the mind cannot but think it. 
 
 The enouncement of this criterion was, in fact, a great dis- 
 covery in the science of mind ; and the fact that a truth so 
 manifest, when once proclaimed, could have lain so long unno- 
 ticed by philosophers, may warrant us in hoping that other dis- 
 coveries of equal importance may still be awaiting the advent 
 of another Leibnitz. Leibnitz has, in several parts of his 
 works, laid down the distinction in question ; and, what is curi- 
 ous, almost always in relation to Locke. " In Locke," [he 
 says,] " there are some particulars not ill expounded, but upon 
 the whole he has wandered far from the gate, nor has he under- 
 stood the nature of the intellect. Had he sufficiently consid- 
 ered the difference between necessary truths or those appre- 
 hended by demonstration, and those which become kncwn to us 
 by induction alone, he would have seen, that those which are 
 necessary could only be approved to us by principles native to 
 the mind ; seeing that the senses indeed inform us what may 
 take place, but not what necessarily takes place. Locke has not 
 observed, that the notions of being, of substance, of one and
 
 508 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 the same, of the true, of the good, and many others, are innate 
 to our mind, because our mind is innate to itself, and finds all 
 these in its own furniture. It is true, indeed, that there is 
 nothing in the intellect which was not previously in the sense, 
 except the intellect itself." In [another] place he says, 
 " Hence arises another question, namely : Are all truths de- 
 pendent on experience, that is to say, on induction and exam- 
 ples ? Or are there some which have another foundation ? 
 For if some events can be foreseen before all trial has been 
 made, it is manifest that we contribute something on our part. 
 The senses, although necessary for all our actual cognitions, are 
 not, however, competent to afford us all that cognitions involve ; 
 for the senses never give us more than examples, that is to say, 
 particular or individual truths. Now all the examples, which 
 confirm a general truth, how numerous soever they may be, are 
 jnsutficient to establish the universal necessity of this same 
 truth ; for it does not follow, that what has happened will hap- 
 pen always in like manner. For example : the Greeks and 
 Romans and other nations have always observed, that, during the 
 course of twenty-four hours, day is changed into night, and 
 night into day. But we should be wrong, were we to believe 
 that the same rule holds everywhere, as the contrary has been 
 observed during a residence in Nova Zernbla. And he again 
 would deceive himself, who should believe that, in our latitudes 
 at least, this was a truth necessary and eternal ; for we ought 
 to consider, that the earth and the sun themselves have no nec- 
 essary existence, and that there will perhaps a time arrive 
 when this fair star will, with its whole system, have no longer a 
 place in creation, at least under its present form. Hence it 
 appears, that the necessary truths, such as we find them in 
 I'ure Mathematics, and particularly in Arithmetic and Geome- 
 try, behoove to have principles the proof of which does not 
 depend upon examples, and, consequently, not on the evidence 
 of sense; howbeit, that without the senses, we should never 
 have found occasion to call them into consciousness. This is 
 what il is necessary to distinguish accurately, and it is what 
 Kuclid has so well understood, in demonstrating bv reason wha*
 
 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. 509 
 
 Is sufficiently apparent by experience and sensible images. 
 Logic, likewise, with Metaphyics and Morals, the one of which 
 constitutes Natural Theology, the other Natural Jurisprudence, 
 are full of such truths ; and, consequently, their proof can only 
 be derived from internal principles, which we call innate. It is 
 true, that we ought not to imagine that we can read in the soul 
 these eternal laws of reason ad aperturam libri, as we can read 
 the edict of the Pnetor, without trouble or research ; but it is 
 enough, that we can discover them in ourselves by dint of atten- 
 tion, when the occasions are presented to us by the senses. 
 The success of the observation serves to confirm reason, in the 
 same way as proofs serve in Arithmetic to obviate erroneous 
 calculations, when the computation is long. It is hereby, also, 
 that the cognitions of men differ from those of beasts. The 
 beasts are purely empirical, and only regulate themselves by 
 examples ; for as far as we can judge, they never attain to the 
 formation of necessary judgments, whereas, men are capable of 
 demonstrative sciences, and herein the faculty which brutes pos- 
 sess of drawing inferences is inferior to the reason which is in 
 men." And, after some other observations, he proceeds : " In 
 illustration of this, let me make use likewise of the simile of a 
 block of marble which has veins, rather than of a block of 
 marble wholly uniform, or of blank tablets, that is to say, what 
 is called a tabula rasa by philosophers ; for if the mind resem- 
 bled these blank tablets, truths would be in us, as the figure of 
 Hercules is in a piece of marble, when the marble is altogether 
 indifferent to the reception of this figure or of any other. But 
 if we suppose that there are veins in the stone which would 
 mark out the figure of Hercules by preference to other figures, 
 this stcne would be more determined thereunto, and Hercules 
 would exist there, innately in a certain sort ; although it would 
 require labor to discover the veins, and to clear them by polish- 
 ing and the removal of all that prevents their manifestation. 
 It is thus that ideas and truths are innate in us ; like our iucli 
 nations, dispositions, natural habitudes or virtualities, and not as 
 actions; although these virtualities be always accompanied by 
 K)ine corresponding actions, frequently however unperceived " 
 43*
 
 510 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 And in another remarkable passage, Leibnitz says, "The 
 mind is not only capable of knowing pure and necessary truths, 
 but likewise of discovering them in itself; and if it possessed 
 only the simple capacity of receiving cognitions, or the passive 
 power of knowledge, as indetermined as that of the wax to re- 
 ceive figures, or a blank tablet to receive letters, it would not be 
 the source of necessary truths, as I am about to demonstrate 
 that it is : for it is incontestable, that the senses could not suffice 
 to make their necessity apparent, and that the intellect has, 
 therefore, a disposition, as well active as passive, to draw them 
 from its own bosom, although the senses be requisite to furnish 
 the occasion, and the attention to determine it upon some in 
 preference to others. You see, therefore, these very able phi- 
 losophers, who are of a different opinion, have not sufficiently 
 reflected on the consequence of the difference that subsists be- 
 tween necessary or eternal truths and the truths of experience, 
 as I have already observed, and as all our contestation shows. 
 The original proof of necessary truths comes from the intellect 
 alone, while other truths are derived from experience or the 
 observations of sense. Our mind is competent to both kinds of 
 knowledge, but it is itself the source of the former ; and how 
 great soever may be the number of particular experiences in 
 support of a universal truth, we should never be able to assure 
 ourselves forever of its universality by induction, unless we 
 knew its necessity by reason. The senses may register, justify, 
 and confirm these truths, but not demonstrate their infallibility 
 and eternal certainty." 
 
 And in speaking of the faculty of such truths, he says : " It 
 is not a naked faculty, which consists in the mere possibility of 
 understanding them ; it is a disposition, an aptitude, a preforma- 
 tion, which determines our mind to elicit, and which causes that 
 they can be elicited ; precisely as there is a difference between 
 the figures which are bestowed indifferently on stone or marble, 
 and those which veins mark out or are disposed to mark out, if 
 the sculptor avail himself of the indications." 
 
 Reid made the same discrimination. We have thus seen 
 that Leibnitz was the first philosopher who explicitly established
 
 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. fill 
 
 the quality of necessity as the criterion of distinction between 
 empirical and a priori cognitions. I may, however, remark, 
 what is creditable to Dr. Reid's sagacity, that he founded the 
 same discrimination on the same difference : and I am disposed 
 to think that he did this without being aware of his coincidence 
 with Leibnitz ; for he does not seem to have studied the system 
 of that philosopher in his own works ; and it was not till Kant 
 liad shown the importance of the criterion, by its application in 
 his hands, that the attention of the learned was called to the 
 scattered notices of it in the writings of Leibnitz. In speaking 
 of the principle of causality, Dr. Reid says : " We are next to 
 consider whether we may not learn this truth from experience, 
 That effects which have all the marks and tokens of design, 
 must proceed from a designing cause." 
 
 " I apprehend that we cannot learn this truth from experi- 
 ence, for two reasons. 
 
 "First. Because it is a necessary truth, not a contingent one. 
 It agrees with the experience of mankind since the beginning 
 of the world, that the area of a triangle is equal to half the 
 rectangle under its base and perpendicular. It agrees no less 
 with experience, that the sun rises in the east and sets in the 
 west So far as experience goes, these truths are upon an 
 equal footing. But every man perceives this distinction be- 
 tween them, that the first is a necessary truth, and that it is 
 impossible that it should not be true ; but the last is not neces- 
 sary, but contingent, depending upon the will of Him who made 
 the w/rld. As we cannot learn from experience that twice 
 three must necessarily make six, so neither can we learn from 
 experience that certain effects must proceed from a designing 
 and intelligent cause. Experience informs us only of what hae 
 been, but never of what must be." 
 
 And in speaking of our belief in the principle that an effect 
 manifesting design must have had an intelligent cause, he says, 
 " It has been thought, that, although this principle does not 
 admit of proof from abstract reasoning, it may be proved from 
 experience, and may be justly drawn by induction from in- 
 stances that fall within our observation.
 
 512 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 " I conceive this method of proof will leave us in great un- 
 certainty, for these three reasons : 
 
 u 1st. Because the proposition to be proved is not a contingent 
 but a necessary proposition. It is not that things which begin 
 to exist commonly have a cause, or even that they always in 
 fact have a cause ; but that they must have a cause, and cannot 
 begin to exist without a cause. 
 
 " Propositions of this kind, from their nature, are incapable 
 of proof by induction. Experience informs us only of what it 
 or has been, not of what must be ; and the conclusion must bri 
 of the same nature with the premises. 
 
 " For this reason, no mathematical proposition can be proved 
 by induction. Though it should be found by experience in a 
 thousand cases, that the area of a plain triangle is equal to the 
 rectangle under the altitude and half the base, this would not 
 prove that it must be so in all cases, and cannot be otherwise ; 
 which is what the mathematician affirms. 
 
 " In like manner, though we had the most ample experimen- 
 tal proof, that things which had begun to exist had a cause, this 
 would not prove that they must have a cause. Experience 
 may show us what is the established course of nature, but can 
 never show what connection of things are in their nature necea 
 eary. 
 
 " 2dly. General maxims, grounded on experience, have only a 
 degree of probability proportioned to the extent of our experi- 
 ence ; and ought always to be understood so as to leave room for 
 exceptions, if future experience should discover any such. 
 
 " The law of gravitation has as full proof from experience 
 and induction as any principle can be supposed to have. Yet, 
 if any philosopher should, by clear experiment, show that there 
 is a kind of matter in some bodies which does not gravitate, the 
 law of gravitation ought to be limited by that exception. 
 
 " Now it is evident that men have never considered the prin- 
 ciple of the necessity of causes as a truth of this kind, which 
 may admit of limitation or exception ; and therefore it has not 
 been received upon this kind of evidence. 
 
 " 3(/ly. I do not see that experience could satisfy us that ev 
 ery change in nature actually has a cause.
 
 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. 513 
 
 ** In the far greatest part of the changes in nature that fall 
 within our observation, the causes are unknown ; and, therefore, 
 from experience, we cannot know whether they have causes or 
 not 
 
 " Causation is not an object of sense. The only experience 
 we can have of it, is in the consciousness we have of exerting 
 some power in ordering our thoughts and actions. But this ex- 
 perience is surely too narrow a foundation for a general conclu* 
 sion, that all things that have had or shall have a beginning, 
 must have a cause." 
 
 How many cognitions should be ranked as ultimate. But 
 though it be now generally acknowledged, by the profoundest 
 thinkers, that it is impossible to analyze all our knowledge into 
 the produce of experience, external or internal, and that a cer- 
 tain complement of cognitions must be allowed as having their 
 origin in the nature of the thinking principle itself; they are 
 not at one in regard to those which ought to be recognized as 
 ultimate and elemental, and those which ought to be regarded 
 as modifications or combinations of these. Reid and Stewart, 
 (the former in particular), have been considered as too easy in 
 their admission of primary laws ; and it must be allowed that 
 the censure, in some instances, is not altogether unmerited. 
 But it ought to be recollected, that those who thus agree in 
 reprehension are not in unison in regard to the grounds of cen- 
 sure ; and they wholly forget that our Scottish philosophers 
 made no pretension to a Jinal analysis of the primary laws of 
 human reason, that they thought it enough to classify a cer- 
 tain number of cognitions as native to the mind, leaving it to 
 their successors to resolve these into simpler elements. " The 
 labyrinth," [says Dr. Reid,] " may be too intricate, and the 
 thread too fin*.', to be traced through all its windings; but, if we 
 stop where we can trace it no further, and secure the ground 
 we have gained, there is no harm done ; a quicker eye may in 
 time trace it further." The same view has been likewise well 
 stated by Mr. Stewart. " In all the other sciences, the progress 
 o/ discovery has been gradual, from the less general to the more 
 general laws of nature ; nnd it would be singular indeed, if, in
 
 514 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. 
 
 this science, which but a few years ago was confessedly in ita 
 infancy, and which certainly labors under many disadvantages 
 peculiar to itself, a step should all at once be made to a single 
 principle, comprehending all the particular phenomena which 
 we know. As the order established in the intellectual world 
 seems to be regulated by laws analogous to those which we trace 
 among the phenomena of the material system ; and as in all oui 
 philosophical inquiries (to whatever subject they may relate), 
 the progress of the mind is liable to be affected by the same 
 tendency to a premature generalization, the following extract 
 from an eminent chemical writer may contribute to illustrate 
 the scope and to confirm the justness of some of the foregoing 
 reflections. ' Within the last fifteen or twenty years, several 
 new metals and new earths have been made known to the 
 world. The names that support these discoveries are respecta- 
 ble, and the experiments decisive. If we do not give our assent 
 to them, no single proposition in chemistry can for a moment 
 stand. But whether all these are really simple substances, or 
 compounds not yet resolved into their elements, is what the 
 authors themselves cannot possibly assert ; nor would it, in the 
 least, diminish the merit of their observations, if future experi- 
 ments should prove them to have been mistaken, as to the sim- 
 plicity of these substances. This remark should not be confined 
 to later discoveries ; it may as justly be applied to those earths 
 and metals with which we have been long acquainted.' ' In the 
 dark ages of chemistry, the object was to rival Nature ; and the 
 substance which the adepts of those days were busied to create, 
 was universally allowed to be simple. In a more enlightened 
 period, we have extended our inquiries and multiplied the num- 
 ber of the elements. The last task will be to simplify ; and by 
 a closer observation of Nature, to learn from what a small store 
 of primitive materials, all that we behold and wonder at was 
 created.' " 
 
 That the list of the primary elements of human reason, which 
 our two philosophers have given, has no pretence to order ; and 
 that the principles which it contains are not systematically 
 deduced by any ambitious process of metaphysical ingenuity, iu
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 515 
 
 no valid ground of disparagement. In fact, which of the vaunted 
 classifications of these primitive truths can stand the test of criti 
 cism ? The most celebrated, and by far the most ingenious, of 
 these, the scheme of Kant, though the truth of its details 
 may be admitted, is no longer regarded as affording either a 
 necessary deduction or a natural arrangement of our native cog- 
 nitions ; and the reduction of these to system still remains a 
 problem to be resolved. 
 
 Distinction between Positive and Negative Necessity. In 
 point of fact, philosophers have not yet purified the antecedent 
 conditions of the problem, have not yet established the prin- 
 ciples on which its solution ought to be undertaken. And here 
 I would solicit your attention to a circumstance, which shows 
 how far philosophers are still removed from the prospect of an 
 ultimate decision. It is agreed, that the quality of necessity is 
 that which discriminates a native from an adventitious element 
 of knowledge. When we find, therefore, a cognition which con- 
 tains this discriminative quality, we are entitled to lay it down 
 HS one which could not have been obtained as a generalization 
 from experience. This I admit. But when philosophers lay 
 it down not only as native to the mind, but as a positive and 
 immediate datum of an intellectual power, I demur. It is 
 evident that the quality of necessity in a cognition may depend 
 on two different and opposite principles, inasmuch as it may 
 either be the result of a power, or of a powerlessness of the think- 
 ing principle. In the one case, it will be a Positive, in the 
 other a Negative, necessity. Let us take examples of these 
 opposite cases. In an act of perceptive consciousness, I think, 
 and cannot but think, that I and that something different from 
 me exist, in other words, that my perception, as a modification 
 of the Ego, exists, and that the object of my perception, as a 
 modification of the Non-ego, exists. In these circumstances, 1 
 pronounce Existence to be a native cognition, because I find 
 that I cannot think except under the condition of thinking all 
 that I am conscious of to exist. Existence is thus a form, a cat- 
 egory, of thought. But here, though I cannot but think exist- 
 ence, I am conscious of this thought as an act of power, an
 
 516 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 act of intellectual force. It is the result of strength, and not of 
 weakness. 
 
 In like manner, when I think 2X2 = 4, the thought, though 
 inevitable, is not felt as an imbecility ; we know it as true, and, 
 in the perception of the truth, though the act be necessary, the 
 mind is conscious that the necessity does not arise from impo- 
 tence. On the contrary, we attribute the same necessity to God. 
 Here, therefore, there is a class of natural cognitions, which we 
 may properly view as so many positive exertions of the mental 
 vigor, and the cognitions of this class we consider as Positive. 
 To this class will belong the notion of Existence and its modifi- 
 cations, the principles of Identity, and Contradiction, and Ex 
 eluded Middle, the intuitions of Space and Time, etc. 
 
 The Negative sort of Necessity illustrated. But besides these, 
 there are other necessary forms of thought, which, by all philos- 
 ophers, have been regarded as standing precisely on the same 
 footing, which to me seem to be of a totally different kind. In 
 place of being the result of a power, the necessity which belongs 
 to them is merely a consequence of the impotence of our facul- 
 ties. But if this be the case, nothing could be more unphilo- 
 sophical than to arrogate to these negative inabilities the dignity 
 of positive energies. Every rule of philosophizing would be 
 violated. The law of Purcimony prescribes, that principles are 
 not to be multiplied without necessity, and that an hypothetical 
 force be not postulated to explain a phenomenon which can be 
 better accounted for by an admitted impotence. The phenom- 
 enon of a heavy body rising from the earth, may warrant us in 
 the assumption of a special power; but it would surely be 
 absurd to devise a special power (that is, a power besides 
 gravitation) to explain the phenomenon of its descent. 
 
 Now, that the imbecility of the human mind constitutes a 
 great negative principle, to which sundry of the most important 
 phenomena of intelligence may be referred, appears to me in- 
 contestable ; and though the discussion is one somewhat abstract, 
 I shall endeavor to give you an insight into the nature and ap- 
 plication of this principle. 
 
 1 begin by the statement of certain principles, to which it 10 
 necessary in the sequel to refer.
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY Or THE CONDITIONED. 517 
 
 The highest of all logical laws, in other words the supreme 
 law of thought, is what is called the principle of Contradiction, 
 or more correctly the principle of Non-Contradiction.* It is 
 
 * [The doctrines of Contradiction, or of Contradictories, that Affirmation 
 or Negation is a necessity of thought, whilst Affirmation and Negation are 
 incompatible, is developed into three sides or phases, each of which implies 
 both the others, phases which may obtain, and actually have received, 
 severally, the name of Law, Principle, or Axiom. Neglecting the historical 
 order in which these were scientifically named and articulately developed, 
 they are : 
 
 1, The Law, Principle, or Axiom, of Identity, which, in regard to the 
 same thing, immdiately or directly enjoins the affirmation of it with itself, 
 and mediately or indirectly prohibits its negation : (A is A). 
 
 2, The Law, etc., of Contradiction (properly Non-contradiction), which, in 
 regard to contradictories, explicitly enjoining their reciprocal negation, im- 
 plicitly prohibits their reciprocal affirmation: (A is not Not- A). In other 
 words, contradictories are thought as existences incompatible at the same 
 time, as at once mutually exclusive. 
 
 3, The Law, etc., of Excluded Middle or Third, which declares that, 
 whilst contradictories are only two, every tiling, if explicitly thought, must 
 be thought as of these cither the one or the other : (A is either B or Not-B). 
 Indifferent terms: Affirmation and negation of the same thing, in tlu 
 same respect, have no conceivable medium; whilst any thing actually may 
 and virtually must, be cither affirmed or denied of any thing. In othei 
 words : Every predicate is true or false of every subject; or, contradicto- 
 ries are thought as incompossible, but, at the same time, the one or the 
 other as necessary. The argument from Contradiction is omnipotent within 
 its sphere, but that sphere is narrow. It has the following limitations : 
 
 1, It is negative, not positive; it may refute, but it is incompetent to 
 establish. It may show what is not, but never of itself what is. It is 
 exrlusively Logical or Formal, not Metaphysical or Real ; it proceeds on 
 a necessity of thought, but never issues in an Ontology or knowledge of 
 existence. 
 
 2, It is dependent; to act it presupposes a counter-proposition to act 
 from. 
 
 3, It is explicative, not ampliativc ; it analyzes what is given, but does 
 not originate information, or add any thing, through itself, to our stock of 
 knowledge. 
 
 4, But, what is its principal defect, it is partial, not thorough-going. It 
 leaves many of the most important problems of our knowledge out of iu 
 determination ; and is, therefore, all too narrow in its application as a uni- 
 versal criterion or instrument of judgment. For were we left, in our rea- 
 44
 
 618 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED 
 
 this : A thing cannot be and not be at the same time, Alpha 
 Ml, Alpha non est, are propositions which cannot both be true at 
 once. A second fundamental law of thought, or rather the 
 principle of Contradiction viewed in a certain aspect, is called 
 the principle of Excluded Middle, or, more fully, the principle 
 of Excluded Middle between two Contradictories. A thing 
 either is or is not, Aut est Alpha, aut non est ; there is no me- 
 dium ; one must be true, both cannot. These principles require, 
 indeed admit of, no proof. They prove every thing, but are 
 proved by nothing. When I therefore have occasion to speak 
 of these laws by name, you will know to what principle I refer. 
 Hamilton's one grand law of thought illustrated. Now, then, 
 I lay it down as a law, which, though not generalized by philoso- 
 phers, can be easily proved to be true by its application to the 
 phaenomena : Tfiat all that is conceivable in thought, lies between 
 two extremes, which, as contradictory of each other, cannot both 
 be true, but of which, ai> mutual contradictories, one must. For 
 example, we conceive Space, we cannot but conceive Space. 
 I admit, therefore, that Space indefinitely is a positive and nec- 
 essary form of thought. But when philosophers convert the 
 fact, that we cannot but think space, or, to express it differently, 
 that we are unable to imagine any thing out of space, when 
 philosophers, I say, convert this i'act with the assertion, that we 
 have a notion, a positive notion, of absolute or of infinite 
 space, they assume, not only what is not contained in the phae- 
 nomenon, nay, they assume what is the very reverse of what 
 the phjenom';non manifests. It is plain, that space must either 
 be bounded or not bounded. These are contradictory alterna- 
 
 sonings, to a dependence on the principle of Contradiction, we should be 
 unable competently to attempt any argument with regard to some of the 
 most interesting and important questions. For there are many problems 
 in the philosophy of mind where the solution necessarily lies between wha 
 are, to us, the one or the other of two counter, and, therefore, incompatible 
 alternatives, neither of which are we able to conceive as possible, but of 
 which, by the very conditions of thought, we are compelled to acknowledge 
 that the one or the other cannot but be; and it is as supplying this defi- 
 ciency, that what lias been called the argument from Common Seus 
 becomes principally useful.] Appendix.
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 519 
 
 tives ; on the principle of Contradiction, they cannot both be 
 true ; and, on the principle of Excluded Middle, one must be 
 true. This cannc t be denied, without denying the primary laws 
 of intelligence. But though space must be admitted to be neces- 
 tarily either finite or infinite, we are able to conceive the possi- 
 bility neither of its finitude nor of its infinity. 
 
 We are altogether unable to perceive space as bounded, as 
 finite; that is, as a whole beyond which there is no further 
 space. Every one is conscious that this is impossible. It con- 
 tradicts also the supposition of space as a necessary notion ; for 
 if we could imagine space as a terminated sphere, and that 
 sphere not itself enclosed in a surrounding space, we should not 
 be obliged to think eveiy thing in space ; and, on the contrary, 
 if we did imagine this terminated sphere as itself in space, in 
 that case, we should not have actually conceived all space as 
 a bounded whole. The one contradictory is thus found incon- 
 ceivable ; we cannot conceive space as positively limited. 
 
 This law applied to space as a maximum. On the other 
 hand, we are equally powerless to realize in thought the possi- 
 bility of the opposite contradictory ; we cannot conceive space 
 as infinite, as without limits. You may launch out in thought 
 beyond the solar walk, you may transcend in fancy even the 
 univerae of matter, and rise from sphere to sphere in the region 
 of empty space, until imagination sinks exhausted; with all 
 this, what have you done ? You have never gone beyond the 
 finite, you have attained at best only to the indefinite, and the 
 indefinite, however expanded, is still always the finite. As Pascal 
 energetically says, " Inflate our conceptions as we may, with all 
 the finite possible, we cannot make one atom of the infinite." 
 a The infinite is infinitely incomprehensible." Now, then, both 
 contradictories are equally inconceivable ; and could we limit our 
 attention to one alone, we should deem it at once impossible and 
 absurd, and suppose its unknown opposite as necessarily true. 
 But as we not only can, but are constrained to consider both, we 
 find that both are equally incomprehensible; and yet, though 
 unable to view either as possible, we are forced by a higher law 
 to admit that one. but one only, is necessary.
 
 520 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 Space as a minimum also inconceivable. That (he conceiv 
 able lies also between two inconceivable extremes,' is illustrated 
 by every other relation of thought. We have found the maxi- 
 mum of space incomprehensible ; can we comprehend its mini- 
 mum ? This is equally impossible. Here, likewise, we recoil 
 from one inconceivable contradictory only to infringe upon an- 
 other. Let us take a portion of space, however small ; we can 
 never conceive it as the smallest. It is necessarily extended 
 aud may, consequently, be divided into a half or quarters, and 
 each of these halves or quarters may again be divided into othei 
 halves or quarters, and this ad infinitum. But if we are unable 
 to construe to our mind the possibility of an absolute minimum 
 of space, we can as little present to ourselves the possibility of 
 an infinite divisibility of any extended entity. 
 
 Time also inconceivable, either as a maximum or a minimum. 
 In like manner, Time ; this is a notion even more universal than 
 space, for while we exempt from occupying space the energies 
 of mind, we are unable to conceive these as not occupying time. 
 Thus, we think every thing, mental and material, as in time, and 
 out of time we can think nothing. But, if we attempt to compre- 
 hend time, either in whole or in part, we find that thought is 
 hedged in between two incomprehensibles. Let us try the whole. 
 And here let us look back, let us consider time a parte ante. 
 And here, we may surely Hatter ourselves, that we shall be able 
 to conceive time as a whole, for here we have the past period 
 bounded by the present ; the past cannot, therefore, be infinite 
 or eternal, for a bounded infinite is a contradiction. But we 
 shall deceive ourselves. A\ r e are altogether unable to conceive 
 time as commencing ; we can easily represent to ourselves time 
 under any relative limitation of commeneement and termination ; 
 but we are conscious to ourselves of nothing more clearly, than 
 that it would be equally possible to think without thought, as to 
 construe to the mind an absolute commencement, or an absolute 
 termination, of time ; that is, a beginning and an end beyond 
 which time is conceived as non-existent. Goad imagination to 
 the utmost, it still sinks paralyzed within the bounds of time, 
 and time survives as the condition of th(. thought itself in which
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 521 
 
 we annihilate the universe. On the other hand, the concept of 
 past time as without limit, without commencement, is equally 
 impossible. We cannot conceive the infinite regress of time ; 
 for such a notion could only be realized by the infinite addition 
 in thought of finite times, and such an addition would itself 
 require an eternity for its accomplishment. If we dream of 
 effecting this, we only deceive ourselves by substituting the 
 indefinite for the infinite, than which no two notions can be more 
 opposed. The negation of a commencement of time involves, 
 likewise, the affirmation, that an infinite time has, at every 
 moment, already run ; thut is, it implies the contradiction, that 
 an infinite has been completed. For the same reasons, we are 
 unable to conceive an infinite progress of time ; while the in- 
 finite regress and the infinite progress, taken together, involve 
 the triple contradiction of an infinite concluded, of an infinite 
 commencing, and of two infinities, not exclusive of each other. 
 
 Now take the parts of time, a moment, for instance ; this 
 we must conceive, as either divisible to infinity, or that it is 
 made up of certain absolutely smallest parts. One or the other 
 of these contradictories must be the case. But each is, to us, 
 equally inconceivable. Time is a protensive quantity, and, con- 
 sequently, any part of it, however small, cannot, without a con- 
 tradiction, be imagined as not divisible into parts, and these 
 parts into others ad infinitwm. But the opposite alternative is 
 equally impossible ; we cannot think this infinite division. One 
 is necessarily true ; but neither can be conceived possible. It 
 is on the inability of the mind to conceive either the ultimate 
 indivisibility, or the infinite divisibility of space and time, that 
 the arguments of the Eleatic Zeno against the possibility of 
 motion are founded, arguments which at least show, that mo- 
 tion, however certain as a fact, cannot be conceived possible, a* 
 it involves a contradiction.* 
 
 * [Contradictions pruvinij the Psycltolcxjical Theory of the Conditioned. 
 
 1. Finite cannot comprehend, contain the Infinite. Yet an inch or min- 
 ute, say, are linitos, and are divisible ad it\finitum. that is, their terminated 
 division incogitable. 
 
 44*
 
 522 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 This grand principle called the Law of the Conditioned. 
 The same principle could be shown in various other relations, 
 but what I have now said is, I presume, sufficient to make you 
 understand its import. Now, the law of mind, that the con- 
 ceivable is in every relation bounded by the inconceivable, I call 
 
 2. Infinite cannot be terminated or begun. Yet eternity ab ante ends 
 now ; and eternity a post begins now. So apply to Space. 
 
 3. There cannot be two infinite maxima. Yet eternity ab ante and a 
 post are two infinite maxima of time. 
 
 4. If an infinite maximum be cut into two, the halves cannot be each in- 
 finite, for nothing can be greater than infinite, and thus they could not be 
 parts; nor finite, for thus two finite halves would make an infinite whole. 
 
 5. What contains infinite extensions, pretensions, intensions, [three 
 modes of quantity,] cannot be passed through, come to an end. An 
 inch, a minute, a degree contains these ; enjo, etc. Take a minute. This 
 contains an infinitude of protended quantities, which must follow one after 
 another; but an infinite series of successive protensions can, ex termino, 
 never be ended ; ergo, etc. 
 
 6. An infinite maximum cannot but be all inclusive. Time ab ante and 
 a post [are] infinite and exclusive of each other; ergo. 
 
 7. An infinite number of quantities must make up cither an infinite or 
 a finite whole. I. The former. But an inch, a minute, a degree, contain 
 each an infinite number of quantities ; therefore, an inch, a minute, a de- 
 gree, are each infinite wholes ; which is absurd. II. The latter. An in- 
 finite number of quantities would thus make up a finite quantity ; which is 
 equally absurd. 
 
 8. If we take a finite quantity (as an inch, a minute, a degree), it would 
 appear equally that there are, and that there are not, an equal number of 
 quantities between these and a greatest, and between these and a least. 
 
 9. An absolutely quickest motion is that which passes from one point to 
 another in space in a minimum of time. But a quickest motion from one 
 point to another, say a mile distance, and from one to another, say a mil- 
 lion million of miles, is thought the same ; which is absurd. 
 
 10. A wheel turned with quickest motion; if a spoke be prolonged, it 
 will therefore be moved by a motion quicker than the quickest. The same 
 may be shown using the rim ami the nave. 
 
 11. Contradictory are Boscovich Points, which occupy space, and are in- 
 fcxtended. Dynamism, therefore, inconceivable. E contra, 
 
 \'2. Atomism also inconceivable; for this supposes atoms, minima 
 extended but indivisible. 
 
 13. A quantity, say a foot, has ag infinity of parts. Any part of this 
 quantity, say an inch, has also an infinity. But one infinity is not larger 
 'Jiari another Therefore, an inch is equal to a foot.] Appendix.
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 523 
 
 the Law of the Conditioned. You will find many philosophers 
 who hold an opinion the reverse of this, maintaining that " the 
 Absolute" is a native or necessary notion ot intelligence. This, 
 ' conceive, is an opinion founded on vagueness and confusion, 
 rhey tell us we have a notion of absolute or infinite space, of 
 ibsolute or infinite time. But they do not tell us in which of 
 he opposite contradictories this notion is "realized. Though 
 Jiese are exclusive of each other, and though both are only ne- 
 gations of the conceivable on its opposite poles, they confound 
 together these exclusive inconceivables into a single notion 
 euppose it positive, and baptize it with the name of Absolute. 
 The sum, therefore, of what I have now stated is, that the Con- 
 ditioned is that which is alone conceivable or cogitable ; the Un- 
 conditioned, that which is inconceivable or incogitable. The 
 Conditioned or the thinkable lies between two extremes or 
 poles ; and these extremes or poles are each of them Uncondi- 
 tioned, each of them inconceivable, each of them exclusive or 
 contradictory of the other. Of these two repugnant opposites, 
 the one is that of Unconditional or Absolute Limitation ; the 
 other, that of Unconditional or Infinite Illimitation. The one 
 we may, therefore, in general call the Absolutely Unconditioned, 
 the other the Infinitely Unconditioned ; or, more simply, the 
 Absolute ^md the Infinite ; the term Absolute expressing that 
 which is finished or complete, the term Infinite, that which 
 cannot be terminated or concluded. These terras, which, like 
 the Absolute and Infinite themselves, philosophers have con- 
 founded, ought not only to be distinguished, but opposed as con- 
 tradictory. The notion of cither unconditioned is negative : 
 .he Absolute and the Infinite can each only be conceived as a 
 negation of the thinkable. In other words, of the Absolute and 
 infinite we have no conception ut all. 
 
 [To recapitulate : In our opinion, the mind can conceive, and, 
 consequently, can know, only the limited, and the conditionally 
 limited. The unconditionally unlimited, or the Infinite, tlu 
 unconditionally limited, or the Absolute, cannot positively be 
 construed to the mind ; they can be conceived, only by a think- 
 ing away from, or abstraction of, those very conditions under
 
 524 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 which thought itself is realized ; consequently, the notion of th<5 
 Unconditioned is only negative negative of the conceivable 
 itself. For example, on the one hand we can positively con- 
 ceive, 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 relative 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 ; 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 di- 
 visibility of parts. The result is the same, whether we apply 
 the process to limitation in space, in time, or in degree. The un- 
 conditional negation, and the unconditional affirmation of limita- 
 tion, in other words, the Infinite and the Absolute, properly 
 so called,^ are thus inconceivable to us. 
 
 * [The Understanding, thought proper, notion, concept, etc., may coin 
 cide or not with Imagination, representation proper, image, etc. The two 
 faculties 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 Bu- 
 cephalus, they do coincide ; for I see no valid ground why we should not 
 think, in the strict sense of the word, or conceive, the individuals which we 
 represent. In like manner, there is no mutual contradiction between the 
 image and the concept of the Infinite or Absolute, if these be otherwise 
 possible ; for there is not necessarily involved the incompatibility of tho 
 one act of cognition with the other.] 
 
 t [The terms Infinite, and Absolute, and Unconditioned, ought not to be 
 confounded. The Unconditioned, in our use of language, denotes the ge- 
 nus of which the Infinite and Absolute are the species. 
 
 The term Absolute is of twofold (if not threefold) ambiguity, corre- 
 sponding 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, de- 
 pendence, etc., and thus is tantamount to rd UTTO/.VTOV of the lower Greeks 
 In this meaning, the Absolute is not opposed to the Infinite. 
 
 2. Absolutum means finished, per fected, completed ; in which souse, the Ab- 
 solute will be what is out of relation, etc., as finished, perfect, complete
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 525 
 
 As the conditionally limited (which we may briefly call the 
 Conditioned) is thus the only possible object of knowledge and 
 of positive thought thought necessarily supposes conditions. 
 To think is to condition ; and conditional limitation is the fun- 
 damental law of the possibility of thought. For, as the grey- 
 hound cannot outstrip his shadow, nor (by a more appropriate 
 simile) the eagle outsoar the atmosphere in which he floats, and 
 by which alone he is supported ; so the mind cannot transcend 
 that sphere of limitation, within and through which exclusively 
 the possibility of thought is realized. Thought is only of the 
 Conditioned ; because, as we have said, to think is simply to 
 condition. The Absolute is conceived merely by a negation of 
 conceivability ; and all that we know, is only known as 
 
 "won from the void and formless Infinite." 
 
 How, indeed, it could ever be doubted that thought is only of 
 the Conditioned, may well be deemed a matter of the profound- 
 est admiration. Thought cannot transcend consciousness ; con- 
 sciousness is only possible under the antithesis of a subject and 
 abject of thought, known only in correlation, and mutually lim- 
 iting each other; while, independently of all this, all that we 
 know either of subject or object, either of mind or matter, is 
 
 total, and thus corresponds to rd 5%ov and rd reheiav of Aristotle. In this 
 acceptation and it is that in which for myself I exclusively use it the 
 Absolute 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, simpUciter ((i-A<jf), that is, considered in and for itself consid- 
 ered not in relation. This holds a similar analogy to the two former 
 meanings of absolute, which the Indefinite (TO uopiarov) does to the Infi- 
 nite (r) uirtiftov) , It is subjective as they are objective; it is in our 
 thought as they are in their own existence. This application is to be dis- 
 counted, as ben; irrelevant.] 
 
 [The. Infinite and Absolute are only the names of two counter imbecili- 
 ties of the human mind, transmuted into properties of the nature of things 
 of two subjective relations, converted into objective atlinnations. We 
 tire ourselves, either in adding to, or in taking from. Some, more reasona- 
 bly, call the thing u.ilinishable infinite; others, le.--s rationally, call it tin 
 Ished absolute. But in both cases, the metastasis is in itself irrational.)
 
 526 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 only a knowledge in each of the particular, of the plural, of the 
 different, of the modified, of the phaenomenal. We admit that 
 the consequence of this doctrine is that philosophy, if viewed 
 as more than a science of the Conditioned, is impossible. De- 
 parting from the particular, we admit that we can never, in our 
 highest generalizations, rise above the Finite ; that our knowl- 
 edge, whether of mind or matter, can be nothing more than a 
 knowledge of the relative manifestations of an existence, which, 
 in itself, it is our highest wisdom to recognize as beyond the 
 reach of philosophy ; in the language of St. Austin " cog- 
 noscendo ignorari, et ignorando cognosci" 
 
 The Conditioned is the mean between two extremes two 
 inconditionates, exclusive of each other, neither of which can be 
 conceived as possible, but of which, on the principles of Contra- 
 diction and Excluded Middle, one must be admitted as necessary. 
 On this opinion, therefore, our faculties are shown to be weak, 
 but not deceitful. The mind is not represented as conceiving 
 two propositions subversive of each other, as equally possible ; 
 but only, as unable to understand as possible either of two ex- 
 tremes ; one of which, however, on the ground of their mutual 
 repugnance, it is compelled to recognize as true. We are thus 
 taught the salutary lesson, that the capacity of thought is not to 
 be constituted into the measure of existence ; and are warned 
 from recognizing the domain of our knowledge as necessarily co- 
 extensive with the horizon of our faith. And by a wonderful 
 revelation, we are thus, in the very consciousness of our inabil- 
 ity to conceive aught above the relative and finite, inspired wi'.a 
 a belief in the existence of something unconditioned beyond the 
 sphere of all comprehensible reality.*] Discussions. 
 
 * [True, therefore, are the declarations of a pious philosophy: "A God 
 understood would he no God at all ; " "To think that God is, as we can 
 think him to he, is blasphemy." The Divinity, in a certain sense, is re- 
 vealed ; in a certain sense, is concealed : He is at once known and un- 
 known. But the last and highest consecration of all true religion must be 
 an altar 'Ayvucru Otw "To the unknown and unknowable God." In 
 this consummation, nature and revelation, paganism and Christianity, are 
 at one : and from either source the testimonies are BO numerous that 1 muat 
 refrain from quoting any.]
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 527 
 
 Lin his criticism of Cousin's philosophy, Hamilton argues 
 further :] [Our author maintains that the idea of the infinite, or 
 absolute, and the idea of the finite or relative, are equally real, 
 because the notion of the one necessarily suggests the notion of 
 the other. 
 
 Correlatives certainly suggest each other, but correlatives 
 may, or may not, be equally real and positive. In thought, 
 contradictories necessarily imply each other, for the knowledge 
 of contradictories is one. But the reality of one contradictory, 
 BO far from guaranteeing the reality of the other, is nothing 
 else than its negation. Thus every positive notion (the concept 
 of a thing by what it is) suggests a negative notion (the con- 
 cept of a thing by what it is not) ; and the highest positive 
 notion, the notion of the conceivable, is not without its corre- 
 sponding negative in the notion of the inconceivable. But 
 though these mutually suggest each other, the positive alone is 
 real ; the negative is only an abstraction of the other, and 
 in the highest generality, even an abstraction of thought itself.] 
 
 [The philosophy of the Conditioned, even from the preceding 
 outline, is, it will he seen, the express converse of the philoso 
 phy of the Absolute at least,*as this system has been latterly 
 evolved in Germany. For this asserts to man a knowledge of 
 the Unconditioned 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 Pluenomenal, the Finite. The one, supposing 
 knowledge to be only of existence in itself, and existence in it- 
 self to be apprehended, and even understood, proclaims 
 " Understand that you may believe," (" Intellige ut cmlas ") ; 
 the other, supposing that existence, in itself, is unknown, that 
 apprehension is only of phenomena, and that these are received 
 only upon trust, as incomprehensibly revealed facts, proclaims 
 with the Prophet "Believe that ye may understand,*" 
 u Crede ut intelligas."] Discussions. 
 
 This is the only orthodox inference. I shall only add in con- 
 clusion, that, as this is the one true, it is the only orthodox, 
 inference. We must believe in the infinity of God ; but the
 
 528 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 infinite God cannot by us, in the present limitation of our facul- 
 ties, be comprehended or conceived. A Deity understood, 
 would be no Deity at all ; and it is blasphemy to say that God 
 only is as we are able to think Him to be. We know God 
 according to the finitude of our faculties ; but we believe much 
 that we are incompetent properly to know. The Infinite, the 
 infinite God, is what, to use the words of Pascal, is infinitely 
 inconceivable. Faith, Belief, is the organ by which we 
 apprehend what is beyond our knowledge. In this all Divines 
 and Philosophers, worthy of the name, are found to coincide ; 
 and the few who assert to man a knowledge of the infinite, do 
 this on the daring, the extravagant, the paradoxical supposition, 
 either that Human Reason is identical with the Divine, or that 
 Man and the Absolute are one. 
 
 The assertion has, however, sometimes been hazarded, through 
 a mere mistake of the object of knowledge or conception : as if 
 that could be an object of knowledge, which was not known ; as 
 if that could be an object of conception, which was not conceived. 
 
 It has been held, that the Infinite is known or conceived, 
 though only a part of it (and every part, be it observed, is ivso 
 facto finite) can be apprehended ; and Aristotle's definition of 
 the infinite has been adopted by those who disregard his declara- 
 tion, that the infinite, qua infinite, is beyond the reach of human 
 understanding. To say that the infinite can be thought, but only 
 inadequately thought, is a contradiction in adjecto ; it is the 
 same as saying, that the infinite can be known, but only known 
 as finite. 
 
 The Scriptures explicitly declare that the infinite is for us 
 now incognizable; they declare that the finite, and the finite 
 alone, is within our reach. It is said (to cite one text out of 
 many), that "now I know in part" (i. e. the finite) ; "but then" 
 (i. c. in the life to come) "shall I know even as I am known" 
 (i. e. without limitation).* 
 
 * [In a private letter, Hamilton replied as follows to some objections 
 hich Mr. II. Caldenvood had made to his doctrine of " The Infinite."] 
 [The Infinite whi'-h I contemplate is considered only us in thmiyht ; the
 
 FIIE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 529 
 
 Infinite beyond thought being, it may be, an object of belief, but not of 
 knowledge. This consideration obviates many of your objections. 
 
 The sphere of our belief is much more extensive than the sphere of our 
 knowledge ; and, therefore, when I deny that the Infinite can by us be 
 known, I am far from denying that by us it is, must, and ought to be, be- 
 lieved. This I have indeed anxiously evinced, both by reasoning and 
 authority. When, therefore, you maintain, that in denying to man any 
 positive cognizance of the Infinite, I virtually extenuate his belief in the in- 
 finitude of Deity, I must hold you to be wholly wrong, in respect both of 
 my opinion, and of the theological dogma itself. 
 
 Assuredly, I maintain that an infinite God cannot be by us (positively 
 comprehended. But the Scriptures, and all theologians worthy of the name, 
 assert the same. Some indeed of the latter, and among them some of the 
 most illustrious Fathers, go the length of asserting, that " an understood 
 God is no God at all," and that, " if we maintain God to be as we think he 
 is, we blaspheme." Hence the assertion of Augustine : " Deum potius ig- 
 norantia quam scientia attingi." 
 
 There is a fundamental difference between The Infinite (rb 'Ev nal Ildv), 
 and a relation to which we may apply the term infinite. Thus, Time and 
 Space must be excluded from the supposed notion of The Infinite; for The 
 Infinite, if positively thought it could be, must be thought as under neither 
 Space nor Time. 
 
 You maintain (passim) that thought, conception, knowledge, is and must 
 be finite, whilst the object of thought, etc., may be infinite. This appears to 
 me to be erroneous, and even contradictory. An existence can only be an 
 object of thought, conception, knowledge, inasmuch as it is an object 
 thought, conceived, known ; as such only does it form a constituent of the 
 circle of thought, conception, knowledge. A thing may be partly known, 
 conceived, thought, partly unknown, etc. But that part of it only which 
 is thought, can be an object of thought, etc.; whereas the part of it not 
 thought, etc., is, as far as thought, etc., is concerned, only tantamount to 
 zero. The infinite, therefore, in this point of view, can be no dtject of 
 thought, etc. ; for nothing can be more self-repugnant than the assertion, 
 that we know the infinite through a finite notion, or have a finite knowledge 
 of an infinite object of knowledge. 
 
 But you assert (passim) that we have a knowledge, a notion, of the in- 
 'nite ; at the same time, asserting (passim) that this knowledge or notion is 
 "inadequate," "partial," "imperfect," "limited," "not in all its 
 extent," " incomplete," "only to some extent," " in a certain sense," 
 "indistinct," etc., etc. 
 
 Now, in the first place, this assertion is in contradiction of what you also 
 maintain, that "the infinite is one and indivisible;" that is, that having no 
 pans, it cannot be partially known. But, in the second place, this also sub- 
 verts the possibility of conceiving, of knowing, tho Infinite ; for as partial, 
 45
 
 530 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 inadequate, not in all its extent, etc., our conception includes some part only 
 of the object supposed infinite, and does not include the rest. Our knowl- 
 edge is, therefore, by your own account, limited and finite ; consequently, 
 you implicitly admit that we have no knowledge, at least no positive knowl- 
 edge, of the infinite. 
 
 Again, as stated, you describe the infinite to be " one and indivisible." 
 But to conceive as inseparable into parts an entity which, not excluding, 
 in fact includes, the worlds of mind and matter, is for the human intellect 
 utterly improbable. And does not the infinite contain the finite? If it 
 does, then it contains what has parts, and is divisible ; if it does not, then 
 it is exclusive : the finite is out of the infinite : and the infinite is condi- 
 tioned, limited, restricted, finite. 
 
 You controvert my assertion, that, to conceive a thing in relation is, ipso 
 facto, to conceive it as finite ; and you maintain that the relative is not 
 incompatible with infinity, unless it be also restrictive. But restrictive, I 
 hold the relative always to be, and therefore, incompatible with The Infinitt 
 in the more proper signification of the term, though infinity, in a looser sig 
 nification, may be applied to it. My reasons for this are the following : 
 A relation is always a particular point of view ; consequently, the things 
 thought as relative and correlative are always thought restrictively, in so 
 far as the thought of the one discriminates and excludes the other, and like- 
 wise all things not conceived in the same special or relative point of view. 
 Thus, if we think of Socrates and Xanthippe under the matrimonial rela- 
 tion, not only do the thoughts of Socrates and Xanthippe exclude each 
 other as separate existences, and, pro tanto, therefore are restrictive ; but 
 thinking of Socrates as huslxind, this excludes our conception of him as 
 citizen, etc., etc. Or, to take an example from higher relatives : what is 
 thought, as the object, excludes what is viewed as the subject, of thought ; and 
 hence the necessity which compelled Schelling and other absolutists to place 
 The Absolute in the indifference of subject and object, of knowledge and 
 existence. Again : we conceive God in the relation of Creator, and in sa 
 far as we merely conceive Him as Creator, wo do not conceive him as un- 
 conditioned, as infinite ; for there are many other relations of the Deity 
 under which we may conceive Him, but which are not included in the 
 relation of Creator. In so far, therefore, as we conceive God only in this 
 relation, our conception of Him is manifestly restrictive. Further, the 
 created universe is, and you assert it to be, finite. The creation is, therefore, 
 an act, of however great, of finite power; and the Creator is thus thought 
 only in a finite capacity. God, in his own nature, is infinite; but we do 
 not positively think Him as infinite, in thinking Him under the relation of 
 the Creator of a finite creation. Finally, let us suppose the created uni- 
 verse (which you do not) to be infinite ; in that case, we should he reduced 
 to the dilemma of asserting two infinities, which is contradictory, or of 
 asserting the supernal, absurdity, that God the Creator is finite, and the 
 ttnherse treated by Him is infinite.] Appendix.
 
 Q 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE REGULATIVE FACULTY. LAW OF THE CONDITIONED IS 
 ITS APPLICATION TO THE DOCTRINE OF CAUSALITY. 
 
 I HAVE been desirous to explain the principle of the Condi- 
 tioned, as out of it we are able not only to explain the hallucina- 
 tion of the Absolute, but to solve some of the most momentous, 
 and hitherto most puzzling, problems of mind. In particular, 
 this principle affords us, I think, a solution of the two great 
 intellectual principles of Cause and Effect, and of Substance and 
 Phenomenon or Accident. Both are only applications of the 
 principle of the Conditioned, in different relations. 
 
 Of all questions in the history of Philosophy, that concerning 
 the nature and genealogy of the notion of Causality, is, perhaps, 
 the most famous ; and I shall endeavor to give a comprehensive, 
 though necessarily a very summary, view of the problem, and 
 of the attempts which have been made at its solution. 
 
 What is the phenomenon of Causality. But before proceed 
 ing to consider the different attempts to explain the phaenom- 
 enon, it is proper to state and to determine what the phrenom- 
 enon to be explained really is. Nor is this superfluous, for we 
 shall find that some philosophers, instead of accommodating their 
 solutions to the problem, have accommodated the problem to 
 their solutions. 
 
 When we are aware of something which begins to be, we are, 
 by the necessity of our intelligence, constrained to believe that 
 it has a Cause. But what does the expression, that ii has a 
 cause, signify? If we analyze our thought, we shall find that it 
 simply means, that a? we cannot conceive any new existence to 
 commence, therefore, all tha> is now seen to arise under a new 
 
 (531i
 
 532 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY. 
 
 appearance had previously an existence under a prior form. 
 [We are constrained to think that what now appears to us under 
 a new form, had previously an existence under others others 
 conceivable by us or not. These others (for they are always 
 plural) are called its cause; and a cause, or more properly 
 causes, we cannot but suppose ; for a cause is simply every 
 t fi thing without which the effect would not result, and all such 
 
 >- KX *-\Tconcurring, the effect cannot but result.] Discussions. We 
 ,are utterly unable to realize in thought the possibility of the 
 complement of existence being either increased or diminished. 
 
 Cv^-o^ We are unable, on the one hand, to conceive nothing becoming 
 something, or, on the other, something becoming nothing. 
 When God is said to create out of nothing, we construe this to 
 <^ thought by supposing that He evolves existence out of himself ; 
 we view the Creator as the cause of the universe. " Ex nihilo 
 
 ^ 
 
 . nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti " expresses, in its purest form, 
 
 the whole intellectual phenomenon of causality. (jT 
 
 There is thus conceived an absolute tautology between the 
 vo*"-,/ erect and its causes. We think the causes to contain all that 
 't WJdJifis contained in the effect ; the effect to contain nothing which 
 was not contained in the causes. Take an example. A neutral 
 salt is an effect of the conjunction of an acid and alkali. Here 
 we do not, and here we cannot, conceive that, in effect, any new 
 existence has been added, nor can we conceive that any has 
 been taken away. But another example : Gunpowder is the 
 effect of a mixture of sulphur, charcoal, and nitre, and these 
 three substances are again the effect, result, of simpler con- 
 8tituent, and these constituents again of simpler element?, either 
 known or conceived to exist. Now, in all this series of com- 
 position?, we cannot conceive that aught begins to exist. The 
 gunpowder, the last compound, we are compelled to think, con- 
 tains precisely the same quantum of existence that its ultimate 
 elements contained, prior to their combination. Well ; we ex- 
 plode the powder. Can we conceive that existence has been 
 diminished by the annihilation of a single element previously in 
 being, or increased by the addition of a single element which was 
 not heretofore in nature ? " Omnia mutantur : nihil interit."
 
 ' 
 
 is whA we think, what we must think. This, then, is the mental 
 phienomenon of causality, that we necessarily deny in thought 
 that the object which appears to begin to be, really so begins ; 
 and that we necessarily identify its present with its past exist- 
 ence. / Here it is not requisite that we should know under what 
 form, under what combinations, this existence was previou&ly 
 realized ; in other words, it is not requisite that we should know 
 what are the particular causes of the particular effect. The dis- 
 covery of the connection of determinate causes and determinate 
 effects is merely contingent and individual, merely the datum 
 of experience ; but the principle that every event should have 
 its causes, is necessary and universal, and is imposed on us as a 
 condition of our human intelligence itself. This necessity of so 
 thinking is the only phcenomenon to be explained. [The question 
 of philosophy is not concerning the cause, but concerning a 
 cause.] 
 
 Nor are philosophers, in general, really at variance in their 
 statement of the problem. However divergent in their mode 
 of explanation, they are at one in regard to the matter to be 
 explained. But there is one exception. Dr. Brown has given 
 a very different account of the phenomenon in question. To 
 a >tatement of it, I solicit your attention ; for as his theory in 
 solely accommodated to his view of the phenomenon, so his the- 
 ory is refuted by showing that his view of the phenomenon is 
 erroneous. 
 
 Now, in explaining to you the doctrine of Dr. Brown, 1 am 
 happy to avail myself of the assistance of [Prof. John Wilson} 
 Dr. Brown's successor, whose metaphysical acuteness was not 
 the least remarkable of his many brilliant qualities. > , ^" 
 
 Wilson's confutation of Brown's doctrine. " The distinct 
 and full purport of Dr. Brown's doctrine, it will be observed, is 
 this, that when we apply in this way the words cause and 
 power, we attach no other meaning to the terms than what he 
 has explained. By the word cause, we mean no more than that, 
 in this. instance, the spark falling is the event immediately prior 
 to the explosion : including the belief that in all cases hitherto, 
 when a spark has fallen on gunpowder (of course, supposing 
 
 45*
 
 534 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY. 
 
 other circumstances the same), the gunpowder has kindled ; and 
 that whenever a spark shall again so fall, the grains will again 
 take fire. The present immediate priority, and the past and 
 future invariable sequence of the one event upon the other, are 
 all the ideas that the mind can have in view in speaking of 
 the event in that instance as a cause ; and in speaking of the 
 power in the spark to produce this effect, we mean merely to 
 express the invariableness with which this has happened and 
 will happen. 
 
 " This is the doctrine ; and the author submits it to this test : 
 ' Let any one,' he says, ' ask himself what it is which he means 
 by the term " power," ' and without contenting himself with a 
 few phrases that signify nothing, reflect before he give his 
 answer, and he will find that he means nothing more than 
 in that, all similar circumstances, the explosion of gunpowder 
 will be the immediate and uniform consequence of the applica- 
 tion of a spark. 
 
 " This test, indeed, is the only one to which the question can 
 be brought. For the question does not regard causes them- 
 selves, but solely the ideas of cause, in the human mind. If, 
 therefore, every one to whom this analysis of the idea, that is in 
 his mind when he speaks of a cause, is proposed, finds, on com- 
 paring it with what passed in his mind, that this is a complete 
 and full account of his conception, there is nothing more to be 
 said, and the point is made good. By that sole possible test the 
 analysis is, in such a case, established. If, on the contrary, 
 when this analysis is proposed, as containing all the ideas which 
 we annex to the words cause and power, the minds of most men 
 cannot satisfy themselves that it is complete, but are still pos- 
 sessed with a strong suspicion that there is something more 
 which is not here accounted for, then the analysis is not yet 
 established, and it becomes necessary to inquire by additional 
 examination of the subject, what that more may be. 
 
 " Let us then apply the test by which Dr. Brown proposes 
 that the truth of his views shall be tried. Let us ask ourselves 
 what we mean when we say, that the spark has power to kindle 
 die gunpowder, that the powder is susceptible of being kin-
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY 535 
 
 died by the spark. Do we mean only that whenever they come 
 together this will happen ? Do we merely predict this simple 
 and certain futurity ? 
 
 " We do not fear to say, that when we speak of a power in 
 one substance to produce a change in another, and of a suscep- 
 tibility of such change in that other, we express more than our 
 belief that the change has taken and will take place. There is 
 mot; in our mind than a conviction of the past and a foresight 
 of the future. There is, besides this, the conception included 
 of a fixed constitution of their nature, which determines the 
 event, a constitution, which, while it lasts, makes he event a 
 necessary consequence of the situation in which the objects are 
 placed. We should say then, that there are included in these 
 terms, ' power,' and ' susceptibility of change,' two ideas which 
 are not expressed in Dr. Urown's analysis, one of necessity, 
 and the other of a constitution of things, in which that necessity 
 is established. That these two ideas are not expressed in the 
 terms of Dr. Brown's analysis, is seen by quoting again his 
 words : ' He will find that he means nothing more than that, 
 in all similar circumstances, the explosion of gunpowder will be 
 the immediate and uniform consequence of the application of a 
 spark.' 
 
 " It is certain, from the whole tenor of his work, that Dr. 
 Brown has designed to exclude the idea of necessity from his 
 analysis." 
 
 Now this admirably expresses what I have always felt is the 
 grand and fundamental defect in Dr. Brown's theory, a de- 
 fect which renders that theory ab inilio worthless. Brown pro- 
 fesses to explain the phenomenon of causality, but, previously 
 to explanation, he evacuates the phenomenon of all that deside- 
 rates explanation. What remains in the phenomenon, after the 
 quality of necessity is thrown, or rather silently allowed to drop 
 out, is only accidental, only a consequence of the essential 
 circumstance. 
 
 Classification of opinions respecting the Principle of Cmu- 
 ality. The opinions in regard to the nature and origin of the 
 principle of Causality, in so far as that principle is viewed as a
 
 36 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY. 
 
 subjective phenomenon, as a judgment of the human mind, 
 fall into two great categories. The first category (A) com- 
 prehends those theories which consider this principle as Empir- 
 ical, or a posteriori, that is, as derived from experience ; the 
 other (B) comprehends those which view it as Pure, or a priori, 
 that is, as a condition of intelligence itself. These two primary 
 genera are, however, severally subdivided into various subordi- 
 nate classes. 
 
 The former category (A), under which this principle is re- 
 garded as the result of experience, contains two classes, inasmuch 
 as the causal judgment may be supposed founded either (a) on 
 an Original, or (b) on a Derivative, cognition. Each of these 
 again is divided into two, according as the principle is supposed 
 to have an objective, or a subjective, origin. In the former case, 
 that is, where the cognition is supposed to be original and unde- 
 rived, it is Objective, or rather Objective-Objective, when held 
 to consist in an immediate perception of the power or efficacy of 
 causes in the external and internal worlds (1) ; and Subjective, 
 or rather Objective-Subjective, when viewed as given in a self- 
 consciousness alone of the power or efficacy of our own volitions 
 (2). In the latter case, that is, where the cognition is supposed 
 to be derivative, if objective, it is viewed as a product of Induc- 
 tion and Generalization (3) ; if subjective, of Association and 
 Custom (4). 
 
 In like manner, the latter category (B), under which the 
 causal principle is considered not as a result, but as a condition, 
 of experience, is variously divided and subdivided. In the first 
 place, the opinions under this category fall into two classes, inas- 
 much as some regard the causal judgment (c) as an Ultimate or 
 Primary law of mind, while others regard it (d) as a Second- 
 ary or Derived. Those who hold the former doctrine, in view- 
 ing it as a simple original principle, hold likewi.se that it is a 
 positive act, an affirmative datum of intelligence. This class 
 is finally subdivided into two opinions. For some hold that 
 the causal judgment, as necessary, is given in what they call 
 " the principle of Causality," that is, the principle which declares 
 that every thing which begins to be, must have its cai/se (5) ;
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY. 
 
 537 
 
 A TABULAR VIEW 
 
 THEOBIES IN REGAKD TO THE PRINCIPLE OP 
 
 CAUSALITY. 
 
 Judgment 
 
 of 
 Causality 
 
 as 
 
 A. 
 
 A Posteriori. 
 
 Original 
 
 or 
 Primitive. 
 
 Objective-objective and Objectivo- 
 subjective, Perception of Causal 
 Efficiency, external and internal. 
 
 Derivative 
 
 or 
 Secondary. 
 
 B. 
 
 A Priori. 
 
 Original 
 
 Primitive. 
 
 d. 
 Derivative 
 
 or 
 Secondary. 
 
 Objective-subjective, Perception 
 of Causal Efficiency, internal. 
 
 3. 
 
 Objective, Induction, Generaliza- 
 tion. 
 
 Subjective, Association, Custom, 
 Habit. 
 
 Necessary: A Special Principle ol 
 
 Intelligence. 
 
 Contingent: Expectation of the Con- 
 stancy of Nature. 
 
 7. 
 
 From tbe Law of Contradiction (t. . 
 Non-Contradiction) . 
 
 From the Law of the Conditioned.
 
 38 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY. 
 
 whilst at least one philosopher, without explicitly denying that 
 the causal judgment is necessary, would identify it with the 
 principle of our " Expectation of the Constancy of nature " (6). 
 
 Those who hold that it can be analyzed into a higher princi- 
 ple, also hold that it is not of a positive, but of a negative, char- 
 acter. These, however, are divided into two classes. By 
 some it has been maintained, that the principle of Causality can 
 be resolved into the principle of Contradiction (7), which, as I 
 formerly stated to you, ought in propriety to be called the prin- 
 ciple of Non-Contradiction. On the other hand, it may be 
 (though it never has been) argued, that the judgment of Caus- 
 ality can be analyzed into what I called the principle of the 
 Conditioned, the principle of relativity (8). To one or the 
 other of these eight heads, all the doctrines that have been ac- 
 tually maintained in regard to the origin of the principle in 
 question, may be referred ; and the classification is the better 
 worthy of your attention, as in no work will you find any 
 attempt at even an enumeration of the various theories, actual 
 and possible, on this subject. 
 
 An adequate discussion of these several heads, and a special 
 consideration of the differences of the individual opinions which 
 they comprehend, would far exceed our limits. I shall, there- 
 fore, confine myself to a few observations on the value of these 
 eight doctrines in general, without descending to the particular 
 modifications under which they have been maintained by partic- 
 ular philosophers. 
 
 j 1 . External Perception of causal efficiency. Of these, the 
 first, that which asserts that we have a perception of the 
 causal agency, as we have a perception of the existence of ex- 
 ternal objects, this opinion has been always held in combina- 
 tion with the second, that which maintains that we are self- 
 conscious of efficiency ; though the second has been frequently 
 held by philosophers who have abandoned the first as untena- 
 ble. Considering them together, that is, as forming the opinion 
 that we directly and immediately apprehend the efficiency of 
 causes both external and internal, this opinion is refuted by 
 two objections.
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY. 539 
 
 '. The first is, that we hare no such apprehension, no such 
 knowledge ; the second, that if we had, this being merely em- 
 pirical, merely conversant with individual instances, could 
 never account for the quality of necessity and universality 
 which accompanies the judgment of causality. In regard to 
 the first of these objections, it is now universally admitted, that 
 tee have no perception of the connection of cause and effect in 
 the external world. For example ; when one billiard-ball is seen 
 to strike another, we perceive only that the impulse of the one 
 is followed by the motion of the other, but have no perception of 
 any force or efficiency in the first, by which it is connected with 
 the second, in the relation of causality. Hume was the philoso- 
 pher who decided the opinion of the world on this point. He 
 was not, however, the first who stated the fact, or even the 
 reasoner who stated it most clearly. He, however, believed 
 himself, or would induce us to believe, that in this he was orig- 
 inal. Speaking of this point, " I am sensible," he says, " that 
 of all the paradoxes, which I have had, or shall hereafter have, 
 occasion to advance, in the course of this treatise, the present 
 one is the most violent, and that it is merely by dint of solid 
 proof and reasoning I can ever hope it will have admission, and 
 overcome the inveterate prejudices of mankind. Before we are 
 reconciled to this dof trine, how often must we repeat to ourselves, 
 that the simple view of any two objects or actions, however 
 related, can never give us any idea of power, or of a connection 
 betwixt them ; that this idea arises from the repetition of their 
 union ; that the repetition neither discovers nor causes any thing 
 in the objects, but has an influence only on the mind, by that 
 customary transition it produces ; that this customary transition 
 is, therefore, the same with the power and necessity ; which are 
 consequently qualities of perceptions, not of objects, and are 
 internally felt by the soul, and not perceived externally in 
 bodies ? " 
 
 I could adduce to you a whole army of philosophers previous 
 to Hume, who had announced and illustrated the fact. As far 
 as I have been able to trace it, this doctrine was first promul- 
 gated towards the commencement of the twelfth century, at
 
 540 THE PRINCIPLE OF CALaALHT. 
 
 Bagdad, by AJgaz.el, a pious Mohammedan philosopher, 
 not undeservedly obtained the title of Imaum of the World. 
 Algazel did not deny the reality of causation, but he maintained 
 that God was the only efficient cause in nature ; and that second 
 causes were not properly causes, but only occasions, of the effect 
 That we have no perception of any real agency of one body on 
 another, is a truth which has not more clearly been stated or 
 illustrated by any subsequent philosopher than by him who first 
 proclaimed it. The doctrine of Algazel was adopted by that 
 great sect among the Mussulman doctors, who were styled those 
 speaking in the law, that is, the law of Mohammed. From the 
 Eastern Schools, the opinion passed to those of the West ; and 
 we find it a problem which divided the Scholastic philosophers, 
 whether God were the only efficient, or whether causation could 
 be attributed to created existences. After the Revival of Let- 
 ters, the opinion of Algazel was maintained by many individual 
 thinkers, though it no longer retained the same prominence in 
 the Schools. It was held, for example, by Malebranche, and his 
 illustration from the collision of two billiard-balls is likewise that 
 ofJLume, who probablYjjprrowed from Malebranche both Jhe 
 opinion and the example. 
 
 2. Internal perception of causal efficiency. But there are 
 many philosophers who surrender the external perception, and 
 maintain our internal consciousness, of causation or power. This 
 opinion was, in one chapter of his Essay, advanced by Locke, 
 and, at a very recent date, it has been amplified and enforced 
 with distinguished ability by the late M. Maine de Biran, 
 one of the acutest metaphysicians of France. On this doctrine, 
 the notion of cause is not given to us by the observations of 
 external phenomena, which, as considered only by the senses^ 
 manifest no causal efficiency, and appear to us only as succes- 
 sive ; it is given to us within, in reflection, in the consciousness 
 of our operatiows and of the power which exerts them, namely- 
 the will. I make an effort to move my arm, and I move it 
 When we analyze attentively the phenomenon of effort, which 
 M. de Biran considers as the type of the phenomena of volition, 
 the following are the results : 1, The consciousness of an ad
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY. 541 
 
 of will ; 2, The consciousness of a motion produced ; 3, A 
 relation of the motion to the volition. And what is this relation ? 
 Not a simple relation of succession. The will is not for us a 
 pure act without efficiency, it is a productive energy ; so that, 
 in a volition there is given to us the notion of cause ; and this 
 notion we subsequently transport, project out from our in- 
 ternal activities, into the changes of the external world. 
 
 This doctrine shown to be untenable. This reasoning, in so 
 far as regards the mere empirical fact of our consciousness of 
 causality, in the relation of our will as moving, and of oar limbs 
 as moved, is refuted by the consideration, that between the 
 overt fact of corporeal movement of which we are cognizant, 
 and the internal act of mental determination of which we are 
 also cognizant, there intervenes a numerous series of intermedi- 
 ate agencies of which we have no knowledge ; and, consequently, 
 that we can have no consciousness of any causal connection 
 between the extreme links of this chain, the volition to move 
 and the limb moving, as this hypothesis asserts. No one is 
 immediately conscious, for example, of moving his arm through 
 his volition. Previously to this ultimate movement, muscles, 
 nerves, a multitude of solid and fluid parts, must be set in motion 
 by the will ; but of this motion we know, from consciousness, 
 absolutely nothing. A person struck with paralysis is conscious 
 of no inability in his limb to fulfil the determinations of his will ; 
 and it is only after having willed, and finding that his limbs do 
 not obey his volition, that he learns by his experience, that the 
 external movement does not follow the internal act. But as the 
 paralytic learns after the volition, that his limbs do not obey his 
 mind ; so it is only after volition that the man in health learns, 
 lhat his limbs do obey the mandates of his will.* 
 
 * [Elsewhere, in the Dissertations supplementary to Reid, this argument is 
 Btuted by Hamilton as follows .] 
 
 " Volition to move a limb, and the actual moving of it, are the first 
 and last i ! i a series of more than two successive events ; and cannot, 
 therefore, stand to each other, immediately, in the relation of cause and 
 effect. They may, however, stand to each other in the relation of caus 
 and effect, mediately. But, then, if they can ho known in consciousness 
 46
 
 542 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY. 
 
 But, independently of all this, the second objection above 
 mentioned is fatal to the theory which would found the judgment 
 
 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 limh is supposed to be mediately dependent on the pri- 
 mary volition to move, should be known to consciousness immediately 
 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 con- 
 iciousness unknown. In other words, having no consciousness that the 
 volition to move is the efficacious force (powerj by which even the event 
 immediately consequen* on it (say the transmission of the nervous influence 
 from brain to muscle) is produced, such event being in fact itself to con- 
 sciousness occult; muho minus can we have a consciousness of that volition 
 being the efficacious force by which the ultimate movement of the limb is 
 mediately determined." 
 
 [In the same Dissertation, Hamilton gives the following analysis of the 
 action of the will in determining motion.] 
 
 " We have here to distinguish three things : 
 
 " 1. The still immanent or purely mental act of will : what, for distinc- 
 tion's sake, I would call the hyperorganic 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 transeunt, be can-led into effect, it passes 
 into the mental effort or nisus to move. This I would call the enon/anic 
 volition, or, by an extension of the Scholastic language, the actio imperans. 
 3f this we are immediately conscious, for we are conscious of it, thowjh, by a 
 narcosis or stupor of the sensitive nerves, we lose all feelinij 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 stimulus 
 of the muscular fibres, a contraction in them is caused even in opposition to 
 nr will. 
 
 "3. Determined by the enorganic volition, the cerebral influence is 
 transmitted 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 oryanic movement, the organic nisus ; by a 
 limitation of the scholastic term, it might be denominated the actio im- 
 fierala." 
 
 [It is in this third clement the onjanic nisus and the onjanic movement- 
 that Sir William seeks for evidence of the efficiency of the will, and rightly 
 declares that it cannot be found. We agree with him. " Between the ex- 
 treme links of thin chain, that is, between the volition to move, and th-f
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY. 543 
 
 of cuusality on any empirical cognition, whether of the phaenom- 
 ena of mind or of the phaenomena of matter. Admitting that 
 causation'were cognizable, and that perception and self-con- 
 sciousness were competent to its apprehension, still as these 
 faculties could only take note of individual causations, we should 
 be wholly unable, out of such empirical acts, to evolve the 
 quality of necessity and universality, by which this notion Is 
 
 am moving," he says, " there intervenes a series of intermediate agencies, 
 of which we are wholly unaware." How mind operates npon matter, 
 even upon the matter of our own bodies, with which we are so intimately 
 connected, we do not know. How the action of the will is communicated 
 to the muscles, whether by one, two, or three intermediate steps, we do 
 not know. 
 
 But we find proof of the efficiency of volition in the second of our author's 
 three elements, where his language, which we have italicized, is so explicit 
 that it seems strange the conclusion could have escaped him. By the 
 " enorganic volition," we understand neither " the still immanent or purely 
 mental act," nor yet the organic nisus or movement which is wholly exterior 
 to the mind, but the transeunt act from one to the other, the command, 
 whether it is obeyed or not; and of this enorganic movement, "we are 
 immediately conscious," though the limb may bo paralyzed. It is action, 
 of which we are here conscious ; otherwise, the " purely mental act of will " 
 could not have " become transeunt." Wo are conscious of an effort in this 
 act conscious of putting forth power conscious of attempting to move the 
 muscles, whether they obey or not. The laborer is not more clearly con- 
 scious that he has tried to raise the rock. It is certain, also, that power in 
 action is necessarily causative ; it forms our only idea of causation. It must 
 produce an effect, though perhaps not the whole effect which we desire. 
 The pressure is not lost, though the rock does not move. We have, then, 
 the direct evidence of consciousness, of that faculty not one of whose dic- 
 tates can be impeached, that the will is a true cause an efficient cause, 
 rot a more antecedent & limited cause, indeed, but supreme within its proper 
 domain not always sufficient for the end proposed, but always r/~ticienr, 
 or expending force, which is real, though often inadequate. We have here 
 all the marks or tests, by which efficient causation is distinguished from 
 mere antecedence. In the case of material phaenomena, the result can be 
 ascertained only by experience ; we learn only by trial, that one substance is 
 soluble, and another not, that iron expands, and clay contracts, in tho 
 fire. But in tho ease of mental exertion, the result to be accomplished is 
 preconsidered, or meditated, and is therefore known a priori, or before expe- 
 rience ; the volition succeeds, which is a true effort, or power in action; 
 and this is necessarily followed by an effect, partial or complete.] Am E-i
 
 544 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALlTi. 
 
 distinguished. Admitting that we had really observed the 
 agency of any number of causes, still this would not explain to 
 us, how we are unable to think a manifestation of* existence 
 without thinking it as an effect. Our internal experience, 
 especially in the relation of our volitions to their effects, may be 
 useful in giving us a clearer notion of causality ; but it is alto- 
 gether incompetent to account for what in it there is of the 
 quality of necessity. So much for the two theories at the head 
 of the Table. 
 
 As the first and second opinions have been usually associated, 
 so also have the third and fourth ; that is, the doctrine that oui 
 notion of causality is the offspring of the objective principle of 
 Induction or Generalization, and the doctrine that it is the off- 
 spring of the subjective principle of Association or Custom. 
 
 3. Judgment of Causality obtained from Induction and Gen- 
 eralization. In regard to the former, the third, it is plain 
 that the observation, that certain phenomena are found to suc- 
 ceed certain other phenomena, and the generalization conse- 
 quent thereon, that these are reciprocally causes and effects, 
 could never of itself have engendered, not only the strong, but 
 the irresistible belief, that every event must have its cause. 
 Each of these observations is contingent ; and any number of 
 observed contingencies will never impose upon us the feeling of 
 necessity, of our inability to think the opposite. Nay more, 
 this theory evolves the absolute notion of causality out of the 
 observation of a certain number of uniform consecutions among 
 phaenoni'-na ; [that is, it would collect that all must be, because 
 some / - t'.] But we find no difficulty whatever in conceiving 
 the reverse of all or any of the consecutions we have observed; 
 and yet the general notion of causality, which, ex hypothesi, is 
 their result, we cannot possibly think as possibly unreal. We 
 have always seen a stone fall to the ground, when thrown into 
 the air ; but we find no difficulty in representing to ourselves the 
 possibility of one or all stones gravitating from the earth ; only 
 we cannot conceive the possibility of this, or any other event, 
 happening without a cause. 
 
 4. From Association and Custom. Nor does the latter,
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY. 54: 
 
 the fourth theory, that of Custom or Association, afford a 
 better solution. The necessity of so thinking cannot be derived 
 from a custom of so thinking. Allow the force of custom to be 
 great as may be, still it is always limited to the customary ; and 
 the customary has nothing whatever in it of the necessary. But 
 we have here to account not for a strong, but for an absolutely 
 irresistible belief. On this theory, also, the causal judgment, 
 when association is recent, should be weak, and should onl} 
 gradually acquire its full force in proportion as custom becomes 
 inveterate. But do we find that the causal judgment is weaker 
 in the young, stronger in the old ? There is no difference. In 
 either case, there is no less and no more ; the necessity in both 
 is absolute. Mr. Hume patronized the opinion, that the notion 
 of causality is the offspring of experience engendered upon cus- 
 tom. But those have a sorry insight into the philosophy of that 
 great thinker, who suppose that this was a dogmatic theory of his 
 own. On the contrary, in his hands, it was a mere reduction of 
 dogmatism to absurdity, by showing the inconsistency of its 
 results. To the Lockian sensualism, Hume proposed the prob- 
 lem, to account for the phenomenon of necessity in our notion 
 of the causal nexus. That philosophy afforded no other princi- 
 ple through which even the attempt at a solution could be 
 made ; and the principle of custom, Hume shows, could not 
 furnish a real necessity. The alternative was plain. Either 
 the doctrine of sensualism is false, or our nature is a delusion. 
 Shallow thinkers adopted the latter alternative, .and were lost; 
 profound thinkers, on the contrary, were determined to lay a 
 deeper foundation of philosophy than that of the superficial 
 edifice of Locke ; and thus it is that Hume became the cause, 
 or the occasion, of all that is of principal value in our more 
 recent metaphysics. Hume is the parent of the philosophy of 
 Kant, and, through Kant, of the whole philosophy of Germany; 
 he is the parent of the philosophy of Reid and Stewart in Scot- 
 land, and of all that is of preeminent note in the metaphysics of 
 France and Italy. But to return. 
 
 5. Causality a special principle of intelligence. I now come 
 to the second category (B), and to the first of the four particu-
 
 546 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY. 
 
 lar heads which it likewise contains, the opinion, namely, thai 
 the judgment, that every thing that begins to be must have a 
 cause, is a simple primary datum, a positive revelation of intel- 
 ligence. To this head are to be referred the theories on causal- 
 ity of Descartes, Leibnitz, Reid, Stewart, Kant, Fichte, Cousin, 
 and the majority of recent philosophers. This is the fifth 
 theory in order. 
 
 Now it is manifest, that, against the assumption of a special 
 principle, which this doctrine makes, there exists a primary pre- 
 sumption of philosophy. This is the law of Parcimony, which 
 forbids, without necessity, the multiplication of entities, powers, 
 principles, or causes ; above all, the postulation of an unknown 
 force, where a known impotence can account for the effect. 
 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 
 higher, and that a negative, origin. On a doctrine like the pres- 
 ent is thrown the onus of vindicating its necessity, by showing 
 that, unless a special and positive principle be assumed, there 
 exists no competent mode to save the phenomena. It can only, 
 therefore, be admitted provisorily ; and it falls of course, if the 
 phenomenon it would explain can be explained on less onerous 
 conditions. Leaving, therefore, the theory to stand or fall 
 according as the two remaining opinions are or are not found 
 insufficient, I proceed to the consideration of these. 
 
 6. Expectation of the constancy of nature. Dr. Brown has 
 promulgated a doctrine of Causality, which may be numbered 
 as the sixth ; though perhaps it is hardly deserving of distinct 
 enumeration. He actually identifies the causal judgment, 
 which to us is necessary, with the principle by which we are 
 
 * [The dictum, entia non multiplicanda sunt pntter necessitatem, first ex- 
 plicitly applied by Occam as a summary means of refuting arbitrary anil 
 unnecessary hypotheses, has been called " Occam's razor." Hamilton usu- 
 ally calls it the " Law of Parcimony," and elsewhere says that " it has 
 never perhaps been adequately enounced. It should be thus expressed: 
 Neither MORE, nor MORE ONEROUS, causes are to be assumed than are neces- 
 utry to account for the phcenomenu."] Am. Ed.
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY. 547 
 
 nerely inclined to believe in the uniformity of nature's opera- 
 tions. [But apart from all subordinate objections, it is sufficient 
 to say, that the phenomenon to be explained is the necessity of 
 thinking the absolute impossibility of not thinking a cause ; 
 whilst all that the latter principle pretends to, is, to incline us to 
 expect that like antecedents will be followed by like consequents. 
 This necessity to suppose a cause for every phenomenon, Dr. 
 Brown, if he does not expressly deny, keeps cautiously out of 
 view, virtually, in fact, eliminating all that requires explana- 
 tion in the problem.] Discussions. 
 
 7. The Judgment of Causality demonstrable by abstract rtOf 
 toning, i. e. by the Principle of Contradiction. The sev- 
 enth is a doctrine that has long been exploded. It attempts to 
 establish the principle of Causality upon the principle of Con- 
 tradiction. Leibnitz was too acute a metaphysician to attempt 
 to prove the principle of Sufficient Reason or Causality, which 
 is an ampliative or synthetic principle, by the principle of Con- 
 tradiction, which is merely explicative or analytic. But his fol- 
 lowers were not so wise. Wolf, Baumgarten, and many other 
 Leibnitzians, paraded demonstrations of the law of the Suffi- 
 cient Reason, on the ground of the law of Contradiction ; but 
 the reasoning always proceeds on the covert assumption of the 
 very point in question. The same argument is, however, at an 
 earlier date, to be found in Locke, and modifications of it in 
 Hobbes and Clarke. Hume, who was only aware of the argu- 
 ment as in the hands of the English metaphysicians, has given 
 it a refutation, which has earned the approbation of Reid; and 
 by foreign philosophers, its emptiness in the hands of the AVolf- 
 inn metaphysicians has frequently been exposed. Listen to the 
 pretended demonstration : -Whatever is produced without a 
 cause, is produced by nothing, in other words, has not/tiny for 
 its cause. lint nothing can no more be a cause, than it can be 
 something. The same intuition that makes us aware, that noth- 
 ing is nut something, sliows us that every thin;) must have a real 
 cause of its existence. To this it is sufficient to say, that the 
 existence of causes bring the point in question, the existence of 
 causes must not be taken for granted in the verv reasoning
 
 548 THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY 
 
 which attempts to prove their reality. In excluding causes, we 
 exclude all causes ; and consequently exclude " nothing " con- 
 sidered as a cause ; it is not, therefore, allowable, contrary to 
 that exclusion, to suppose " nothing " as a cause, and then from 
 the absurdity of that supposition to infer the absurdity of the 
 exclusion itself. If every thing must have a cause, it follows 
 that, upon the exclusion of other causes, we must accept of 
 nothing as a cause. But it is the very point at issue, whethei 
 every thing must have a cause or not ; and, therefore, it violates 
 the fir-;t principles of reasoning to take this qusesitum itself as 
 granted. This opinion is now universally abandoned. 
 
 8. A result of the Law of the Conditioned. The eighth 
 and hist opinion is that which regards the judgment of causality 
 as derived ; and derives it not from a power, but from an impo- 
 tence, of mind ; in a word, from the principle of the Conditioned 
 I do not think it possible, without a detailed exposition of the 
 various categories of thought, to make you fully understand the 
 grounds and bearings of this opinion. In attempting to explain 
 you must, therefore, allow me to take for granted certain laws 
 of thought, to which I have only been able incidentally to al- 
 lude. Those, however, which I postulate, are such as are now 
 generally admitted by all philosophers who allow the mind 
 itself to be a source of cognitions ; and the only one which has 
 not been recognized by them, but which, as I endeavored 
 briefly to prove, must likewise be taken into account, is the Law 
 of the Conditioned, the law that the conceivable has always 
 two opposite extremes, and that t/ie extremes are equally incon- 
 ceivable. That the Conditioned is to be viewed, not as a power 
 but as a powerlessness of mind, is evinced by this, that the, 
 two extremes arc contradictories, and, as contradictories, t/iout/h 
 neither alternative can be conceived, thought as possible, one or 
 other must be admitted to be necessary. 
 
 Causality deduced from t/n's law through the three Categories 
 of t/ioiiy/i/. Philosophers who allow a native principle to the 
 mind at all, allow that Existence is such a principle. I shall, 
 therefore, take for granted Existence as the highest category or 
 condition of thought. As 1 noticed in the last chapter, no
 
 THE LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 519 
 
 thought is possible except under this category. All that we 
 perceive or imagine as different from us, we perceive or imag- 
 ine as objectively existent. All that we are conscious of as an 
 act or modification of self, we are conscious of only as subjec- 
 tively existent. All thought, therefore, implies the thought of 
 existence ; and this is the veritable exposition of the enthymeme 
 of Descartes, Cogito ergo sum. I cannot think that I think, 
 without thinking that I exist, I cannot be conscious, without 
 being conscious that I am. Let existence, then, be laid down as 
 a necessary form of thought As a second category or subjec- 
 tive condition of thought, I postulate that of Time. This, like- 
 wise, cannot be denied me. It is the necessary condition of 
 every conscious act ; thought is only realized to us as in succes- 
 sion, and succession is only conceived by us under the concept 
 of time. Existence and Existence in Time is thus an elemen- 
 tary form of our intelligence. But we do not conceive existence 
 in time absolutely or infinitely, we conceive it only as condi- 
 tioned in time; and Existence Conditioned in Time expresses, 
 at once and in relation, the three categories of thought which 
 afford us in combination the principle of Causality. This re- 
 quires some explanation. 
 
 When we perceive or imagine an object, we perceive or im- 
 agine it 1, As existent, and, 2, As in Time; Existence and 
 Time being categories of all thought. But what is meant by 
 saying, I perceive, or imagine, or, in general, think an object 
 only as I perceive, or imagine, or, in general, think it to exist? 
 Simply this ; that, as thinking it, I cannot but think it to ex- 
 ist, in other words, that / cannot annihilate it in thought. I 
 may think away from it, I may turn to other things ; and I can 
 thus exclude it from my consciousness ; but, actually thinking 
 if, T cannot think it as non-existent, for as it is thought, so it is 
 thought existent. 
 
 But a thing is thought to exist, only as it is thought to exist 
 in time. Time is present, past, and futuie. We cannot think 
 an object of thought as non-existent dc prcsfnli, as actually 
 an object of thought. But can we think that quantum of exist- 
 ence of which an object, real or ideal, is the complement, as
 
 550 THE LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 non-existent, either in time past, or in time future ? Make tho 
 experiment. Try to think the object of your thought as non- 
 existent in the moment before the present You cannot. 
 Try it in the moment before that. You cannot. Nor can 
 you annihilate it by carrying it back to any moment, however 
 distant in the past. You may conceive the parts of which this 
 complement of existence is composed, as separated ; if a mate- 
 rial object, you can think it as shivered to atoms, sublimated into 
 aether ; but not one iota of existence can you conceive as anni- 
 hilated, which subsequently you thought to exist. In like 
 manner, try the future, try to conceive the prospective anni- 
 hilation of any present object, of any atom of any present 
 object. You cannot. All this may be possible, but of it we 
 cannot think the possibility. But if you can thus conceive nei- 
 ther the absolute commencement nor the absolute termination 
 of any thing that is once thought to exist, try, on the other 
 hand, if you can conceive the opposite alternative of infinite 
 non-commencement, of infinite non-termination. To this you 
 are equally impotent. This is the category of the Conditioned, 
 as applied to the category of Existence under the category of 
 Time. 
 
 But in this application is the principle of Causality no-i. 
 given ? Why, what is the law of Causality ? Simply this, 
 that when an object is presented phenomenally as commencing, 
 we cannot but suppose that the complement of existence, which 
 it now contains, has previously been ; in other words, that all 
 that we at present come to know as an effect must previously 
 have existed in its causes ; though what these causes are we 
 may perhaps be altogether unable even to surmise. 
 
 Tlte law of the Conditioned. This theory, which has not 
 hitherto been proposed, is recommended by its extreme sim- 
 plicity. It postulates no new, no special, no positive principle 
 It only supposes that the mind is limited ; and the law of limita- 
 tion, the law of the Conditioned, in one of its applications 
 constitutes the law of Causality. The mind is necessitated tc 
 think certain forms; and, under these forms, thought is only pos- 
 sible in the interval between two contradictory extremes, both of
 
 THE LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 551 
 
 which are abtohUely inconceivable, but one of which, on the prin- 
 ciple of Excluded Middle, is necessarily true. In reference to 
 the present subject, it is only requisite to specify two of these 
 forms, Existence and Time. I showed you that thought is 
 only possible under the native conceptions, the a priori 
 forms, of existence and time ; in other words, the notions of 
 existence and time are essential elements of every act of intelli- 
 gence. But while the mind is thus astricted to certain necessary 
 modes or forms of thought, in these forms it can only think 
 under certain conditions. Thus, while obliged to think under 
 the thought of time, it cannot conceive, on the one hand, the 
 absolute commencement of time, and it cannot conceive, on the 
 other, the infinite non-commencement of time ; in like manner, 
 on the one hand, it cannot conceive an absolute minimum of 
 time, nor yet, on the other, can it conceive the infinite divisi 
 bility of time. Yet these form two pairs of contradictories, that 
 is, of counter-propositions, which, if our intelligence be not all a 
 lie, cannot both be true, but of which, on the same authority, 
 one necessarily must be true. This proves : 1, That it is not 
 competent to argue, that what cannot be comprehended as possible 
 by us, is impossible in reality ; and 2, That the necessities of 
 thought are not always positive powers of cognition, but often 
 negative inabilities to know. The law of mind, that all that is 
 positively conceivable, lies in the interval between two incon- 
 ceivable extremes, and which, however palpable when stated, 
 has never been generalized, as far as I know, by any philoso- 
 pher, I call the Law or Principle of the Conditioned. 
 
 This law in its application affords the phcenomenon of Caus- 
 ality. Tims, the whole phenomenon of causality seems to me 
 to be nothing more than the law of the Conditioned, in its 
 application to a thing thought under the form or mental cate- 
 gory of Existence, and under the form or mental category of 
 Time. We cannot know, we cannot think a thing, except aa 
 existing, that is, under the category of existence ; and we cannot 
 know or think of a tiling as existing, except hi time. Now the 
 application of the law of the conditioned to any object, thought 
 as existent, and thought as in time, will give us at once the
 
 552 THE LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 [baenomenon of causality. And thus: An object is given us, 
 either by sense or suggestion, imagination. As known, we 
 cannot but think it existent, and 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 ; that is, that we are unable to annihilate it 
 in thought. And this we cannot do. We may turn aside from 
 it ; we may occupy our attention with other objects ; and we 
 may thus exclude it from our thoughts. This is certain : we 
 need not think it ; but it is equally certain, that thinking it, we 
 cannot think it not to exist. This will be at once admitted of 
 the present ; but it may possibly be denied of the past and 
 future. But if we make the experiment, we shall find the 
 mental annihilation of an object equally impossible under time 
 past, present, or future. 
 
 Annihilation and Creation, as conceived by us. To obvi- 
 ate misapprehension, however, I must make a very simple 
 observation. When I say that it is impossible to annihilate an 
 object in thought hi other words, to conceive it as non-exist- 
 ent, it is of course not meant that it is impossible to imagine 
 the object wholly changed in form. We can figure to ourselves 
 the elements of which it is composed, distributed and arranged 
 and modified in ten thousand forms, we can imagine any thing 
 of it, short of annihilation. But the complement, the quantum, 
 of existence, which is realized in any object, that we can [not] 
 represent to ourselves, either as increased, without abstraction 
 from other bodies, or as diminished, without addition to them. In 
 short, we are unable to construe it in thought, that there can be 
 an atom absolutely added to, or an atom absolutely taken away 
 from, existence in general. Make the experiment. Form tc 
 yourselves a notion of the universe ; now can you conceive that 
 the quantity of existence, of which the universe is the sum, is 
 either amplified or diminished? You can conceive the creation 
 of a world as lightly as you conceive the creation of an atom. 
 But what is a creation? It is not the springing of nothing into 
 something. Far from it: it is conceived, and is by us con- 
 ceivable, merely as the evolution of a new form of existence, by 
 the fiat of the Deity. Let us suppose the very crisis of creation.
 
 THE LAW OF THK CONDITIONED. 558 
 
 Can we realize it to ourselves, in thought, that, the moment 
 after the universe came into manifested being, there was a 
 larger complement of existence in the universe and its Author 
 together, than there was the moment before, in the Deity him- 
 self alone ? This we cannot imagine. What I have now said 
 of our conceptions }f creation, holds true of our conceptions of 
 annihilation. We can conceive no real annihilation, no abso- 
 lute sinking of something into nothing. But, as creation ia 
 cogitable by us only as an exertion of divine power, so annihila- 
 tion is only to be conceived by us as a withdrawal of the divine 
 support. All that there is now actually of existence in the 
 universe, we conceive as having virtually existed, prior to crea- 
 tion, in the Creator ; and in imagining the universe to be anni- 
 hilated by its Author, we can only imagine this, as the retracta- 
 tion of an outward energy into power. All this shows how 
 impossible it is for the human mind to think aught that it thinks, 
 as non-existent 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 the other. Hence, under extension, the law of 
 Ultimate Incompressibility under pretension, the law of Cause 
 and Effect.] Discussions. 
 
 Infinite regress, or non-commencement, equally inconceiva- 
 ble. We have been hitherto speaking only of one inconceiva- 
 ble extreme of the conditioned, in its application to the category 
 of existence in the category of time, the extreme of absolute 
 commencement ; the other is equally incomprehensible, that is, 
 the extreme of infinite regress or non-commencement. 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 
 
 47
 
 554 THE LAW OF THE CONDITIONED 
 
 alone, it is the inability we experience of annihilating in 
 thought an existence in time past, in other words, our utter 
 impotence of conceiving its absolute commencement, that consti- 
 tutes and explains the whole phenomenon of causality. An 
 object is presented to our observation which has phaenomenally 
 begun to be. "Well, we cannot realize it in thought that the 
 object, that is, this determinate complement of existence, had 
 really no being at any past moment ; because this supposes that, 
 once thinking it as existent, we could again think it as non- 
 existent, which is for us impossible. What, then, can we do? 
 That the phaenomenon presented to us began, as a phenomenon, 
 to be, this we know by experience ; but that the elements of 
 its existence only began, when the phenomenon they constitute 
 came into being, this we are wholly unable to represent in 
 thought. In these circumstances, how do we proceed? How 
 must we proceed ? There is only one possible mode. We are 
 compelled to believe that the object (that is, a certain quale and 
 quantum of being) whose phenomenal rise into existence we 
 have witnessed, did really exist, prior to this rise, under other 
 forms ; [and by form, be it observed, I mean any mode of 
 existence, conceivable by us or not]. But to say that a thing 
 previously existed under different forms, is only in other words 
 to say, that a thing had causes. I have already noticed to you 
 the error of philosophers in supposing, that any thing can have 
 a single cause. Of course, I speak only of Second Causes. Of 
 the causation of the Deity we can form no possible conception. 
 Of Second Causes, I say, there must almost always be at least a 
 concurrence of two to constitute an effect. Take the example 
 of vapor. Here, to say that heat is the cause of evaporation, 
 is a very inaccurate, at least a very inadequate, expression. 
 Water is as much the cause of evaporation as heat. But heat 
 and water together are the causes of the phenomenon. Nay, 
 there is a third concause which we have forgot, the atmos- 
 phere. Now, a cloud is the result of those three concurrent 
 causes or constituents ; and, knowing this, we find no difficulty 
 in carrying back the complement of existence, which it contains 
 prior to its appearance. But on the hypothesis, that we are no*
 
 THE LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 555 
 
 aware what are the real constituents or causes of the cloud, the 
 human mind must still perforce suppose some unknown, some 
 hypothetical, antecedents, into which it mentally refunds all the 
 existence which the cloud is thought to contain.* 
 
 Uniform succession not a necessary prerequisite for the causal 
 
 * [My doctrine of Causality is accused of neglecting the phenomenon of 
 change, and of ignoring the attribute of power. This objection precisely 
 reverses the fact. Causation is by me proclaimed to be identical with 
 change, change of power into act ("oronia mutantur"); change, how- 
 ever, only of appearance, we being unable to realize in thought either 
 existence (substance) apart frrui phenomena, or existence absolutely com- 
 mencing, or absolutely terminating. And specially as to power ; power is 
 the property of an existent something (for it is thought only as the essential 
 attribute of what is so or so to exist) ; power is, consequently, the correla- 
 tive of existence, and a necessary supposition, in this theory, of causation. 
 Here the cause, or rather the complement of causes, is nothing but powers 
 capable of producing the effect; and the effect is only that now existing 
 actually, which previously existed potentially, or in the causes. We must, 
 in truth, define a cause, the power of effectuating a change ; and an 
 effect, a change actually caused. 
 
 Mutation, Causation, Effectuation, are only the same thought in differ- 
 ent respects ; they may, therefore, be regarded as virtually terms converti- 
 ble. Every change is an effect; every effect is a change. Au effect is, in 
 truth, just a change of power into act ; every effect being an actualization of 
 the potential. 
 
 But what is now considered as the cause may at another time be viewed 
 as the effect ; and vice versa. Thus, we can extract the acid or the alkali, 
 as effect, out of the salt, as principal concause ; and the square which, as 
 effect, is made up of two triangles in conjunction, may be viewed as cause 
 when cut into these figures. In opposite views, Addition and Multiplica- 
 tion, Subtraction and Division, may be regarded as causes, or as effects. 
 
 Power is an attribute or property of existence, but not coextensive with it; 
 for we may suppose (negatively think) things to exist which have no capac- 
 ity of change, no capacity of appearing. 
 
 Creation is the existing subsequently in act of what previously existed in 
 power; annihilation, on the contrary, is the subsequent existence in pt/wer 
 of what previously existed in act. 
 
 Except the first and last causal agencies (and these, as Divine operations, 
 are by us incomprehensible), every other is conceived also as an effect; 
 therefore, every event is, in different relations, ;i power and an act. Con- 
 sideied as a cause, it is a power, a power lo cooperate an effect. Consid- 
 ered as an effect, it is an act, an act cooperated by causes ] Appendix
 
 556 THE LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 judgment. Nothing can be a greater error in itself, or a more 
 fertile cause of delusion, than the common doctrine, that the 
 causal judgment is elicited only when we apprehend objects in 
 consecution, and uniform consecution. Of course, the observa- 
 tion of such succession prompts and enables us to assign partic- 
 ular causes to particular effects. But this consideration ought 
 to be carefully distinguished from the law of Causality, abso- 
 lutely, which consists not in the empirical attribution of this 
 phenomenon, as cause, to that phenomenon as effect, but in the 
 universal necessity, 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 phenomena, which, as it were, spontaneously ar- 
 range themselves under the relation of effect and cause. [Of 
 no phaenomenon, as observed, need we think the cause ; but of 
 every phaenomenon, must we think a cause. The former we 
 may learn through a process of induction and generalization ; 
 the latter we must always and at once admit, constrained by the 
 condition of Relativity. 3n this, not sunken rock, Dr. Brown 
 and others have been shipwrecked.] Discussions. 
 
 Reasons for preferring this doctrine. In the first place, to 
 explain the phenomenon of the Causal Judgment, it postulates 
 no new, no extraordinary, no express principle. It does not 
 even found upon a positive power; for, while it shows that the 
 phaenomenon in question is only one of a class, it assigns, as 
 their common cause, only a negative impotence. In this, it 
 stands advantageously contrasted with the one other theory 
 which saves the phaenomenon, but which saves it only by the 
 hypothesis of a special principle, expressly devised to account 
 for this phenomenon alone. Nature never works by more, and 
 more complex, instruments than are necessary; nyStv Ttsoir- 
 TOV ; and to assume a particular force, to perform what can be 
 better explained by a general imbecility, is contrary to every 
 rule of philosophizing. 
 
 It averts scepticism. But, in the second place, if there be 
 postulated an express and positive affirmation of intelligence to 
 account for the fact, that existence cannot absolutely commence.
 
 THE LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 557 
 
 we must equally postulate a counter affirmation of intelligence, 
 positive and express, to explain the counter fact, that existence 
 cannot infinitely not-commence. The one necessity of mind is 
 equally strong as the other ; and if the one be a positive Joe- 
 trine, an express testimony of intelligence, so also must be the 
 other. But they are contradictories ; and, as contradictories, 
 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. Intelligence 
 is shown to be feeble, but not false ; our nature is, thus, not a 
 lie, nor the Author of our nature a deceiver. 
 
 It avoids fatalism or inconsistency. In the third place, thia 
 simpler and easier doctrine avoids a serious inconvenience, 
 which attaches to the more difficult and complex. It is this : 
 To suppose a positive and special principle of causality, is to 
 suppose, that there is expressly revealed to us, through intelli- 
 gence, the fact that there is no free causation, that is, that there 
 is no cause which is not itself merely an effect ; existence being 
 only a series of determined antecedents and determined conse- 
 quents. But this is an assertion of Fatalism. Such, however, 
 most of the patrons of that doctrine will not admit. The as- 
 sertion of absolute, necessity, they are aware, is virtually the 
 negation of a moral universe, consequently of the Moral Gov- 
 ernor of a moral universe ; in a word, Atheism. Fatalism and 
 Atheism are, indeed, convertible terms. The only valid argu- 
 ments for the existence of a God, and for the immortality of 
 the soul, rest on the ground of man's moral nature ; conse- 
 quently, if that moral nature be annihilated, which in any 
 scheme of necessity it is, every conclusion established on such 
 a nature, is annihilated also. Aware of this, some of those who 
 make the judgment of causality a special principle, a positive 
 dictate of intelligence, find themselves compelled, in order to 
 escape from the consequences of their doctrine, to deny that 
 tkis dictate, though universal in its deliverance, should be al- 
 lowed to hold universally true ; and, accordingly, they would 
 exempt from it the facts of volition. Will, they hold to be a 
 47*
 
 558 THE LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 free cause, that is, a cause which is not an effect; in othei 
 words, they attribute to will the power of absolute origination.* 
 But here their own principle of causality is too strong for them. 
 They say, that it is unconditionally given, as a special and 
 positive law of intelligence, that every origination is only an 
 apparent, not a real, commencement. Now to exempt certain 
 phenomena from this law, for the sake of our moral conscious- 
 ness, cannot be validly done. For, in the first place, this would 
 be to admit that the mind is a complement of contradictory rev- 
 elations. If mendacity be admitted of some of our mental dic- 
 tates, we cannot vindicate veracity to any. " Falsus in uno, 
 falsus in omnibus." Absolute scepticism is hence the legiti- 
 mate conclusion. But, in the second place, waiving this con- 
 clusion, 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 universality of the former? We have none. 
 If both are equally positive, we have no right to sacrifice to the 
 other the alternative, which our wishes prompt us to abandon. 
 
 But the doctrine which I propose is not exposed to these dti- 
 ficulties. It does not suppose that the judgment of Causality 
 is founded on a power of the mind to recognize as necessary in 
 thought what is necessary in the universe of existence ; it, on 
 the contrary, founds this judgment merely on the impotence of 
 the mind to conceive either of two contradictories, and, as one 
 or the other of two contradictories must be true, though both 
 cannot, it shows that there is no ground for inferring from the 
 inability of the mind to conceive an alternative as possible, that 
 such alternative is really impossible. At the same time, if the 
 causal judgment be not an affirmation of mind, but merely an 
 incapacity of positively thinking the contrary, it follows that 
 such a negative judgment cannot stand in opposition to the posi- 
 tive consciousness, the affirmative deliverance, that we are 
 truly the authors, the responsible originators, of our actions, 
 
 * [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 commenwmrn* 
 But is such by us copeivable ?] Notes to Iteid
 
 THE LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 559 
 
 and not merely links in the adamantine series of effects and 
 causes. It appears to me that it is only on this doctrine that 
 we can philosophically vindicate the liberty of the will, that 
 we can rationally assert to a man "fatis avolsa voluntas." 
 How the will can possibly be free must remain to us, under the 
 present limitation of our faculties, wholly incomprehensible. 
 We cannot conceive absolute commencement ; we cannot, there- 
 fore, conceive a free volition. But as little can we conceive the 
 alternative on which liberty is denied, on which necessity is af- 
 firmed. And in favor of our moral nature, the fact that we are 
 free, is given us in the consciousness of an uncompromising law 
 of Duty, in the consciousness of our moral accountability ; and 
 this fact of liberty cannot be redargued on the ground, that it is 
 incomprehensible ; for the doctrine of the Conditioned proves, 
 against the necessitarian, that something may, nay must, be true, 
 of which the mind is wholly unable to construe to itself the 
 possibility ; whilst it shows that the objection of incomprehen- 
 sibility applies no less to the doctrine of fatalism than to the 
 doctrine of moral freedom. If the deduction, therefore, of the 
 Causal Judgment, which I have attempted, should speculatively 
 prove correct, it will, I think, afford a securer and more satis- 
 factory foundation for our practical interests, than any other 
 which has ever yet been promulgated. 
 
 [The question of Liberty and Necessity may be dealt with in 
 two ways. 
 
 I. The opposing parties may endeavor to show each that hia 
 thesis is distinct, intelligible, and consistent, whereas that the 
 anti-thesis of his opponent is indistinct, unintelligible, and con- 
 tradictory. 
 
 II. An opposing party may endeavor to show tl at the thesis 
 of either side is unthinkable, and thus abolish logically the 
 whole problem, as, on both alternatives, beyond the limit? of 
 human thought ; it being, however, open to him to argue that, 
 though unthinkable, his thesis is not annihilated, there being 
 contradictory opposites, one of which must consequently be held 
 as true, though we be unable to think the possibility of either 
 opposite, ; whilst he may be able to appeal to a direct or indi
 
 560 THE LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 rect declaration of our conscious nature in favor of the alterna- 
 tive which he maintains.] Appendix. 
 
 Reid says that, according to one meaning of the word Liberty, 
 " it is opposed to confinement of the body by superior force ; so 
 we say a prisoner is set at liberty, when his fetters are knocked 
 off and he is discharged from confinement ; " and he grants that 
 " this liberty extends not to the will." [This is called the lib- 
 erty from Coaction or Violence the liberty of Spontaneity 
 Spontaneity. In the present question, this species of liberty 
 ought to be thrown altogether out of account; it is admitted by 
 all parties ; it is common equally to brutes and men ; is not a 
 peculiar quality of the will ; and is, in fact, essential to it, for 
 the will cannot possibly be forced. The greatest spontaneity is, 
 in fact, the greatest necessity. Thus, a hungry horse, who turns 
 of necessity to food, is said, on this definition of liberty, to do so 
 with freedom, because he does so spontaneously ; and, in gene- 
 ral, the desire of happiness, which is the most necessary ten- 
 dency, will, on this application of the term, be the most free. 
 
 Again, " liberty is opposed to obligation by law, or lawful 
 authority." With this description of liberty, also, the present 
 question has no concern. 
 
 Moral liberty does not merely consist in the power of doing 
 what we will, but in the power of willing what we will. This 
 is variously denominated the Liberty from Necessity Moral 
 Liberty Philosophical Liberty Essential Liberty Liberty 
 from Indifference, etc. A Power over the determinations of 
 our Will supposes an act of Will that our Will should deter- 
 mine so and so; for we can only freely exert power through a 
 rational determination or Volition. This definition of Liberty 
 i< right. But then question upon question remains and this 
 ml infmitum. Have we a power (a will) over such anterior 
 will ? And until this question be definitively answered, which it 
 never can, 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 LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 561 
 
 The philosophy, therefore, which 1 profess, annihilates the theo- 
 retical 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 
 consciousness. Reid has done nothing to render the scheme of 
 Liberty conceivable. But if our intellectual nature be not a lie, 
 if our consciousness and conscience do not deceive us in the 
 immediate datum of an Absolute Law of Duty, we are free, as 
 we are moral, agents ; for Morality involves Liberty as its es- 
 sential condition, its ratio essendi. 
 
 Is the person an original undetermined cause of the determi- 
 nation of his will ? If he be not, then he is not a free agent, 
 and the scheme of Necessity is admitted. If he be, in the first 
 place, it is impossible to conceive the possibility of this ; and, in 
 the second, if the fact, though inconceivable, be allowed, it is 
 impossible to see how a cause undetermined by any motive* can 
 be a rational, moral, and accountable cause. There is no con- 
 ceivable medium between Fatalism and Casuism ; and the con- 
 tradictory schemes of Liberty and Necessity themselves are 
 inconceivable. For, as we cannot compass in thought an unde- 
 termined 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 
 
 * [A motive, abstractly considered, is culled an end orjinul cause. It is 
 well denominated in the Greek philosophy, T> Ivena. ov that fir the sake of 
 which. A motive, however, in its concrete reality, is nothing apart from the 
 mind, only a mental tendency. 
 
 If motives " injluuice to action," as Reid says, they must cooperate 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 Keid's own 
 view, in this relation, raufts, and efficient causes. It is of no consequence 
 in the argument whether motives be said to ditiTinini' a man to act, or to in- 
 Jlucncp. (that is, to determine) him to determine himself to act. It does 
 not, therefore, seem consistent to say that motives are not atusis, and that 
 they du not act.\ Xol-s to liiid.
 
 562 THE L'AW- OF THE CONDITIONED. 
 
 opposite doctrines are thus at once resistless in assault, and im- 
 potent in defence.- Each is hewn down and appears to die 
 under the home-thrusts of his adversary ; but each again recov- 
 ers 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 intermina- 
 ble conflict. The doctrine of Moral Liberty cannot be made 
 conceivable, for we can only conceive the determined and the 
 re lative. As already stated, all that can be done is to show, 1 
 That, for the fact of Liberty, we have, immediately or medi- 
 ately, the evidence of consciousness ; and, 2, That there are, 
 among the phenomena of mind, many facts which we must ad- 
 mit 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. 
 
 It is proper to notice, that, as to live is to act, and as man is 
 not free to live or not to live, so neither, absolutely speaking, is 
 he free to act or not to act. As he lives, he is necessarily de- 
 termined to act or energize to think and will; and all the 
 liberty to which he can pretend, is to choose between this mode 
 of action and that. In Scholastic language, man cannot have 
 the liberty oft freedom, though he may have the liberty of speci- 
 fication. The root of his freedom is thus necessity. Nay, we 
 cannot conceive otherwise even of the Deity. As we must 
 think Him as necessarily existent, and necessarily living, so we 
 must think him as necessarily active. Such are the conditions 
 of human thought. Whqn Dr. Clarke says, "The true defini- 
 tion of Liberty is the Power to Act," he should have recollected 
 that this power is, on his own hypothesis, absolutely fatal if it 
 cannot but act.~\ Notes to Reid. 
 
 [Substance and Quality are, manifestly, only thought as mu- 
 tual relatives. We cannot think a Quality existing absolutely, 
 in or of itself. We are constrained to think it as inhering in
 
 THE LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 563 
 
 some basis, substratum, hypostasis, or Substance ; but this Sub- 
 stance cannot be conceived by us except negatively, that is, as 
 the unapparent the inconceivable, correlative of certain ap- 
 pearing Qualities. If we attempt to think it positively, we can 
 think it only by transforming it into a Quality or bundle of Qual- 
 ities, which, again, we are compelled to refer to an unknown 
 substance, now supposed for their incogitable basis. Every 
 thing, hi fact, may be conceived as the Quality, or as the Sub- 
 stance of something else. But Absolute Substance and Absolute 
 Quality, these are both inconceivable, 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. 
 What has now been said, applies equally to Mind and Matter. 
 
 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 Quali- 
 ties. It is extremely difficult for the human mind to admit the 
 possibility of unextended Substance. Extension, being a con- 
 dition of positive 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."] 
 Discussions. 
 
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