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 UNIVF.RSITY MICROFILMS, INC., ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, 19(>1
 
 LETTERS 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN 
 MIND. 
 
 BY SAMUEL BAILEY. 
 
 SERIES.. ....;,._.,:. 
 
 'LONDON: 
 
 LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, AND ROBERTS. 
 
 1858. 
 
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 PREFACE. 
 
 THE present Work being only the continuation of 
 a preceding one, the formality of a preface is 
 scarcely required. The various questions discussed 
 in it are not inferior in importance to those which 
 occupied the pages of its predecessor, while some 
 of them may be generally thought superior in 
 interest. The Author ventures to add that he has 
 materials for a third series, but as much time will 
 be required to work them into satisfactory shape 
 and coherence, he can hardly promise himself any- 
 thing more from the effort to complete them than 
 the solitary pleasure of the labour itself. 
 
 Norbury, near Sheffield, 
 April 5th, 1858.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 LETTER I. Summary Recapitulation of the principal 
 Discussions in the First Series of 
 " Letters on the Philosophy of the Hu- 
 man Mind" - 1 
 
 II. Summary Recapitulation of the principal 
 Discussions in the First Series of 
 " Letters on the Philosophy of the Hu- 
 man Mind" continued - - 19 
 
 III. The Theory of Perception propounded by 
 
 Dr. Reid - - - - 34 
 
 IV. The Doctrines of Sir William Hamilton 
 
 regarding Perception - - - 46 
 
 V. General and Abstract Ideas and Terms, 
 as treated by Berkeley, Hume, and 
 other Writers of a more recent Date - 65 
 
 VI. General Propositions : their Formation and 
 
 Character - - - - 78 
 
 VII. General Propositions (in continuation). 
 Comparison of the Innate Principles of 
 Leibnitz and the a priori Cognitions of 
 Kant - - - - - 86 
 
 VIII. General Propositions (in continuation). 
 
 Propositions expressive of Necessary 
 
 Facts. The a priori Cognitions of 
 Kant - - - - - 100
 
 Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LKTTKU IX. 
 
 Pge 
 
 XI. 
 XIL 
 
 XIIL 
 
 XIV. 
 XV. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 XV1IL 
 
 XIX. 
 
 XX. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 General Propositions (in continuation). 
 Contingent Propositions and Laws of 
 Nature. The a priori Cognitions of 
 Kant further considered *. - -115 
 
 General Propositions (in continuation). 
 Kant's Doctrine of a priori Cognitions 
 as set forth by one of his Expositors -122 
 
 The Prominent Characteristics of German 
 Philosophy and their Causes - - 130 
 
 The Prominent Characteristics of German 
 Philosophy and their Causes (in con- 
 tinuation) .... 143 
 
 The Prominent Characteristics of German 
 Philosophy and their Causes (in con- 
 tinuation) .... 155 
 
 The Causation of Voluntary Actions - 163 
 
 The Causation of Voluntary Actions (in 
 continuation) .... 175 
 
 Physiology in relation to the Philosophy 
 of the Human Mind - - - 190 
 
 Phrenology in relation to the Philosophy 
 of the Human Mind - - - 205 
 
 The Phrenological Organs considered as 
 Indications of Mental Characteristics - 216 
 
 Phrenological Explanations of Historical 
 and factitious Characters - - 243 
 
 Anthropology. Proposed Classification of 
 Inquiries relating to Man - - 258 
 
 The Present Condition, Estimation, and 
 Prospects of the Philosophy of the Hu- 
 man Mind .... 270
 
 LETTERS 
 
 ON TUB 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION OF THE PRINCIPAL DIS- 
 CUSSIONS IN THE FIRST SERIES OF "LETTERS ON 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND." 
 
 You have set me a task not very easy to perform. 
 You ask from me a summary of the doctrines in 
 my first series of letters indicating their order or 
 dependence more plainly than it is indicated in the 
 series itself; and you further request that I would 
 take occasion, as I proceed, to point out their rela- 
 tion to those held by some preceding and contem- 
 porary philosophers who have touched on the same 
 subjects. 
 
 Your request is, I grant, reasonable enough, and 
 in endeavouring to comply with it, I shall have 
 opportunities of justifying in some degree the 
 professed design with which I set out, and the
 
 2 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 accomplishment of which, if I understand you 
 aright, has been called in question. 
 
 I said in the opening letter of the series, that I 
 did not contemplate the production of a systematic 
 treatise on mental philosophy, but only an exposi- 
 tion of those parts of it respecting which I seemed 
 to myself (erroneously perhaps) to have something 
 new to say, or something not sufficiently recognised 
 to enforce, or which I might hope to place in a 
 clearer light than had hitherto fallen upon them - 
 no extravagant pretension surely to originality. 
 
 I scarcely need to 'epeat that some pretension of 
 this sort is necessarily implied (although it is in 
 general very properly and prudently not obtruded 
 on the reader) in all treatises which are not avowed 
 compilations or abridgments ; and I felt obliged to 
 state it expressly in my own case in order to 
 account for my treating only certain portions of 
 the subject. I would much rather, you may be 
 sure, have left it to be understood, being fully 
 alive to the instinctive renitency of human nature 
 ngainst the slightest direct claim to " the new," 
 whether in physical research or in metaphysical 
 speculation. 
 
 Now whether I have succeeded or not in the 
 proposed design, will be to a considerable extent 
 determined by such a brief summary of the doc- 
 trines put forth in the letters and such a passing 
 glance at their bearings on prior or contemporary 
 speculation, as you desire : in the course of which
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 3 
 
 I hope it will appear that the principal views 
 brought forward, although necessarily interspersed 
 for the mere purposes of connection and transition 
 with familiar knowledge, come under one or other 
 of the predicaments (and it really matters not 
 which) mentioned in the preceding extract : they 
 will be found, at all events, to differ very consi- 
 derably from those of modern writers in general 
 repute. 
 
 I may add that although I have disclaimed the 
 attempt to lay down a system of philosophy, the 
 views which I present to you in these letters are 
 not desultory speculations, but systematized in my 
 own mind ; ancl, how detached so ever they may at 
 first sight appear, form interdependent parts of a 
 connected and consistent whole. 
 
 The first two or three letters are mainly occupied 
 in showing the evils of treating the mind as divided 
 into faculties, and of erecting them into so many 
 distinct agents, instead of simply considering the 
 operations and affections, or mental states, of which 
 we are conscious, grouping them into classes, and 
 tracing their laws as we do in the case of physical 
 phenomena. 
 
 These evils had been pointed out incidentally 
 and in general terms by sundry philosophers, as I 
 have shown in numerous quotations from Hobbes, 
 Locke, and others ; but no one, as far as my know- 
 ledge extends, had previously taken the trouble of 
 adducing from eminent writers particular examples 
 
 B 2
 
 of the asserted consequences, or of directing atten- 
 tion in detail to the specific manner in which the 
 practice referred to, had vitiated and still continues 
 to vitiate the philosophy of mind. As part of the 
 same exposition I have also amply illustrated by 
 examples the great and mischievous prevalence of 
 fictitious or imaginary facts, arising chiefly from 
 this source, in the speculations of many celebrated . 
 philosophers. 
 
 There are critics, doubtless, who will pronounce 
 the adoption of one method rather than the other 
 to be of little moment, while I on my part consider 
 it of vital consequence. Without contesting their 
 opinion on the present occasion, I will content my- 
 self with referring to the philosophers from whose 
 writings 1 have quoted ; one of whom* stigmatises 
 what I have for shortness called the method of 
 faculties, as no small occasion of wrangling, obscu- 
 rity, and uncertainty ; another f, as the copious 
 source of error, delusion, and rank nonsense ; and 
 a third |, as the origin of innumerable contro- 
 versies. 
 
 With these 'and other philosophers I not only 
 agree, but I have, as already -intimated, furnished 
 ample elucidations of the mischiefs of a method 
 which some of them incidentally proscribed with- 
 out illustrating it, and, I may add, without avoiding 
 it in their own writings ; and which notwithstanding 
 
 Locke. f The author of a Fragment on Mackintosh. 
 
 Dr. Thos. Brown.
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 5 
 
 their condemnation of it, still flourishes with un- 
 abated vigour. Their protest seems in fact to have 
 been wholly disregarded. In the particular cir- 
 cumstance of ascribing importance to the point in 
 question', I most cheerfully acknowledge myself to 
 have been forestalled by these my predecessors. 
 
 To show at once the tenacity with which the 
 practice is still adhered to and the vagueness of 
 thought which it tends to engender, 1 may adduce 
 the language of one of our most recent and most 
 eminent metaphysicians, Sir William Hamilton. 
 For example, in speaking of consciousness, one of 
 the last things surely that ought to be personilied, 
 he uses the following expressions : 
 
 " Consciousness assures us that in perception we 
 are immediately cognisant of an external and ex- 
 tended non-ego." * " Consciousness is the instru- 
 ment and criterion of the acquisition of truth." 
 " It reveals truths." Again he speaks of " the de- 
 liverances of consciousness ; " and further, in the 
 same strain although not precisely on the same 
 theme, of " beliefs certifying us of their own 
 veracity." 
 
 There may be little objection, I have allowed, to 
 expressions of this kind in ordinary or rhetorical 
 Avriting (except in point of taste), but in treating 
 of the philosophy of mind, as in physical science, 
 the plainest and most direct forms of speech should, 
 
 * For these and similar expressions, see Reid'a Works, 
 Hamilton's Edition, note A. 
 
 D 3
 
 6 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 I have endeavoured to show, be systematically 
 adopted, or futility, confusion, and vacillation of 
 view will most probably result. 
 
 Philosophical language, especially when employed 
 to explain the rudiments of psychology, ought to 
 be such as will stand the test of literal construc- 
 tion ; or, should that seem too much to require, it 
 ought at least to yield on analysis something better 
 than mere nullities or identical propositions. 
 
 Let us make the trial in the instance under 
 review, if it be only for the sake of the curious 
 issue to which it will conduct us. 
 
 In the first extract above given from Sir Wm. 
 Hamilton's writings, all that is really meant might, 
 it is clear, be expressed in the simple words " we 
 perceive external and extended objects." 
 
 Instead of this, we human beings are first 
 separated from consciousness, and then the latter 
 assures "us" (who while thus separated are of 
 course unconscious entities and therefore incapable 
 of being assured), that in perception, or, in other 
 words, when we perceive an external object, we are 
 immediately cognizant of the object, i. e. we do 
 perceive it. Inasmuch as the- passage represents 
 "consciousness" as assuring "us," it clearly makes 
 " us" and "consciousness" into two distinct exist- 
 ences, and inasmuch as the assurance given is 
 merely to the effect that we are cognizant of what 
 we perceive, it seems to be a somewhat needless 
 feat to detach consciousness from ourselves in order
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 7 
 
 that it may attest so mere a truism. The phraseo- 
 logy is not much more philosophical, although 
 perhaps more amusing, when the author speaks of 
 " beliefs certifying us of their own veracity." Here 
 assurance is made doubly sure ; for how can we 
 decline taking their word for what they aver? how 
 avoid believing our beliefs on their own testimony, 
 delivered to ourselves, that they are true ? 
 
 I need not subject to the same analysis the 
 equally futile assertion that " consciousness is the 
 instrument and criterion of the acquisition of 
 truth," than which nothing can well be looser or 
 apparently more unmeaning. There could scarcely 
 be a stronger proof of the danger of personifying 
 mental states or affections than the fact of so acute 
 a metaphysician being led by it into downright 
 platitudes. The personification might have been 
 excused had it brought out any proposition worth 
 enunciating. 
 
 It will be said, I know, that this is really being too 
 particular being hypercritical requiring a seve- 
 rity and precision of language utterly unattainable, 
 of little utility could it be attained, and which the 
 critic himself might be easily shown not always to 
 observe. 
 
 Of this objection, from the substance of which 
 I wholly dissent as founded on an inadequate 
 estimate of the importance in psychological re- 
 searches of exactness in expression, I have already 
 said something in a former letter and 1 shall pro- 
 
 B 4
 
 8 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 bably have something more to say in the sequel. 
 At present I adduce the preceding examples of 
 current philosophical language, without pretending 
 to an entire exemption from similar delinquency 
 myself, merely to show that such phraseology con- 
 tinues to prevail amongst the best writers down to 
 our own times ; and that if it is not the phraseo- 
 logy likely to further the progress of close and 
 correct thinking in the science of mind, the ex- 
 posure of its weakness and perplexing tendency 
 has not become either an obsolete or a fruitless 
 task. 
 
 In proof of the unsatisfactory state of philosophy, 
 on the points here in question, to a robust and 
 sagacious intellect, I may cite the sentiments of the 
 late Sydney Smith himself a lecturer on mental 
 science. Writing to Jeffrey he says, " I don't 
 know whether you agree with me about the present 
 language and divisions of intellectual philosophy. 
 They appear to me in a most barbarous state, and 
 to be found no where in a state of higher con- 
 fusion and puzzle than in the ' Intellectual Powers 
 of Dr. Reid.' " * 
 
 After having thus exposed the evil consequences 
 (lowing in philosophical investigations from the 
 division of the mind into faculties, and from the 
 personifications and laxity of language thence 
 arising, I proceed in my next letter to point out 
 
 * Memoirs of Sydney Smith, vol. ii. p. 23.
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 
 
 the mode which I proposed to adopt of classifying 
 mental operations and affections ; or in other words 
 the phenomena of consciousness. This I follow up 
 in subsequent letters by an explanation where 
 needful, of the grounds on which the several parts 
 of the classification are founded. 
 
 The arrangement in question may not be worth 
 much : on that point I leave you and others to pro- 
 nounce ; but both the table itself and more espe- 
 cially some of the explanations which follow are, at 
 all events, considerably different from any other to 
 be met with the only thing I am at present con- 
 cerned to show and in which 1 should be very 
 glad to find that I am mistaken, since the discovery 
 would be a positive addition to my knowledge, and 
 bring with it all the pleasures of coincidence and 
 corroboration in unborrowed opinions. 
 
 I may meanwhile direct your attention in this 
 part of the work to my views as to various points ; 
 1. as to bodily sensations, in regard to which my doc- 
 trines are essentially different from those of Keid, 
 Stewart, and Hamilton; 2. as to the desirable limi- 
 tation to be observed in employing the words * be- 
 lief and 'judgment,' in which I am also at 
 variance with the Scottish school ; 3. as to the 
 operations generalised under the word discernment ; 
 4. as to the composite character of the processes of 
 contingent and demonstrative reasoning; 5. as to 
 the influence of willing over our intellectual move- 
 ments, in regard to which there has hitherto been
 
 10 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 no generally accepted discrimination; and 6. as to 
 the mixed operations thence arising. 
 
 The exposition of the grounds on which my clas- 
 sification is formed and of some important points 
 connected with it, is followed by an analysis of Mr. 
 Stewart's carefully elaborated definition of Reason, 
 in order to exhibit the vagueness, perplexity, and 
 want of precise thinking which, even in so accom- 
 plished a philosopher, attend the method of dealing 
 with faculties instead of operations : and in the 
 same letter with the same view is given an exam- 
 ination of Kant's celebrated distinction between the 
 Reason and the Understanding, with an attempt to 
 show what it really amounts to. Both these brief 
 critical disquisitions, right or wrong, differ from any, 
 as far as 1 know, before presented to the public. 
 
 In a subsequent parenthetical epistle I have en- 
 tered into some explanations of the meaning of 
 words, and the ambiguous import of certain terms 
 in frequent use, preparatory to the Letters which 
 immediately follow and which are dedicated to the 
 important subject of perception. 
 
 In these I contend for the direct perception of 
 external objects against Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, 
 Hume arid others. 
 
 It is true that the bare doctrine there pro- 
 pounded, is anything rather than a novelty ; but it 
 will be found, I think, by the careful inquirer that 
 it is held by few metaphysicians in its complete 
 purity and strictness, or with rigid consistency;
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 11 
 
 and, at any rate, the frequent virtual denial of it, 
 even in our own day, still requires it to be eluci- 
 dated and enforced. 
 
 You will particularly observe, on a close inspec- 
 tion, that I maintain the direct perception of 
 external objects in a much more rigorous sense 
 than many or most of the philosophers of the 
 Scottish school. They, amongst other things, con- 
 tend for an irresistible belief in the existence of an 
 external world ; I, on the contrary, for a direct 
 knowledge of it ; and I give my reasons for think- 
 ing that theirs is an objectionable mode of stating 
 the real fact, and confounds processes which ought 
 to be kept perfectly distinct. 
 
 Thus Sir William Hamilton says, " We do not in 
 propriety know that what we are compelled to per- 
 ceive as not-self, is not a perception of self, and we 
 can only on reflection believe such to be the case, in 
 reliance on the original necessity of so believing 
 imposed on us by our nature;"* an array of 
 words with as little meaning in them, I must say, 
 notwithstanding my great respect for the writer, 
 as could well be put. 
 
 Some of these metaphysicians, be it observed, 
 speak both of our knowing external objects and of 
 our believing in their existence. The distinguished 
 author who in the last quotation has told us we 
 believe because we believe, affirms not very con- 
 
 * Reid's Works, p. 750.
 
 12 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 sistently in another passage, "we believe it [the 
 external world] to exist only because we are imme- 
 diately -cognizant of it as existing:" i. e. t we 
 believe it to exist because we know it to exist. 
 Surely knowledge supersedes belief. He had better 
 have kept to the statement that we believe because 
 nature has thrust the belief upon us, 
 
 Reid's doctrine is so far different from mine (which 
 is the simple doctrine of all persons who are not 
 metaphysicians) that it may be doubted, as Sir 
 W. Hamilton after an elaborate examination admits, 
 whether it is to be held as maintaining direct per- 
 ception at all. My reasons for joining in the doubt 
 and extending it to the views of Sir W. Hamilton 
 himself, I will reserve for two separate letters, 
 since to state them here at length would interfere 
 too much with the train of explanations in which 
 I am engaged. I will at present content myself 
 with a single remark by way of intimating the 
 nature of the difference between the learned editor 
 of Keid and myself. While he professedly holds 
 the doctrine that we directly perceive external 
 objects, he virtually abandons it, as it appears to 
 me, when he speaks of our perceiving the thing 
 nearest to our organisation and of our not imme- 
 diately perceiving distant objects. 
 
 " In the third place," he says, " to this head we 
 may refer Ueid's inaccuracy in regard to the pre- 
 cise object of perception. This object is not as he 
 seems frequently to assert any distant reality ; for
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 13 
 
 we arc percipient of nothing but what is in proxi- 
 mate contact, in immediate relation, with our 
 organs of sense. Distant realities we reach hot 
 by perception but by a subsequent process of in- 
 ference founded thereon."* 
 
 * The Works of Dr. Reid, by Sir W. Hamilton, p. 814. 
 
 There is a very explicit passage of similar tendency in Dr. 
 Porterfield which is worth quoting : " How body acts upon 
 mind, or mind upon body, I know not, but this I am very cer- 
 tain of, that nothing can act or be acted upon, where it is not ; 
 and therefore our mind can never perceive anything but its own 
 proper modifications, and the various states of the sensorium to 
 which it is present : so that it is not the external sun and moon 
 which are in the heavens, which our mind perceives, but only 
 their image or representation impressed upon the sensorium. 
 How the soul of a seeing man sees these images, or how it re- 
 ceives these ideas from such agitations in the sensorium, I know 
 not ; but I am sure it can never perceive the external bodies 
 themselves, to which it is not present." Treatise on the Eye, 
 vol. ii. p. 356, quoted by both Reid and Stewart. 
 
 The fictitious facts here asserted scarcely need pointing out. 
 We do not perceive " images impressed upon the sensorium," 
 nor " the various states of the sensorium," nor do we receive 
 (consciously) ideas from " agitations in the sensorium ;" while on 
 the other hand, contrary to what Dr. Porterfield asserts, we 
 really perceive the external bodies themselves. It is vain to 
 try to evade this simple fact by pleading the impossibility of 
 the mind perceiving objects to which it is not present. What 
 after all does he moan by the mind being present to objects ? 
 It can mean no more than perceiving them : so that to affirm 
 that the mind cannot perceive objects to which it is not present, 
 amounts to the truism that it cannot perceive what it cannot per* 
 cei ve. In a subsequent letter devoted to an examination of Sir W. 
 Hamilton's views on this subject, I shall have occasion to enter into 
 the consideration of a doctrine similar to the strange assertion of 
 Dr. Portcrfield's above quoted, that " it is not the external sun 
 and moon which are in the heaven?, which our mind perceives."
 
 14 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 
 
 In contrariety to these views what I maintain is, 
 that we perceive the object itself notwithstanding 
 its being distant, and that we do not in that case 
 perceive what is nearest to the organ, as is most 
 conspicuous in the instance of sight: further that 
 no knowledge of the intermediate material or 
 organic process, such as a picture being formed on 
 the retina, or of rays of light proceeding from the 
 object and impinging on the organ (of all which 
 we may be profoundly ignorant) can affect the 
 conscious act of perceiving, of which they form no 
 part. It is to be observed, too, that in consistency 
 with his doctrine on this point, my learned and able 
 contemporary is a holder, in common with almost 
 all his countrymen, of Berkeley's Theory of Vision, 
 which is incompatible, in my judgment, with a 
 sound doctrine of perception. So prevalent had 
 that theory become, so stereotyped in the minds o 
 philosophers, that when I first broached iny heresy 
 as to the utter groundlessness of the bishop's cele- 
 brated but little understood speculation, I was sup- 
 ported by scarcely a single professed metaphysician 
 of the day. Better things may now be said. The 
 difference on this point, I may venture to add, is a 
 radical one and affects the whole philosophy of the 
 intellect. 
 
 In the survey taken in the " Letters," of writers 
 on the theory of Perception, there are several other 
 points which, if not peculiar to myself, either have 
 been almost entirely lost sight of, or still require to
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 15 
 
 be urged on account of prevailing errors or differ- 
 ences of opinion regarding them. 
 
 To take them in order. 
 
 I show at some length Locke's error and incon- 
 sistency in teaching that we know nothing but our 
 own sensations or ideas, and have no knowledge of 
 external objects, which knowledge he is yet con- 
 tinually assuming that we possess. It may possibly 
 occur to many readers, that in the present day 
 such an exposure is needless, inasmuch as the doc- 
 trine is no longer held : and I might have thought 
 so myself, had I not found it virtually and even 
 explicitly maintained in the writings not only of 
 the majority of those German metaphysicians with 
 whom I am at all acquainted but of eminent con- 
 temporary philosophers in our own country as well 
 as in abundance of English elementary works and 
 compilations. One or two examples will show how 
 strongly it has rooted itself in our Literature. 
 
 " It may therefore," says an able writer, " safely 
 be laid down as a truth both obvious in itself, and 
 admitted by all whom it is at present necessary to 
 take into consideration, that of the outer world 
 we know and can know absolutely nothing except 
 the sensations which we experience from it." * 
 
 This strictly interpreted is making our sensations 
 a part of the external world (which the writer 
 could not of course intend) somewhat like Milton in- 
 
 * A System of Logic, by J. S. Mill, vol. i. p. 80.
 
 16 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 advertently making Eve one of her own daughters*, 
 but it clearly maintains that we do not know ex-" 
 ternal objects and speaks of our not knowing them 
 both as an obvious and an admitted truth. 
 
 " The idea of a horse," says another modern 
 logician, " is the horse in the mind, and we know 
 no other horse. We admit that there is an external 
 object, a horse which may give a horse in the mind 
 to twenty different persons : but no one of these 
 twenty knows the object, each one only knows his 
 idea. There is an object, because each of the 
 twenty persons receives an idea without communi- 
 cating with the others ; so that there is something 
 external to give it them. But when they talk 
 about it, under the name of a horse, they talk about 
 their ideas." f 
 
 The rather contemptuous setting aside of all 
 realists by Mr. Mill as too insignificant to be taken 
 into consideration, is a presumptive proof that he 
 could not be familiar, if he were at all acquainted, 
 with the celebrated Article on Perception in the 
 Edinburgh Review of October 1830, which was 
 subsequently translated into both French and 
 Italian and rcpublished in Si W. Hamilton's Dis- 
 cussions in 1852. The latter author, however, 
 returns the sinister compliment by no measured 
 censure of the Cosmothetic Idealists (to use the 
 
 * *' Say, did not Milton our first mother make 
 The fairest of her daughters by mistake?" 
 
 f Formal Logic by Augustus de Morgan, p. 29.
 
 SUMMARY BECAPITULATION. 17 
 
 baronet's peculiar phraseology) amongst whom 
 both Mr. Mill and Mr. de Morgan are to be ranked. 
 Of Cosmothetic Idealism, Sir William says, " This 
 last, though the most vacillating, inconsequent, and 
 self-contradictory of all systems, is the one which, 
 as less obnoxious in its acknowledged consequences 
 (being a kind of compromise between speculation 
 and common sense) has found favour with the 
 immense majority of philosophers." * 
 
 Before quitting Locke I also point out what I 
 deem the radical error in his method of treating 
 his subject (it being indeed the necessary con- 
 sequence or accompaniment of the preceding 
 mistake), namely, not keeping distinct in thought 
 and language the objects of perception (in his 
 nomenclature .the sensations) and the ideas or repre- 
 sentations we subsequently have of them ; an error 
 on his part, prolific of all sorts of confusion, 
 although never before I believe brought into 
 distinct view (I should rejoice to find it had been) ; 
 nay, one on which I do not recollect at the present 
 moment to have seen the slightest direct animad- 
 version in any antecedent commentator on Locke's 
 essay. 
 
 Had this thoughtful philosopher been able to 
 free himself from the embroilment here pointed out, 
 the simple truths which were at the bottom of his 
 speculations but which in consequence of this 
 
 Reid's Works, p. 749. 
 C
 
 18 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 confusion he only imperfectly developed, would have 
 come out in their natural clearness and cogency ; 
 namely, 1. That the objects of human knowledge are 
 of two kinds, external existences and events per- 
 ceived through the organs of sense, and internal 
 states and operations, or in other words mental 
 existences and events ; which two classes comprise 
 everything we actually know: 2. That our ideas 
 are representative of the objects belonging to one 
 or other of these two classes ; and other ideas than 
 these we have none, although we have the power of 
 putting them together in new combinations of 
 endless diversity. 
 
 But my letter is growing too long, and I must 
 here break off.
 
 SUMMARY BBCAPITULATION. 19 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION OP THE PRINCIPAL DIS- 
 CUSSIONS IN THE FIRST SEHIES OP "LETTERS ON TUB 
 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND " CONTINUED. 
 
 I RESUME my summary. 
 
 The letters which immediately follow the obser- 
 vations on Locke are devoted to some strictures 
 on Berkeley's theory of the non-existence of matter. 
 I mark in the first place the precise point where 
 he deviates into error and assumes the very thesis 
 he sets himself to prove: and I then proceed to 
 show the fictitious or imaginary facts which he 
 assigns in explanation of real phenomena. Subse- 
 quently I not only explain the relation in which 
 his theory stands to common opinion but point 
 out the inconsistency of Berkeley's own statements 
 of that relation and the sources of it a part of his 
 writings which has greatly contributed to perplex 
 his readers, and has not, as far as I can find, been 
 elucidated by any of his commentators. 
 
 I follow this up by an argument certainly 
 unborrowed which, if valid, demonstrates what 
 has been frequently affirmed without demonstra- 
 tion, that the existence of external objects is not 
 
 c 2
 
 20 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 susceptible of either proof or disproof that it is in 
 truth out of the province of proof altogether. 
 
 In the letter immediately following, I adduce the 
 declaration of Hume that Berkeley's arguments 
 u admit of no answer and yet produce no convic- 
 tion ; " and I do not hesitate to venture upon the 
 counter-declaration that Berkeley notwithstanding 
 the credit commonly given to him, brings forward 
 no arguments whatever (those in a circle excepted) 
 to substantiate his fundamental position, but at 
 once assumes what it was his professed business to 
 establish by proof. I further show how Hume's 
 declaration that Berkeley's arguments are un- 
 answerable *, is the more extraordinary inasmuch 
 
 That Berkeley's arguments are logically unanswerable 
 eeems even now a prevalent tradition. " The opinion of the 
 ablest judges," says Dr. Ilcid, "seems to be that they neither 
 Lave been nor can be confuted ; and that he hath proved by 
 unanswerable arguments what no man in his senses can 
 believe." Inquiry into the Human Mind, chap. i. sect. 5. 
 " The confutation of the scepticism on this subject," says Dr. 
 Thos. Brown, "it is evident, may be attempted in two ways, 
 by showing the arguments urged by the sceptic to be logically 
 false; or by opposing to them the belief itself, as of evidence 
 either directly intuitive, or the result,, at least, of other intui- 
 tions, and early and universal associations and inferences, so 
 irresistible after the first acquisitions of infancy, as to have 
 then all the force of intuition itself. As long as Dr. Reid 
 confines himself to the latter of these pleas, he proceeds on safe 
 ground ; but his footing is not so firm when he assails the 
 mere lugic of the sceptic, for the sceptical argument as a 
 mere jiluy of reasoning admits of no reply" Lectures, vol. ii. 
 p. 51.
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 21 
 
 as he himself although generally regarded as a 
 follower of Berkeley misconceived the bishop's 
 theory, and really maintained one in contradiction 
 to it. If this criticism on Hume has been antici- 
 pated, I shall certainly be both surprised and 
 gratified to learn the fact. 
 
 I afterwards discuss a more subtile representation 
 of the ideal theory as given by Dr. Thomas Brown, 
 although not originating with him ; and animadvert 
 on several points connected with the general doctrine 
 which it would be tedious here to recapitulate. Of 
 these comments, I will nevertheless mention one. 
 Having before shown that the existence of external 
 objects is not susceptible of either proof or disproof, 
 I now show that there is a latent absurdity not 
 only in Berkeley's but in every possible form of the 
 ideal theory ; an inherent self-contradiction in every 
 denial, however it may be expressed, of the percep- 
 tion or the existence of external material objects; 
 an inevitable assumption, on the part of the deniers, 
 of that which they deny. 
 
 Putting these two arguments together the first 
 demonstrating that the existence of an external 
 world is not in the very nature of the case suscep- 
 tible of proof, that it is out of the province of 
 proof altogether ; and the second showing that it 
 cannot be denied without self-contradiction we 
 obtain a complete answer to any system of idealism 
 that it is possible to devise. 
 
 The discussions in reference to Berkeley's theory 
 
 c 3
 
 22 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 of which I have given this brief account, differ in 
 material respects, and especially in the one last 
 named, from any I have ever met with ; and that 
 they are at the least timely and needed, is shown 
 by the misconceptions or different interpretations 
 of the theory to be found not only in writers of 
 the past age whom I have already pointed out, 
 such as Hume and Danvin, but in authors of our 
 own day. One or two remarkable instances will 
 suffice to substantiate this assertion. 
 
 " The question respecting the Ideal Theory of 
 Berkeley," says a living writer, " has been mixed 
 up with the recognition of this condition of the 
 externality of objects. That philosopher main- 
 tained, as is well known, that the perceptible 
 qualities of bodies have no existence except in 
 a perceiving mind. This system has often been 
 understood as if he imagined the world to be a 
 kind of optical illusion, like the images which we 
 see when we shut our eyes, appearing to be without 
 us, though they are only in our organs ; and thus 
 this Ideal System has been opposed to a belief in an 
 external icorld. In truth, however, no such opposition 
 exists."* 
 
 Compare this representation with Berkeley's own 
 statement: "In common talk," he says, "the ob- 
 jects of our senses are not termed ideas but things. 
 Call them so still, provided you do not attribute to 
 
 Tho Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, by Rev. W. 
 Whowcll, D.D., vol. i. p. 269.
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 23 
 
 them any absolute external existence, and I shall 
 never quarrel with you for a word."* 
 
 "Did men but consider," he says in another 
 place, " that the sun, moon, and stars, and every 
 other object of the senses, are only so many sensa- 
 tions in their minds, which have no other existence 
 but barely being perceived, doubtless they would 
 never fall down and worship their own ideas. n ^ 
 
 Even the able author of a System of Logic 
 narrows Berkeley's theory by characterising it as 
 
 * Dialogues between Ilylas and Fhilonous. 
 
 f Principles of Human Knowledge, sect. 94. Tins passage 
 furnishes a remarkable instance, in Berkeley himself, of the 
 same blunder which has drawn down so much just discredit on 
 some of his opponents the fallacy of assuming that those who 
 adopt the ideal hypothesis must, to be logically consistent, act 
 differently from what they otherwise would do. Thus Dr. Reid 
 maintains that the idealists ought not in rigid consistency to 
 avoid running their heads against a post or walking into a ditch ; 
 a preposterous misconception on his part which was well ex- 
 posed by Dr. Priestley in his Examination of Reid, Ik-attic, and 
 Oswald. The stories told of Pyrrho's acting such blunders are 
 wholly incredible and are in fact blunders on the part of those 
 who invented them. It is highly curious and instructive to 
 find Berkeley in his zeal to proclaim the blow which his 
 doctrine would give to atheism and superstition, committing 
 himself in the same way by insisting, that if men know that the 
 sun, moon, and stars, were only their own ideas, they would 
 never full down and worship them. Ho might just as well have 
 said that if men knew that tho dishes before them at dinner 
 were only their own ideas they would never fall to and eat 
 them. Such passages inspire a doubt whether he had fully 
 mastered his own theory, and at all events conflrra the observa- 
 tion in the text that a false system is almost sure to be marked 
 by inconsistencies. 
 
 C 4
 
 24 PHILOSOPHY OF TEE HITMAN MIND. 
 
 scepticism relating to a supposed substratum,* 
 whereas the question about a substratum is a minor 
 point, as I have shown in Letter 16, and the 
 existence of such a thing may be denied by an anti- 
 Berkeleian. Further Berkeley's mental state as 
 described by himself is not scepticism, although 
 generally styled so, but downright dogmatism 
 dogmatic denial of the existence of an absolute 
 external world, which he pronounces to be impos- 
 sible. It must be acknowledged, however, that by 
 a sort of natural necessity, Berkeley, like every 
 inventor or expositor of a false system, is often 
 inconsistent with himself. 
 
 Having finished my comments on Berkeley, I 
 bring forward several circumstances in perception 
 not always (I take occasion to remark) perspi- 
 cuously treated, and apply the conclusions at which 
 I arrive to certain speculations of Hobbes, D'Alem- 
 bert, and Stewart, on the subject of colour, insisting 
 by the way on the truth too often overlooked, that 
 a knowledge of the physical process in perception 
 docs not at all affect the nature of the mental act. 
 In these special illustrations and animadversions, 
 be their worth what it may, I am not conscious of 
 having been preceded by any critic or commentator 
 either here or abroad, and should be by no means 
 displeased to find that I had, inasmuch as I have 
 reason to apprehend a pretty general dissent from 
 the views there propounded an apprehension 
 * Vol. ii. p. 471.
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 25 
 
 which would give a relish to the discovery of co- 
 incidence in any quarter. With one eminent 
 metaphysician of the present day, Sir Wm. Hamil- 
 ton, I find myself greatly at variance on the points 
 in question. 
 
 The two next letters are devoted to an examina- 
 tion of Kant's theory of perception, dividing it for 
 the sake of perspicuity into the negative doctrine 
 respecting our non-knowledge of external things, 
 and the positive doctrine that our minds act upon 
 them and even give birth to them. This division 
 and the subsequent examination are, as far as I 
 know, different in many respects from any before 
 published, although in the innumerable comments 
 which have been given to the world on the philo- 
 sopher in question, it is likely enough that I have 
 been more or less anticipated. That in the mode 
 of answering him, however, unanimity is still to be 
 attained, and discussion still required, is proved by 
 the criticisms called forth in consequence of my 
 asserting that his proposition "we cannot know 
 things in themselves," is perfectly unmeaning. 
 Kant's doctrine on this point is endorsed (to use an 
 old phrase in a modern application *) by many if 
 not most of the metaphysical writers of the present 
 day.f 
 
 * " A low metaphor," says Dr. Richardson, " from the 
 counting-house." Supplement to Dictionary. 
 
 f See Cousin amongst others in his Cours d'Histoire do la 
 Philosophic Morale.
 
 26 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 In Letter 21 I pass from the consideration of 
 perception to that of the dependent and secondary 
 operation named * conception ' or ' having ideas,' 
 showing after Reid and others, as a step to what 
 follows, that ideas bear no part in the former process, 
 and adding that they are without exception repre- 
 sentative phenomena. I further show that when 
 the term idea has been applied or has been supposed 
 to be applied to any thing else than representative 
 affections of the mind, there has been a misconcep- 
 tion of the phenomena so designated. 
 
 As this doctrine, which is much wider in scope 
 than may at first sight appear, and the bearings and 
 consequences of which I know no one who fully 
 grasps, is incompatible with the existence of any 
 ideas corresponding to general and abstract terms, I 
 enter next into the consideration of such terms, and 
 endeavour to illustrate the truth that, like proper 
 names, they raise up nothing but ideas of individual 
 objects that there are no such things as either 
 general ideas (which are of course denied by all 
 consistent nominalists) or abstract ideas (sometimes 
 called simple ideas) for the existence of which some 
 eminent nominalists see no inconsistency in con- 
 tending. The same assertion is equally applicable 
 to general and abstract notions and conceptions 
 which are only the same alleged mental phenomena 
 under different names. 
 
 The latter opinion, namely that there are such 
 things as abstract or simple ideas ideas non-
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 27 
 
 representative in character I next proceed to 
 examine, selecting for this purpose the exposition 
 of it given by its decided supporter Mr. Dugald 
 Stewart, in order to show its unsoundness and to 
 vindicate my own views. And, lastly, to exhibit 
 the importance of duly appreciating the bearings of 
 this part of philosophy, I enter upon the considera- 
 tion of several common names and abstract terms 
 which have been the subjects of much perplexity 
 and dispute, and particularly the words cause, 
 causation, power, time, and space, applying my 
 conclusions to some celebrated doctrines of Hume 
 and Kant relating to them or to their signification. 
 In maintaining the non-existence of such things 
 as general and abstract ideas, I do not commit the 
 folly of claiming originality for a doctrine well 
 known for ages before I was born. On the contrary 
 I quote an ample passage from Berkeley, in which 
 it is most explicitly laid down ; and he, although 
 Hume ascribes the origination of it to him *, had 
 
 So at least I read the following passage in the Treatise of 
 Human Nature, part 1, section 7: "A very material question 
 has been started concerning abstract or general ideus, whether 
 they be general or particular in the mind's conception of them. 
 A great philosopher [Dr. Berkeley] has disputed the received 
 opinion in this particular, and has asserted, that all general 
 ideas are nothing but particular ones annexed to a certain term, 
 which gives them a more extensive signification, and makes 
 them recall upon occasion other individuals which are similar 
 to them. As I look upon this to be one of the greatest and 
 most valuable discoveries that has been made of late years in 
 the republic of letters, I shall here endeavour to confirm it by
 
 28 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 numerous predecessors in it. I rest the conformity 
 of introducing these discussions with my declared 
 purpose, partly on some degree of novelty or at 
 any rate greater strictness in the mode of ex- 
 plaining and applying the doctrine, in which there 
 has been much of both defect and inconsistency ; 
 partly on the ground of pushing it farther to its 
 consequences than most if not all preceding writers ; 
 and partly on the fact that, as far at least as ab- 
 stract or simple ideas are concerned, and even 
 farther, it is still extensively denied, and needs to 
 be illustrated and enforced. 
 
 Indeed, since Berkeley's clear and explicit decla- 
 ration of his opinion on the subject, I scarcely 
 know a writer who has completely adopted and 
 thoroughly, accurately, and consistently, carried 
 out the denial of general and abstract ideas. 
 
 The philosophers subsequent to him, who appear 
 to me to have made the nearest approach to this 
 (and even Berkeley himself only approached it) 
 arc Hume and Dr. Thomas Brown ; and with these 
 may be joined one or two more recent writers of 
 
 some arguments which I hope will pu^ it beyond all doubt and 
 controversy." It is marvellous how Hume could write this 
 in face of the long controversy which had been carried on 
 century after century between the Nominalists and Realists. 
 He had only to turn to the writings of Hobbes to see the 
 doctrine which he treats as a discovery of Berkeley's, stated 
 with the utmost clearness and precision. Mr. Stewart has 
 incidentally noticed Ilumu'd historical lapse on the point 
 before us.
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 29 
 
 repute, in the present century. Still in all these 
 authors, amidst clear enunciations of the truth, are 
 to be found apparent inaccuracies, inconsistencies, 
 or infelicities of exposition. Of such an assertion 
 some proof may be reasonably required ; but since 
 to produce it would involve considerable detail, I 
 will consign it to a separate letter. 
 
 As an instance that abstract ideas ideas of a 
 non-representative character continue to be main* 
 tained down to the present time, I may cite Sir 
 William Hamilton, who every where admits the 
 existence of abstract notions, and specifically 
 asserts that there are thoughts which " cannot be 
 represented in the imagination, as the thought sug- 
 gested by a general term : " * which is directly 
 contrary to my doctrine that we have none but 
 representative ideas, and that the thoughts called 
 up by general terms are, in all cases, thoughts of 
 particular objects or events, physical or mental, 
 although they may be in trains or groups ; that in 
 a word there are no distinctive mental phenomena 
 induced or implied by those terms. Indeed the 
 wholeof this distinguished author's writings abound 
 with the recognition and assertion of abstract 
 notions. Amongst the rest he maintains that we 
 
 * Sir "Win. Hamilton's edition of Reid's Works, p. 360. 
 The assertion here quoted is not in reference to any restricted 
 meaning of the term imagination, since it is made without limita- 
 tion and would consequently apply to general terms denoting 
 visible objects as well as to any others.
 
 80 PHILOSOPHY 07 TUB HUMAN MIND. ' 
 
 have abstract ideas of space and time, the non- 
 entity of which I have taken some pains to show. 
 
 If I wanted further examples, I might find them 
 in abundance in writers who, although of high 
 standing in mathematical or physical science, can 
 scarcely take equal rank as metaphysicians, such as 
 DP. Whewell and Mr. de Morgan, whose dissertations 
 about ideas present an ample and tempting field 
 for criticism and comment, to any one who has 
 leisure to enter upon it. 
 
 I am not here contending, you will observe, that 
 my views on these latter points are correct the 
 evidence on that point must be sought in the body 
 of the original letters themselves but that while 
 they have eminent authorities more or less in their 
 favour, they are at variance with those of recent 
 writers competent to form their own opinions ; and 
 consequently that the whole subject still requires 
 to be discussed and to be placed in fresh lights. 
 
 You will observe too that in claiming some 
 degree of novelty or in pointing out instances of 
 departure from the track of my predecessors in the 
 treatment of various questions, I frequently use the 
 qualification " as far as I know," or other equiva- 
 lent phrases, because it is quite possible in the 
 abundance of extant works that preceding writers, 
 without my being aware of it notwithstanding a 
 pretty extensive reading on the subject or in some 
 cases without my remembering what ought not to 
 have escaped recollection, may have been before- 
 hand with me in some of my comments and specu-
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 31 
 
 lations. Should this be the case, I should feel 
 obliged if you or any other critic would do me the 
 favour to name the works and quote the passages 
 in which such anticipations when they are of any 
 importance are to be found ; or, if this is too much, 
 at least to indicate them by particular references. 
 
 I shall have unaffected pleasure in becoming 
 acquainted with such coincidences and yielding to 
 the authors who have forestalled me all the honour 
 of priority. 
 
 It is not surely for the mental philosopher above 
 all others (although we authors of whatever de- 
 scription are weak creatures in this respect) to 
 indulge the feeling expressed in the trite saying 
 u Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixere," a saying 
 which is or ought to be less applicable to the 
 searcher after truth the man of science or the 
 metaphysician, than to the creator of emotion 
 the wit or the poet. In the prosecution of inquiry 
 there is always, as every one must admit, great 
 reason for satisfaction in finding conclusions which 
 we have reached in the course of our own thinking, 
 clearly laid down and proved by others before us. 
 It may fairly be questioned, indeed, whether, on 
 the whole, the confirmation obtained from the con- 
 currence of independent thinkers in the same views, 
 does not yield a higher pleasure than mere priority 
 in discovery. 
 
 An author who is desirous of assisting the pro- 
 gress of knowledge may be thus placed in an agree- 
 able kind of dilemma. If his views should prove
 
 32 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 to have been anticipated he will have the solid 
 satisfaction of being confirmed in them by the con- 
 currence of others ; and thus, feeling more sure of 
 his ground, he will be Better prepared to essay a 
 further advance ; if, on the other hand, they have 
 not been anticipated, although he will lose in that 
 case the satisfaction described, he will enjoy the 
 elevating thought of having probably done some- 
 tiling towards the attainment of truth, even were 
 it only by the promulgation of some new form of 
 error. On either supposition, if the speculations 
 have proceeded from earnest inquiry and from any 
 real insight into the subject, they will bear unmis- 
 takable marks of having been " cast in the mould 
 of his own mind," and so far be of genuine value. 
 You will, nevertheless, see the propriety of such 
 a one holding himself excused from admitting on 
 the bare assertion of any critics or commentators 
 whatever, that he has been forestalled in such of 
 his matured speculations as wear to him some 
 appearance of novelty. If he possesses any accu- 
 rate and competent knowledge of the history and 
 actual state of the philosophical doctrines discussed 
 a knowledge undoubtedly very difficult to be 
 acquired by either author or critic there is no 
 call upon him to surrender his own convictions in 
 this respect to any thing short of actual proof. 
 But on these points I say no more. The question 
 of priority or novelty or originality, is, after all, a 
 petty question beside that of truth, although truth
 
 SUMMARY RECAPITULATION. 33 
 
 itself requires that, whenever it is agitated, it shall 
 be justly settled. 
 
 I cannot refrain from appending to the explana- 
 tions now concluded, an extract from a letter 
 addressed to our distinguished countryman Dr. 
 Thomas Young by the celebrated French philoso- 
 pher Fresnel, in reference to some discoveries in 
 Physical Optics which appear to have been inde- 
 pendently achieved by both. If the writer of the 
 following passage had not quite attained the philo- 
 sophic spirit which I have attempted to describe, he 
 must be allowed to have approached it, and not to 
 have been insensible to the real advantage flowing 
 even from the misfortune of having been forestalled. 
 " When we believe," says Fresnel, " that we have 
 made a discovery, it is not without regret that we 
 find that another has made it before us ; and I will 
 frankly confess to you, Sir, that such Avas the feel- 
 ing I experienced, when M. Arago showed me that 
 there were only a small number of observations 
 really new in my original memoir. But if any 
 thing could console me for not having the advan- 
 tage of priority, it is that it has brought me into 
 contact with a philosopher who has enriched phy- 
 sical science with so great a number of important 
 discoveries, a circumstance which has not a little 
 contributed to increase my own confidence in the 
 theory which I have adopted." * 
 
 * Life of Dr. Thoraaa Young, by Dr. Peacock. 
 L>
 
 34 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 THE THEORY OP PERCEPTION PROPOUNDED BY 
 DR. REID. 
 
 WHEN I was treating the subject of perception, I 
 did not deem it necessary to enter into an exami- 
 nation of Dr. Reid's views regarding it, partly to 
 avoid wearying the reader, and partly because I 
 thought the difference between his doctrines and 
 mine would be sufficiently obvious, to any one who 
 felt an interest in the matter, from my classification 
 of the phenomena of consciousness and the accom- 
 panying elucidations. 
 
 On more mature consideration, however, and 
 especially after your intimation that I have been 
 spoken of by several critics as a follower of Dr. 
 Reid, I have seen reason to conclude that a brief 
 commentary on his doctrines regarding this part of 
 philosophy might not be superfluous or misplaced. 
 What is more important, it will give me an oppor- 
 tunity of more fully explaining the peculiar views 
 I entertain of the relation in which sensation and 
 perception stand to each other. 
 
 Dr. Reid, it cannot be doubted, virtually denied, 
 in several parts of his writings, the direct perccp-
 
 REID'S TI1EORY OF PERCEPTION. 35 
 
 tion-of external objects, although not consistently 
 with many express declarations. His theory is 
 that physical impressions on the organs of the 
 senses produce sensations, and that these sensations 
 suggest to the mind external objects, in the same 
 way that signs suggest the things signified by them. 
 Thus, to quote his own words, " When I see an 
 object the appearance which the colour of it makes 
 may be called the sensation which suggests to me 
 some external thing as its cause." 
 
 That this doctrine of Reid's should have made 
 any way amongst philosophers is to me marvellous. 
 I cannot recognise in my own experience such a 
 process as the sensation of colour suggesting an 
 external thing. I directly and immediately see 
 the coloured external object. You will not fail to 
 observe, in particular, that the word suggest as Dr. 
 Keid uses it, implies that the object suggested is 
 not present to the organs of sense. He compares 
 the process to that of signs suggesting the things 
 which they denote ; but when a sign (e.g. a written 
 word) suggests the thing signified, it is under the 
 two conditions that the thing signified is or may be 
 absent and that it has been previously known in 
 connexion with the sign. Here, then, unless we 
 can perceive absent things, there is undoubtedly a 
 virtual denial of the direct perception of external 
 objects (although not consistently as I have already 
 said with numerous express declarations) and more- 
 over an assertion that the sensation suggests a
 
 36 PniTvOsornY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 thing previously unknown and unconnected with 
 it. Taking suggestion in its ordinary sense in 
 the sense indeed required by the analogy employed 
 by himself he might I think with equal pro- 
 priety have maintained that a proper name could 
 suggest to him the image or likeness of a man 
 whom he had never seen. 
 
 If in spite of this unfortunate comparison to 
 signs and things signified, we were to give Dr. 
 Reid, all the benefit which may be derived from his 
 distinction of suggestion into natural and artificial 
 and, carrying concession even farther, construe the 
 word to mean originating something before un- 
 known bringing a thing into the mind instead of 
 bringing it to mind *, the doctrine would cer- 
 tainly be quit of one objection, but others would 
 remain. The theory would still be that a sensation 
 is always interposed between the percipient and the 
 .-external object, or, to state it in its least vulnerable 
 form, that we perceive external objects by first 
 having sensations ; that sensations are a primary 
 and perceptions a secondary state of mind ; that 
 the former invariably precede the latter. The 
 doctrine so modified may be given in his own 
 words : " the impression," he says, " made upon the 
 organ, nerves, and brain, is followed by a sensation, 
 
 * Mr. Stewart, in explanation of this point, says that Dr. Reid 
 employs the word to comprehend not only the intimations which 
 are the result of experience, but those which result from the 
 original frame of the human mind. Dissertation, p. 167.
 
 UKID'S THEORY OP PERCEPTION. 37 
 
 and this sensation is followed by the perception of 
 the object." * 
 
 The most curious passage, however, asserting 
 such a succession is the following : 
 
 "The impression made upon the nerves arid 
 brain is performed behind the scenes and the mind 
 sees nothing of it. But every such impression by 
 the laws of the drama is followed by a sensation, 
 which is the first scene exhibited to the mind, and 
 this scene is quickly succeeded by another^ which is 
 the perception of the object." f Here there is 
 nothing about signs and suggestion : the sensations 
 and perceptions are spoken of as equally "exhibited 
 to the mind," the former not signifying but only 
 preceding the latter. 
 
 Now although we may have, as I shall proceed 
 to explain, certain sensations along with the per- 
 ception of external objects, the latter is in such 
 cases as instantaneous and direct as the former ;J 
 the one is no more secondary than the other ; there 
 is no succession as here represented ; neither are a 
 sensation and a perception in the case of all the 
 senses necessarily conjoined. To this last point I 
 
 * Inquiry into the Human Mind. See chapters ii. and vi. 
 
 | In another passage both sensation and perception are 
 ascribed to inspiration. " \Ve are inspired with the sensation, 
 and we are inspired with the corresponding perception by means 
 unknown." Inquiry into the Human Miiul, chap. vi. beet. 21. 
 
 \ That "sensation proper and perception proper" are simul- 
 taneous, is maintained against Reid by his editor. See Ilamil- 
 tou'a edition, p. 186. 
 
 l> 3
 
 38 1'IllLOSOPUY OF THE HUMAN HIND. 
 
 entreat your particular attention as the affirmative 
 is expressly maintained by Reid, Stewart, and 
 Hamilton, however they may vary on other points 
 connected with it. Had it not been for their 
 erroneous views, as I take them to be, regarding 
 sensation, I should scarcely have troubled you with 
 the present letter. 
 
 In the whole of this doctrine, the author has, I 
 think, confounded together matters which ought 
 to be kept separate, and has misconceived what 
 actually takes place. On referring to the classifica- 
 tion of the phenomena of consciousness already 
 presented to you in a former letter, you will find 
 that I have there put down bodily sensations as of 
 a distinct genus and even of a distinct order from 
 acts of perceiving ; but it is unquestionable that 
 we frequently have sensations of this kind at the 
 same time that we perceive external objects ; and 
 we have them not only in other parts of the body 
 but in the very organs through which we perceive. 
 
 In the case of touch, when I tactually perceive 
 an external object, as, for example, the pen I hold 
 in my hand, I am conscious also of perceiving it 
 by means of a certain part of the body, namely 
 the thumb and fingers. Here is doubtless a bodily 
 sensation combined with the perception of an ex- 
 ternal object; but the first does not suggest or 
 necessarily introduce the second. We have as- 
 suredly the feeling that we possess thumbs and 
 fingers before the pen is taken up, and so far it is
 
 REID'S THEORY OF PERCEPTION. 39 
 
 prior to the act of perceiving ; but perceiving the 
 pen and feeling that we perceive it with a certain 
 part of the body must be simultaneous and in- 
 separable. 
 
 With the sense of sight the case is different. 
 When I see an object under ordinary circumstances, 
 I am not conscious of any affection in the organ of 
 sight. I am conscious of perceiving the object at 
 some distance but not of any sensation in the eye 
 itself. It is quite true that even in the exercise of 
 sight I may have such a sensation. When I look 
 upon a shining object, it may be so dazzling as to 
 occasion a pain felt to be localized in the organ of 
 sight ; but the object itself you will observe is not 
 perceived to be there, and this clearly shows what 
 it is to have a bodily sensation and what it is to 
 perceive. 
 
 Even Dr. Reid admits that visual perception 
 may be disjoined from sensation. After remarking 
 that the perceptions we have might have been (as 
 I contend they are) immediately connected with 
 the impressions on our organs without any inter- 
 vention of sensations, he adds, " this last seems 
 really to be the case in one instance, to wit, in our 
 perception of the visible figure of bodies."* 
 
 * How Dr. Reid reconciled this with a passage before quoted 
 from him, designating " the appearance which the colour of the 
 object makes, the sensation which suggests the external object," 
 it is not easy to see, since visible ligure cannot be perceived 
 without colour. It is peihups part of that doctrine of visible 
 
 v 4
 
 40 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 What has been said of sight applies to hearing. 
 When we hear we have not necessarily any bodily 
 sensation localized in the ears. We perceive ex- 
 ternal sounds without feeling the body to be 
 affected in that part unless they are so loud as to 
 produce uneasiness or unless the organ is in a 
 morbid condition. 
 
 A similar observation may be made as to smell- 
 ing, but is not applicable to touching, and not 
 perhaps to tasting, in both of which there is a 
 feeling that perception is taking place in a certain 
 part of the body. 
 
 In strict accordance with these observations we 
 find that pain experienced in the eye is felt through 
 the instrumentality of a different nerve from that 
 which is the medium of seeing external objects. A 
 nerve possessed of a quality totally different from 
 that of the optic nerve, extends over all the ex- 
 terior surfaces of the eye, and gives to those 
 surfaces their delicate sensibility.* 
 
 Thus my definition of a bodily sensation is " an 
 affection felt to be in some part of the body, 
 whether attended or not by a discernment of any 
 
 figure which even his admirer Duguld Stewart confesses himself 
 incapable of entering into [Dissertation, p. 66.] Nor is Reid 
 consistent in what he expressly says about colour, sometimes 
 representing it as a sensation suggesting a perception, sometimes 
 as a perception, or at least a something suggested. See Inquiry, 
 fliiip. 6. beet. 8. 
 
 The Hand, by Sir Charles Bell, p. 161.
 
 REID'S TIIEORT OF PERCEPTION. 41 
 
 thing different from or external to the sentient 
 being : " while my definition of perception is " dis- 
 cerning something different from or external to the 
 percipient being, whether attended or not by a 
 bodily sensation." 
 
 In these particular views of sensation and per- 
 ception, and of the connexion between them, I 
 differ fundamentally, as already indicated, not 
 only from Dr. Reid but also from Dugald Stewart 
 and Sir \Vm. Hamilton ; all of whom, although they 
 disagree more or less in details, accord in the main ; 
 arid they especially unite in asserting (save in the 
 single exceptional case of Dr. Reid's before men- 
 tioned) that sensation as a distinct phenomenon 
 always accompanies the perception of external 
 objects.* 
 
 Eminent authorities combining to support the 
 same theory, ought to stimulate a dissentient to 
 rigorous and repeated examination of the grounds 
 of his dissent. Such, in the case before us, I have 
 bestowed. The account I have given of these 
 
 * Sir Win. Hamilton may not always appear consistent in 
 regard to this invariable concomitance. In one place [Discus- 
 sions, p. 67], he says, " Perception and sensation, the objective 
 and subjective [a curious use of these terms], though both always 
 co-existent, are always in the inverse ratio of each other ; " 
 while in other places [Reid's Works, pp. 248, 821], he main- 
 tains it is not necessary that sensation should precede per- 
 ception. But there is no inconsistency. In the latter passages 
 he does not deny concomitance but merely sequence the ante- 
 cedence of sensation to perception.
 
 42 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 mental phenomena, is a faithful and well-considered 
 description of what I am myself conscious of. 
 
 Sir \Vm. Hamilton has entered into an elaborate 
 consideration of Dr. Reid's whole theory of per- 
 ception, arranging in separate order the passages 
 favouring the doctrine of immediate perception 
 (denominated by Sir William, Presentationism or 
 Natural Realism) and those favouring the doctrine 
 of mediate perception (in Sir William's language 
 Egoistical Representationism). On a comparison 
 of these dissonant passages, he finally comes to the 
 conclusion that his predecessor did in reality con- 
 found the two doctrines here mentioned. Speaking 
 of Reid's erroneous criticism (as he thinks it) of 
 Arnauld's doctrine on the subject, namely, that it 
 was inconsistent with itself, he proceeds: 
 
 " This plainly shows that he [Reid] had not 
 realized to himself a clear conception of the two 
 doctrines of Presentationism and Egoistical Repre- 
 sentationism, in themselves and in their contrasts. 
 But it also proves that when the conditions and 
 consequences of the latter scheme, even in its purest 
 form, were explicitly enounced, that he was then 
 sufficiently aware of their incompatibility with the 
 doctrine which he himself maintained a doctrine, 
 therefore, it may be fairly contended (though not 
 in his hands clearly understood, far less articulately 
 developed) substantially one of Natural Realism."* 
 
 licid'a Work*, p. 823.
 
 REID'S THEOBY OF PERCEPTION. 43 
 
 The same author adds that the theory of sugges- 
 tion so explicitly maintained in the " Inquiry," is 
 not repeated in the later work, the " Essays on the 
 Intellectual Powers," and that therefore Reid may 
 have become doubtful as to its tendency. 
 
 The term suggestion may not perhaps be found, 
 but the theory that there is in perception a sign 
 and a thing signified (which virtually implies it) is 
 plainly re-asserted in the Essays. " Every different 
 perception," he there says, " is conjoined with a 
 sensation proper to it. The one is the sign, the other 
 the thing signified. They coalesce in the imagi- 
 nation." * 
 
 I have said that this phraseology is virtually the 
 same as using the word suggestion, but it is in fact 
 more objectionable, inasmuch as although suggestion 
 may be explained to mean (awkwardly enough it 
 is true) the original introduction of something into 
 the mind, a sign cannot with any propriety bo 
 spoken of as signifying (and indeed cannot signify) 
 any thing not previously known. 
 
 My own conclusion is that Reid while he retained 
 his theory as first propounded, was utterly uncon- 
 scious of its being in that shape at all inconsistent 
 with holding a direct knowledge of the external 
 world. He had not in fact a clear insight into the 
 subject, and as a consequence held incompatible 
 doctrines. 
 
 II. chap. xvi.
 
 44 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 But a Btill more extraordinary unconsciousness 
 of inconsistency in relation to the same question, 
 appears to me to be exhibited by his learned editor, 
 an examination of whose singular opinions on some 
 points in the theory of perception, I will reserve for 
 a separate letter. 
 
 Before taking leave of Dr. Reid, however, I must 
 not omit to notice his supposition that by subvert- 
 ing as he claims to have done the doctrine of inter- 
 mediate ideas as separate entities third things 
 in perception, he and those who took the same view 
 with him, destroyed Berkeley's theory of Idealism. 
 
 This was a great mistake in which he was joined 
 by Dugald Stewart, and to my surprise counte- 
 nanced, in one part of his comments at least, by Sir 
 Win. Hamilton.* 
 
 Berkeley fully accorded with Reid that in per- 
 ception there are only two entities, the percipient 
 and that which is perceived ; but while Reid fol- 
 lowing the common view regarded and called the 
 perceived things, external objects, Berkeley called 
 them ideas, the difference on the part of the latter 
 
 In reference to a passage in Reid ^overturning (as that 
 writer declares) the whole ideal system, Sir Win. Hamilton lias 
 the following note : " It only overturns that Idealism founded 
 on the elumsy hypothesis of ideas being something different, 
 both from the reality they represent, and from the mind con- 
 templating their representation, and whieh also derives such 
 ideas from without. This doctrine may subvert the Idta/ism 
 of Jitrtstlty, but it even supplies u basis for au Idealism like 
 that of Fichte." Iteufs \Vork$ > p. TJ8.
 
 REID'S THEORY 'OF PERCEPTION. 45 
 
 being BO far only nominal. The real difference was 
 that he endowed his ideas with several peculiar 
 attributes positive and negative (all fictitious) 
 which could not be predicated of objects ; and more 
 especially assumed without any possible proof that 
 in virtue of being ideas (f. e. really, in virtue of his 
 calling them ideas) these entities could exist only 
 when perceived. But he never taught that there 
 are both objects and ideas, The subversion, there- 
 fore, (whether due to Reid or not) of the doctrine 
 of intermediate ideas in perception as distinct 
 entities third things left Berkeley's theory un- 
 touched. This was shown, indeed, by Dr. Thos. 
 Brown. It is now, I think, generally admitted 
 that Dr. Reid did not fully comprehend the theory 
 which he assailed, and he certainly exhibited his 
 misapprehension of it in a way which, it is to be 
 regretted, exposed him to inevitable ridicule.* 
 
 * I can by no means, however, concur in the judgment pro- 
 nounced by a recent author, that tho Inquiry into the Human 
 Mind "is a very shallow and feeble performance." See "Locke's 
 Writings and Philosophy," by Edward Tugart, p. 31.
 
 46 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 THE DOCTRINES OF Bill WILLIAM HAMILTON BKOABDINO 
 PEUCEPTION. 
 
 SIB WM. HAMILTON'S doctrines on the subject of 
 perception appear to me even more singular and 
 incongruous with each other than those of Dr. Reid, 
 although they do not manifest the qualities just 
 named on the same points, and the more recent 
 writer seems as unconscious of any inconsistency 
 in what he teaches as his predecessor. 
 
 In his edition of the Works of the latter he 
 makes the following dogmatic assertion : " As not 
 here present an immediate knowledge of an object 
 distant in space is impossible."* Now mark the 
 reason assigned : " For," he continues, " as beyond 
 the sphere of our organs and faculties, it cannot be 
 known by them in itself." 
 
 This is surely much like saying " it cannot be 
 known because it cannot be known." What is 
 meant by the sphere of our organs and faculties ? 
 To say that a distant object is beyond this sphere, 
 according to the only interpretation of the phrase 
 
 * Works of Dr. Reid, edited by Sir Win. Hamilton, p. 810.
 
 DOCTRINES OP SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON. 47 
 
 which I can think of, seems to be at once begging 
 the question. 
 
 But the most notable fallacy lurks in the term 
 " immediate " when he affirms " an immediate 
 knowledge of an object distant in space is impos- 
 sible." He had previously characterized it us " a 
 contradiction in terms." * A few words will suffice 
 to show that it is neither one nor the other ; and 
 that the assertions just quoted involve a confusion 
 of what is physically immediate with what is men- 
 tally immediate. As this distinction is exceedingly 
 important I must take some pains to elucidate it. 
 
 It is allowed on all hands that a distant object 
 cannot be known without a physical medium be- 
 tween the object and the percipient. In the case 
 of all the senses we can trace the intermediation of 
 physical agents such as light, air, and nerves. 
 Even in cases where the object is in contact with 
 the organ, as in feeling by the touch, the nerves 
 which are always interposed may be strictly re- 
 garded as a material medium between the perci- 
 pient and the object ; as a substance, namely, which 
 must be affected before perception ensues, but of 
 whose affections requisite for that end we arc 
 insensible. 
 
 As all this is, I believe, uncontroverted, as physical 
 intervention is universally admitted, we must con- 
 sider the author before us to mean that there can 
 
 * Reid's "Works, p. 305, note : " An immediate perception of 
 distant is a contradiction in terras."
 
 48 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 be no mentally immediate knowledge of an object 
 distant in space ; t. e. no knowledge of it without 
 the intervention of 'some other act or state or mode 
 of consciousness. Thus Dr. Reid's theory which I 
 have just examined affirms a mediate knowledge of 
 external objects inasmuch as he maintains that it 
 comes to us not directly but by means of a state of 
 mind called in his vocabulary "sensation:" and 
 in like manner Sir Wm. Hamilton's doctrine now 
 under consideration must also be construed to 
 affirm an intermediate mental state. 
 
 This, however, according to my own personal 
 experience is contrary to fact. As soon as any 
 object is placed before the organs of sight, we see 
 it instantaneously and we see that it is distant from 
 us. We are conscious of no other mental state 
 preceding the perception ; and as to the interme- 
 diation of light and of our own bodily structure, if 
 a thousand physical actions in them could be traced 
 as interposed, the discovery could not affect the 
 mental act or render it less immediate. The utter 
 incompetence of a knowledge, however complete, of 
 the physical processes concerned in perception to 
 modify the resulting state of consciousness or to 
 alter the object perceived, was shown in a former 
 letter. 
 
 Hence if Sir Wm. Hamilton's doctrine that an 
 immediate perception of a distant object is im- 
 possible and the assertion of it self-contradictory 
 means physically immediate, the answer is that no
 
 DOCTRINES OP SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON. 49 
 
 one maintains an immediate perception in that sense : 
 if on the other hand it means mentally immediate, 
 it affirms what is contrary to fact. 
 
 There are two theories, certainly, still current, 
 which teach that there is something mental inter- 
 posed between the object and the percipient. 
 
 The first is the theory that we perceive only our 
 own mental states produced by the objects, and have 
 no direct knowledge of the objects themselves; 
 which although still maintained by several philoso- 
 phers, is expressly repudiated by the author before 
 us ; and could not be of any avail in the present 
 case, inasmuch as it manifestly includes all objects, 
 proximate as well as remote, the latter of which 
 alone arc here in question. 
 
 The second is the Theory of Vision, due to the 
 fertile imagination of Berkeley, which insists that 
 we cannot see objects to be distant, but obtain the 
 knowledge of their being so by the intervention of 
 touch, and that the universal conviction of man- 
 kind (philosophers excepted) of their seeing objects 
 to be at different distances from each other and 
 from themselves, or rather their perfect freedom 
 from doubt on the subject, is altogether an illusion. 
 
 Now as far as the Theory of Vision is concerned, 
 Sir Wm. Hamilton is a Berkeleian, although not a 
 thorough -going one, as I shall show by-and-by ; and 
 in that character must of course maintain that our 
 sight of distant objects as distant is not immediate ; 
 that we seem to ourselves to perceive them visually
 
 50 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 to be distant through an association with tactual 
 impressions or conceptions. But if this is consistent 
 in him, he has no grounds for charging others with 
 self-contradiction who maintain the direct and im- 
 mediate perception of distant visible objects. It is, 
 in truth, a difference about a matter of fact, and 
 involves no self-contradiction any way. 
 
 It may be presumed, therefore, that in the 
 passnge already quoted Sir \Vm. Hamilton had 
 not in view any reference to Berkeley's peculiar 
 theory of vision, and this is confirmed by another 
 consideration to which I shall have shortly to call 
 your attention. 
 
 But whether he had or had not any reference to 
 the Berkelcian hypothesis, he is equally mistaken 
 in his award against the direct vision of distant 
 objects. If he had, he is wrong in pronouncing 
 that the doctrine of immediate perception, which is 
 a question of fact to be determined by evidence, is 
 a contradiction in terms. If he had not, he is 
 wrong in not discriminating the mentally immediate 
 and the physically immediate ; and in transferring 
 the stigma of self-contradiction from a proposition 
 embodying one meaning and maintained by nobody, 
 to a proposition embodying the other meaning, to 
 which the imputation is wholly inapplicable. 
 
 And now for the circumstance an extraordinary 
 feature in the case to which I have already 
 alluded, and which most clearly and conclusively 
 shows that Berkeley's theory was not in his mind.
 
 DOCTRINES OF 8IK WILLIAM HAMILTON. 51 
 
 While that philosopher denies merely that we see 
 objects to be at any distance from us, Sir Wm. 
 Hamilton in his doctrine falls into the still greater 
 extravagance (although it may not be apparent at 
 first) of denying that we perceive distant objects 
 at all ; and as this must refer principally to per- 
 ception by sight, it is denying that we see such 
 objects in any way. They do not even seem to us, 
 on this hypothesis, to be in the eye or in the mind 
 as Berkeley curiously enough propounds in his 
 Essay. To the sense of sight they are nowhere. 
 At this statement (which doubtless you will think 
 incredible, but which I shall forthwith proceed to 
 confirm) every one will be ready to exclaim, " If 
 we do not see objects which are distant from us, 
 what do we see when such objects are before us ? 
 We undeniably see something what is it ? " 
 
 The learned author proceeds to enlighten us on 
 this point : he tells us in unmistakable language 
 that the precise object of perception is not any 
 distant reality, " for we are percipient of nothing but 
 what is in proximate contact, in immediate relation 
 with our organs of sense." * 
 
 In another place he is still more explicit and 
 particular, although perhaps at some expense of 
 consistency. " The total object of visual percep- 
 tion" he says, " is thus neither the rays in them- 
 selves, nor the organ in itself, but the rays and the 
 
 * Reid's Works, p. 814. 
 E -2
 
 52 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 living organ in reciprocity : this organ is not, how- 
 ever, to be viewed as merely the retina, but as the 
 whole tract of nervous fibre pertaining to the 
 
 sense."* 
 
 Now as " the object of visual perception" can be 
 no other than that which we see, this is in fact as- 
 serting that we see the rays of light, the retina, and 
 the nerves connected with it, all in a state of reci- 
 procity (whatever that may mean); and that we 
 see nothing else : whereas in simple truth, as every 
 one on a moment's reflection must be sensible, we 
 see none of these things, and it is unaccountable 
 how any man of common acuteness could have been 
 betrayed into so glaringly erroneous a statement. 
 It seems almost superfluous to contradict it in 
 detail by saying that this is purely a question of 
 consciousness ; that we are not conscious of per- 
 ceiving either the rays, or the retina, or the con- 
 nected tract of nervous fibre, or the rays and the 
 living organ in reciprocity. The man who is to- 
 tally ignorant of the existence of these physical and 
 physiological facts, sees objects precisely in the 
 same way and quite as well as the philosopher who 
 possesses the greatest amount 'of knowledge re- 
 specting them. Sir William, in other places, 
 
 * Reid's Works, p. 160. Lest it should be supposed that these 
 are merely casual expressions, I refer the reader to the following 
 pa^es in the same volume, 145, 159, 186, 247, 267, 299, 302, 
 ;H).>, and 810, for passages of similar tenor, the number of them 
 proving that they proceeded from a deliberate theory.
 
 DOCTRINES OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON. 5$ 
 
 insists that perceiving objects and being conscious 
 of them, are one and the same thing ; yet, in such 
 passages as these, he teaches that we are percipient 
 of things which we have not the slightest conscious- 
 ness that we perceive ; or, to put it differently, that 
 the majority of human beings in the ordinary ex- 
 ercise of vision perceive and therefore are conscious 
 of, material and organic circumstances the existence 
 of which they never even suspect. Here we have 
 indeed a contradiction in terms. 
 
 This extraordinary doctrine is the precursor of 
 other incredible and not altogether congruous or 
 coherent paradoxes. Dr. Reid having remarked 
 that people in general " are firmly persuaded that 
 when ten men look at the sun or the moon, they 
 all see the same individual object," Sir William 
 asserts that " so far from all men who look upon 
 the sun perceiving the same object, in reality every 
 individual in this instance perceives a different ob- 
 ject, nay a different object in each several eye."* 
 
 "Without stopping to discuss the compatibility or 
 incompatibility of this paradox with the preceding 
 one, I must request you to bear in mind that it is 
 from the pen of a writer who in other parts of the 
 same work strenuously maintains the doctrine which 
 he himself denominates Natural Realism, or in other 
 words the direct or immediate perception of the 
 external world. 
 
 * Reid's Works, p. 814. 
 
 3
 
 54 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 Thug his readers who have been led to regard 
 the question of Perception as steadfastly moored 
 by the learned professor and his predecessors in 
 the secure harbour of Natural Realism, find it 
 again set afloat by the very same hand that had 
 assisted in letting go the anchor. 
 
 Surely he had not reflected on the extraordi- 
 nary consequences flowing from the position he 
 has here taken consequences so obvious, and I 
 may say so monstrous, that I scarcely need to point 
 them out. A few of them may be nevertheless 
 exhibited for your amusement if not edification. 
 
 Permit me, however, instead of following up Sir 
 William's resplendent instance of the sun, in man- 
 aging which his own mental vision seems to have 
 been injuriously affected, " blasted," it, may be, " by 
 excess of light," to take the less dazzling and more 
 tractable case of the able professor himself, while 
 engaged in delivering a lecture to his class. Ac- 
 cording to the strange doctrine under review every 
 pupil directing his eyes to his teacher would per- 
 ceive a different object. Not being acquainted 
 with the number of pupils who are wise enough to 
 avail themselves of the prelections of so competent 
 an instructor, and numerical accuracy for the pur- 
 pose in view being unimportant, I will suppose at 
 hazard that there are a hundred watchful disciples 
 present on this hypothetical occasion ; on which 
 supposition there would be, according to the theory 
 before us, a hundred different objects actually per-
 
 DOCTRINES OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON. . 55 
 
 ceived, all wearing the appearance of the professor. 
 For the sake of simplification I will say nothing of 
 the second hundred due to binocular vision; "a 
 different object in each several eye." Now these 
 hundred perceived objects would be either real or 
 not real. If they were real, there would be a 
 hundred actual Sir Williams in the room. If, on 
 the other hand, they were not real, then inasmuch 
 as the whole hundred would, without exception, be 
 in the same predicament, there would not be one 
 real object perceived. The actual Sir William 
 would remain unseen, and might be literally de- 
 scribed as disappearing in the crowd. 
 
 But in either case how is the theory of a multi- 
 plicity of objects to be reconciled with the learned 
 author's position maintained with so much perti- 
 nacity that we not only perceive external objects, 
 not only are conscious of perceiving them, but are 
 conscious of the objects themselves ; especially if 
 we take it in combination with another doctrine on 
 which, very properly and consistently with his own 
 phraseology, he insists, namely the veracity of con- 
 sciousness? 
 
 According to these combined doctrines pupil A 
 is conscious of perceiving a certain object in the 
 professor's chair, nay is actually conscious of the 
 very professor himself, and the veracity of con- 
 sciousness being unimpeachable, he must be con- 
 scious of the real man, not of any illusive appearance 
 or phantasm : but pupil 13, at the same moment 
 
 x 4
 
 56 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 sees a different object in the chair, is conscious of a 
 different professor, and as his consciousness is also 
 veraciou. , there is indisputably a second real man. 
 In this way we are swept along by a logical torrent 
 to the inevitable conclusion that the room contains 
 a hundred veritable Sir Williams. 
 
 There is, to be sure, a refuge from these conse- 
 quences in falling back on our author's definition of 
 a visible object ; but a recourse to that only plunges 
 us into fresh difficulties. We should then have to 
 assume that every pupil instead of seeing the pro- 
 fessor at the distance of a few yards, is wholly 
 engaged in perceiving the rays of light reflected 
 upon himself from the lecturer's person together 
 with his own retina and the nervous tract con- 
 nected with it, all in reciprocity and forming " the 
 total object of visual perception:" i.e. he does not 
 see the object before his eyes but perceives and is 
 conscious of tilings of which at the moment he has 
 no cognizance, of which he may have never heard, 
 and of which the completes! ignorance would not 
 render his perception of the lecturer less perfect 
 than it would be with the fullest knowledge. 
 
 It is interesting to surmise 'how so acute and 
 thoughtful a philosopher as the editor of Reid is 
 allowed to be, could have fallen into these trans- 
 parent fallacies and self-contradictions. 
 
 The origin of such mistakes will I think be found, 
 first in his not clearly discerning, or not perhaps 
 uniformly bearing in mind, that the physical pro-
 
 DOCTRINES OP SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON. 57 
 
 cesses necessary to produce perception are one thing 
 and the mental effect the perception of the ob- 
 ject is another; that these must ever stand apart 
 as distinct in their nature ; and that the latter is 
 entirely unaffected by a knowledge or ignorance of 
 such physical processes, on the part of the perci- 
 pient : secondly in his not accepting the fact, not- 
 withstanding his Natural Realism, of our perceiving 
 external objects, as a simple and primary act of 
 consciousness not susceptible of any analysis or 
 explanation, whence it is vain attempting to trace 
 any mental event between the percipient and the 
 thing perceived; vain trying to express the fact 
 more simply or fully than by saying that he per- 
 ceives the object. Sir William, I may add, is not 
 quite original in these extraordinary speculations. 
 Dr. Thos. Brown (whom he had no great dispo- 
 sition to follow) falls into similar aberrations. 
 " There never is," he says, " in the strict philo- 
 sophic meaning of the phrase, perception of distant 
 things." * Again, " all which we truly see is the 
 light that is present at the retina." f 
 
 It is curious that the learned baronet in the pas- 
 sage about every spectator seeing a different object, 
 very closely approximates to those philosophers 
 whom he rightly considers as maintaining a very 
 
 * Sketch of a System of the Philosophy of the Human Mi ml, 
 p. 128. 
 
 | Ibid. p. H6.
 
 58 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 unphilosophical theory ; I mean (to avail myself of 
 his own nomenclature) the Cosmothetic Idealists. 
 
 In proof of this, take a passage from Professor 
 De Morgan's Formal Logic relative to the idea of a 
 horse. I have quoted it in a preceding Letter, but 
 as it is short I will here reproduce it. 
 
 " The idea of a horse," he says, " is the horse in 
 the mind: and we know no other horse. We admit 
 that there is an external object^ a horse which may 
 give a horse in the mind to twenty different persons ; 
 but no one of these twenty knows the object ; each 
 one only knows his idea. There is an object be- 
 cause each of the twenty persons receives an idea 
 without communicating with the others: so that 
 there is something external to give it them. But 
 when they talk about it, under the name of a 
 horse, they talk about their ideas."* 
 
 The difference between the two philosophers is 
 soon told : while one of them would maintain that 
 when twenty men look at a horse each man per- 
 ceives a different object ; whence there would ensue 
 on arithmetical result of twenty objects : the other 
 would insist that no object is seen but that every 
 man has in his mind a different idea ; whence there 
 would be a sum total of twenty ideas. 
 
 It is clear, however, that on both theories the 
 horse himself would not be perceived: he would 
 walk, trot, or gallop over the ground in complete 
 invisibility. 
 
 Pase 30.
 
 DOCTRINES OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON. 59 
 
 Hence I cannot for my own part divine how Sir 
 William can possibly escape being ranked (as far at 
 least as vision is concerned) with the Cosmothetic 
 Idealists or Hypothetical Realists, unless, indeed, 
 he may please to shelter himself under the appella- 
 tion of Cosmothetic Organist one who holds that 
 we do not perceive ideas but orgrms, played upon 
 (I am not punning) by rays of light ; and thence 
 comes to know in some inexplicable way that there 
 is an external world of invisible objects. 
 
 I have already adverted to the language employed 
 by the author on whom I am commenting, in refer- 
 ence to our perception of an external world. He 
 maintains the correctness and propriety of saying 
 that we are conscious of the objects themselves.* 
 This appears to me, I confess, an innovation in 
 language at once needless, at variance with custom, 
 and repugnant to good taste. 
 
 When we say we are conscious of anything, we 
 mean that it is a state or act or mode of conscious- 
 ness. Thus we are conscious of joy or sorrow, of 
 a pain in the head, of remembering a beautiful 
 landscape, of hearing the song of a blackbird : in 
 other words joy and sorrow and pain and remem- 
 bering and hearing, are modes of consciousness, or 
 mental phenomena. 
 
 So we are conscious of seeing a tree : t. e. seeing 
 
 " The assertion," he says, " that we can be conscious of an 
 act of knowledge without being conscious of its object, is 
 virtually suicidal." -*- Discutsions on Philosophy, p. 47.
 
 CO PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 a tree is a state of consciousness. But if, conform- 
 ing to Sir Wm. Hamilton's phraseology, we were to 
 say, " we are conscious of the tree," it would be 
 tantamount to calling the tree itself a state of con- 
 sciousness, which would not only be at variance 
 with custom but would set aside an important 
 distinction. 
 
 To explain : while all the operations and affec- 
 tions of the mind may be designated as modes of 
 consciousness, it is only some of them that can be 
 spoken of as having objects ; nor can we always use 
 the latter phrase in precisely the same sense. 
 
 We may, for example, speak of an idea being the 
 object of conception or contemplation, but in this 
 case the object admits of being only verbally or 
 logically discriminated from the operation ; it has 
 no distinct existence, but forms an integrant part of 
 the mental affection, and thus we may be said to be 
 conscious of it. 
 
 This is true of all objects spoken of as actually 
 present to the mind except in the single but very 
 comprehensive case of perceiving through the 
 organs of sense, of which the objects are external 
 things things which are present to the mind but 
 being separate entities are not states 'of conscious- 
 ness, although the perception of them comes under 
 that appellation ; and, consequently, it cannot be 
 said with any correctness that we are conscious of 
 thorn. We arc not conscious of anything which 
 has a distinct existence from ourselves; we simply
 
 DOCTRINES OP SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON. 61 
 
 perceive it. It may, it is true, be said that this is 
 only a question about terras, whether we shall 
 generalise the word * conscious ' in a greater or 
 less degree ; but even were this admitted, nothing 
 is to be gained by such a generalization, while the 
 power of marking an important distinction would 
 be lost as well as both usage and taste contra- 
 vened. 
 
 Before closing these strictures on Sir Wm. 
 Hamilton's views regarding Perception, it may be 
 worth while to take a passing glance at some 
 points in his opinions on the subject of Berkeley's 
 Theory of Vision, to which I have already alluded. 
 
 I have remarked that he is by no means a 
 thorough follower of Berkeley in that extraordinary 
 speculation. In the first place, he allows the pos- 
 sibility, nay the probability, of our Weing objects 
 to be external * without the aid of touch ; which 
 Berkeley altogether denies. At the same time he 
 asserts that the knowledge we have of distance 
 through the eye is in a great measure acquired ; 
 which is allowing that it is in some measure natural : 
 an admission also totally at variance with the 
 original hypothesis. He likewise acknowledges 
 that the theory is "provokingly found totally at 
 fault" f (his own phrase) in the case of the lower 
 animals ; " for we find," he adds, " that all the 
 animals who possess at birth the power of regulated 
 
 * Reid's Works, p. 177, note. f lbi(1 - 182 -
 
 62 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 motion (and these are those only through whom 
 the truth of the theory can be brought to the test 
 of a decisive experiment) possess also from birth 
 the whole apprehension of distance, &c., which 
 they are ever known to exhibit." * 
 
 It is marvellous that after such admissions, a 
 sagacious metaphysician like Sir Wm. Hamilton 
 should cling to the traditionary philosophic faith of 
 the eighteenth and ninetenth centuries, for they 
 amount in reality to a surrender of the whole 
 theory. 
 
 The position which Berkeley takes is, that it is 
 impossible for an object to be seen either as external 
 or as distant ; assigning a reason which, if relevant 
 at all, applies to the organs of vision in the lower 
 animals with as much cogency as to the eyes of 
 mankind. * 
 
 It is not, therefore, as Sir William makes it, a 
 question of degree but a question of absolute pos- 
 sibility or impossibility : and the admission that we 
 can see an inch before us upsets the whole doctrine. 
 Nor is it against the eye as human that Berkeley 
 alleges the incapacity to see distance ; but against 
 the eye as a peculiar organ adapted to the reception 
 of rays of light falling upon it in right lines, and 
 which, as fitted for its special functions, has, to 
 say the least, no superior excellence in man to that 
 manifested by it amongst many of the lower 
 
 * Reid's Works, p. 182.
 
 DOCTRINES OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON. 63 
 
 animals. The reason alluded to which is the 
 only one given by Berkeley is, I grant, and as I 
 have shown in another place*, exceedingly weak, 
 unmeaning, and confused, and has really no appli- 
 cability to the matter which it is intended to 
 prove : but such as it is, if it is good against the 
 human organ of vision, it is good against all 
 organs of vision whatever. The parity of the two 
 cases has, indeed, been slighted or hurried over by 
 the defenders of the good bishop, but any one who 
 takes the trouble to scrutinize the argument, will 
 see the asserted parity at once and that it is futal 
 to the theory. 
 
 Adam Smith without discerning this inevitable 
 conclusion, made the same admission with regard 
 to sight in the lower animals that Sir Win. Hamil- 
 ton confesses himself to have conceded with so 
 much unphilosophical reluctance. Who in truth 
 at all acquainted with such facts as the following 
 can possibly avoid it ? 
 
 " Sight," says Cuvier, " is extremely perfect in 
 birds, and they have the peculiar faculty of seeing 
 objects near and distant equally well. The means 
 by which this is effected are not satisfactorily ex- 
 plained, though a power of changing the convexity 
 of the eye is probably the proximate cause. Like 
 all other physical peculiarities, it is admirably 
 adapted to the mode of existence of the class ; a 
 
 * Review of Berkeley's Theory of Vision; also Theory of 
 Reasoning, Appendix.
 
 64 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 quick and perfect sight of objects nml perception 
 of distances is necessary to the rapidity of move- 
 ments and the securing of their prey to birds."* 
 
 It is afterwards said of eagles in the same work, 
 that their admirable power of vision enables them 
 " to distinguish their prey at an immense distance, 
 and they rush upon it with the velocity of an 
 arrow." f 
 
 Just indulge your imagination for a moment in 
 the exquisite supposition that the eagle learns dis- 
 tances by the touch ! 
 
 If I have appeared to bestow too much time and 
 labour in setting forth these erroneous views (as I 
 conceive them to be) I must allege the high autho- 
 rity of the author on whom I am commenting in 
 justification of the pains I have taken in pointing 
 them out. Any confusion and inconsistency in a 
 writer of his reputation must tend to produce a 
 painful kind of perplexity in the mind of the 
 earnest student. A philosopher of mature reflec- 
 tion may be able to detect such incongruities, and 
 to divine their sources, and will at all events expe- 
 rience little disturbance from them in his own well- 
 considered vieAvs; but it is in the process of 
 education chiefly that the work on which I have 
 animadverted is likely to be studied ; and it is the 
 young mind eager after knowledge that has to be 
 guarded from embarrassment. 
 
 * Cuvier'a Animal Kingdom, translated by Ed. Griffith, 
 vol. vi. p. 102. 
 f Page 223.
 
 GENERAL AND ABSTRACT IDEAS AND TERMS. 65 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 GENERAL AND ABSTRACT IDEAS AND TERMS, AS TREATED 
 BT BERKELEY, HUME, AND OTHER WRITERS OF A 
 MORE RECENT DATE. 
 
 I PROMISED in a preceding letter to furnish some 
 proof that the philosophers who had in recent 
 times maintained, more decidedly perhaps than any 
 others, the non-existence of general and abstract 
 ideas, had not, while so doing, steered altogether 
 clear of inconsistencies and inaccuracies, or, at any 
 rate, infelicities of exposition. 
 
 In attempting to fulfil the promise, I give prece- 
 dence to the distinguished author of " A Treatise 
 concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge." 
 
 Berkeley, while denying general and abstract 
 ideas as commonly understood, still teaches that a 
 particular idea may become general by being made 
 to represent or stand for all other particular ideas 
 of the same sort, just in the same way as a proper 
 name may become general.* 
 
 Surely there is here a want of due discrimina- 
 tion. 
 
 * Introduction to the Principles of Human Knowledge, 
 fleet. .12. 
 
 F
 
 66 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 The reason he assigns for the application of the 
 epithet " general " to an idea, namely, that it repre- 
 sents other ideas, would not be valid even if the 
 description of its function as representative were 
 correct : and further, if the epithet were allowed to 
 be appropriate, the meaning of it could not be the 
 same, the case being a totally different one from 
 the generalization of a name to which he likens it. 
 The justness of this objection will be more clearly 
 seen if we consider that the term " general," when 
 applied to names, means " common," or belonging 
 in common to the individuals of a genus or class. 
 
 A proper name may undoubtedly lose its parti- 
 cularity and become common or general by being 
 given to more objects than one, and will then 
 belong alike to each object : but a particular idea 
 can never in any analogous sense be applied to 
 other particular ideas or belong to them in com- 
 mon, and therefore cannot become general in the 
 same sense as a niime becomes so. 
 
 Moreover, if an idea can with any propriety be 
 called general because, as alleged, it represents a 
 class, so may an object ; for an object actually 
 perceived may represent other objects (whatever 
 may be meant by the process so designated) just as 
 well as an idea can represent other ideas : both 
 stand in the same relation (however it may be de- 
 scribed) to the other individuals of their respective 
 classes.
 
 GENERAL AND ABSTRACT IDEAS AND TERMS. 67 
 
 It is curious enough that Berkeley himself, with 
 apparent unconsciousness of what he is doing, 
 asserts the same thing ; for while attempting to 
 show how an idea may become general by this kind 
 of representation, he is actually engaged in showing 
 how an object, and incidentally a name, may be'come 
 general. 
 
 " Now," he says, (t if we will annex a meaning 
 to our words, and speak only of what we can con- 
 ceive, I believe that we shall acknowledge that an 
 idea which, considered in itself, is particular, be- 
 comes general by being made to represent or stand 
 for all other particular ideas of the same sort. To 
 make this plain by an example, suppose a geo- 
 metrician is demonstrating the method of cutting 
 a line in two equal parts. He draws, for instance, a 
 black line of an inch in length ; this, which in itself 
 is a particular line, is nevertheless, with regard to its 
 signification, general, since, as it is there used, it 
 represents all particular lines whatsoever ; so that 
 what is demonstrated of it, is demonstrated of all 
 lines, or, in other words, of a line in general. And 
 as that particular line becomes general by being 
 made a sign, so the name line, which taken abso- 
 lutely is particular, by being a sign is made gene- 
 ral. And as the former owes its generality, not 
 to its being the sign of an abstract or general line, 
 but of all particular right lines that may possibly 
 exist ; so the latter must be thought to derive its 
 
 r 2
 
 68 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. : 
 
 generality from tho same cause, namely, the various 
 lines which it indifferently denotes."* 
 
 Here you will observe we have general objects, 
 general ideas, and general names, and all asserted 
 to be general in the same sense and from the same 
 cause. 
 
 Yet it surely is anomalous and tends to confu- 
 sion to talk of a general line, t. e. a general object, 
 to call it general for no other reason really than its 
 belonging to a class and possessing qualities similar 
 to those possessed by the other individuals of the 
 class : and it seems to me equally anomalous to 
 speak of a general idea on account of its being in 
 the same predicament. 
 
 Such language may have arisen from the cir- 
 cumstance which occasionally happens, that when a 
 general term is in familiar use some one particular 
 idea is called up by it more readily than others : but 
 this, which is merely incidental, does not divest 
 the idea of its particularity (if I may speak of an 
 inconceivable process) nor does it remove a for- 
 midable objection to the expression that the par- 
 ticular idea represents the rest. The term " repre- 
 sent " is already pre-occupied in this connexion, 
 and has a strictly definite meaning: in common 
 metaphysical language an idea represents the object 
 of which it is the copy, and to apply the phrase as 
 Berkeley does is to render it ambiguous. 
 
 * Principles of Human Knowledge, Introduction, sect. 12.
 
 GENERAL AND ABSTRACT IDEAS AND TERMS. 69 
 
 At all events, if the terms " general " aiid " re- 
 present" are to be employed in these senses by 
 metaphysicians on account of the poverty of philo- 
 sophical -language, let it be clearly understood that 
 each of them is also used in another perfectly dis- 
 tinct acceptation. So long as the double meaning 
 is fully borne in mind, no great evil may ensue ; 
 but still the simpler and more effectual way of 
 avoiding the risk of ambiguity is, I venture to 
 think, restricting each of the words to one signifi- 
 cation.* 
 
 Hume, who substantially agrees with Berkeley, 
 contributes to the explanation of his predecessor 
 the somewhat inconsistent addition that an idea 
 becomes general by being annexed to a general 
 term which certainly does not mend the matter. 
 It is much like saying that when a private indi- 
 vidual consigns his affairs to a general agent who 
 is employed perhaps by fifty others, he by so doing 
 becomes himself in some way or other "general: "; 
 that he contracts that quality by placing his con- 
 
 This employment of the word general is in truth an in- 
 stance of that transfer of terms which the reader will find 
 explained in a subsequent letter in reference to the epithet 
 necessary. Should I be able to complete a third series of these 
 Letters, some of them would probably take up the subject of 
 language again at greater length, with the view of showing, 
 amongst other things, the unsuspected variety of modes in which 
 the same word is applied, and the erroneous inferences which 
 unavoidably ensue. 
 
 r 3
 
 70 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 cerns in the hands of one to whom it may be 
 appropriately attributed. 
 
 Turn the matter as you please, you will find 
 that a general idea is a solecism except in the 
 sense of an idea generally entertained, or present, 
 to the minds of a number of individuals, which is 
 an application of the epithet not here in question. 
 
 It may be worth while observing that Berkeley 
 prefers the term notion to that of idea in certain 
 cases, and, amongst the rest, in the case of " the 
 relations and habitudes between things:" which 
 seems to be in some measure an anticipation of 
 the views and language of Dr. Thomas Brown, who 
 exhibits the same preference. It would be digress- 
 ing too far to consider the accuracy or propriety 
 or consistency of such a distinction in the hands of 
 the former.* To me he appears by it to depart 
 from his previous doctrine. 
 
 Dr. Thomas Brown, both in his Lectures and in 
 the Inquiry into the relation of Cause and Effect, 
 which may be considered as containing his mature 
 and revised opinions, coincides with Berkeley and 
 Hume in denying general and abstract ideas as 
 usually held : but he at the same time insists that 
 we have general notions. In his explanation of 
 what he means by these, he is not very precise. 
 Sometimes he calls them " feelings of resemblance." 
 Thus, after remarking that the term quadniped 
 
 * See Principles of Human KnowKdye, particularly sec- 
 tion 142.
 
 GENERAL AND ABSTRACT IDEAS AND TERMS. 71 
 
 would not have been invented if we had not felt 
 that particular relation of similarity which it de- 
 notes, he proceeds : " The feeling of this resem- 
 blance, in certain respects, is the true general notion 
 or general idea, as it has been less properly called, 
 which the corresponding general term expresses." * 
 Again he speaks of it as " that general notion of 
 the relation of similarity in certain respects which 
 is signified by the general term, and," he adds, 
 (giving us another equivalent for general notion) 
 "without which relative suggestion, as a previous state 
 of mind, the general term would as little have been 
 invented as the names of John and AVilliam would 
 have been invented, if there had been no perception 
 of any individual being whatever to be denoted by 
 them." f In the immediately subsequent passage 
 he tells us, " that we have general relative feelings 
 of the resemblances of objects, and that our general 
 terms are significant of these," J adding, " and 
 limited, therefore, to the particular objects which 
 excite some common feelings of resemblance." 
 
 In the whole of the explanation of which these 
 extracts form a part, there is an obvious looseness 
 of phraseology and confusion of several things which 
 ought to be carefully discriminated, while there is 
 at the same time, it must be admitted, a display of 
 no little acuteness and ingenuity. 
 
 Nothing, surely, can be gained except indistinct- 
 
 * Lectures, vol. ii. p. 486. f Ibid. p. 5J2. 
 
 \ Ibid. 
 
 Y 4
 
 72 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MHTO. 
 
 ness by making an intellectual act into an emotional 
 affection, as he does when he transmutes " general 
 notions " into " feelings of resemblance " or rather 
 when he gives us these two phrases as equivalent 
 expressions. Where is the advantage of saying we 
 feel things to be related instead of we perceive or 
 discern them to be so ? * And in his frequent defi- 
 nitions of the meaning of a general term, he is not 
 content with confusing notions and feelings by mak- 
 ing it signify " a general notion " or " feeling of 
 resemblance," but sometimes he tells us it is the 
 name which we give " to the circumstances of felt 
 resemblance" f 
 
 The general term man, he afterwards says, ex- 
 presses " briefly those very general circumstances 
 of resemblance which we discover in all the indi- 
 viduals to whom that name is given."J 
 
 Thus he describes a general term as signifying 
 three really different things, a notion, a feeling, and 
 a set of circumstances, whereas it cannot be said in 
 accurate language to signify any of these. A gene- 
 ral term such as man denotes, in truth, neither a- 
 general notion, nor a feeling of resemblance, nor the 
 circumstances of resemblance, but the objects which 
 resemble each other : it is the common name of the 
 
 * This phraseology appears to have sprung from a reluctance 
 general amongst philosophers to regard perceiving as a primal 
 fact ; ttiere Beema not to be the same dilticulty with respect to 
 feeling, although both are really on a level. 
 
 f Lectures, vol. ii. p. 506. J Ibid. p. 507.
 
 GENERAL AND ABSTRACT IDEAS AND TERMS. 73 
 
 individuals of a class. Dr, Brown, in these and other 
 passages, confounds the reason for which the name 
 is given with the object on which it is bestowed. 
 
 The observations which I before made on the 
 application of the word general to " ideas " by 
 Berkeley and Hume, are equally relevant to Dr. 
 Brown's application of it to " notions " or " feel- 
 ings of resemblance." The epithet in question, 
 which has a definite and appropriate meaning when 
 used to characterise a word, or even a quality, can- 
 not be employed in the same acceptation to charac- 
 terise a notion or idea. 
 
 The impropriety of such language is perhapu 
 more strikingly manifest, when he uses " common " 
 in place of " general," as he sometimes does. He 
 speaks of " a common feeling of relation," which 
 means, in accurate phraseology, " a feeling common 
 to mankind or to a number of individuals ;" whereas 
 he intends by the expression to intimate not that 
 the feeling is common to a number of percipient 
 beings, but that the relation is common to a num- 
 ber of objects perceived. 
 
 I may add that, like Berkeley, he mingles objects 
 and ideas. His general notions would have been 
 more appropriately named general perceptions, and 
 consist in perceiving or feeling resemblances in 
 objects ; they are at least in the outset primary 
 states of mind, not secondary, not representative : 
 in Hume's language they arc impressions, not ideas, 
 and appear to me to approach in some respects to
 
 74 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 Dugald Stewart's simple ideas discussed in a pre- 
 ceding letter. 
 
 This interpretation is borne out by what he says 
 in his Inquiry into the relation of Cause and Effect. 
 
 " We may," he affirms, " have original feelings 
 that are faint and remembrances that are far more 
 lively. Our notions of equality, difference, propor- 
 tion, for example, are not copies of any former feel- 
 ings : they are new feelings that arise in the mind 
 on the contemplation of certain forms : but our con- 
 ceptions of the beautiful forms themselves which 
 we may have been comparing, are, as mere feelings 
 or states of mind, not less, but more lively than the 
 notions of relation, which we cannot regard as copies 
 of former states of mind, and must therefore consi- 
 der as themselves, in Mr. Hume's sense of the 
 word, Impressions."* 
 
 What Dr. Brown here calls " feelings that arise 
 in the mind on the contemplation of certain forms" 
 seem (as already intimated) very much the same 
 alleged mental phenomena as Dugald Stewart's 
 " ideas " which " necessarily arise in the human 
 understanding, when employed in the exercise of 
 its different faculties." f 
 
 The simple truth, according to my view, as I 
 must take the liberty of reminding you, is that 
 equality, difference, proportion, and other similar 
 words, are merely abstract terms, not representing 
 
 * Page 270. t Philosophical
 
 GENERAL AND ABSTRACT IDEAS AND TERMS. 75 
 
 any detached or separable qualities or ideas, but 
 signifying only that the objects in which they are 
 said to reside are equal, different, proportionate, and 
 so on. When we say that we perceive two lines to 
 be equal, we express the whole of the fact : wo do 
 not perceive also the equality of the lines. Both 
 phrases mean the same thing and no more. 
 
 In the exposition of this subject by a still more 
 recent writer, James Mill, there is much worth the 
 attention of the student. He nevertheless falls, 
 as it appears to me, into several important errors. 
 Two of them I will briefly indicate. 
 
 1. He teaches that a general term (such as man) 
 not only calls up the ideas of an indefinite number 
 of individual objects, but forms all these ideas into 
 one very complex and indistinct idea*: a process 
 of which I myself am quite unconscious nay, which 
 I find it impossible to conceive. 
 
 2. He spoils his exposition of abstraction by 
 introducing into it another process of which I am 
 equally unconscious, and which I am equally inca- 
 pable of conceiving, namely, what he styles " drop, 
 ping the connotation." He maintains that the 
 difference between concrete and abstract terms 
 consists in this dropping of the connotation, and 
 he illustrates his position by the abstract word 
 TIME. After stating that the past is "an infinity 
 of simultaneous successions, each having antece- 
 dents, running back without end," he proceeds: 
 
 * Analysis of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 207.
 
 76 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 " These are successions in the concrete : succes- 
 sions of objects. Drop the connotation to form 
 the abstract, as is done in other cases ; you have 
 then successions without the objects; which is pre- 
 cisely the meaning of the word TIME."* But if 
 we leave out the objects, what is there left to pre- 
 cede and follow ? How can there be successions, 
 or how can we think of successions, without things 
 succeeding each other ? " Dropping the connota- 
 tion" in this way is obviously impossible. The 
 plain fact underlying this erroneous description 
 seems to be that when the abstract word time is 
 used, it does not necessarily raise up the ideas of 
 any specific set of objects succeeding each other 
 but sometimes of one set of objects sometimes of 
 another. An object or objects nevertheless there 
 assuredly must be, actual or conceived. In Mr. 
 Mill's account of the matter the doctrine of ab- 
 stract ideas seems to be restored. 
 
 A living writer, no degenerate successor of the 
 one last named, who has given to the world an 
 instructive System of Logic, containing, however, 
 much that is questionable in psychology including 
 the theory of reasoning, presents us with several 
 valuable passages on the subject under review, 
 in his at once " luminous " and " voluminous " 
 workf : yet he sometimes uses expressions relative 
 
 * Analysis of the Human Mind, vol. ii. p. 118. 
 t An allusion to the well-known anecdote of Sheridan and 
 Gibbon. In coining out of Westminster Hall on one of the days
 
 GENERAL AND ABSTRACT IDEAS AND TERMS. 77 
 
 to it, against which some of the preceding objec- 
 tions may be brought, and in which Tfind myself 
 unable to concur; and since he tells us that there 
 are undoubtedly such things as " general con- 
 ceptions,"* I am not sure that he would assent to 
 the unqualified proposition, as I have maintained 
 it, that there are absolutely none but represen- 
 tative ideas, and that as there are no general 
 or abstract objects or events, whether physical or 
 mental, all our ideas, notions, and conceptions are 
 in fact, and must be of necessity, representative of 
 particular phenomena. 
 
 Hence, in my view, all the general and abstract 
 ideas, notions, and conceptions, which make so 
 great a figure in speculation, are mere fictions, and 
 the terms which are regarded as denoting them, 
 highly useful and important and indispensable as 
 they are, can raise up in the mind none but parti- 
 cular representations, and are only expedients, al- 
 though most valuable expedients, of language. Our 
 idea of life is nothing but the idea of something 
 living ; of truth, but of something true ; of causa- 
 tion, but of something causing; of time, but of some- 
 thing lasting; of space, but of something extended. 
 
 of Hastings's trial, the latter thanked the former for having 
 complimented his historical work in the presence of the whole 
 British nation there virtually assembled, by styling it "the 
 luminous page of Gibbon : " whereupon Sheridan, with charac- 
 teristic humour, whispered aside to a friend, "I said volu- 
 minous." 
 
 * A System of Logic, by J. S. Mill, vol. ii. p. 213.
 
 78 rillLOSOPHT OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS: THEIIi FORMATION AND 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 HAVING discussed at sufficient length the subject of 
 general terms, I will now proceed to that of the 
 general propositions in which they are employed, 
 and which you will find to be connected with 
 several doctrines of greater renown than solidity. 
 
 Take any general proposition you please, and on 
 examination you will discern that it consists in 
 predicating a quality or attribute or circumstance 
 of every individual member of some class ; in 
 other words, it consists in asserting that all things 
 which possess one quality or one set of qualities, or 
 agree in one or more points, also possess another 
 quality, or another set of qualities, or agree in 
 another point or other points. 
 
 It is the assertion of resemblan6e between things 
 in at least two respects. 
 
 Thus, when it is said that all fixed stars twinkle, 
 the proposition asserts that those celestial lumi- 
 naries which resemble each other in being fixed 
 also resemble each other in the circumstance of 
 twinkling.
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 79 
 
 Simple as the instance may appear, it suffices to 
 illustrate both what a general proposition is, and 
 what is necessary before it can be formed. 
 
 The formation of the proposition here adduced, 
 as well as the understanding of its import, requires 
 a knowledge of what stars are, what being fixed is, 
 and what twinkling is, all which particulars are 
 such as can be learned only through the organs of 
 sense. 
 
 I might furnish you with abundance of additional 
 examples in illustration, were they needed on so 
 plain a matter. 
 
 When it is affirmed that water is composed of 
 oxygen and hydrogen in certain proportions, an 
 assertion is made that all portions of matter having 
 the collective properties on account of which we 
 give the name of water, will be found on analysis 
 to yield the two gases just mentioned in uniform 
 proportions : that all portions of matter resembling 
 each other in the former set of properties, also re- 
 semble each other in the later property or set of 
 properties. 
 
 The several particulars necessary to be known 
 before such a proposition can be either formed or 
 fully understood, it would be superfluous to do 
 more than glance at ; such as the various qualities 
 of water, the properties of oxygen and hydrogen, 
 and the nature of chemical union and chemical 
 decomposition. 
 
 What I particularly wish to insist upon is the
 
 80 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 absolute indispensableuess of a knowledge of certain 
 particulars, each to be acquired through the ap- 
 propriate channel, before any general proposition 
 whatever can be formed or the ideas expressed in it 
 be present to the mind : a position plain enough, 
 one would think, to dispense with formal enuncia- 
 tion, but not so plain, we shall presently see, as 
 to escape controversy and denial. 
 
 The propositions I have hitherto considered are 
 in their nature contingent ; but general mathema- 
 tical and other self-evident or demonstrable propo- 
 sitions, notwithstanding what has been maintained 
 to the contrary, do not differ in the characteristics 
 here described from other general propositions. 
 They predicate resemblance or agreement in at 
 least two respects, just in the same way as the rest; 
 and they can be formed only from individual in- 
 stances, or (what that implies) from a knowledge 
 of particular facts perceived through the organs of 
 sense. 
 
 The difference between them and contingent 
 propositions is not in the mode of their formation, 
 not in any exemption from the indispensableness 
 of perceptible facts, but in the circumstance that 
 the facts which they express are of a different 
 order, namely, of the kind termed necessary a 
 term on which I shall have more to say hereafter 
 so that to deny the propositions affirming the facts 
 would not only involve a contradiction in words, 
 but imply the absurdity of thinking a certain fact
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 81 
 
 to be true and false, to exist and not to exist, at 
 the same time. 
 
 If we take an example, the subject will be 
 rendered clearer to those readers who have not 
 before thought about it : let it be the proposition, 
 "parallel lines never meet although indefinitely 
 prolonged." 
 
 As a general proposition, this is an assertion that 
 certain things lines -r agreeing in one respect 
 being parallel agree also in another respect 
 never meeting. 
 
 Moreover, it is a proposition which could be 
 formed only from knowing individual instances of 
 parallel lines, of lines meeting, and of lines being 
 prolonged circumstances none of which could be 
 learned except through the organs of perception, 
 all of them being nothing else than physical objects 
 or physical facts. 
 
 Having learned these things, we discern, or may 
 discern, on reflection, (for such truths do not ne- 
 cessarily force themselves on the mind) that there 
 would be a contradiction in supposing any parallel 
 lines whatever to meet, inasmuch as with the 
 slightest tendency to meet they would cease to be 
 parallel. 
 
 The circumstance of being parallel and the cir- 
 cumstance of not meeting are necessary co-existing 
 facts or conditions, the former of which cannot 
 have place or be conceived to have place without 
 the latter. But they are nevertheless physical or 
 
 o
 
 82 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 material facts with which we become acquainted 
 through our bodily organs, although certain writera 
 appear to regard mathematical knowledge as con- 
 cerned with something beyond matter ; something 
 transcending the sphere of the senses. 
 
 So far as to what we perceive in the world with- 
 out us and the general propositions formed re- 
 specting external objects: let us next glance at 
 what concerns the world within us. It would at 
 first sight seem scarcely to need insisting upon, 
 although it is requisite to bring the truth into 
 view on account of some doctrines at variance with 
 it, that general propositions respecting modes of 
 consciousness or operations and affections of the 
 mind, are not at all different in their nature from 
 other general propositions, and can be formed only 
 in the same way. 
 
 As we give common names, such as reasoning, 
 willing, hoping, rejoicing, to the modes in which 
 the mind operates and is affected, from discerning 
 resemblances and differences between individual 
 mental operations and affections, so we form 
 general propositions regarding these mental states 
 from a number of individual frfcts in which they 
 are concerned. 
 
 For example, we designate instances in which the 
 mind operates in a certain way by the common 
 name reasoning in consequence of having known 
 repeated operations of that sort ; and we form the 
 general proposition " reasoning is liable to error,"
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 88 
 
 from having known mistakes committed in the 
 process. 
 
 Thus for this one general proposition, for the. 
 formation as well as the comprehension of it, we 
 must know what reasoning is, what an error in 
 reasoning is, and what " being liable " is. 
 
 From the considerations now adduced, it is clear 
 that in physical, mathematical, and mental science 
 alike, general propositions are formed from a par- 
 ticular knowledge of the things they comprehend, 
 and are of the same nature in regard to asserting 
 two points of agreement in every one of the things 
 comprehended. 
 
 One important conclusion flowing from this truth 
 is that what are termed maxims, or axioms, or first 
 principles, inasmuch as they are all general propo- 
 sitions belonging to one or other of the three classes 
 specified, cannot possibly, as some eminent philoso- 
 phers have maintained, be brought with us into the 
 world, or, in other words, be innate. 
 
 If a knowledge of the individual facts compre- 
 hended by them is indispensable to their being 
 formed, the maxims could not be said, without self- 
 contradiction, to be in existence till the particular 
 facts constituting their very substance had become 
 known. 
 
 To see the strange doctrine of innate maxims in 
 its true light, we must carefully note one important 
 distinction : we must steadfastly keep in view the 
 essential difference between the general propositions 
 
 o 2
 
 84 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 themselves and the circumstance of human beings 
 or the human mind being so constituted as to form 
 .them when certain occasions arise. 
 
 It is undoubtedly one of the natural or constitu- 
 tional modes of mental procedure in beings like 
 ourselves, possessing articulate speech, to form 
 general propositions, laws, principles, or maxims, 
 whichever you may choose to call them, when the 
 requisite objects and facts are before the mind or 
 have come under its cognizance; just as it is 
 natural to discern the objects and facts themselves 
 and the points of resemblance on which the general 
 propositions are grounded. 
 
 The aptitude to generalize, as well as to discern 
 resemblances and differences, being part of our 
 very nature, it may, if any one chooses, (although 
 the phrase is not very happy) be called innate, the 
 epithet when so used being synonymous with 
 natural or constitutional : but the results of this 
 part of the mental constitution, namely, the general 
 propositions formed, cannot be innate for the simple 
 reason that they are necessarily posterior to the 
 knowledge of the particular facts comprehended in 
 them. 
 
 In the same way, remembering the objects we 
 have seen is a natural or constitutional mode 
 of mental action, but cannot have place till we 
 have seen some objects to remember: and it is 
 surely quite obvious that the constitutional apti- 
 tude to form general propositions no more brings
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 85 
 
 with it the knowledge of particular facts without 
 which general propositions are impossible, than the 
 capacity of remembering brings with it a knowledge 
 of the objects which must be known before they can 
 be remembered. 
 
 If this letter should appear to be engaged in 
 laying down some doctrines sufficiently trite, you 
 will please to recollect that the distinctions drawn 
 in it arc often overlooked, and to consider it as 
 expressly intended to clear the way for what 
 follows. 
 
 o S
 
 86 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS (IN CONTINUATION). COM* 
 PARIBON OF THE INNATE PRINCIPLES OF LEIBNITZ 
 A.ND THE A PRIORI COGNITIONS OF KANT. 
 
 IN discussing at so much length as I have done, 
 and purpose to do, the nature and formation of 
 general propositions, I have been influenced less by 
 any natural difficulty in the subject than by the 
 factitious importance given to it by the doctrines 
 of several philosophers of distinguished reputation ; 
 some of whom have taught, as I have already inti- 
 mated, that certain general truths are born with 
 us ; while others, dropping or disclaiming any such 
 term as innate and what is implied in it, affirm 
 that such truths spring up in the mind inde- 
 pendently of the perception of external objects, but 
 still on occasion of perceiving them : theories 
 which, how variously soever they may be expressed, 
 do not, in my opinion, essentially differ, and are 
 obnoxious to the same refutation ; although the 
 second is less palpably wide of the truth than 
 the first. 
 
 Locke, as I scarcely need mention, opened his 
 masterly Essay on Human Understanding, by com- 
 bating a doctrine/of this sort ; namely, that the
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. . 87 
 
 human mind is endowed with innate practical and 
 speculative principles ; and he did it so successfully 
 as to create a wonder, on my part at least, that any- 
 thing of the kind should have since re-appeared. 
 
 Yet Leibnitz, in his latest commentary on 
 Locke's Essay, contends in the most express terms 
 for innate ideas and innate principles, overlooking 
 or not duly appreciating, as 1 think, the scope and 
 force of our distinguished countryman's reasoning 
 against them. 
 
 On the question whether the mind is a tabula 
 rasa as maintained, according to him, by Aristotle 
 and Locke, Leibnitz professes to believe with Plato 
 that " the soul contains originally the principles of 
 several notions and doctrines which external objects 
 merely awake on certain occasions." " The Stoics," 
 he adds, " called these principles common notions, 
 Prolepses, i. e. fundamental assumptions, or what we 
 take for granted beforehand. The Mathematicians 
 call them common notions (xoivaj wo<aj)."* 
 
 He afterwards very explicitly repeats, " that 
 there are ideas and principles which do not come 
 to us from the senses, and which we find in our- 
 selves without forming them, although the senses 
 furnish the occasions of our perceiving them." 
 
 It has been sometimes asserted that the author 
 of the Essay on Human Understanding was need- 
 lessly engaged in his preliminary Chapters with 
 
 * Nouveaux Essais sur I'Enlendcmcnt Ilumuiu, Avuut- 
 Propos. 
 
 <, 4
 
 88 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 combating fallacies no longer in existence, and I 
 once, I confess, thought so myself; but here we 
 have positive proof of their dominion over one of 
 the master-spirits of the age, although professing 
 to be critically acquainted with Locke's able rea- 
 soning against them, which, in fact, he sets himself 
 to contest argument by argument. 
 
 No one who reads the New Essays on the 
 Human Understanding can doubt that Leibnitz 
 was a thorough, if not always a consistent, advo- 
 cate of innate ideas and innate principles in the 
 extreme sense of that term. 
 
 It is surprising that his views on this point have 
 attracted so little notice, and that Kant's doctrine 
 relating to it, which is in many respects the same, 
 although less clearly and decisively expressed, 
 should have attracted so much. The cognitions a 
 priori of the latter have many points of agreement 
 with Leibnitz's innate principles, as the following 
 comparison of their doctrines will show. 
 
 LEIBNITZ. KANT. 
 
 The soul contains originally Cognitions a priori are such 
 
 the principles of several no- as are absolutely independent 
 
 tions and doctrines, which ex- of experience ; and even of 
 
 ternal objects merely awake all impressions of the senses, 
 
 on certain occasions. But the faculty of cognition 
 
 There are ideas and prin- is awakened into exercise 
 
 cipU'S that do not come to ua through objects which affect 
 
 from the senses, and which we our senses. 
 find in ourselves without form- 
 ing them, although the senses 
 , furnish the occasion of [>cr- 
 ccivin" them.
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 LEIBNITZ. 
 
 All the examples which con- 
 firm a general truth, however 
 numerous, are not sufficient to 
 establish the universal neces- 
 sity of this same truth. 
 
 Even if the maxims " what- 
 ever is, is" and " a thing can- 
 not be and not be at the tame 
 time," should not be known, 
 they would not cease to be 
 innate because they are recog- 
 nised as soon as they are un- 
 derstood. 
 
 All Arithmetic and all Geo- 
 metry are innate. 
 
 That the square is not a 
 circle is an innate truth. 
 
 KANT. 
 
 Experience teaches us that 
 something is constituted in 
 such and such a manner, but 
 not that it could not be other- 
 wise. 
 
 Necessity and strict univer- 
 sality are sure characteristics 
 of a cognition a priori. 
 
 The axioms of mathematics 
 are judgments or cognitions a 
 priori. 
 
 Pure mathematical proposi- 
 tions are at all times judg- 
 ments a priori, because they 
 carry along with them neces- 
 sity, which can never be ob- 
 tained from experience. 
 
 The science of Mathematics 
 affords us a striking example 
 how far we can advance in 
 cognition a priori independent 
 of experience. 
 
 So fur there is little difference to be discerned 
 between the doctrines of these philosophers except 
 a difference in expression. They both come nearly 
 to the same thing. Leibnitz terms his principles 
 innate, but still represents them as not perceived 
 until the occasion is furnished by the senses, until 
 they are awakened by external objects. Kant de- 
 signates his cognitions by the epithet a priori, and 
 disclaiming to mean by this phrase " previous to 
 any impressions on the senses," likewise describes 
 them as awakened or developed into perceptible 
 existence through objects by which the senses arc 
 affected.
 
 90 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 The important feature in the matter is that the 
 innate principles of the one philosopher and the 
 cognitions a priori of the other, are both described 
 as not derived in any way from the senses, but on 
 the contrary as having a perfectly independent 
 origin ; and since they are alike asserted, notwith- 
 standing this independence, not to be awakened or 
 come into cognisable existence until the senses are 
 exercised, there is, it is clear, a close correspon- 
 dence between them. Kant nevertheless avoids, as 
 far as I can find, the epithet inborn, and does not 
 equally expose himself to the charge of glaring in- 
 consistency by directly maintaining the existence of 
 knowledge when nothing is known, while Leibnitz, 
 in such passages as the following, boldly asserts it. 
 " There are ideas and principles which do not come 
 to us from the senses, and which we find in our- 
 selves without forming them." 
 
 There is at the outset one fatal objection to both 
 these doctrines. Not only are we utterly uncon- 
 scious of any such alleged innate principles and a 
 priori cognitions (although if they exist at all they 
 must be matters of consciousness), but when they 
 are presented to us in words, we find that it is in 
 the shape of propositions expressive of nothing but 
 knowledge which has been acquired through the 
 organs of sense, and which cannot be acquired in 
 any other way.* 
 
 The question is here treated, for the Bake of simplicity, in 
 reference to external objects alone, but the arguments npply 
 Mutatis mutandis to mental phenomena.
 
 GENERAL PBOP08ITIONS. 91 
 
 The doctrines in question are, in truth, at onco 
 overturned by a consideration of the nature of 
 general propositions as set forth in my last letter. 
 Innate principles and a priori cognitions are alike 
 general propositions, or, if you prefer the descrip- 
 tion, they are portions of knowledge which general 
 propositions enunciate, and it is impossible, as I 
 have shown in the letter referred to, that any such 
 propositions (whatever their matter may be) can 
 be formed except from particular instances. I shall 
 hereafter examine the attributes of these maxims, 
 on account of which they cannot, it is alleged, be 
 formed from experience ; but at present I have 
 solely to do with their character as affirmative of 
 properties belonging to a class. 
 
 A general proposition being, as already explained, 
 nothing more or less than an assertion that every 
 individual thing which possesses one quality or col- 
 lection of qualities, also possesses another, we can- 
 not know the truth or even the meaning of such a 
 proposition respecting external objects (to confine 
 the question, for the sake of simplicity, to outward 
 things) without discerning at the time, or having 
 formerly discerned through the organs of sense, 
 some individual objects in possession of the two 
 qualities combined. 
 
 Hence if certain principles are innate, as taught 
 by Leibnitz, or if cognitions a priori arise in .the 
 mind independently of perception, as taught by 
 Kant, we are driven to one of two suppositions, 
 oitlit-r that knowledge may exist without something
 
 92 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 being known, or that there must be some other 
 mode of obtaining a knowledge of such external 
 facts as are embodied in any maxim than perceiving 
 them through the organs of sense. 
 
 1. The first of these suppositions, although ex- 
 pressly asserted in Leibnitz's doctrine and implicitly 
 in that of Kant, is manifestly self-contradictory, 
 since knowledge presupposes consciousness, and can- 
 not have place without both a knower in activity 
 as such and something known, just as perceiving, 
 which is immediate knowledge through the organs 
 of sense, cannot have place, according to the ex- 
 planation given in a former letter, without both an 
 actual percipient being and an object perceived. 
 
 This I am aware may be denied. " Knowledge," 
 it may be said, " continually exists without con- 
 sciousness, since the greater part of the knowledge 
 which we possess is, at any given moment, not pre- 
 sent to the mind but latent:" an argument em- 
 ployed by Leibnitz himself to vindicate his innate 
 principles. But what are the real facts, stated 
 without figure or hypothesis ? They are these, 
 that things which we have before known (it would 
 be tautology to add consciously) recur sponta- 
 neously to the mind or come back to us on the use 
 of certain expedients. We call this the possession 
 of knowledge, and the phrase, as it is commonly 
 understood, very conveniently indicates what really 
 happens, although, like many other compendious 
 expressions which must not be literally construed,
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 93 
 
 it does so in a defective and elliptical manner : but 
 as the knowledge in such cases is always the revival 
 of the ideas of things with which we had previously 
 become acquainted, it is in an essentially different 
 predicament from that of the alleged original innate 
 knowledge, of which nobody is or ever has been 
 aware. 
 
 Knowledge, correctly speaking, can no more exist 
 in a latent state, i.e. without the conscious act of 
 knowing, than flying as in the instance of a bird, 
 can exist when, instead of moving through the air, 
 the bird is quietly perched upon a tree. 
 
 When an intelligent being is said to possess 
 latent knowledge, nothing more can be truly sig- 
 nified than that he is in a condition which ensures 
 or admits the revival of what he has previously 
 known.* This condition, whatever it may be in 
 itself, manifestly cannot be predicated of any one 
 whose organs of sense have not been exercised. 
 There can be no innate latent knowledge in any 
 way. 
 
 2. The second hypothesis of which it would be 
 difficult to find an express upholder, must also fall 
 
 * There is an ambiguity in the word knowledge similar 
 to that formerly pointed out in the word perception, for which 
 I beg to refer you to the Twelfth Letter in my First Series. I 
 shall content myself with saying here, that " knowledge " some- 
 times means the objects or facts known, considered as known, 
 and sometimes the mental act or state of knowing. In each of 
 these senses, nevertheless, both the object and the act are 
 implied.
 
 94 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 to the ground unless those who may attempt to 
 support it can point out some external objects 
 which have come to their knowledge without having 
 been perceived through the organs of sense. To 
 be sure even this might be maintained by any one 
 who thinks with Plato that we bring into the 
 world with us reminiscences of a former existence; 
 a matter which may be safely left to Wordsworth 
 and the poets.* 
 
 The conclusion from all this is plain. 
 
 If individual external objects cannot be known 
 except through the organs of the senses, the agree- 
 ment of such objects with each other in two or 
 more respects, or what is expressed in a general 
 proposition, cannot be known except through the 
 
 " Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; 
 The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 
 And comcth from afar ; 
 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 And not in utter nakedness, 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
 
 From God who is our home : 
 Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! 
 Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
 
 Upon the growing boy ; 
 But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 
 
 He sees it in his joy ; 
 The youth who daily farther from the east 
 Must travel, still is Nature's priest, 
 And by the vision splendid 
 Is on his way attended ; 
 At length the man perceives it die away, 
 And fade into the light of common day." 
 
 ff'ordstcorlA.
 
 . GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 95 
 
 same medium, and hence innate principles and 
 cognitions a priori independent of impressions on 
 the senses or experience are impossible. 
 
 Should it be urged, in objection, that I have not 
 fairly represented what these two philosophers 
 mean when they employ the terms innate principles 
 and cognitions a priori, I can truly say that if I 
 have misconceived them, I shall be most heartily 
 glad to be set right. I have taken these expres- 
 sions, it may be said, to denote general propositions, 
 whereas they signify something quite different. 
 Let us see. With regard to the word principle, as 
 employed by Leibnitz, I cannot understand by it 
 anything else than either an act or portion of 
 knowledge, or a proposition exhibiting or expres- 
 sing in words an act or portion of knowledge. He 
 himself speaks of general maxims and principles as 
 being equivalent.* 
 
 If he intended by the term an act or portion of 
 knowledge, then the argument that there can be no 
 knowledge without some particular objects known, 
 at. once applies, and he is landed in a contradiction. 
 
 If he intended by it a proposition expressive of 
 a portion of knowledge, the same argument is ap- 
 plicable, with the additional difficulty that besides 
 some particular objects known, there must also be 
 an innate acquaintance with some particular words 
 in which the knowledge is declared ; in short, he 
 
 * Nouveaux Essaip, liv. i. He also speaks of general pro- 
 positions being graven on the understanding which identifies 
 them with innate principles beyond all question.
 
 96 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 must maintain that words are born with us as well 
 as knowledge. 
 
 It is true that in several passages he seems to 
 qualify his doctrine, I had almost said to nullify 
 it, but he does not really give it up. 
 
 Thus he tells us in one place that ideas and 
 verities are innate " as inclinations, dispositions^ and 
 habitudes, not as acts" and draws a distinction 
 between actual and virtual knowledge. 
 
 After he has pronounced explicitly and without 
 qualification that all Geometry and all Arithmetic 
 are innate, the question is asked by the opposing 
 speaker in the Dialogue, " Can we say, then, that the 
 most difficult and profound of sciences are innate ?" 
 and he answers that the actual knowledge of them 
 is not innate but the virtual knowledge is ; just as a 
 figure delineated by nature in the veins of marble, 
 is in the marble before they are laid open to view 
 in the working. 
 
 In other places he teaches that certain ideas and 
 principles are stamped on the mind originally, 
 although it requires, or may require, subsequent 
 labour to discover them. 
 
 Thus, whatever apparent inconsistency marks 
 the passages quoted, lie really maintains that know- 
 ledge may exist in the mind when nothing is 
 actually known. Misled most probably by a meta- 
 phor, he treats the mind as a substance in which 
 ideas and maxims can exist stamped or engraved 
 without the man himself being aware of them. 
 You will not fail to remark, in addition to what I
 
 GENERAL PHOPO8ITIONS. 97 
 
 have already said, that this virtual knowledge, this 
 latent science, is a pure assumption. By the very 
 terms of the hypothesis we cannot be conscious of 
 it, for it is latent ; and there is not, nor can there 
 be, the slightest evidence in any way possible or con- 
 ceivable that it exists It is perfectly imaginary, 
 It is also perfectly needless. As there is nothing 
 else in the asserted knowledge, when, according to 
 the theory, it ceases to be latent, than what can be 
 traced as an acquisition through the organs of 
 sense, to suppose it first to exist in a latent state 
 and afterwards to be also acquired from without, is 
 inventing a machinery altogether superfluous. 
 
 Yet this is what Leibnitz literally supposes, for 
 Philalethes, the representative of Locke in the 
 Dialogue, having with great good sense asked 
 " whether the prompt acquiescence of the mind in 
 certain truths may not come barely from consider- 
 ing the nature of things which does not allow it to 
 judge otherwise rather than from these propositions 
 being naturally engraven on the understanding," 
 Theophilus (Leibnitz himself) answers, " Both are 
 true: the nature u things and the nature of the 
 mind concur 'therein : " *v. e. the propositions are 
 first iigrhY^d oa.' the* understanding * without any 
 
 * As propositions cannot be formed except in some particular 
 language Greek or Latin, or Engli.sh, or German, it becomes 
 a curious problem on Leibnitz's hypothesis, whether nature 
 always contrives to engrave them on the understanding in the 
 language of the country in which a man happens to be born. 
 
 II
 
 98 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 consciousness of their existence, and then the 
 nature of things operates upon it so as to make 
 corresponding impressions which bring the original 
 ones into cognizance a gratuitous and not even 
 plausible hypothesis. 
 
 The doctrine of a twofold origin as here set 
 forth seems to be a part of his strange theory of a 
 pre-established harmony, or at least chimes in with 
 it : the ideas and maxims are in the mind, while 
 objects and events totally unconnected with them 
 but completely correspondent are existing and hap- 
 pening outside. Nothing can be more totally 
 destitute of evidence. It is a pure fiction. 
 
 The first part of these remarks will apply with 
 little or no modification to Kant's cognitions d 
 priori. 
 
 Ity cognitions rigorously interpreted he must 
 mean cither knowledge itself or the propositions 
 in which such knowledge is affirmed, and in either 
 case the objections urged against Leibnitz are valid 
 against him. There is, indeed, another interpreta- 
 tion a third meaning brought forward in defence 
 or explanation of :t4ie cognitions ii question ; an 
 interpretation whicirwoulU 1 resolve Kant's doctrine 
 into a mere assertion of. certain, modes of procedure 
 which are natural' to the mind; and are called forth 
 by the exercise of the senses on appropriate occa- 
 sions, at various periods in after life. 
 
 The discrimination of modes of mental action 
 from general propositions, which I insisted upon in
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 99 
 
 the preceding letter, will enable me to show, when 
 the occasion arrives, in what sense the plea is urged 
 and how far it is available. 
 
 I have in the preceding argument treated these 
 innate principles and a priori cognitions solely as 
 general propositions, without regard to the charac- 
 ter of the facts comprised in them, and have en- 
 deavoured to show that, from their very nature as 
 such, they must be posterior to a knowledge of the 
 individual facts which they comprehend ; that, with- 
 out such knowledge, no principles, maxims, or 
 cognitions of any kind can exist. 
 
 But it is not all general propositions which, in 
 the theories before us, are maintained to be innate 
 principles or d priori cognitions. It is only those 
 which are characterised by necessity and universal- 
 ity : attributes (it is alleged) not to be discovered 
 by experience or perception but furnished by the 
 mind itself. 
 
 The examination of the doctrine here intimated 
 will occupy the two next letters, after which I shall 
 enter upon the consideration of cognitions in their 
 second character, in which, emerging from the con- 
 dition of maxims or general propositions, they claim 
 to be regarded as modes of mental procedure. 
 
 n 2
 
 100 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS (iN CONTINUATION.) PRO- 
 POSITIONS EXPRESSIVE OP NECESSARY FACTS. THE 
 A PRIORI COGNITIONS OF KANT. 
 
 IN taking up the subject mentioned at the close of 
 my last letter, I must draw your attention to the 
 circumstance that in the passages quoted from 
 Leibnitz and Kant there are two assertions made 
 respecting innate principles and cognitions a priori : 
 first, that they are independent of experience and 
 even of all impressions on the senses ; secondly, 
 that they owe the necessity and universality which 
 distinguish them from other propositions to the 
 mind itself. More extraordinary assertions never 
 saw the light. 
 
 A sort of haze seems to envelope some of the 
 terms here employed, particularly the words expe- 
 rience and necessity. To the latter, I shall come 
 by-and-by : at present I have to do with the former. 
 
 Experience is evidently of various kinds, some- 
 times it is simple and sometimes complex. When 
 it is simple and has reference to external objects, 
 it is the same thing as perception through the 
 organs of sense. Perception is, indeed, a more
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 101 
 
 comprehensive word, for it may be used of only u 
 single quality, whereas " experience," in common 
 usage and in the simplest cases, denotes the percep- 
 tion of two or more qualities in connexion with each 
 other, or what is appropriately termed a fact, of 
 which a proposition is the verbal expression. We 
 cannot, in ordinary language, be said to know the 
 colour red by experience. \Ve know it from per- 
 ceiving or having perceived it, but we might, with 
 great propriety, be said to know by experience that 
 blood is of that colour. So, in common parlance, 
 we learn by experience that ice is cold, that steel is 
 hard, that metals are expanded by heat; or we may 
 resort to the wider term and say we perceive them 
 to be so. 
 
 I have introduced these remarks for the purpose 
 of showing that the question " whether an external 
 fact is learned from experience," is virtually iden- 
 tical with the question " whether it is learned from 
 perception." 
 
 Kant himself seems to admit the same thing and 
 to draw a similar distinction between the two 
 phrases, when he says, in a passage already quoted, 
 that cognitions a priori are independent of expe- 
 rience and even of all impressions on the senses. 
 
 Bearing in mind these considerations let us exa- 
 mine how far innate principles and a priori cogni- 
 tions can be properly characterised as being thus 
 independent. Since however a separate examina- 
 tion of the instances given or referred to, both by 
 
 ii 3
 
 102 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 Leibnitz and by Kant, would only weary you by 
 a double commentary, I will direct my remarks 
 chiefly to the latter author, with the bare intima- 
 tion that they will in substance apply to his great 
 predecessor. 
 
 For the purpose in view I will take the proposi- 
 tion that two straight lines cannot inclose a space*, 
 which, according to Kant's assertion, must be an 
 a priori cognition or judgment; and as such must 
 be independent of experience or even of any im- 
 pression on the senses. 
 
 But here I stumble, as I have no doubt you will 
 do, at the very threshold ; for it is plain that in 
 order to form such a judgment you must have 
 learned through your organs of sense what a 
 straight line is, what the act of inclosing is, and 
 what a space is. You must also have before you 
 two definite straight lines, either parallel to each 
 other or inclining to each other ; and in either case 
 you inevitably perceive that they do not inclose a 
 space, just as clearly as you perceive that they are 
 straight lines, not crooked or curved, and that they 
 are black or coloured. 
 
 This proposition has been discussed in reference to the 
 same part of philosophy by Dr. Whewell, Mr. John Mill, Sir 
 John Herschell, and other writers ; and on finding myself going 
 over the same ground, I had thoughts of substituting some other 
 proposition ; but ns what appears in the text was written 
 wilhout advertence to their dissertations, and my treatment of 
 the question diti'crs in several respects from that of any of my 
 predecessors, I think it the best way to let the passage stand as 
 originally penned.
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 103 
 
 Up to thia point there ia confessedly nothing but 
 perception. Whatever you know so far, you per- 
 ceive or have perceived through your organs of 
 sense. 
 
 But the a prioi-i judgment (we are told) is not 
 merely that the lines do not but that they cannot 
 inclose a space. 
 
 Well, let us see what truly happens before any 
 one discerns this inability, and whether even iu 
 this respect the cognition is independent of expe- 
 rience. 
 
 Perceiving as the lines lie before you, that they 
 do not inclose a space in their actual position, you 
 place them, or you conceive them to be placed, in 
 another position. They were, we will assume, ori- 
 ginally parallel and half an inch asunder; but you 
 proceed to make them approach as near to each 
 other as possible, while you still keep them parallel, 
 and you find that no inclosing takes place by 
 approximation; or in other words, supposing the 
 lines for the purpose of convenient elucidation to 
 be of equal length, you can form with them only 
 two sides of a parallelogram, the two other sides 
 remaining open or rather being deficient. A space 
 is not circumscribed ; the problem is not solved. 
 You next try whether the feat can be achieved by 
 inclining the lines towards each other, and you find 
 that in every position in which you can place them 
 or conceive them to be placed, while a mutual inclin- 
 ation is preserved, they cannot converge towards 
 
 it 4
 
 104 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 or touch each other at one end without diverging 
 at the other ; so that the inclosing of a space can- 
 not possibly ensue. To effect this one of the lines 
 at least must be -bent, which would be in direct 
 contradiction to the datum. 
 
 Hence it is plain that the formation of such a 
 judgment, as it is termed, requires perceiving cer- 
 tain objects and either actually trying or conceiving 
 certain transpositions ; and after these things have 
 been done, which may take place with wonderful 
 rapidity, we discern that in this particular instance 
 the two straight lines not only do not but cannot 
 inclose a space. AVe may further discern, on re- 
 flection, that what holds good of the particu- 
 lar lines before us holds good of every pair of 
 such lines which we can either draw or imagine, 
 and that to assert the contrary in any case in- 
 volves a direct contradiction in thought and lan- 
 guage. 
 
 I have purposely used the phrase " we may dis- 
 cern," because it frequently happens that the 
 learner perceives a particular truth without pro- 
 ceeding to generalize it, or to discern the necessity 
 or impossibility, as the case may- be, in all similar 
 instances.* 
 
 Mr. Stewart, who doubtless speaks from his expo- 
 
 This is taught, indeed, by Leibnitz himself, who while 
 contending for the maxims being engraven on the mind, admits 
 that the)' are sometime* deciphered with labour and frequently 
 nut at all.
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 105 
 
 rience as a teacher of mathematics, has a passage 
 which is an apt illustration of this point : 
 
 " It will not, I apprehend, be denied," he says, 
 "that when a learner first enters on the study of 
 geometry, he considers the diagrams before him as 
 individual objects, and as individual objects alone. 
 In reading, for example, the demonstration just 
 referred to, of the equality of the three angles of 
 every triangle to two right angles, he thinks only 
 of the triangle which is presented to him on the 
 margin of the page. Nay, so completely does this 
 particular figure engross his attention, that it is 
 not without some difficulty he, in the first instance, 
 transfers the demonstration to another triangle 
 whose form is very different, or even to the same 
 triangle placed in an inverted position. It is in 
 order to correct this natural bias of the mind, that 
 a judicious teacher, after satisfying himself that 
 the student comprehends perfectly the force of the 
 demonstration, as applicable to the particular tri- 
 angle which Euclid has selected, is led to vary the 
 diagram in different ways, with a view to show 
 him, that the very same demonstration, expressed 
 in the very same form of words, is equally applica- 
 ble to them all : in this manner he comes, by slow 
 degrees, to comprehend the nature of general rea- 
 soning, establishing insensibly in his mind this 
 fundamental logical principle, that when the enun- 
 ciation of a mathematical proposition involves only 
 a certain portion of the attributes of the diagram
 
 106 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 which is employed to illustrate it, the same pro- 
 position must hold true of any other diagram 
 involving the same attributes, how much soever 
 distinguished from it by other specific peculiar- 
 ities." 
 
 To revert to the case which led to this quotation. 
 Here then we have, 1. perception of external ob- 
 jects ; 2. trial either actual or conceptual following 
 the perception ; 3. discernment of necessary facts 
 as necessary, following the trial ; 4. generalization 
 following the discernment of the particular neces- 
 sary facts : all which incidents involve nothing but 
 the ordinary operations of the mind as described in 
 the preceding letters, and indeed in almost any 
 psychological treatise you may happen to take up. 
 
 No one can discern that a proposition is what is 
 called a necessary and universal truth, without 
 going through such a process as I have described. 
 
 Hence it is a strange perversion of language to 
 affirm mathematical propositions to be independent 
 of experience or even any impression on the senses, 
 when without such experience or impressions we 
 could not possibly arrive at them : when even 
 by the admission of both the philosophers under 
 review, the exercise of the senses or perception 
 or experience is the indispensable preliminary to 
 bringing the propositions into discernible existence. 
 With what semblance of propriety then can they be 
 
 Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. ii. 
 p. 117.
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 107 
 
 said to be independent of that without which they 
 must confessedly remain dead, and would be really 
 impossible ? 
 
 But putting aside the consideration of such mis- 
 leading language, I would more particularly insist 
 upon the needlessness of resorting to the supposi- 
 tion of any innate principles or cognitions h priori to 
 account for the peculiar character of mathematical 
 science, or the necessity and universality of its propo- 
 sitions. The hypothesis is not only gratuitous, not 
 only without evidence, and more especially without 
 any support in our consciousness, but entirely super- 
 fluous ; which I think may be very briefly shown. 
 
 Through the whole process of mathematical rea- 
 soning we are engaged in the operation of discern- 
 ing, and in the mere act of discernment it is of 
 course implied that we discern what is, and not 
 something contradictory to it; just as when we feel 
 love to any one it is implied that we do not feel 
 hate. An object cannot be itself and some other 
 thing. Lines cannot at one and the same time be 
 parallel and meet, which is only another mode of 
 saying they cannot be at once parallel and unpa- 
 rallel; and we are of course incapable of discerning 
 what they are incapable of being. We can discern 
 them only as they are. 
 
 To be perceptible at all objects must possess somo 
 qualities, and certain of these qualities must, in the 
 nature of the case, be perceptibly necessary : i.e. 
 necessary to each other, or, in different language,
 
 108 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 some of them cannot exist without others, and we 
 cannot perceive thd first without perceiving the 
 second, nor without perceiving that they are mu- 
 tually necessary. ' 
 
 Of the links in a chain freely depending from a 
 hook in the wall, some are necessarily nearer the 
 ground than others are. We perceive the fact 
 without reflection, and if we come to think about 
 it, we discern that it cannot be otherwise, and that 
 the same fact must have place not only in the 
 particular chain before us but (to carry the general- 
 ization no further) in all chains under the same 
 circumstances: to suppose the contrary would be 
 to suppose a contradiction. 
 
 Of all this, however, the explanation is simple 
 enough without calling in the aid of cognitions 
 a priori or supposing the impossible process of the 
 mind bestowing necessity on the facts before it. To 
 adopt for the occasion objectionable and really un- 
 meaning phraseology, it is not we that furnish or 
 apply any principle or cognition, or that give the 
 character to the facts : it is the facts themselves 
 that have this character and we discern it. 
 
 If certain attributes, or facts appropriately termed 
 coexisting conditions, were not in themselves neces- 
 sary, they could not be discerned to be so by an 
 intelligent observer. 
 
 All external facts are doubtless necessary from 
 the very constitution of matter, but to us, for want 
 of insight or evidence, many of them are contingent.
 
 GENERAL PBOPO8ITIONS. 109 
 
 Whether, nevertheless, all facts can be said to be 
 necessary or not, it is certain that we discern the 
 attribute in only a portion of them ; not because 
 our minds invest some facts with the attribute and 
 not others, as taught by the German metaphysicians, 
 which is a purely imaginary transaction, expressed 
 in language without definite meaning, but for the 
 simple reason already given. We discern them to 
 be necessary because they are so, as we perceive St. 
 Paul's church in London to be lofty because it is 
 lofty. 
 
 In certain cases, I repeat, one fact or state of 
 things cannot possibly exist without another fact 
 or state of things ; and the whole mystery is, that 
 we see their mutual dependence, we discern them 
 to be inseparable facts, and cannot even imagine 
 one without the other. We bring nothing to the 
 facts but the discernment of what they are. 
 
 Hence Kant's doctrine about cognitions a priori, 
 as far as mathematical propositions and other self- 
 evident or demonstrable assertions are concerned, 
 amounts, when divested of error or (perhaps it 
 would be more correct to say) points, to the simple 
 truth, that we are so constituted as to discern, or 
 be capable of discerning, necessary facts as such 
 when they are presented to us. In this there is 
 surely nothing more marvellous than our per- 
 ceiving objects to possess other characteristics ; to 
 be red or yellow, to be high or low, rough or 
 smooth, equal or unequal, to resemble or to differ.
 
 110 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 A good deal of confusion has arisen on this subject 
 from not properly limiting to one acceptation, or 
 rather one allocation, the term necessary^ which 
 denotes, correctly speaking, an attribute of facts, 
 not an attribute of our knowledge, nor yet of the 
 propositions we form respecting those facts, and 
 expressive of our knowledge. This distinction is 
 so important, and yet, as fur aa I know, has been 
 so entirely overlooked, that you must excuse me 
 for dwelling upon it at some length. The whole 
 question may indeed be decided on this single 
 ground. 
 
 When two facts cannot have place or exist 
 independently of each other ; when to exist at all 
 they must coexist, they are properly said to be 
 necessary, i. e. necessary to each other's existence. 
 But if we say that our discernment of this mutual 
 dependence is necessary, or that a proposition 
 expressing the mutual dependence is a neces- 
 sary truth, we transfer the term according to a 
 common artifice of speech to a position in which 
 it is not strictly at home, and cannot be em- 
 ployed except clliptically. To show clearly 
 what the phrase signifies, we must retransfer it 
 to its proper allocation, and supply the needful 
 ellipses. 
 
 All that the epithet necessary can mean when 
 we say that a certain proposition is a necessary 
 truth is, that the proposition affirms a necessary 
 fact, or, it may be, necessary facts. It is the facts
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. Ill 
 
 which are necessary, not the knowledge of them, 
 nor yet the assertion of their existence. 
 
 When Kant, therefore, affirms necessity to be 
 a sure characteristic of a cognition d priori, he 
 transfers an attribute of the facts which (to borrow 
 his own language) are cognized to the cognition, 
 or mental state, or expression of that state, to 
 which it is not really applicable. 
 
 From thus attributing necessity to the cogni- 
 tions (mental states), he is led into the error of 
 regarding it as being furnished or infused into the 
 facts by the mind (an inconceivable process), in- 
 stead of being only discerned by it as a character- 
 istic of the facts themselves. 
 
 If facts alone are regarded and spoken of as 
 necessary, which is the only mode of philosophically 
 treating the subject, the whole difficulty conjured 
 up by our philosophers vanishes. There is no 
 longer any question about the source or origin of 
 what Kant terms necessary cognitions : it imme- 
 diately becomes obvious that certain facts are dis- 
 cerned by us to be necessary, as certain lines to be 
 straight, or certain angles to be acute, simply 
 because they are so; and then, as a matter of 
 course in the case of intelligent beings gifted with 
 speech, the discernment is enunciated in proposi- 
 tions. It would really be quite as correct (custom 
 apart) to call our knowledge of angles, acute or 
 obtuse, as to call our knowledge of self-evident or 
 demonstrable facts, necessary.
 
 112 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 This transference of terms from their proper 
 location (it might be named translocation) is a 
 common incident in language, arising perhaps 
 partly from the poverty which characterizes ex- 
 pression in comparison with the multifariousness 
 of objects and the consequent affluence of thought ; 
 partly from our proneness to abbreviation or com- 
 pendious utterance ; and it is not to be altogether 
 avoided or condemned : but when we are com- 
 pelled, or find it convenient, to resort to it ; when 
 we make one word serve several purposes, or take 
 it out of its proper connexion for the sake of 
 brevity, we should at least know what we are 
 about, and be especially careful not to treat the 
 " translocated " term as if it retained precisely the 
 same applicability in its new position. 
 
 For example, we call a court of law which tries 
 offences against person or property, a criminal 
 court; but we should (it is to be hoped), in this 
 country at least, egrc-giously err were we to regard 
 the epithet as denoting the moral quality of the 
 judicial proceedings there in the same way as 
 when we apply it to the offences brought to trial. 
 \Ve must retransfer it to its proper position to 
 express fully what, in its transplanted state, it so 
 very elliptically indicates. Instead of speaking of 
 a criminal court, we shall then style it a court for 
 the trial of criminal acts. So we sometimes trans- 
 fer the term natural from the objects of knowledge 
 to the knowledge itself, and speak of " natural
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 11 3 
 
 science " not intending by the epithet to qualify 
 the substantive to which it is prefixed, or to apply it 
 in the same sense as when we say that the emotions 
 of hope and joy and fear and grief are natural, but 
 to mark the character of the objects of which the 
 science treats. It is a convenient form of compen- 
 dious expression, and does not entail much risk of 
 our inferring that the knowledge, in virtue of its 
 being natural, will, like hope and joy, spring up 
 spontaneously in the mind, and needs not to be 
 sought after by assiduous study. 
 
 Yet it is really an inference of a similar kind 
 which Kant has fallen into. Having transferred 
 the term necessary from the facts to the cognition 
 of the facts, he has drawn his conclusions without 
 adverting to the elliptical character of the epithet 
 in its new position and the different offices it is 
 meant to serve in the two cases. He has overlooked 
 the consideration that our knowledge of a necessary 
 fact is itself neither more nor less necessary than 
 our knowledge of any other kind of fact. 
 
 If on a sheet of paper, at which we are looking, 
 two right lines drawn with black ink not yet dry 
 (I purposely introduce these trivial circumstances) 
 intersect each other, we cannot help seeing the lines 
 and their intersection and also that they are black 
 and wet; nor can we help (at least when it is pointed 
 out to us) observing that they make four angles, or 
 discerning, if we happen to be mathematicians, that
 
 114 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 the four angles are together equal to four right 
 angles. 
 
 In this case, if our knowledge of the facts, some 
 of which are called contingent and some necessary, 
 may be said to be itself necessary, it is in the sense 
 of unavoidable : the exhibition of the sheet of paper 
 to our sight obliges us, if we look at all, to see what 
 it contains ; but this unavoidableness is quite inde- 
 pendent of the differences in character of the several 
 facts discerned. We cannot avoid seeing the con- 
 tingent facts that the lines are black and wet any 
 more than the necessary facts that their intersection 
 makes four angles and that these four angles are 
 together equal to four right angles. In both cases 
 we perceive the facts as they exist because they so 
 exist. 
 
 Should our vocabulary be so scanty or our dis- 
 like of circumlocution so great, that we are obliged 
 or choose to resort to the expedient of designating 
 our knowledge as necessary because the facts known 
 are so, the least we can do is not to draw our con- 
 clusions as if the epithet in both cases equally and 
 similarly qualified the substantive to which it is 
 attached.
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 115 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS (iN CONTINUATION). CON- 
 TINGENT PROPOSITIONS 'AND LAWS OP NATURE. 
 THE A PRIORI COGNITIONS OF KANT FURTHER CON- 
 SIDERED. 
 
 PERHAPS you will think, and not without reason, 
 that I have bestowed sufficient attention on cogni- 
 tions h priori, but there is another class of them 
 which must not be entirely passed over. 
 
 The so-called cognitions considered in my last 
 letter are what are usually termed necessary truths 
 propositions, namely, the contraries of which 
 involve a contradiction and which are said to be 
 necessary because the facts affirmed by them are so. 
 
 But the propositions which I have now in view 
 have not this character, inasmuch as the contraries 
 of them may be imagined without any contradic- 
 tion being implied. Such are propositions relating 
 to the events around us, to the operation of various 
 substances on each other, to the succession of 
 natural phenomena, to the causes of effects, and to 
 the effects of causes. 
 
 Amongst these there are some of extreme gene- 
 rality which have been considered by certain philo- 
 
 I 2
 
 116 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 gophers as necessary or as expressing necessary 
 truths in the same way as mathematical axioms. 
 
 Of this kind are the following : " every change 
 has a cause ;" " similar causes have similar effects ;" 
 " similar effects have similar causes." 
 
 Applying to these his test of universality and 
 necessity, Kant pronounces them (with a modifica- 
 tion regarding the first) to be cognitions a priori 
 independent of experience. They are, he says, 
 necessary, and they admit of no exceptions. 
 
 There is, nevertheless, a wide and fundamental 
 distinction between the facts expressed by this class 
 of propositions and the facts expressed by mathema- 
 tical propositions. While, as I have just had occasion 
 to remark, the facts affirmed by the latter are dis- 
 cerned to be necessary, those affirmed by the former 
 are not discerned to be so. While there would be 
 self-contradiction in asserting that some parallel 
 lines meet, there would be no self-contradiction in 
 the assertion that some changes occur spontaneously 
 without causes ; or that similar causes do not always 
 produce similar effects, although there might be 
 and indeed would be an utter inconsistency between 
 such assertions and others which we are habitually 
 and unavoidably making. 
 
 Self-contradiction in a proposition is one thing, 
 and the inconsistency of a proposition held by any 
 one with other propositions maintained by the same 
 person, is another. 
 
 By those who admit that mathematical proposi-
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 117 
 
 tions are not independent of perception or expe- 
 rience, this other class cannot obviously be consi- 
 dered as being so. Much of the reasoning, indeed, 
 in my last .letter, will, mutatis mutandis, apply to 
 both classes, and hence the necessity of any long 
 explanation is superseded: but still, as there is a 
 real and important difference between them, let us 
 briefly consider the first of these maxims : " every 
 change has a cause." 
 
 It is obvious that no one could know what a 
 change is* and what a cause is, except by perceiv- 
 ing some particular cause and some particular 
 change following it, such as the application of fire to 
 wood and the consequent charring of the material. 
 Having witnessed a number of similarly consecutive 
 circumstances a variety of particular events fol- 
 lowed by other events we designate the first 
 events in the sequence by the common name "cause," 
 and the second by that of u effect," or, as here, 
 "change:" and from these observations, following 
 our natural propensity to generalise, we draw the 
 universal conclusion " every change has a cause." 
 
 We manifestly could not have drawn it had we 
 seen changes happening without causes. 
 
 There is no difference between the origin of these 
 comprehensive propositions and that of such minor 
 generalisations as " metals are expanded by heat ; " 
 
 * Kant acknowledges this in the case of " change ; " it 5$ 
 curious how he failed to discern that " cause " is exactly in the 
 same predicament. 
 
 i 3
 
 118 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 " water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen ; " 
 " men are subject to hunger and thirst;" M the 
 angle of incidence in the case of rays of light is 
 equal to the angle of reflection :" propositions 
 which no one, I presume, maintains to be cogni- 
 tions <i priori, but which are truly conclusions from 
 observation or experience. 
 
 The maxim that every change has a cause, is in 
 the same way a generalisation of observed facts ; 
 only it is a proposition of far greater generality : it 
 is what is called a law of nature deduced from 
 observation, just as is the less general law that 
 metals are expanded by heat. 
 
 In a treatise which I published several years 
 ago*, I explained at some length, that all such 
 laws are conclusions from collective facts, but more 
 comprehensive than the aggregate of facts from 
 which they are drawn; and are precisely of the 
 same nature, and rest on the same evidence, as par- 
 ticular inferences. 
 
 From the collective fact that, as far as observation 
 has extended, all metals have been found to expand 
 when additional heat has been applied to them, we 
 deduce the universal law expressed in the formula 
 " all metals are expanded by heat," which is an 
 affirmation independent of time, and implies that 
 they have always expanded when not observed, and 
 that they will expand in future as they have done 
 in time past. 
 
 * The Theory of Reasouing,
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 119 
 
 It is precisely on the same grounds or from the 
 same premises that I make the particular inference, 
 that the mercury in the thermometer on the mantel- 
 shelf of the library in which I am writing, will rise 
 if it be removed to the neighbouring conservatory. 
 
 Such is the very nature of contingent reasoning : 
 it consists in thus inferring unobserved facts from 
 similar facts observed, and the inference is equally 
 valid whether it is restricted to a particular event 
 or extends to all events of a similar character. 
 
 Hence the general proposition " every change 
 has a cause," termed by Kant a cognition a priori^ 
 is in reality a conclusion deduced from observed 
 facts, precisely as all conclusions are deduced in 
 moral, probable, or contingent reasoning. 
 
 As far as human observation has extended all 
 changes have had causes; this is the sum of our 
 actual knowledge ; and hence we infer that all 
 changes past, present, or future, have had or will 
 have causes, although beyond the reach of observa- 
 tion : a conclusion which we more simply and con- 
 cisely express without reference to time, by the 
 maxim in question " every change has a cause." 
 
 In all these conclusions of probable or contingent 
 reasoning, whether they are general laws or infer- 
 ences of particular facts, you will not fail to observe, 
 from what I have said, that there is one uniform 
 and essential characteristic. 
 
 Although they are all drawn from an unavoid- 
 ably limited experience, which may be embodied 
 
 i 4
 
 120 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 in a proposition affirming what I have called the 
 collective fact, they are obviously much more com- 
 prehensive than the collective fact : they go beyond 
 the experience of which it is the summary. 
 
 It is, indeed, in this going beyond experience 
 that such reasoning wholly consists. 
 
 If we had had experience, or possessed personal 
 knowledge of the individual facts comprised in our 
 conclusions, we should have had no occasion to infer 
 them ; or, more correctly speaking, the inferring of 
 them could not have taken place : and on the other 
 hand, if we had had no experience or possessed 
 no knowledge of similar facts, we could not have 
 inferred any facts at all. 
 
 In the one case inferring would have been super- 
 seded by knowing, in the other case precluded by 
 ignorance. 
 
 It may have been from seeing our conclusions in 
 this way transcend actual knowledge that Kant 
 was led to imagine the most general of them to be 
 cognitions a priori, or independent of, if not ante- 
 cedent to, experience, overlooking the important 
 truth, that although it is the essence of such con- 
 clusions to comprise facts not themselves indivi- 
 dually observed, yet they could not be deduced 
 except from similar facts which had already fallen 
 under observation. 
 
 And if on the ground of going beyond experience 
 general laws arc to be termed cognitions </ priori, 
 every conclusion we draw in contingent reasoning,
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 121 
 
 although restricted to a single event, would be 
 entitled to the same appellation. The inference 
 that my thermometer would rise on being removed 
 to a warmer room, might claim to be styled an & 
 priori cognition. 
 
 It will scarcely, after the foregoing explanation, 
 be contended that general laws, to the formation of 
 which a knowledge of facts is thus indispensable, 
 are independent of it, because they comprise some- 
 thing beyond the individual facts known. It might 
 as well be alleged that our seeing the prospect from 
 the top of a mountain is independent of our having 
 reached the summit. 
 
 The sum of the preceding considerations may be 
 briefly stated. 
 
 As Kant's mathematical cognitions a priori proved, 
 on the examination to which they were subjected 
 in my last letter, to be only general propositions 
 affirming necessary co-existing facts or conditions, 
 which we discern to be necessary because they are 
 so in their very nature ; so these other cognitions 
 turn out, on a similar scrutiny, to be nothing else 
 than conclusions in contingent reasoning deduced 
 from the facts of observation or experience. 
 
 We are undoubtedly so constituted as to reason 
 in this way, but we cannot make a single inference 
 without previous knowledge.
 
 122 PHILOSOPHY OF THB HUMAN MIND. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS (IN CONTINUATION). KANT'8 
 DOCTRINE OF A PRIORI COGNITIONS AS SET FORTH 
 BY ONE OF HIS EXPOSITORS. 
 
 You will doubtless feel that these discussions on 
 an abstruse question in which none but thorough 
 metaphysicians can take any interest, grow a little 
 wearisome, and therefore, in commencing another 
 letter in reference to the same topic, I will promise 
 that it shall be brief. 
 
 It will be very probably maintained by some of 
 the partisans of German Philosophy that all which 
 was meant by Leibnitz and Kant in asserting their 
 innate principles and cognitions a priori is, that we 
 are naturally so constituted as to form them when 
 appropriate occasions arise. If this were the case, 
 they certainly would have been wasting a vast 
 deal of .superfluous ingenuity in proving what no 
 one would be found to contest. In regard to Leib- 
 nitz such a defence is wholly irrelevant, as he draws 
 a distinction between actually possessing truths 
 graven on the mind, and having only the faculty 
 of acquiring them. As to Kant, something of this 
 kind, if I mistake not, is alleged, or seems to be
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 123 
 
 alleged, in his behalf 'by Chalybaas in the " His- 
 torical Development of Speculative Philosophy," 
 published a few years ago, although the precise 
 sense in which it is to be understood strikes me as 
 not altogether clear. 
 
 After stating that Kant conceived he had dis- 
 covered that the most general and highest notions 
 are a priori contained in our faculty of cognition, 
 Chalybiius proceeds as follows : 
 
 " But these the most general notions of relation- 
 ship, such as cause and effect, substance and acci- 
 dent, &c. &c., must not be conceived as being 
 ready made, and a priori placed into man's con- 
 sciousness previous to all reflection, or in other 
 words, as innate notions and ideas. The only things 
 innate to our minds are certain modes of procedure 
 in cognising and Judging. If we actually come to 
 know or judge any thing, we necessarily proceed to 
 do it in that peculiar manner ; and hence imme- 
 diately, and, as it were, without any choice of our 
 own, we view the things as standing related to 
 each other ; for example, as causes and effects, sub- 
 stances and accidents. Now we do this without any 
 premeditation ; and the child, and the unthinking 
 person who has never for a moment reflected upon 
 the abstract notion of these relations, proceeds in 
 the same way as the philosopher. This manner of 
 viewing things is simply the mode and the neces- 
 sary law of our perception itself. Afterwards only 
 when reflection has been cultivated, and we turn
 
 126 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 sions, however, we shall find that something more 
 is meant by " certain modes of procedure in cog- 
 nising and judging being innate to our minds" 
 than the plain truth that we are so constituted 
 mentally as to discern and compare and generalise 
 the facts presented to us. It is meant to assert 
 that the mind contains innately certain forms with 
 which it invests or according to which it regards 
 external facts. In consequence of this constitution 
 of our minds we cannot do otherwise than view 
 things as having certain relations, and divers truths 
 ns possessing necessity and universality, not be- 
 cause these relations and attributes really exist in 
 the things, but because we cast them over what we 
 perceive. We, in fact, according to the doctrine 
 under consideration, furnish forth the relations 
 (such as that between cause and effect) and the 
 necessity and universality of certain truths (e.g. 
 mathematical propositions) from our own inward 
 
 for n man mny live long, and die at last in ignorance of many 
 truths, which his mind was capable of knowing, and that with 
 certainty. So that if the capacity of knowing be the natural 
 impression contended for, all the truths a man ever comes to 
 know, will, by this account, be every one of them innate ; and 
 this great point will amount to no more, but only to a very 
 improper way of speaking ; which while it pretends to assert 
 the contrary, says nothing different from those who deny 
 innate principles. For nobody, I think, ever denied that the 
 mind was capable of knowing several truths. The capacity, 
 they say, is innate, the knowledge acquired. But then to what 
 end such contest for certain innate maxims?" Essay on Human 
 Understanding, book i. chap. ii. sect. 5.
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 127 
 
 resources ; we impose them on the external world, 
 and do not, as intelligent or percipient beings, dis- 
 cern things to be causes and effects, and facts to be 
 necessary, merely because they are so in nature. 
 
 It is difficult to describe wholly groundless theo- 
 ries, some parts of which are generally inconsistent 
 with others, in unexceptionable or uniformly appli- 
 cable language ; but I think I could make good my 
 description, were it needful, by abundant quotations. 
 
 Such a view of the matter as that given by 
 Chalybaus is perfectly compatible with Kant's 
 doctrine examined in a preceding letter, and re- 
 garded by him with much gratuitous self-compla- 
 cency in the light of a happy discovery of his own ; 
 the doctrine, namely, of the mind's acting on the 
 external world ; or rather, it may be considered as 
 part of that doctrine ; but it is both self-inconsistent 
 and irreconcilable with many other passages of 
 his philosophy. After what I have already said, 
 in several places, it is scarcely needful to repeat 
 that the whole theory of the mind's action on objects 
 and imposing its own forms upon them, is the pure- 
 product of the imagination. It is entirely destitute 
 of evidence to support it if not of precise meaning. 
 To adopt for the occasion the language of the sys- 
 tem, the only thing the mind supplies or furnishes, 
 in its perception of an external world, is the dis- 
 cernment which it exercises. 
 
 In conclusion, it may be useful to describe briefly, 
 the distinctive peculiarities of four separate theories
 
 124 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 our attention to the forms of our activity, we 
 become conscious of it in abstracto, and then we 
 designate it in language by substantives (appella- 
 tives). Our understanding itself is also capable of 
 making these modes the laws which regulate its 
 own movements the subject of observation, and 
 of reducing them to certain abstract notions, which, 
 however, may not be confounded with innate cog- 
 nitions or ideas in the sense attached to them by 
 PCS Cartes or by Plato, but are themselves really 
 the results (products) of abstraction on the part of 
 our own understanding."* 
 
 If this passage could be interpreted as simply 
 intending to state that we are so constituted as to 
 perform certain mental operations, in the ordinary 
 acceptation of that term, I should say that, allow- 
 ance being made for certain exceptionable expres- 
 sions and a little confusion of things which ought 
 to be kept distinct, it contains a tolerably correct 
 view of the subject, and corresponds, in the main, 
 with that which I have myself given : but, it would 
 not, so interpreted, be at all according to Kant. It 
 would amount, in fact, to an abandonment of the 
 peculiarity of his doctrines, the essence of which 
 consists in representing (doubtless with much con- 
 fusion and inconsistency) what are only the modes 
 and results of mental action, as knowledge or cogni- 
 
 * Historical Development of Speculative Philosophy from 
 Kunt to llegel by 11. M. Chulybiius, Edcrsheira's translation, 
 p. 40.
 
 OKNKUAL PROPOSITIONS. 125 
 
 tions indigenous to the mind, or springing up in the 
 mind independent of experience or of all impressions 
 on the senses. The very passage which I first cited 
 from Chalybaus represents Kant as conceiving he 
 had discovered that the most general and highest 
 notions are a priori contained in our faculty of cog- 
 nition, which, inasmuch as the term notion implies 
 the act of knowing, is clearly asserting knowledge 
 somehow to exist when nothing is known, and 
 which is therefore a doctrine totally inconsistent 
 with the supposed interpretation as well as with 
 itself. 
 
 General notions contained a priori in a faculty of 
 cognition on the one hand and modes of mental 
 procedure on the other, are wholly different things, 
 as I have pretty fully explained in a former letter ; 
 and the attempt to identify them can lead to nothing 
 but confusion.* On carefully sifting the expres- 
 
 * Locke very forcibly shows the futility of such an identifica- 
 tion in the chapter of his essay before referred to : 
 
 Having affirmed the truth that " no proposition can be said 
 to be in the mind which it never yet knew, which it was never 
 yet conscious of," he proceeds : " For if any one [proposition] 
 may, then, by the same reason, all propositions that are true 
 and the mind ia capable of ever assenting to, may be said to be 
 in the mind, and to be imprinted : since if any one can be said 
 to bo in the mind, which it never yet knew ; it must be only 
 because it is capable of knowing it, and so the mind is of all 
 the truths it ever shall know. Nay, thus truths may be im- 
 printed on the mind, which it never did nor ever shall know ' ; 
 
 1 This was actually (marvellous as it may seem) the doctrine 
 of Leibnitz, even after he had read this passage in Locke.
 
 128 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 on the subject before us, which it has fallen in my 
 way to notice in the preceding discussions. They 
 severally teach as follows : 
 
 1. That there are innate ideas and principles 
 stamped on the mind, but existing in a latent state 
 until they are roused, or brought into distinct cog- 
 nisance, by the exercise of the senses; amongst 
 which principles are all necessary truths. This is 
 Leibnitz's doctrine. 
 
 2. That there are certain cognitions which are 
 & priori without being innate, and, although inde- 
 pendent of the senses, are awakened in the mind 
 when, and not before, the senses are exercised ; 
 and which include all mathematical judgments 
 and all other propositions marked by necessity and 
 universality. This is the doctrine of Kant, accord- 
 ing at least to one interpretation, or in one of its 
 phases. 
 
 3. That there are certain modes of mental pro- 
 cedure innate to the mind, by which it necessarily 
 views things under certain forms and relations, not 
 because the things are so fashioned or related, but 
 because the constitution of the mind determines it 
 to impose these forms and relations on the outer 
 world. This is the doctrine ascribed to Kant by 
 Chalybiius. It may be considered as another phase 
 of his philosophy, and is supported by numerous 
 passages : but how far it is reconcilable with the 
 preceding theory (No. 2) may be left to his dis- 
 ciples to determine.
 
 GENERAL PROPOSITIONS. 129 
 
 4. That we human beings have no innate know- 
 ledge, but are so constituted as to perceive objects 
 as having various properties, because they actually 
 possess such properties ; to be high and low, near 
 and distant, straight and crooked, like and unlike, 
 connected together as necessarily coexisting, and 
 unconnected or casually conjoined: that we are 
 likewise so constituted as to indicate by articulate 
 speech what we thus perceive, and in the exercise 
 of this part of our constitution, to express, in 
 general propositions, the points of resemblance 
 which we discern amongst the various objects 
 brought under our cognizance. 
 
 This is the doctrine maintained in the present 
 Letters.
 
 130 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 You will, I think, agree with me that the tone of 
 German Philosophy does not, generally speaking, 
 harmonize with the English understanding ; and is 
 even decidedly repugnant to it. Largely as the 
 philosophy in question appears to have engaged 
 the attention of our continental neighbours, and 
 chimed in with their strain of thought, it has found 
 few cordial followers here, and it is worth while to 
 search for the sources of this dissonance and anti- 
 pathy. 
 
 The principal causes of the mysticism, obscurity, 
 vagueness, and, 1 may add, extravagance, which 
 in the estimation of most Englishmen, and I must 
 frankly declare in my own, characterise the specu- 
 lations of German philosophers, and repel many of 
 us from the study of their works, appear to me to 
 be the following : 
 
 1. Regarding perception through the organs of 
 sense as something to be analysed, explained, or 
 accounted for, instead of considering it as a simple 
 and primary fact of consciousness, the only possible
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 131 
 
 explanation relating to it being an explanation of 
 the physical conditions on which it depends. 
 
 2. Personifying what are usually termed the 
 faculties of the mind and even what may be called 
 * mental incidents/ and treating them as distinct 
 entities. 
 
 3. Treating in a similar way the abstractions, 
 generalisations, and other expedients of language 
 relating to the objects and events of the material 
 world. 
 
 4. Adducing imaginary or fictitious events as 
 facts, sometimes in explanation of realities and 
 sometimes in explanation of other fictions : a prac- 
 tice which is an inevitable consequence of the before- 
 mentioned errors, although frequently the result of 
 different circumstances ; and especially of the un- 
 bridled spirit of hypothesis. 
 
 It is not too much to affirm that these fictitious 
 facts, however they may originate, constitute the 
 great body of the philosophy of such writers as 
 Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. 
 
 Such defects as are enumerated in these four 
 divisions may, it is true, be found in English 
 writers, but they appear to me to exist amongst 
 German philosophers in so greatly exaggerated a 
 form, that the characteristic style of speculative 
 thought in the two nations is widely contrasted. 
 
 Our own philosophers have been, in the main, 
 disposed to conform their researches to the methods 
 employed in physical inquiry; and although their 
 
 K 2
 
 132 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 scientific success has not been great, owing to the 
 many traditional prejudices under which they have 
 entered upon the subject, and also to their not 
 perhaps seeing clearly how to follow the line of 
 inductive investigation pointed out to them by 
 physical science, they have usually felt both the 
 desire and the necessity of speaking plainly to the 
 practical understandings of their audience. Hence 
 they have given us much good sense, if not much 
 precise thinking, and at the same time compara- 
 tively little mysticism. 
 
 With the continental philosophers, the case has 
 been very different, as I shall now proceed to show. 
 
 1. The first error above particularized, namely, 
 not accepting the perception of external objects as 
 a primary fact of consciousness, which does not 
 require or admit of proof, explanation, or question, 
 is widely prevalent, and manifests itself in the 
 denial either of the existence of the outward world, 
 or of our direct knowledge of its existence. 
 
 I have already considered these views as ex- 
 pounded by some English philosophers, and also by 
 Kant, which renders it needless to enter upon them 
 now at any length. Much of what I have said in 
 reference to the speculations of Berkeley and others, 
 will apply to almost every modification of the ideal 
 theory. 
 
 The form which the theory assumes amongst 
 some other German philosophers may be thus stated: 
 
 We know only our subjective states, or in other
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 133 
 
 words our states of consciousness: we can know 
 nothing of the causes of these states, nothing beyond 
 them. That external things exist, is only a sup- 
 position or an inference, which is forced upon us, 
 or which we resort to for the satisfaction of our 
 craving for explanation, but which is, at best, only 
 a conclusion from internal or subjective phenomena. 
 Thus Fichte contends that we first have represen- 
 tations, or images in our minds, and then suppose 
 or infer external objects in order to account for 
 them. 
 
 I have first to observe as to the assertion that 
 we know only our subjective states an assertion 
 continually repeated by German and even English 
 philosophers how obviously it assumes the whole 
 question, and how utterly at variance it is with our 
 consciousness. We are conscious, as I have before 
 had frequent occasion to remark, and reiterate now 
 merely because the train of refutation requires it, 
 that we know external objects. This is exemplified 
 in the trite instance of seeing a tree, which, accord- 
 ing to the philosophy under review, is only a sub- 
 jective fact ; but which is truly both subjective and 
 objective. No one can possibly be in the subjective 
 state called seeing a tree (which is knowing through 
 the organ of sight), without being at once conscious 
 of himself as seeing, and conscious also (as an inte- 
 grant part of the act) of seeing the object. Seeing 
 can no more take place or exist without both a 
 
 K 3
 
 134 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND, 
 
 seer and an object seen, than a triangle can exist 
 without both three sides and three angles. 
 
 But the most important consideration remains. 
 The very phrase " it is only a subjective fact," pre- 
 supposes a knowledge of that which it denies a 
 knowledge of what is objective. If we knew no 
 other than subjective facts, we could not think or 
 speak of objective ones, in comparison or contrast 
 with them. The phrase would then have no mean- 
 ing for us, and indeed could not possibly have been 
 invented or employed. I have before made this 
 remark on another occasion, and in different lan- 
 guage, but you will pardon me for repeating a 
 truth which is so little recognized or understood 
 and so essential to a right apprehension of the 
 question. 
 
 But you proceed to urge with Fichte * (allow 
 me to constitute you his advocate) that we infer 
 or suppose that there is an external object a tree. 
 This is the same great fallacy in another form, and 
 deserves especial consideration : we do not infer 
 the existence of the external object : no inference 
 takes pluce, nor could it take place ; for we can infer 
 or suppose only such facts as we already genetically 
 know. We can infer only internal facts similar to 
 those we have been conscious of, and only external 
 facts similar to those we have known through the 
 
 * In his "Destination of Man" he tells ua that nothing more 
 i known of a cause tor our sensations than this that such an 
 iiifrrenec ia unavoidable.
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 135 
 
 organs of sense.* This is the fundamental law of 
 moral, probable, or contingent reasoning. If then 
 you infer that the tree is an object out of you, or 
 different from yourself, you must already know what 
 objects out of you are : i, e, you must possess a 
 knowledge of the class of facts, alleged to be only 
 inferred, before you infer the particular fact, and 
 in order to be able to infer it. 
 
 It is consequently impossible that the existence 
 of an external world can be deduced by reasoning : 
 it is directly perceived : it is not, nor can it be, a 
 matter of inference ; it is a matter of perception or 
 knowledge. 
 
 This erroneous doctrine sometimes, it will be 
 observed, assumes the shape of denying not only 
 a knowledge of matter, or of the external world, 
 but its very existence. 
 
 In this, however, there is the same contradiction, 
 only a little modified in form, that I have just 
 pointed out, as I explained in a former letter. You 
 cannot rationally deny the existence either of any 
 thing known, or of anything absolutely unknown. 
 
 Now it is clear that in denying the existence of 
 matter, you transgress in one of these ways; for 
 you must either know what matter is, or not know 
 it. 
 
 * What is here said contains a most important and universal 
 truth, prolific of consequences, and not to bo lightly passed over 
 by any one who wishes to muster the subject. Let liira try to 
 follow it out, in some of its most obvious applications, and he 
 will become sensible of its value.
 
 136 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 If you say you know what it is, you assert a 
 knowledge of that which, according to you, has no 
 existence, and never has had existence : you affirm 
 that you know a nonentity : your doctrine is there- 
 fore self-contradictory, 
 
 If, on the other hand, in denying the existence 
 of matter, you say that you have no knowledge of 
 matter, you may escape self-contradiction, but it is 
 at the expense of falling into an absolute nullity : 
 you assert the nonexistence of something perfectly 
 unknown to you, of which, consequently, you can 
 form no conception, and concerning which you can 
 draw no inference, nor make any rational assertion; 
 your doctrine is therefore altogether destitute of 
 meaning, perfectly null, worse than idle ; as much 
 so, as if you were to affirm the nonexistence of an 
 unknown quantity of an unknown substance in an 
 unknown place at an unknown time. 
 
 A similar refutation is applicable to the doctrine 
 that we cannot " know things in themselves ; " 
 which involves the same fallacies as those which 1 
 have just exposed ; and hence it would be tedious 
 to treat it separately here except in the briefest 
 manner, even if I had not already expressly anim- 
 adverted upon it in one of the letters of the first 
 series devoted to Kant. 
 
 The argument, nevertheless, since it has been 
 controverted, and I think misunderstood, may as 
 well be repeated in a condensed form. 
 
 You who assert that mankind cannot "know
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 137 
 
 things in themselves," either understand what 
 " things in themselves" are or you do not. If you 
 say you do, then unless you possess exclusive 
 sources of information, or a monopoly of this 
 peculiar sort of knowledge (which you will not 
 pretend), mankind have according to your own 
 declaration a knowledge of things in themselves. 
 
 If, on the contrary, you do not know what things 
 in themselves are, your doctrine amounts to a per- 
 fectly unmeaning assertion : you affirm, in reality, 
 that mankind do not know something you cannot 
 tell what. 
 
 There is, in fine, as every reader must have dis- 
 cerned before this time, one dilemma common to 
 all these phases of negation or of scepticism rela- 
 ting to the direct perception, or to the existence, of 
 external things; a dilemma which seems to have 
 been strangely overlooked when the several doc- 
 trines or hypotheses have been put on their trial : 
 they are all, according as their advocate shall adopt 
 one or other of two assertions, between which he 
 is compelled to make choice, either intrinsically 
 unmeaning or self-contradictor)', and they cannot 
 be otherwise. 
 
 It is understating the case to say, as is commonly 
 said, that they are without proof; they are in a far 
 worse condition than this : they necessarily either 
 contradict themselves or arc altogether destitute of 
 rational import. From this dilemma there is mani- 
 festly no escaping. Utrum hontm mavis accipe.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THB HUMAN MIND. 
 
 It is easy to see how doctrines which, in this way, 
 either amount to nothing or contain a self-contra- 
 diction, are almost sure, when followed out, to lead 
 their authors into vagueness, perplexity, and con- 
 fusion, and into abundance of fabulous statements 
 and imaginary facts. 
 
 It is the same error of not taking the facts of 
 perception as primary and in their nature unsus- 
 ceptible of proof, explanation, or analysis, which 
 has led to the doctrine taught by some philosophers 
 that everything which we ascribe to objects and 
 which is supposed to come to us from them, has 
 h'rst (to borrow very curious phraseology*) been 
 put by us into those objects. It has also led to the 
 less extravagant but kindred and not better-founded 
 doctrine, \\mtpart of what we perceive is furnished 
 by the mind and part by the objects themselves.f 
 
 More groundless, vague, and confused doctrines, 
 
 To show that I am not here drawing on my own imagi- 
 nation, which might be readily supposed by any reader not 
 acquainted with Genun/ speculation, I will produce a voucher. 
 41 In short," says Chalybiius, in giving an account of Fichte'a 
 philosophy, " every thrug that we ascribe to objects, and that is 
 supposed to come to us from them, has first been put by us into 
 these objects by a conclusion." Historical Development of 
 Speculative Philosophy, p. J85 (Eng. translation). 
 
 f The writer quoted in the preceding note tells us that Kant 
 acknowledged that objects somehow affect us, but the result of 
 their affecting us is so intimately and thoroughly mixed up with 
 the ittyredient added by our own understanding, that our Bense- 
 perceptions may now be looked upon us a perfectly subjective 
 product, which no longer corresponds to the object. Ibid. p. 83. 
 Abundance of other passages of the same tenor might bo cited,
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 139 
 
 could scarcely be given forth. The events described 
 are wholly fabulous and, in truth, impossible. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that by " perceiving " 
 is meant a state of consciousness, and if anything 
 is " furnished " by ourselves in the act of percep- 
 tion, we must be conscious of it, first as being 
 present in the mind, or forming a part of the con- 
 scious state, and then as being transferred to the 
 object and becoming perceptible through an organ 
 of sense. The only possible way in which we could 
 become cognizant of such a transaction would be 
 this being conscious of it: but as we are utterly 
 unconscious of anything of the kind, the whole pro- 
 ceeding may be justly set down (by all at least 
 whose experience tallies with mine) as purely ima- 
 ginary. In the process of perception there are 
 undoubtedly both physical facts and mental facts 
 two kinds of facts which, although they may be 
 connected as causes and effects, are perfectly dis- 
 tinct from each other as objects of knowledge, but 
 the doctrine before us seems to imply a sort of 
 mongrel facts, partaking of the character of both, 
 and utterly unknown to precise and accurate obser- 
 vaticn. 
 
 Such doctrines as these appear to arise, in 
 some measure at least, from confounding the part 
 played by our physical organism in the preliminary 
 business necessary to perception with the mental 
 act of perceiving. 
 
 It is quite true that perception depends conjointly
 
 140 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 upon the external object with the inorganic medium 
 necessary in some cases to the sensuous impression, 
 and upon the organic structure of the percipient 
 being, on which the proximate external substance 
 acts. One is not less essential to the mental result 
 than the other, but neither of them must be con- 
 founded with that result itself. 
 
 Perhaps a simple case may sufficiently illustrate 
 the part taken by each as well as the fundamental 
 difference of both from the act or state of conscious- 
 ness which they unite to produce. For this purpose 
 I will adduce an hypothetical instance, not taken 
 from any writer on the subject (probably none 
 would like the credit of it) but supposed merely for 
 the sake of elucidation. A derangement in the 
 structure of the eye sometimes occasions us to see 
 a really straight line, crooked. Here the faulty 
 form is due to some imperfection in the physical 
 organ, and it might possibly be said by those whose 
 opinions I am controverting (although I will not 
 attribute the doctrine to them in this imaginary 
 case) that the external world furnishes the straight 
 line and the mind furnishes the crookedness : but 
 this would manifestly be to confuse the optical 
 properties of the eye, which are external physical 
 facts, ascertainable only by observation through the 
 senses, with the phenomena of consciousness, which 
 in this case may be simply described as " seeing a 
 crooked line." The mind "adds" or "furnishes" 
 nothing: it is here the perceiving entity only. The
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. HI 
 
 organic apparatus is what enables us to see a line 
 when placed before us, and it is a derangement in 
 that apparatus which causes us to see the line 
 crooked*, which occasions the particular state of 
 consciousness so described. It must be obvious 
 that the state of consciousness cannot modify itself, 
 which would be implied in the assertion that the 
 mind contributes or furnishes the crookedness (or 
 indeed anything else) to the object. 
 
 The only thing furnished by the mind (to speak 
 in the language of the doctrine under examination) 
 is the discernment. If it be said that no one would 
 be so absurd as to maintain the opinion here sup- 
 posed, I reply, perhaps not in so glaring a shape, 
 but substitute " colour " for " crookedness " and 
 you have the precise doctrine of some eminent 
 philosophers. 
 
 If you take the trouble of looking back on what 
 I have written in this letter, you will probably be 
 struck with the numerous forms of fallacy which 
 have arisen from an imperfect discernment or want 
 of discernment that our perception of the external 
 world is a simple fact of consciousness, not requiring, 
 and not susceptible of, explanation. 
 
 * The case of a straight stick, partly immersed in water, 
 being seen bent, furnishes an instance where the apparent 
 flexure ia owing not to the organ but to the two different in- 
 organic media, through which the rays refracted from the two 
 different parts of the stick are transmitted. The percipient 
 mind has nothing to do with originating these circumstances, 
 but is affected by them.
 
 142 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 Thus, as we have just seen, it is contended by 
 some philosophers that we know only our subjective 
 states, and merely infer the existence of an external 
 world : by others that an external world does not 
 exist : by others that we do not know external 
 things in themselves : by others that the qualities 
 we perceive in external objects are first put by us 
 into the objects : by others that part of what we 
 perceive is furnished by ourselves and part by the 
 things without us. 
 
 These are all so many struggles of speculative 
 minds with a difficulty of their own raising. The 
 plain truth seems to have been too simple for them 
 to accept, and they have strangely wandered abroad 
 in search of what they had left behind at home. 
 
 In my next letter, I purpose to consider the 
 other causes already enumerated of the prominent 
 characteristics of the same philosophy.
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 143 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 THE PROMINENT CHARACTERISTICS OP GERMAN PHILO- 
 SOPHY AND THEIR CAUSES (iN CONTINUATION). 
 
 IN pursuance of my plan, I now come to the second 
 circumstance to which I attribute the prominent 
 characteristics of German speculation. 
 
 It consists in treating the so-called faculties of 
 the mind as real and distinct entities. 
 
 This I have elsewhere so fully pointed out in the 
 writings of authors, English, French, and German, 
 that I must content myself on the present occasion 
 with doing little more than referring to the previous 
 letters in which the subject is explained. 
 
 It is, perhaps, more conspicuous in Kant than in 
 any of his successors. 
 
 With the larger number of these philosophers, 
 (it may be remarked,) whatever becomes of the 
 other faculties, the reason figures as a very im- 
 portant independent entity, and is charged with the 
 most various functions. Thus Schelling talks of 
 the absolute reason embodying itself in inorganic 
 matter also as entering as an organic law into 
 the germs of vegetable life further as coming to 
 consciousness in animated nature, until in man it
 
 144 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 reaches the stage of self-consciousness, than which 
 it has hitherto got no higher in its range through 
 organized beings. Here, as in the other examples 
 I have cited, we have a description of wholly fic- 
 titious events, arising from the original personifica- 
 tion of reason. Unfortunately for the philosopher, 
 there is (as it seems almost needless to repeat) no 
 such entity as absolute reason, and consequently no 
 embodying or entering or coming to consciousness 
 on the part of this imaginary power. There is 
 reasoning in abundance in the world, both demon- 
 strative and contingent, but it is always a particular 
 act or series of such acts done by an individual 
 living being. 
 
 Thu following account of some of the doctrines 
 of Jacobi will serve to illustrate how philosophers 
 vary in their descriptions of what the faculties do, 
 and how little likely they are to agree in their 
 psychological views so long as they do not adopt 
 the simple plan of classifying and explaining opera- 
 tions, instead of creating powers and partitioning 
 mental territories : 
 
 "In his [Jacobi's] view, reason was something 
 wholly different from that logical faculty which 
 Kant had, in his theoretical philosophy, represented 
 it to be. Jacobi thought that just as our senses 
 are a faculty by which we have immediate percep- 
 tion of what in the province of corporeity has ex- 
 istence for us, so reason is that sense or faculty by 
 which we have immediate perception of that which
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 145 
 
 in the supersensual sphere of mind and intelligence 
 has existence for us." * 
 
 On this it may be observed, without entering 
 upon other comments, that since there is no criterion 
 by which to judge whether one philosopher's de- 
 scription of " reason " is more correct than that of 
 another, the assignment of functions is in a measure 
 arbitrary ; each speculator is at liberty to compre- 
 hend in his award what the other leaves out, and 
 after all no progress will be made by any of them 
 in the classification of the facts which constitute 
 our knowledge of man as a sensitive and intellectual 
 being. If, on the other hand, they content them- 
 selves with describing a mental operation they can 
 scarcely fail to agree in the main as to the parti- 
 culars to be comprehended under it, and, should 
 they differ, every reader may decide the matter 
 thus reduced to its simplest form, by the test of his 
 own consciousness. 
 
 Sometimes we find the so-called faculties desig- 
 nated by abstract terms, as in the following de- 
 scription of a doctrine ascribed to Kant : 
 
 " In every perception, receptivity and spontaneity 
 are inseparably connected and co-operate together. 
 The former furnishes the material, the latter the 
 form of all experience." 
 
 Here pure abstractions are converted into active 
 agents, each having its distinct function yet co- 
 
 * Chulybuus, Historical Development, p. 84. Edersheim'a 
 translation. 
 
 L
 
 146 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 operating with the other ; the first " furnishing " 
 substances, the second shapes. If any real fact 
 lurks under this phraseology, all that can be said 
 is that it is pretty effectually disguised : it inay 
 possibly be the simple truth that we generalize and 
 reason from the facts we perceive. 
 
 In another author *, we find what I have before 
 termed mental incidents undergoing the process of 
 personification : " representations " are described as 
 engaged with each other in a struggle, as being 
 thrust back or thrust aside, as waiting on the 
 threshold of consciousness for the favourable mo- 
 ment when they may be enabled once more to rise 
 up, as operating in the dark, as becoming feel- 
 ings, and eventually desires, and even volitions. 
 
 Of all such descriptions, outrageously figurative 
 as they are and at the best full of imaginary events, 
 it may be affirmed that whatever modicum of 
 meaning they may shadow forth they never can 
 do anything but confuse and perplex the science of 
 mind ; they are signal and lamentable departures 
 from that true method of philosophical investigation 
 which brings forward none but real facts and states 
 them in the simplest language. ' 
 
 3. The next source in my enumeration, which 
 contributes to the vagueness, obscurity, and confu- 
 sion of the philosophy before us, is the creation of 
 fictitious entities out of the mere forms of lan- 
 
 * Herbart.
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OP GERMAN PHILOSOPHT. 147 
 
 guage in reference to physical objects and events 
 the personification of material generalisations and 
 abstractions ; or, to express it differently, the 
 practice of ascribing a distinct and independent 
 existence to the signification of general and abstract 
 words, and, it may be added, of collective and com- 
 plex terms, concerning the external world.* These 
 are doubtless indispensable forms of expression in 
 speaking both of mind and of matter, but the 
 moment you make them the bases of separate 
 entities you are in imminent danger of falling into 
 vagueness and error and the assumption of ima- 
 ginary events. It may be said, indeed, that some 
 noted systems of metaphysical speculation consist 
 of little else than fictitious processes, described as 
 being performed or exhibited or undergone by 
 
 * The tendency of mankind to personifications is amusingly 
 exemplified in an incident recorded in " The Discovery of the 
 North-West Passage," by Captain M c Clure. During the time 
 the " Investigator " was frozen in the ice, there happened to be 
 a remarkable rise of temperature, from 2 minus to 24 plus of 
 Fahrenheit. " This sudden change was far from being pleasant 
 to the crew, who had put on their winter clothing and felt the 
 heat oppressive. The old hands, however, warned the novices 
 against ' being fools enough to pull their clothes off on uccount 
 of such a bit of sunshine, for perhaps in an hour's time Zero 
 would be about again.' Zero, it must be observed, was in- 
 variably referred to as a veritable foe, having an actual exist- 
 ence, and waa to be combated as they would do the Arch- 
 Knemy," p. 130. The lust part of the statement is at once in- 
 structive and suggestive. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 fictitious entities of one or other of the kinds which 
 have been pointed out.* 
 
 This is especially true of the writings of the later 
 German philosophers, where at every step you meet 
 with assertions of events or operations which you 
 are not internally conscious of and which you cannot 
 externally observe assertions which would never 
 have been made had there been a due appreciation 
 of the nature of general and abstract language. 
 
 4. Three of the causes which I have here classed 
 under distinct heads are so intimately allied and so 
 frequently intermixed that I have, in some degree, 
 anticipated the elucidation of the last of them ; and 
 what I have further to remark will serve to illus- 
 trate both the preceding and the present divisions. 
 
 It is certainly not necessary to travel any great 
 way through the systems of German philosophy, or 
 even any one of them, for the purpose in view. It 
 
 * I am happy in being able to corroborate some of my views 
 on the present subject by the following passage from an eminent 
 living writer, with whom, as several of the preceding Letters 
 show, I do not always find myself in accordance : " This mis- 
 apprehension of the import of general language constitutes 
 Mysticism, a word so much oftener written and spoken than 
 understood. Whether in the Vedas, in the Platonists, or in the- 
 Hegelians, mystic-ism is neither more nor less than ascribing 
 objective existence to the subjective creations of the mind's 
 own faculties, to mere ideas of the intellect ; and believing that, 
 by watching tind contemplating these ideas of its own making, 
 it can read in them wjiat takes place in the world without." 
 A System of Loyic, by J. S. Mill, voL ii. p. 364.
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 149 
 
 will be sufficient to select a few examples of what 
 I wish to point out. 
 
 One very remarkable set of these imaginary 
 transactions may be attributed to a lavish employ- 
 ment, and an incessant personification, of the 
 general terra nature, which is a word requiring 
 from its various senses to be used with great care 
 and discrimination. I scarcely need say that there 
 is no separate entity indicated by the term, which 
 is a mere form of language applied to designate 
 sometimes the aggregate of actual existences, and 
 sometimes the constitution of particular objects, 
 or the qualities of things; besides possibly other 
 acceptations. Let us see, however, how the word 
 is employed. 
 
 \Ve are told that " nature tends throughout 
 towards individuation. Its progress in the grand 
 total has been a distinguishing of that which primi- 
 tively was undistinguished, an unfolding of that 
 which was undeveloped and comprehended together 
 in the subjectivity, hence an individualising into 
 different parts, and again of those parts amongst 
 themselves, yet in such a manner that the positive 
 essence remains eternally that which is unitous in 
 each and all, just as nature itself surrounds, as an 
 invisible and eternal bond, each and all, and unites 
 them into a whole." 
 
 " If nature" (the same writer* proceeds) "is thus 
 
 * Schclling. 
 x. 3
 
 150 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 looked upon in general as one infinite organism, 
 then every part of it is only serviceable to the whole, 
 and has by itself no existence and no aim." . . . 
 
 Again " It (nature) aims as much to exhibit 
 relative totalities (wholenesses) in the individual, as 
 on the other hand it again swallows up all these 
 totalities in the one grand organism, as being only 
 part totalities. Hence the universal bond manifests 
 or affirms itself relatively again in the individual 
 and exhibits in the latter the form of totality." 
 Here we have a description of purely hypothetical 
 transactions of a hypothetical agent, the precise 
 signification of the whole of which I will not venture 
 to surmise except for my own private edification. 
 Two or three of the positions are curious enough, 
 especially those relating to the circumambient bond. 
 
 If there is no separate existence corresponding to 
 the word nature, but when used in its widest sense 
 it can mean nothing but the aggregate of individual 
 objects or operations, then in the assertion that 
 ** nature surrounds each and all and unites them in 
 a whole " either there is no real meaning except the 
 mere truism that existing things taken together 
 form a totality, or we have the description of an 
 imaginary event or condition. Construed literally 
 the description of nature surrounding all things is 
 simply nugatory, and is much the same as predi- 
 cating that a man surrounds himself. 
 
 Again, when nature is said " to aim to exhibit 
 relative totalities in the individual," this is a mere
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF GKRMAN PHILOSOPHY. 151 
 
 figure of speech scarcely worthy of appearing in 
 any philosophical explanation except professedly as 
 a figure, and when this nature is further described 
 as swallowing up all these totalities in one grand 
 organism, although exhibiting in the individual the 
 form of totality, we can consider the entire descrip- 
 tion only as either simply unmeaning or asserting 
 that individual objects, while being parts in relation 
 to the grand whole, may yet be considered as 
 wholes in themselves which is at the best a mere 
 platitude. 
 
 There is another abstraction, " the absolute," 
 which plays a great part in this philosophy. 
 
 Thus in one work " the absolute " is spoken of as 
 " unfolding itself into the totality of what is." 
 
 In another ; " the absolute " is described as 
 " having intuition of itself," and again the absolute 
 itself is designated as " living reason." 
 
 The term absolute used as a substantive is, in 
 fact, simply an abstract word implying nothing 
 more than absoluteness, and can have no meaning 
 until it is connected with some real existence. 
 
 We may speak of absolute power or absolute 
 wisdom, meaning power without limit and wisdom 
 without imperfection; and even these phrases can 
 call up only concrete ideas the idea of a being 
 absolutely powerful and perfectly wise, or powerful 
 and wise in a degree to which we can assign no 
 limits an indefinite degree. 
 
 L 4
 
 152 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 A similar remark may be applied to the phrase 
 " the infinite," which is an abstract term equivalent 
 to infinitude or infinitcncss, and can be connected 
 with no clear idea in our minds except an idea 
 of some particular object or combination of objects ; 
 nor, when so connected, can it be more in meaning 
 than the word indefinite. 
 
 We have seen above that nature is styled the 
 universal bond: but in other places we find "the 
 absolute " is designated by the same title : and we 
 are further told that the absolute has differentiated 
 itself into light and gravity and is identical with 
 the material world.* 
 
 In such phrases as these we really have the 
 essence of fiction ; they describe purely imaginary 
 events and the only grain of meaning we can by 
 the utmost ingenuity extract from them is what 
 we scarcely needed to be told that there are such 
 things as light and gravitating bodies in the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 Similar extravagancies abound. 
 
 " Light," says one author, is " the thinking of 
 nature," or rather "the intuition of herself by 
 herself." 
 
 "We of mankind," says the same (or another), 
 "are, as it were, only the innumerable eyes by 
 which the infinite world-spirit contemplates itself." 
 
 In another place we are gravely told that man 
 has within himself the principle of Meity^ a phrasco- 
 Schelliiig.
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OP GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 153 
 
 logy which rivals the quiddity and hicceity of the 
 schools. 
 
 In these three last extracts, the only truths I can 
 discover are, that light is light, that mankind are 
 conscious beings, and that an individual man is 
 himself and not another man truths which might 
 have been kept back without any serious detriment 
 to philosophy. 
 
 Regarding the passages literally, I can find in 
 them only the description of imaginary conditions 
 or events. 
 
 It is a fiction that light is " thinking ; " it is 
 a fiction that the world-spirit contemplates itself 
 through mankind as through so many eyes; it is a 
 fiction that man contains within himself an abstract 
 entity here styled the principle of Meity. In re- 
 ference to this last expression I may add that the 
 most curious philosophical treatment is experienced 
 by " ME." In the above passage it is turned into 
 an abstraction : while in another place, it is, like 
 the rules of a law-court, made absolute; we are 
 told there is " an absolute me in the broad ground 
 of which every individual me has struck root." 
 
 This is astounding enough, but, in the following 
 sentences we reach the climax of extravagance and 
 self-contradiction in the creation of imaginary per- 
 sonages and events. 
 
 " Being and naught " (gravely asseverates a cele- 
 brated philosopher *) " are identical." 
 * Hegel.
 
 151 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN BOND. 
 
 Further, "if we analyse origination [literally 
 becoming] it is found, that it is a continuous trans- 
 ition from being into naught and a continuous 
 coming over from naught into being." 
 
 Comment on this is scarcely required: 
 
 " The force of fiction could no farther go." 
 
 I will venture, however, to remark that if being 
 and naught are identical, the transition of one into 
 the other the transition of the same thing into 
 the same thing is a most extraordinary process : 
 and when it again happens " may we " (as the 
 poet ejaculated in reference to the future rides of 
 John Gilpin), " may we be there to see." 
 
 You must excuse this little spirt of levity on so 
 weighty a subject, for it is impossible to treat some 
 of the doctrines under consideration with uniform 
 seriousness. 
 
 " To laugh were want of goodness or of grace, 
 But to be grave exceeds all power of face."
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OP GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 155 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 THE PROMINENT CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN PHILO- 
 SOPHY AND THEIR CAUSES (iN CONTINUATION). 
 
 IT may be objected, perhaps, that it is unfair to 
 take single sentences without the context, wrenched 
 from their places in that system of philosophy of 
 which they merely form a part. 
 
 And so perhaps it might be were my object to 
 enter into a confutation of the systematic doctrines 
 of the several treatises containing the passages cited : 
 but my principal design being to show the errors 
 flowing from the personification or erection into 
 distinct entities of abstractions and generalities, and 
 especially the multiplicity of fictitious or imaginary 
 objects and events which pervade philosophy and 
 are in a great measure consequent on this practice, 
 the end may be attained by quoting even single 
 propositions provided they clearly manifest the 
 characteristics in question. And I scarcely need 
 to say that the writings on which I am animad- 
 verting do not merely exhibit these characteristics 
 in an incidental way and at long intervals, but are 
 almost wholly made up of them. 
 
 Nevertheless, to meet the preceding objection as
 
 156 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 far as I can do it consistently with that brevity of 
 discussion which is all that such speculations are 
 worth, I will select some one systematic doctrine 
 for particular examination, and try whether we can 
 obtain a different result. 
 
 With the same view to brevity, I will take the 
 exposition of the doctrine from the pages of some 
 author who endeavours to present it in a succinct 
 form and a popular style. 
 
 The following is an explanation of one part of 
 Hegel's philosophy by a recent English expositor : 
 
 u Take any object whatever and ask how it 
 becomes to us a real existing idea or thing (for 
 with Hegel these two are the same). Philosophers 
 ordinarily say, that when we have a perception 
 there is implied the mind or subject that perceives 
 on the one side, and the object which is perceived 
 on the other, the two communicating by some 
 unknown process. The pure idealist, it is true, 
 denies the reality of the object, and regards it as 
 the production of the subject ; but Schelling had 
 exploded this notion, and introduced the doctrine 
 of identity, according to which we must admit a 
 real subject and a real object,' but must regard 
 them as two corresponding manifestations of the 
 snmc absolute existence. Hegel, however, now goes 
 one step further in his analysis. He says that there 
 is neither subject nor object separately considered, 
 but that they both owe their existence and reality 
 to each other. The only real existence then is the
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 157 
 
 relation / the whole universe is a universe of rela- 
 tions; subject and object which appear contradictory 
 to each other are really one not one in the sense 
 of Schelling, as being opposite poles of the same 
 absolute existence, but one inasmuch as their rela- 
 tion forms the very idea, or the very thing itself."* 
 
 A brief consideration of the nature of abstract 
 language suffices to show that this doctrine is just 
 the reverse of the truth. So far from the only real 
 things being relations, there is not a single real 
 entity in the universe answering to that name. 
 
 There are innumerable objects in the world which 
 are related to each other in a variety of ways, but 
 there are no separate existences represented by the 
 term relations. 
 
 The latter term is, in truth, a generic word of a 
 peculiar character ; it is a common name for a 
 number of abstractions. Thus resemblance, dis- 
 tance, titness, successiveness, symmetry, equality, 
 are all abstract terms; in each case, that which is 
 denoted by them is designated a relation, and none 
 of these terms, the last included, can do more than 
 raise up the ideas of particular objects in pairs or 
 groups. 
 
 It is scarcely needful to enforce here the truth 
 explained in a former letter, that all abstract 
 phrases may be thrown into concrete language 
 without any loss of meaning. When we say that 
 
 * An Historical and Critical View of the Speculative Philo- 
 sophy of Kurope, by .7. D. Morell, vol. ii. p. 136.
 
 158 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MTND. 
 
 a portrait has a resemblance to the original, or 
 that one simple flower, a daisy for instance, has a 
 resemblance to another daisy, we express no more 
 in each instance than that one resembles the other. 
 The phrases "they resemble one another," and 
 " they have a resemblance to one another," or 
 " there is a resemblance between them," are per- 
 fectly equivalent. The relation termed resemblance 
 has thus no independent existence, is no separate 
 entity; and the same is true of all other relations. 
 Pardon me for repeating these familiar truths. 
 
 Instead then of the whole universe being a uni- 
 verse of relations, which would be a universe of 
 nothings, it is a universe of related things. The 
 realities are not, as taught by Hegel, the relations 
 between objects, but the objects themselves between 
 which the so-called relations have place, or, in other 
 words, which are variously related to each other. 
 
 Mark again the singular reasoning that subject 
 and object are one, because the relation between 
 them forms the very thing itself; which can scarcely 
 1x2 surpassed in self-contradiction and confusion of 
 thought, except it be by the preceding assertion 
 that both subject and object owe' their existence to 
 each other the ingenious story of the Kilkenny 
 cats inverted. 
 
 I am not sure that I ever met with a finer 
 instance of the absurdities into which the creation 
 of fictitious entities out of the abstractions of lan- 
 guage, can betray a reputedly powerful intellect.
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 159 
 
 If this should seem severe, pray observe for a 
 moment the contradictions in the theory animad- 
 verted upon. 
 
 Subject and object are one, yet there is a relation 
 between them : which necessarily implies that they 
 are two. 
 
 They owe their existence to each other, the 
 former as father producing the latter as child, and 
 then the latter begetting its own parent. 
 
 Yet notwithstanding their existence is thus 
 marvellously brought about, they are not real 
 things ; f. e. they do not really exist. 
 
 And hence, although there is a relation between 
 them, it is a relation between two nothings; and 
 such relations between nothings, are the only reali- 
 ties in the universe. 
 
 If the student of philosophy would always, or at 
 least in cases of importance, adopt the rule of 
 throwing the abstract language in which it is so 
 frequently couched into a concrete form*, he 
 would find it a powerful aid in dealing with the 
 obscurities and perplexities of metaphysical specu- 
 lation. He would then see clearly the character of 
 the immense mass of nothings which constitute what 
 passes for philosophy. 
 
 The doctrine of Hegel above commented upon, is 
 at once disclosed in all its absurdity when this 
 effective touchstone is applied to it. 
 
 * See on this subject " The Theory of Reasoning" by the pre- 
 sent author, Appendix.
 
 160 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 The rule here recommended is formed from a 
 view of the nature of general and abstract terms : 
 but there is another rule drawn from the conside- 
 ration of general propositions or laws, which he 
 will find of no less utility whether the language is 
 abstract or concrete. 
 
 In a preceding letter I have shown that from 
 their very nature, general rules, laws, or proposi- 
 tions, can be legitimately formed from nothing but 
 particular instances. 
 
 If, consequently, such a proposition has any real 
 meaning, it will be always possible to find some in- 
 stance in exemplification of it. Let the student then 
 endeavour to discover such an instance. If this 
 cannot be done ; if no instance can be adduced ; if 
 the general proposition should elude all attempts 
 to bring it to this homely test ; it may be set down 
 as a mere empty form of words. If on the other 
 hand an instance can be found, the falsity of the 
 general proposition (should it be false) will come 
 out. 
 
 Let us try this rule on a passage from Schelling : 
 
 " The lifeless and unconscious products of nature 
 are only the unsuccessful attempts of nature to 
 reflect itself." 
 
 Well a quartz crystal is a lifeless and unconscious 
 product of nature ; in what sense is it an unsuc- 
 cessful attempt of nature at self-reflection ? If I 
 were to follow the philosopher in his personification, 
 I should say, that the crystal, although lifeless and
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 161 
 
 unconscious, is a successful attempt of nature to 
 put forth a beautiful production. " Nature," how 
 ever, as here used being an aggregate word sig- 
 nifying no particular thing or entity but the 
 whole universe, it is nugatory a mere flourish of 
 fancy quite appropriate in poetry or rhetoric to 
 ascribe to it an attempt (which is the act of an 
 intelligent being) to accomplish any end and espe- 
 cially such an end as self-reflection whatever 
 that may mean. In the passage quoted there are 
 manifestly no real facts corresponding to the asser- 
 tion, and it is only the generality of the proposition 
 which can give it the semblance of a meaning. 
 Demand an example and it vanishes into nothing. 
 
 Take as another proposition on which to try the 
 test, the extraordinary passage quoted in a pre- 
 ceding letter. 
 
 " If we analyse origination [becoming] it is 
 found that it is a continuous transition from being 
 into naught and a continuous coming over from 
 naught into being." 
 
 Let any one task his recollection or rack his 
 invention to the utmost, he will be unable to dis- 
 cover or even imagine a single instance in which 
 this is true. The annihilation of matter, the 
 " transition of being into naught," as well as the 
 converse process " the coming over of naught into 
 being," is to man an unknown occurrence.* 
 
 O' 
 
 * On this point I may perhaps bo pardoned for introducing 
 a short quotation from one of my own works. " In the prc- 
 
 M
 
 162 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 The inevitable conclusion is that the author has 
 here suffered himself to be imposed upon by words, 
 and has announced an analysis of " origination " 
 destitute of real meaning although not of conspi- 
 cuous absurdity. If it should be alleged that I 
 have mistaken his drift, I reply that I should be 
 glad to find I had, inasmuch as it would show that 
 there is one speculative folly in the world less than 
 I supposed. 
 
 sent course of Nature, we have no evidence of the production 
 of new matter, not an iota of evidence; no philosopher of 
 modern times has ever maintained that we have. It is the 
 same with the extinction of matter: no act of extinction, no 
 phenomenon of annihilation, has ever yet crossed the inquiries 
 of the searcher into the secrets of Nature. The chemist, who 
 pursues substance* through all their changes, finds them, indeed, 
 assume new forms, enter into new combinations, cast off their 
 sensible properties, and escape all tests of their existence but 
 the grasp of gravitation ; yet in all these metamorphoses (as far 
 at K-ast as ponderable mutter is concerned) he loses not a 
 particle of the original quantity." On the General Principles 
 of Physical Investigation, being one of the "Discourses on 
 Various Subjects," p. 160, A.D. 1852.
 
 CAUSATION OF VOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 163 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 THE CAUSATION OP VOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 
 
 ON my view of the proper way in which the philo- 
 sophy of consciousness should be treated, namely 
 by regarding operations and affections instead of 
 faculties, and shaping our language accordingly, a 
 number of puzzling questions appear to me to be 
 got rid of with comparative ease. 
 
 Amongst these, if I mistake not, is the controversy 
 as to the so-called freedom of the Will ; which is 
 literally the freedom of a nonentity. 
 
 As the Will is merely a personification of our 
 acts of willing, there ought, in consonance with the 
 preceding remark, to be an evident advantage 
 gained by dropping the personification and throw- 
 ing the question into a different form. In no case, 
 perhaps, except in treating of " the Reason," have 
 graver disputes and more embarrassing perplexities 
 arisen from the creation of a fictitious entity than 
 in the instance before us. We may disencumber 
 ourselves of almost all these by resolutely abstain- 
 ing from the use of this formidable noun, and 
 putting our meaning into the plainest and most 
 direct expressions. 
 
 M '2
 
 164 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 What the vexed question really amounts to, may 
 be stated as follows : 
 
 Are we free to perform those movements of the 
 body and those operations of the mind which are 
 admitted by all to be effects of willing or to be 
 voluntary ? There is no occasion to embarrass the 
 inquiry by considering dubious cases : let us take 
 such alone as exhibit undoubted volitions. 
 
 Now it is very clear that we are quite free to do 
 these acts if we please or will to do them. 
 
 Thus the act of stretching out my arm is one of 
 the motions produced by willing, and whenever I 
 please to do it I can do it, or, what is the same 
 thing, I am free to do it. 
 
 The expressions " I am free to do an action if I 
 please," and " 1 can do it if I please," are clearly 
 equivalent. 
 
 Where then in a matter so stated can there be 
 any room for doubt or controversy? It seems 
 almost absurd to make a question of it at all. 
 
 On close examination nevertheless it will be 
 found, that, when reduced to its simplest form the 
 disputed point is, in reality, not whether we are 
 free to act in certain matters as we please, for no 
 one, I believe, disputes that we are, but whether 
 there are regular causes (as there are in physical 
 events) which bring us into the state of " pleasing 
 or willing " to act in the ways in which we do act. 
 
 This question, although evidently a question of 
 fact, it might be impossible to determine to the
 
 CAUSATION OF VOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 165 
 
 satisfaction of every body, were the causes referred 
 to not distinctly assignable : but, if there ure cir- 
 cumstances which can be assigned as regularly 
 preceding certain volitions, so that when the cir- 
 cumstances take place the voluntary acts can be 
 foreseen and predicted, then the doctrine that 
 voluntary acts depend on, or are the effects of, 
 regular causes in the same way as physical events 
 are, cannot be doubted without self-contradiction. 
 Now nothing is easier than to show that there are 
 circumstances which can be so assigned and of 
 which the results can be so predicted. 
 
 Cases in point abound in the ordinary course of 
 daily life, although they are very commonly over- 
 looked or not viewed in the aspect in which it will 
 be my design to exhibit them. 
 
 In a dissertation which I published above thirty 
 years ago*, " On the Uniformity of Causation 
 explaining the General Principle of all Evidence 
 and Expectation," I adduce numerous examples of 
 the confidence with which we habitually anticipate 
 the results of voluntary acts from causes put in 
 motion either by ourselves or by others. 
 
 As the Treatise is little known, has long been 
 out of print, and is not likely to be soon republished, 
 I may be permitted to quote from it, as a prelude 
 to what follows, two or three passages of consider- 
 able length which state the matter as clearly and 
 
 * A.D. 1826. 
 
 M 3
 
 166 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 succinctly as I could hope to do were I to attempt 
 a fresh exposition, availing myself of the right of an 
 author to make alterations in his own text, although 
 in the present case they will be either merely verbal 
 or introduced for the sake of compression. 
 
 " It is surprising that this connection between 
 motives and actions should have ever been theore- 
 tically questioned, when every human being every 
 day of his existence is practically depending upon 
 its truth ; when men are perpetually staking plea- 
 sure and fortune, and reputation and even life 
 itself on the very principle that they speculatively 
 reject. It is, in truth, intermingled in all our 
 schemes, projects, and achievements. In the 
 address of the orator, in the treatise of the author, 
 in the enactments of the legislator, in the manoeuvres 
 of the warrior, in the edicts of the monarch, it is 
 equally implied. Examine any one of these. 
 Take, for example, the operations of a campaign. 
 A general, in the exercise of his authority over the 
 array which he commands, cannot move a step 
 without taking for granted that the minds of his 
 soldiers will be determined by the motives pre- 
 sented to them. When he directs his aide-de-camp 
 to bear a message to an officer in another part of 
 the field, he calculates upon his obedience with as 
 little mistrust as he reckons upon the stability of 
 the ground on which he stands, or upon the mag- 
 nifying power of the telescope in his hand. When 
 he orders his soldiers to wheel, to deploy, to form a
 
 CAUSATION OF VOLUNTABY ACTIONS. 167 
 
 square, to fire a battery, is he less confident in the 
 result than he is when he performs some physical 
 operation, when he draws a sword, pulls a trigger, 
 or seals a despatch ? It is obvious that throughout 
 all his operations, in marches and encampments, 
 and sieges and battles, he calculates as fully on the 
 volitions of his men as on the strength of his 
 fortifications or the reach of his guns. 
 
 " In commercial transactions of all sorts there is 
 the same reliance. In the simple circumstance of a 
 merchant's draft on his banker payable on a spe- 
 cified day, we have it strikingly exemplified. We 
 can scarcely conceive an instance of more perfect 
 reliance on the production of voluntary acts by the 
 motives presented to human beings, than this com- 
 mon occurrence. The merchant dismisses his draft 
 into the commercial world without the least doubt 
 that however circuitous the course, it will at last 
 find some individual to present it for payment on 
 the appointed day, and that his banker will finally 
 pay it. Here we have in fact a series of volitions, 
 the result of which is looked for with unhesitating 
 confidence, with a confidence quite equal to that 
 with which the material of the draft is expected 
 to retain the handwriting upon it. 
 
 "The principal illustration, however, which I 
 have to adduce on this subject is the science of 
 Political Economy, especially as it will afford at 
 the same time an opportunity of exhibiting the real 
 basis of this science, which has not perhaps been 
 
 M 4
 
 168 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 fully understood, even by some of those who have 
 been successful in the discovery and elucidation of 
 its truths. 
 
 " The principle which is at the bottom of all the 
 reasonings of Political Economy is in fact the uni- 
 formity with which visible or assignable circum- 
 stances operate in producing voluntary acts. 
 
 " To exemplify : 
 
 " It is a received conclusion in Political Eco- 
 nomy that where competition is left open there 
 is a tendency to equality in the profits of the 
 various branches of commerce. If any one branch 
 becomes much more lucrative than the rest, a 
 flow of capital to that department soon restores 
 the equilibrium. This general law is explained 
 with perspicuity by Adam Smith in the case of the 
 builder, whose trade, as he shows, must yield suffi- 
 cient profit to pay him the ordinary interest of 
 money on the capital expended and also to replace 
 that capital within a certain term of years. If 
 the trade of a builder affords at any time a much 
 greater profit than this, it will soon draw so much 
 capital from other trades as will reduce the profit 
 to its proper level. If it affords at any time much 
 less than this, other trades will soon draw so much 
 capital from it as will again raise that profit. 
 
 " Now when Dr. Smith asserts that the trade of 
 a builder under the circumstances supposed, will 
 draw capital from other trades, he is not stating a 
 physical fact which will take place in consequence
 
 CAUSATION OP VOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 169 
 
 of some material attraction, but he is laying down 
 a result which will ensue from the known princi- 
 ples of the human mind ; or, in other words, from 
 motives acting on society with certainty and pre- 
 cision. The secession of capital from other trades 
 is not a mechanical effect, like the motion of water 
 to its level, but the consequence of a number of 
 voluntary actions. It is an event which is pro- 
 duced through the medium of human volitions, 
 although we reason upon it with as much certainty 
 as on the tendency of water to an equilibrium. 
 
 " In employing such figurative expressions as 
 these, in exalting trade and capital into sponta- 
 neous agents, and investing them with certain 
 qualities and tendencies, we are apt to be deceived 
 by our own language ; to imagine that we have 
 stated the whole of the truth, and to lose sight of 
 all those mental operations concerned in the result 
 which we so concisely express. Let us reflect for 
 a moment on all the intellectual and moral pro- 
 cesses, which lie hid under the metaphorical descrip- 
 tion of the trade of a builder drawing capital from 
 other trades. To produce tins result, the fact must 
 transpire that the trade is more than ordinarily 
 lucrative ; this circumstance must excite the cupi- 
 dity or emulation of a number of individuals; these 
 individuals must deliberate on the prudence or 
 propriety of embarking in it ; they must resolve 
 upon their measures ; they must take steps for bor- 
 rowing money, or withdraw capital before appro-
 
 170 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 priated to other purposes and apply it to this ; in 
 doing which they will probably have to enter into 
 bargains, make sales, draw bills, and perform a 
 hundred other voluntary actions; the result of all 
 which operations will be the employment of a 
 greater portion of the labour of the community in 
 building than formerly, and a smaller portion in 
 other pursuits ; and all these, with a number of 
 other occurrences, are masked under the phrase of 
 one trade drawing capital from another. 
 
 " It is the same throughout the whole science of 
 Political Economy. The rise and fall of prices, the 
 fluctuations in exchange, the vicissitudes of supply 
 and demand, the return of excessive issues of .paper 
 on the bankers, the disappearance of specie, the 
 depreciation of the currency, and various other 
 events are to be traced to certain determinate 
 causes acting with regularity on the minds of indi- 
 viduals and bodies of men : all these phrases are in 
 fact expressions of the results of voluntary actions. 
 Such circumstances furnish as striking instances of 
 perfect vaticination in regard to the acts of human 
 beings as any that can be adduced in regard to 
 material occurrences. Political Economy is, in a 
 great measure, an inquiry into the operation of 
 motives, and proceeds on the principle that the 
 volitions of mankind are under the influence of 
 precise and ascertainable causes." * 
 
 * Essay on the Uniformity of Causation, chap, vi.
 
 CAUSATION OP VOLUNTABT ACTIONS. 171 
 
 Thus when the vague language about the freedom 
 of the Will the freedom, as before said, of a 
 nonentity is set aside, the real question assumes 
 a shape which presents little ground for difference 
 of opinion. 
 
 Voluntary actions are proved to be dependent on 
 regular and, in many cases, distinctly assignable 
 causes, by the facts that we habitually predict them 
 and calculate with the utmost confidence that they 
 will ensue from the motives which we present to 
 the intelligent beings whose conduct we wish to 
 influence or direct. 
 
 " Well but after all," it may be said, " when we 
 thus predict or calculate upon the voluntary actions 
 of our fellow-creatures, we merely regard them as 
 likely to happen ; there is, no necessity in the case ; 
 they may or may not occur; a sort of latitude 
 prevails in these things ; we are-not obliged to resort 
 to the supposition of a dependence on regular or 
 invariable causes." 
 
 And most assuredly the actions so predicted are 
 only what come under the class probable or likely 
 to happen ; but as assuredly no probability can be 
 ascribed to any events (if such can be conceived) 
 which do not depend on regular antecedents. The 
 moment you admit an event to be probable, you 
 pronounce it to be the consequence of invariable 
 causes. It is our ignorance of all the causes in 
 operation which makes the events to us only pro- 
 bable: an acquaintance with the whole would
 
 172 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 produce perfect certainty ; and practically, as I 
 have shown, our knowledge in the case of many 
 voluntary actions is so complete that there is but 
 an infinitesimal admixture of doubt, corresponding 
 to the same minute quantity of ignorance. In 
 this respect they resemble innumerable physical 
 events which vary in degrees of probability to us, 
 according as our knowledge of the causes in 
 operation is greater or less ; but no one surely 
 supposes that this difference in probability is owing 
 to some of the events being more loosely connected 
 (to adopt for the moment an unmeaning phrase) 
 than others with the series of which they form a 
 part.* 
 
 Variations in probability are entirely due to 
 variations in the state of our own knowledge ; and 
 this is equally true whether the events in question 
 are of a physical or moral character. 
 
 The preceding exposition has been employed in 
 elucidating two facts which can scarcely be contro- 
 verted by the most prejudiced of mankind ; namely, 
 1st. that voluntary actions are not only constantly 
 predicted but purposely produced by the motives 
 which human beings present to each other; and 
 
 "The word chance serves conveniently to veil our igno- 
 rance : we employ it to explain effects of whose causes we are 
 ignorant. To one who could foresee all things there would be 
 no chance ; and the events which now appear to us roost ex- 
 traordinary would have then natural and necessary causes, in 
 the same way as the commonest occurrences." Letters on the 
 Theory of Probabilities, by M. A. Quetelet, Letter 2.
 
 CAUSATION OF VOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 173 
 
 2ndly. that in performing such actions we never- 
 theless do as we please: we act with perfect 
 freedom: an option is presented to us, and we 
 choose to do the actions rather than not do them. 
 
 Mankind, however, seem not to understand the 
 relation in which these two facts (both incontro- 
 vertibly true) stand to each other. It is generally 
 apprehended that there is some discrepancy or in- 
 consistency or incompatibility between them : but 
 for my own part I see none ; and if both are real 
 facts, they cannot, I scarcely need say, be discordant 
 or incompatible one with the other. 
 
 "Why should there seem to be any incompatibility 
 between your doing as you please, and my pre- 
 dicting what you will do, and even causing you to 
 please to do it? 
 
 My purposely producing in you the state of 
 pleasing to do a thing which implies of course 
 my foreseeing the action, is not compelling you 
 to do it, but the reverse. 
 
 For example, when I offer to a bookseller the 
 price of a volume exposed for sale in his shop, and 
 thus bring his mind into the state of pleasing to 
 part with it, as well as foresee that he will part with 
 it, I do not put him under any necessity to sell me 
 the book, I render him willing to do it, which is 
 the opposite of compelling him or forcing him to 
 surrender his property. 
 
 On the other hand it is equally plain that the 
 circumstance of an event being in the class of
 
 174 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 voluntary actions does not prevent me from pre- 
 dicting it or producing it in any human being. 
 
 In a word while my foreseeing an action, or 
 raising in any one the wish to do it, does not 
 necessitate or compel the performance of the action, 
 its being voluntary is no obstacle to my foreseeing 
 or inducing it. The two things are completely 
 compatible. The same human actions may be 
 willed with perfect freedom by the performer, and 
 predicted with perfect confidence by the looker-on.
 
 CAUSATION OF VOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 175 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 THE CAUSATION OP VOLUNTARY ACTIONS 
 (IN CONTINUATION). 
 
 THE view of voluntary actions which has been 
 presented in the preceding letter will doubtless 
 seem to many readers incompatible with moral 
 responsibility, with a sense of merit and demerit, 
 with self-satisfaction and remorse, with the justice 
 of rewards and punishments, and in a word with 
 all feelings of retrospective complacency and con- 
 demnation directed either to our own conduct or 
 that of others. It will be argued that if voluntary 
 actions are the results of regular causes, if they 
 can be predicted, if they can be purposely pro- 
 duced in one human being by another, or be the 
 issue of unavoidable circumstances, then although 
 it is through the medium of a willing mind that 
 they are effected, all accountability for them is 
 destroyed. 
 
 This opinion seems natural enough, if I may 
 judge from its extensive prevalence, but it is plain 
 to my own understanding that the opinion has 
 arisen from not attending to some necessary dis-
 
 176 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 tinctions which I shall endeavour to convey to you 
 as perspicuously as I appear to myself to discern 
 them. 
 
 In regard to moral accountability, a clear com- 
 prehension of the subject will be assisted by dis- 
 criminating responsibility itself from the feeling or 
 sense of responsibility. Responsibilty itself means 
 liability on the part of some sensitive and intelligent 
 being to punishment for his conduct by some other 
 sensitive and intelligent being. 
 
 In no correct sense can one being be said to be 
 responsible to another, unless the latter has the 
 power of inflicting upon him some evil, whether 
 positive pain or the deprivation of pleasure the 
 power of affecting, in some way or other, his happi- 
 ness or welfare. 
 
 But the feeling of responsibility is another thing, 
 and the two are by no means commensurate. 
 
 Responsibility may exist without any adequate 
 sense or apprehension of it, while conversely the 
 apprehension of it may far exceed the reality or be 
 wholly groundless. 
 
 If the question to be considered is, how far the 
 doctrine which maintains that' voluntary actions 
 are the result of regular causes, takes away respon- 
 sibility itself, or, in other words, liability to punish- 
 ment for such actions, the solution seems simple 
 and clear. 
 
 It is obvious that the doctrines on this point 
 which may be held by the actors, cannot take away
 
 CAUSATION OF VOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 177 
 
 the power of punishing from the being or beings in 
 whom it is vested. 
 
 If the latter have appointed certain punishments 
 for certain actions, the mere opinions or sentiments 
 of those who commit them respecting the causes in 
 operation on their own minds, can evidently be of 
 no avail in enabling them to avoid the penalties. 
 The acts are done and the punishments follow. 
 Responsibility is not touched. 
 
 If on the other hand, the question to be con- 
 sidered is how far the doctrine diminishes or takes 
 away the feeling of responsibility ; and if this feeling 
 is regarded only as the expectation or apprehension 
 of punishment, the solution of the inquiry also 
 seems simple. 
 
 So long as the punishment decreed, or known to 
 follow, remains the same, unaffected by any 
 opinions entertained respecting it by the persons 
 liable to be punished, there can be no reason why 
 the apprehension of it should be weakened by such 
 opinions. 
 
 Hence it may be presumed, the real objections 
 intended are, that the doctrine would render the 
 punishment of any actions unjust in itself, and 
 cause both the perpetrator of the action and the 
 inflictor of the punishment to feel it to be so. The 
 sense and the odium of guilt, and the disposition to 
 punish it would be annihilated ; remorse or com- 
 punction would be inappropriate and useless, and 
 
 N
 
 178 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 moral reprobation with all other penalties inappli- 
 cable and out of place. 
 
 These are formidable considerations, but not, T 
 think, beyond a satisfactory answer. 
 
 In reply to the objection that the doctrine would 
 render the punishment of any action unjust, inas- 
 much as it teaches that a concurrence of circum- 
 stances beyond the control of the perpetrator 
 determined him to commit it, I must take upon 
 myself to deny that the punishment in such a case 
 would be unjust, for the simple reason that he 
 pleased or willed to do it. Causes beyond his 
 control, i. e. which he did not will, may certainly 
 have determined him so to please may have 
 brought his mind into that state but this allega- 
 tion is unavailing : it is precisely because the state 
 of mind termed pleasing or willing was interposed 
 between the determining circumstances, whatever 
 they were, and the act, that he becomes justly 
 liable to punishment ; it is this which makes the 
 act his. Suppose the act in question to be giving 
 a blow to an unoffending fellow creature ; if the 
 striker, by whatever circumstances he was induced 
 to commit such violence, pleased to strike, he 
 rightly incurs the penalty consequent on the act. 
 Had some third person seized his arm and com- 
 pelled hjin to give the blow, he would have been 
 manifestly free from responsibility. 
 
 It is the essential circumstance of " willing " an 
 evil action and nothing else that constitutes moral
 
 CAUSATION OF VOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 179 
 
 guilt, and where it has place, however it may 
 have been generated, condemnation justly follows. 
 Neither the remote nor the proximate causes of the 
 state of mind, termed willing, have necessarily any- 
 thing to do with the guilt or the innocence of the 
 voluntary action. 
 
 This representation will not, I am aware, satisfy 
 every one. It will be objected (and doubtless with 
 some force) that I only assert the justice of punish- 
 ment in the described circumstances, whereas it 
 requires to be proved. 
 
 The objection manifestly involves a particular 
 consideration of the meaning of the word justice 
 a meaning which it is easier to ask for than to 
 furnish, except by equivalent expressions. 
 
 In order to prove my position, I must distinguish 
 two possible significations of the term when so 
 applied. 
 
 The proposition that the punishment of an evil 
 action is just, may mean either that human beings 
 feel it to be just, or that the punishment is the 
 direct and appropriate means of preventing similar 
 actions in future. 
 
 It would perhaps be a sufficient answer to the 
 objection were it just in either of these senses, but 
 I shall endeavour to show that it is just in both, 
 and I cannot imagine any other acceptation which 
 can be given to the term in this connection, 
 although a delusive appearance of one might easily 
 be presented by resorting to synonymous language. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HITMAN MIND. 
 
 In regard to the first interpretation, it is a fact 
 in human nature that when evil actions are seen or 
 known to be voluntary, they excite resentment, or, 
 in other words', a disposition to punish the evil 
 doers ; and the infliction of punishment in some 
 way or other for such offences is universally felt 
 to be just ; it satisfies, and does not outrage the 
 feelings. 
 
 The only conditions necessary for the production 
 of these sentiments are, obviously, that the act is 
 evil or thought to be so, and that it is voluntary. 
 These conditions existing, the sentiments of resent- 
 ment towards the offender and satisfaction at his 
 punishment follow, irrespective of the circumstances 
 which engendered in him the state of mind called 
 pleasing or willing to do the action. 
 
 It may be laid down as a general law, that 
 whatever circumstances may have determined a 
 culprit to the voluntary commission of a crime, 
 they are not felt by his fellow creatures to exone- 
 rate him from guilt, or to render his punishment 
 unjust. 
 
 Such is the constitution of our moral nature. 
 
 A man has committed a robbery, and is detected 
 and apprehended. It is proved on his trial that he 
 was the offspring of depraved parents, that from 
 childhood he was trained in the art of stealing, that 
 he had not been taught any other mode of getting 
 a livelihood, and that he and his companions had 
 been habituated to pride themselves on their skill
 
 CAUSATION OF VOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 181 
 
 and felicitate each other on their success in ab- 
 stracting the property of others. 
 
 Here there is an accumulation of circumstances 
 operating with such manifest force to determine 
 the career of the culprit, that no one who was 
 acquainted with them could anticipate a different 
 result ; yet he is condemned and punished, not only 
 without violence to the moral feelings of the 
 community, but even with the sanction of those 
 feelings, although to thoughtful and sensitive minds 
 there is doubtless much in the case to excite reflec- 
 tion, regret, commiseration, and reluctance. Punish, 
 ment is felt by them to be in such circumstances a 
 stern and repulsive necessity, but a just necessity 
 notwithstanding. The more powerful are the 
 causes determining culprits to the crime, the 
 stronger is felt to be the call for counteraction by 
 strict and undeviating penalties. 
 
 Mankind, indeed, are not invariably consistent 
 in this matter. Their resentment of conduct is 
 manifested somewhat irregularly, and modified by 
 numerous circumstances. Sometimes, when the 
 particular causes which have determined the con- 
 duct of an offender are fully set forth, the disclosure 
 exasperates the odium excited by the offence ; and 
 sometimes, if the inducements are found to be such 
 as scarcely any human being could have resisted, 
 and especially if they are discovered to have been 
 purposely offered by specious subornation, a more 
 lenient judgment is passed, than if the offence alone 
 
 M 3
 
 182 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 had become known, while the inducements which 
 led to it remained in obscurity. 
 
 The mitigation of the moral judgment in such 
 cases, is in truth due to a variety of. influences 
 which although they are interesting to trace, cannot 
 now be discussed, but it chiefly arises from the 
 apparent approach which the offences make in 
 their character to compulsory actions ; and this is, 
 in its turn, owing to the attention of the observer 
 being fixed more expressly and minutely than it 
 can usually be, on the circumstances determining 
 the volitions. 
 
 The judgment, however, never undergoes more 
 than a mitigation, and not always that, so long as 
 it appears that the mental state of pleasing to do 
 the action preceded it, or, in other words, that the 
 action was voluntary. 
 
 To these views it may still perhaps be objected 
 that if voluntary actions are regarded when evil 
 as justly subjecting their doers to punishment, it is 
 because men in general are incognisant or uncon- 
 vinced of the doctrine that all voluntary acts are 
 determined by involuntary circumstances, and were 
 the doctrine incontrovertibly established and gene- 
 rally held, mankind would as generally feel that 
 praise and blame, rewards and punishments, self- 
 complacency and remorse, were alike misplaced, 
 inappropriate, and undeserved. 
 
 In such a conclusion, I find it impossible to 
 concur. No speculation as to the nature and force
 
 CAUSATION OF VOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 183 
 
 of motives, nor any insight into the causes of volun- 
 tary actions could substantially and permanently 
 alter our natural feelings in regard to those 
 actions. TVe should still continue to like and 
 dislike, to commend and discommend, in a word to 
 resent them (I use the term in its widest accepta- 
 tion), according to their manifest or apprehended 
 tendency. These sentiments would in truth be 
 confirmed by the insight here spoken of. The 
 same perspicacity which discerned that voluntary 
 actions are determined by regular causes, would 
 take in the whole bearings of the question, and 
 would discover that it is the highest wisdom in. 
 mankind to give way, within certain limits, to 
 their instinctive resentment of each other's conduct. 
 They would see the beneficial ends which this 
 resentment answers, and direct it to its proper 
 objects under the salutary restrictions which a 
 clear apprehension of those ends would point out. 
 
 With regard to that part of the objection which 
 insists upon such a doctrine having a tendency to 
 weaken, and even wholly extirpate repentance and 
 remorse, a similar answer to the one which has just 
 been given may be returned to it. There is no greater 
 difficulty in the latter case than the former. Re- 
 morse is a natural feeling which habit may deaden, 
 and sympathy pervert in regard to particular 
 offences, but which no speculative considerations 
 as to its being useless and unreasonable can uproot. 
 
 In this respect it is similar to the grief we feel 
 
 x 4
 
 184 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 at the loss of beloved friends, or the bitter regret 
 with which we look back on having missed some 
 great opportunity of distinction or happiness offered 
 to our acceptance, but, as the event proved, un- 
 wisely declined and lost for ever, when the choice 
 of one branch of the alternative in preference to the 
 other involved no moral considerations. 
 
 Such grief and such regret are very little abated 
 by the most vivid conviction that they are unavail- 
 ing and irrational nay, they are sometimes even 
 aggravated by it * ; and although, like all strong 
 emotions, they yield some of their strength to time, 
 they frequently recur in sharp, sudden, and irre- 
 pressible pangs. 
 
 It is the same with remorse, which is truly bitter 
 regret aggravated by the moral reprobation so 
 freely lavished at all times on our neighbours, and 
 now self-directed to our own conduct ; and also by 
 a deep sense of the condemnation which that 
 conduct must excite wherever it may become known. 
 
 And surely, if mere speculative considerations or 
 mere intellectual conclusions as to uselessness and 
 irrationality cannot extirpate or. even mollify bitter 
 sorrow unaccompanied by moral self-reproach, 
 neither can they extinguish or abate that compound 
 state of passion in which regret is combined at 
 once with self-condemnation and with a strong im- 
 pression or apprehension of the reprobation of 
 others. 
 
 " I weep the more because I weep in vain." . Gray.
 
 CAUSATION OF VOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 185 
 
 Remorse, you may rest assured, is, as well as re- 
 sentment, perfectly safe from extirpation by specu- 
 lative doctrines. 
 
 The remark which I made in a preceding page 
 on the wisdom of resentment, has almost forestalled 
 what I have to offer on the second interpretation 
 of the epithet just when applied to punishment, 
 namely, in the sense of being the direct and appro- 
 priate means of preventing evil actions in future. 
 In this acceptation no one will probably deny that 
 punishments are just as well as wise. 
 
 Even if mankind were rendered averse to the 
 infliction of penalties by the doctrine under dis- 
 cussion, and erroneously regarded evil actions no 
 longer as crimes to be avenged, but as misfortunes 
 to be pitied, they could not fail to see thut punish- 
 ments are the indispensable means of repressing 
 offences, and that if such actions were really free 
 from guilt according to their misconstruction of 
 the doctrine, the most relentless punishment of 
 them would be equally innocent ; so that virtue and 
 vice being set aside and all human deeds placed on 
 a moral level, the question with every one would 
 simply be as to the efficacy of punishments in 
 warding off evil. Men would resort to them with- 
 out the slightest resentment or moral reprobation, 
 on the same principle that they put up conducting 
 rods to protect their houses from lightning or raise 
 embankments to prevent their lands from being 
 flooded by a river. Happily, however, mankind have
 
 186 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 the (ineradicable feeling of resentment to stimulate 
 and enforce what would be otherwise a languid and 
 intermitting application of means speculatively dis- 
 cerned to be proper and efficacious. 
 
 In a case somewhat parallel the sustenance of 
 the animal frame we are also not left to mere 
 intellectual discernment in respect of the conse- 
 quences to be secured or averted ; we are not so 
 left either as to the kinds of food, or the frequency 
 of taking it, or the quantity in which it should be 
 taken, but arc urged on by the recurrent appetites 
 of hunger and thirst, which effectually prevent 
 health and strength from being impaired by that 
 fitful and desultory attention to their preservation 
 which would be the consequence of regulating the 
 business of eating and drinking by mere con- 
 siderations of what is needful for keeping up the 
 proper condition of the body. 
 
 What I have here attempted to show may be 
 summed up in a few words. 
 
 Men associate together, and are from constitution 
 and circumstances unavoidably benefited and in- 
 jured, pleased and displeased by each other's actions, 
 and they not only instinctively resent them (I 
 again use the term in its widest sense), but finding 
 from experience that they can produce or prevent 
 certain actions by applying certain modes of resent- 
 ment, they do apply them ; their instinctive feelings 
 are guided by intelligence ; they praise and blame, 
 reward and punish prospectively as well as retro-
 
 CAUSATION OP VOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 187 
 
 spectively, and they reap beneficial effects from so 
 doing. 
 
 No rational end can be answered by abstaining 
 from such a course. There can be no reason, on 
 the principles here laid down, that resentment 
 should not be entertained, and that an evil doer 
 should not be reprobated and punished. 
 
 Punishment inflicted on such an offender is not, 
 as I have shown, felt as unjust because he willed to 
 do the action, and it is our nature to resent a 
 voluntary offence, whatever may have been the 
 motives which brought the culprit into the state of 
 pleasing to do it. 
 
 Nor can it, as I have also shown, be considered 
 unjust in reason any more than in feeling, because 
 punishment is calculated to affect his mental state 
 in such a manner that he will please to act dif- 
 ferently in future ; and it is, in fact, the great and 
 direct means of preventing offences by its effects on 
 others as well as on himself. 
 
 The only indispensable conditions for the justice 
 of punishment are that the actions be evil in 
 intention and voluntary ; and it is obvious that the 
 great end of preventing such actions should form 
 the limit to the satisfaction of the instinctive and 
 salutary resentment which it is our nature to feel. 
 Within that limit the feeling may be legitimately 
 indulged, but whenever the penalty imposed is 
 greater than is absolutely necessary for the attain- 
 ment of the beneficial end, the excess is mere
 
 188 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 wanton cruelty the infliction of misery for no 
 purpose ; the production of needless evil in one 
 form with the avowed aim of repressing it in 
 another when the repression is already adequately 
 provided for. 
 
 So in the parallel case of the physical organisation 
 to which I have before adverted. The end in view 
 of maintaining the health of the body should 
 always limit the satisfaction of hunger and thirst 
 and the enjoyment of the pleasures of the palate. 
 So far os the appetites can be gratified within that 
 limit, they may be wisely indulged, but to push the 
 gratification beyond it, is to sacrifice the end to 
 the means, the greater good to the less ; to purchase 
 small pleasures at the expense of great pains. 
 
 In this view punishments are seen to be alike 
 just and beneficial. They are indispensable parts 
 in that system of existence, of activity, of thought, 
 and of feeling in which we find ourselves as human 
 beings involved. 
 
 It is when the discursive thinker ascends, as it 
 were, higher than the system, and takes, so to speak, 
 an outside view of what is going on within ; when 
 he discerns that the voluntary actions committed 
 are the effects of circumstances operating without 
 alternative on the mind to produce volitions, and 
 that these volitions take their place in the various 
 series of causes and effects devolving from the past 
 and flowing forward to the future, it is then that 
 he is led to question, for the moment, the absolute
 
 CAUSATION OP VOLUNTARY ACTIONS. 189 
 
 justice of resentment and of the penal measures 
 prompted by the feeling and in unison with it. 
 
 At this high point of view, however, where darkly 
 looms the question of the origin of evil, he cares 
 not perhaps, long to maintain himself; and he 
 descends to the more circumscribed speculation 
 that the determining circumstances, the volitions, 
 the actions, the resentment, the punishments, and 
 the consequences of the punishments, are to be 
 looked upon as internal to the system, as inter- 
 hominal (if I may venture to coin a word), as 
 adapted to each other, as the working of wheels 
 among themselves ; and he acquiesces in the ne- 
 cessity, the congruity, and the reasonableness of 
 the whole. 
 
 Into the theological view of the subject I do not 
 at present enter.
 
 190 PHILOSOPHY OF THB HUMAN MIND. 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 PHYSIOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE PHILOSOPHY Otf 
 THB HUMAN MIND. 
 
 THERE is one very interesting and important sub- 
 ject which, at the present time, calls for special 
 notice in any professed survey of the philosophy of 
 mind, I mean/ the connexion between the mind 
 and the body, or, in preciser language, between the 
 phenomena of consciousness, and the phenomena of 
 the bodily frame, discovered like other external 
 phenomena through the organs of the senses. 
 
 Passing over at present the doctrines of phreno- 
 logy, which I shall hereafter consider, I would call 
 your attention to the circumstance that there has, 
 if I mistake not, lately sprung up a strong dispo- 
 sition to forsake, and even contemn the study of 
 the phenomena of consciousness as such, and to 
 magnify in importance, if not to devote almost 
 exclusive attention to those physiological facts on 
 which there are grounds for believing that the 
 phenomena of consciousness depend, as well as 
 those to which the phenomena of consciousness 
 give rise. 
 
 Now the department of inquiry here indicated is
 
 PHYSIOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE MIND. 191 
 
 most assuredly deserving of all the pains which 
 can be bestowed upon it, and I am the last person 
 in the world to discourage or depreciate it. 
 
 But at the same time I am at a loss to see why 
 it should be regarded as at all superseding the 
 science of consciousness ; and since very inconside- 
 rate and erroneous views are, in my opinion, 
 entertained of what physiological investigation can 
 effect in the philosophy of mind, I purpose, in as 
 brief a manner as I can, to lay before you my 
 thoughts on that subject at once difficult, interest- 
 ing, and important. 
 
 I must set out with repeating a remark 
 certainly not very recondite which I formerly 
 brought to your recollection, that there are two 
 classes under which all the facts in human science 
 may be arranged physical facts, and mental facts 
 or facts of consciousness ; and it is of great impor- 
 tance for accurate thinking that they should, in 
 every case, be discriminated from each other. 
 
 In both these sets of facts we can trace such as 
 are co-existing, and such as are consecutive. Either 
 of them may be investigated independently of the 
 other, and also in certain cases dependency : or, to 
 express it differently, physical facts may be inves- 
 tigated as accompanying or following each other, 
 and so may mental facts : further physical fucts of 
 a certain order may be investigated as preceding, 
 accompanying, or following mental facts, and con- 
 versely, certain mental facts may be investigated
 
 192 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 as preceding, accompanying, or following physical 
 facts. 
 
 On the one hand, according to this view, the 
 object or aim of the physical sciences (using the 
 term in its widest sense), is to investigate the co- 
 existent and consecutive facts presented by the 
 material world the world that can be observed 
 through our organs of sense ; the vastness of which 
 field of observation it is needless to describe. 
 
 On the other hand, the aim of the philosophy of 
 mind is to investigate the co-existent and consecu- 
 tive facts of consciousness a narrower department 
 than the other, but yet abounding with materials 
 of knowledge not to be surpassed in importance. 
 
 But, agreeably to what I have already said, there 
 is, besides these two departments, another, a third 
 department of knowledge, which arises from the 
 circumstance that we have a physical frame through 
 which many of the facts of consciousness are pro- 
 duced, and which is itself an external object of 
 observation, exhibiting not only facts independent 
 of consciousness, and belonging therefore to what 
 may be called material physiology, but also facts 
 connected with states of consciousness as causes 
 and effects. 
 
 Now although this department of knowledge 
 must necessarily be taken into view in the re- 
 searches of the other two, and also derive facts 
 from them, it is sufficiently distinct to be pursued 
 as a separate sphere of inquiry.
 
 PHYSIOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE MIND. 193 
 
 This point may be illustrated by the instance of 
 Geology, which necessarily avails itself of the facts 
 of natural philosophy and chemistry on the one 
 hand, and the facts of natural history on the other, 
 and yet is very properly prosecuted as a distinct 
 line of investigation. It- derives great assistance 
 from these other sources, but is itself neither 
 natural philosophy, nor chemistry, nor yet (in 
 the common acceptation of the term) natural 
 history. 
 
 The investigations which have been instituted 
 into this connexion of mind and body, appear to 
 have in view the solution of the following ques- 
 tions: 
 
 1. Whether any and what organs, tissues, or 
 parts of the bodily frame are connected with par- 
 ticular mental phenomena, either as affecting or 
 being affected by them, over and above the organs 
 of the senses, which are of course universally 
 allowed to be the instruments through which cer- 
 tain modifications of mind are produced. 
 
 2. Whether the connexion discoverable between 
 such parts of the body and the phenomena of con- 
 sciousness, is carried on by motions in the tissues 
 themselves ; or by some subtile fluid, or ether, or 
 imponderable substance, or some other indescribable 
 agent pervading them. 
 
 Here we have certainly a wide and interesting 
 field for investigation and a most unlimited one for 
 conjecture. But supposing all the knosvledge that
 
 194 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN HIND. 
 
 is desiderated in these inquiries, or (if that is 
 beyond rational supposition) a great part of it, to 
 be attained, it would obviously supersede neither 
 material physiology on the one hand, nor the phi- 
 losophy of consciousness on the other. 
 
 The structure and movements and physical 
 functions of the body which are not attended by 
 consciousness, but are wholly things of merely out- 
 ward observation, would still continue to form a 
 principal part of physiological science ; and those 
 movements or functions which are preceded or 
 accompanied or followed by certain states of con- 
 sciousness, must also be investigated as external 
 phases of matter ; nor would a knowledge of their 
 connexion with mental phenomena enable us to 
 understand them better as physical facts. 
 
 On the other hand, all the mental operations and 
 feelings which may or may not have been ascer- 
 tained to be connected with certain parts of the 
 body, would have to be studied as states of con- 
 sciousness, and could none of them be known to 
 us any better in consequence of ascertaining this 
 connexion in particular cases than they were 
 before. The connexion when traced could not 
 modify either the mental affections as experi- 
 enced by us or the character of our knowledge of 
 them. 
 
 The nature of such operations and feelings, or 
 what they are in themselves, would remain the 
 same notwithstanding the discovery of any phy-
 
 PHYSIOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE MIND. 195 
 
 siological dependence on tissues and organs ; and 
 the relations traceable amongst such phenomena of 
 consciousness would be unaffected by it. 
 
 The most complete discovery of this kind, valu- 
 able as in many respects it might be, would throw > 
 no light whatever on what perception is, what re- 
 collection is, what belief is, what reasoning is, what 
 willing is, what joy or grief or hope or fear is ; or 
 on the influence which these various states, opera- 
 tions, or affections have respectively on each other, 
 and the dependence existing amongst them. 
 
 Take the operation of remembering, and suppose 
 you could trace a connexion between it and certain 
 tissues of the body, and even certain definite mo- 
 tions in those tissues. 
 
 This discovery, doubtless, would in many re- 
 spects be exceedingly valuable, but it would not 
 make clearer to our apprehension the nature of the 
 act called remembering; nor would it elucidate 
 the mental circumstances on which remembering 
 depends : neither would it at all affect the truths 
 familiar* to all of us that we remember best those 
 things which have had our principal attention, and 
 that we remember them very much in the order in 
 which they have come to our knowledge ; that we 
 sometimes suddenly forget the past, and sometimes 
 as suddenly recollect what we had forgotten. In 
 short the whole of what it could do would be to 
 show a connexion and correspondence between two 
 series of facts which had become known to us 
 
 o 2
 
 196 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 through totally different channels, one through con- 
 sciousness, and one through external observation. 
 
 It is now a familiar fact that the nerves on which 
 the perception of outward objects depends, are in 
 every case different from those on which the volun- 
 tary motions of the body depend ; that we perceive 
 through the instrumentality of one set of nerves, 
 and exercise volition through the instrumentality 
 of another. 
 
 This is extremely valuable knowledge, and is 
 one of those discoveries which extend our views of 
 the complicated machinery of the animal structure ; 
 yet it sheds no light whatever on the mental 
 state called perception, nor yet on the act of willing 
 muscular movements; nor does it in the least alter 
 these operations of the intelligent and active being 
 in whom they take place. Both of them are 
 mental events or phenomena of consciousness, while 
 the facts that one nerve is necessary for the 
 sensation of touch, and a separate nerve for the 
 voluntary act of stretching out the hand or bend- 
 ing the finger, have become known to us'by the 
 aid of external observation. 
 
 It may serve to illustrate this point, if I refer 
 to the connexion between musical sounds and the 
 vibrations of strings or of other forms of visible 
 matter. 
 
 We know very completely that vibrations of a 
 certain velocity produce certain musical notes. By 
 shortening or lengthening the strings or other
 
 PHYSIOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE MIND. 197 
 
 sonorous bodies, and thereby occasioning quicker 
 or slower vibrations, we can produce the precise 
 notes we wish. It has been established by repeated 
 observations, that there is thus a correspondence 
 between one set of phenomena known to us through 
 the eye, and another set known to us through the 
 ear between the visible vibrations of bodies and 
 musical sounds. When we hear a certain note we 
 can tell that it is produced by a certain number of 
 vibrations in the sonorous body in a given time ; 
 and conversely, when we cause such vibrations we 
 know that they will produce a certain musical note. 
 
 The connexion here is perfect, but the two sets 
 of facts between which the connexion exists, are 
 respectively in themselves of an entirely different 
 character ; and since they come to our knowledge 
 through two different organs of sense, they might 
 each be studied independently of the other. 
 
 It is manifest, in a word, that the two series of 
 phenomena, although connected together as cause 
 and effect, are as objects of knowledge essentially 
 distinct, and in that capacity are not affected by 
 each other. The most thorough acquaintance with 
 musical sounds by a person blind from birth, might 
 be attained without his being aware of the existence 
 of corresponding vibrations in tangible substances 
 (tangible vibrations being the only ones he could 
 know) ; arid should he become ultimately apprised 
 of the latter, the knowledge of them would make 
 no difference in the sounds he heard, or in his senst-
 
 198 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 of melody and harmony, the laws of which (it may 
 be added) would be unaffected to his apprehension 
 by the discovery of an intimately connected and 
 corresponding set of facts through another sense. 
 
 In the same way a deaf mute might become 
 acquainted with many things concerning one set of 
 the facts, while entirely cut off from a knowledge 
 of the other ; as for example, with the connexion 
 between the lengths of strings (under certain con- 
 ditions of weight and tension), and the number of 
 vibrations in a given time, together with the various 
 figures into which a freely moving body, such as 
 sand, is thrown by vibrations of various velocities : 
 and all this of course, without the slightest con- 
 ception of sound. 
 
 Moreover, should he be afterwards restored to 
 hearing, or more properly, should the impediments 
 to that sense be removed, this knowledge of vibra- 
 tions would not be at all altered in its nature by 
 his freshly acquired sensations (as they are usually 
 termed), nor would the various notes pouring upon 
 his ear, differ in the least from what they would 
 have been heard to be, had he never been instructed 
 in the mechanism of their causes. 
 
 The soul of music, if I may borrow a beautiful 
 expression from the poets, the melody and harmony 
 so delightful to man, and the laws of musical suc- 
 cession and combination, could not either in this or 
 any other case, be susceptible of the slightest modi- 
 fication from the most thorough knowledge of the
 
 PHYSIOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE MIND. 199 
 
 mechanical means by which musical sounds are 
 created ; although such knowledge would doubtless 
 be serviceable to music as an art, and particularly 
 in the construction of instruments. A man may be 
 a great musician, without going beyond the mere 
 rudiments of mechanical acoustics. 
 
 There is one way indeed in which a knowledge 
 of such means might possibly have some influence, 
 not on the perception but on the science of harmony; 
 namely, by directing attention to certain move- 
 ments the effects of which on the sounds produced 
 might be otherwise passed over. This direction of 
 the attention seems to be the only way in which 
 one sense can be said to assist any of the rest ; or, 
 to express it differently, in which a series of facts 
 known to us through one organ of sense can in- 
 fluence our knowledge of a connected and corre- 
 sponding series of facts known to us through 
 another. 
 
 It would not perhaps have been found out that 
 two sonorous vibrations reaching the ear at the 
 same time would under certain conditions neutralise 
 each other and result in silence, unless it had been 
 previously shown that two undulations of a liquid 
 so encountering each other are mutually destructive. 
 In a parallel case, the production of a dark spot in 
 an illuminated space by the interference of two 
 rays of light, might not have been discovered but 
 for the same analogy, and had not the undulatory 
 theory, proceeding on the analogy, pointed it out 
 
 o 4
 
 200 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 as a phenomenon which on that theory must take 
 place.* 
 
 To apply these remarks on sound to the subject 
 in hand : the operations and affections of which we 
 are conscious form as much a separate sphere of 
 observation as musical sounds must be admitted to 
 do, and are equally distinct as objects of knowledge 
 from the mechanical or physical means by which 
 they are generated or influenced. 
 
 What are styled the phenomena of perception, of 
 
 * " Supposing the light of any given colour to consist of 
 undulations, of a given breadth, or of a given frequency, it 
 follows that these undulations must be liable to those effects 
 which we have already examined in the case of the waves of 
 water, and the pulses of sound. It has been shown that two 
 equal series of waves, proceeding from centres near each other, 
 may be seen to destro^ each other's effects at certain points and 
 at other points to redouble them; and the beating of two sounds 
 has been explained/from a similar interference. We are now 
 to apply the same principles to the alternate union and extinc- 
 tion of colours." A Course of Lectures OH Natural Philosophy, 
 by '1 human Young, M.D., vol. i. p. 464, 4to. ed. 
 
 Speaking of this doctrine of the interference of light, Sir John 
 Ilerschel styles it "the elegant, simple, and comprehensive 
 theory of Young, a theory which, if not founded in nature, 
 is certainly one of the happiest fictions that the genius of man 
 has yet invented to group together natural phenomena, as well 
 us the most fortunate in the unexpected support it has received 
 from all classes of new phenomena, which at their first dis- 
 covery, seemed in irreconcilable opposition to it: it is in fact, 
 with all its applications and details, a succession of felicities, 
 insomuch that we may be almost induced to say, if it be not 
 true, it deserves to be so." Optics, Encyc. Melrop. See Life, 
 by Dr. Peacock, p. 140. Dr. Young is one of those great men 
 to whom their country has never done justice.
 
 PHYSIOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE MIND. 201 
 
 recollection, of the association of ideas, of reasoning, 
 of willing, of the sensations and emotions, may be 
 granted to be, in all likelihood, as intimately con- 
 nected with conditions and movements in our 
 physical frame, as musical sounds are with the 
 vibrations of strings and other sonorous bodies : 
 nevertheless, not only are they internal events, 
 modes of consciousness, but they have laws and re- 
 lations among themselves which are known to us 
 quite independently of any observation of material 
 phenomena, and of which the latter could never 
 convey to us the faintest notion ; just as melody 
 and harmony are felt and the laws relating to 
 them are gathered, independently of observing the 
 tangible and visible vibrations of which musical 
 sounds are the effects. 
 
 Now these internal laws and relations must ever 
 constitute the principal subject of mental philo- 
 sophy, in the same way as the laws and relations 
 of musical sounds must ever form the chief subject 
 of the science of harmony : and it appears to me as 
 little reasonable to contend that the mind should 
 never be investigated except in connexion with the 
 study of the bodily organisation, as that music 
 should never be methodically pursued except in 
 connexion with the scientific study of the mechani- 
 cal vibrations of sonorous bodies.* 
 
 "We should very much mistake the matter, should we 
 suppose that from the consideration of these proportions [in 
 musical strings] we should be able to deduce the rules that are 
 to guide the musician in the use of musical intervals. Such un
 
 202 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 There are, however, manifest differences between 
 the two classes of phenomena here compared, which 
 are likely for an indefinite period, if not indeed for 
 ever, to prevent the analogy between the cases 
 from being complete or even approaching to it. 
 
 In the case of vibrations and musical sounds, it 
 will be observed, we have two easily and well as- 
 certained series of facts completely corresponding 
 with each other, so that from any fact in one series 
 we may infer the other. We can infer the note 
 from the vibrations, and conversely, the vibrations 
 from the note. The facts are conspicuously open 
 to observation, and the connexion between the two 
 is perfectly established. * 
 
 But in the case of bodily and mental phenomena 
 the requisite investigations are difficult, and the 
 knowledge hitherto attained of the connexion be- 
 tween them is exceedingly, partial, slight, and im- 
 perfect, f There are a thousand mental states and 
 
 attempt has been frequently made, but lias always proved 
 abortive. Speculative inquirers may please themselves [by 
 finding a physical cause of the pleasure given to the ear by 
 certain combinations in the coincidences of their vibrations, 
 but they could never derive from such speculations one prac- 
 tical rule to guide the composer." Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, 
 vol. xv. p. 50. 
 
 * To show tho precision of the knowledge which has been 
 attained on this subject, it may be stated, in tho words of 
 Dr. Peacock, that " the pulses of air which produce the key- 
 note C of the natural scale of music, form an undulation whoso 
 breadth is about 212 inches, and of which 64 are propagated 
 in a second of time." 
 
 f The author of " Psychological Inquiries," one of the most
 
 PHYSIOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE MIND. 203 
 
 movements or modifications of consciousness, occur- 
 ring every day and every hour, which we conjecture 
 in a general way are somehow or other dependent 
 on physical movements in the organisation, but we 
 are unable except in a very slight degree, in a 
 vague manner, and in a comparatively few instances, 
 to determine the precise change whether of com- 
 position or interior arrangement in the tissue, or 
 relative position to other parts, which precedes or 
 follows any mental affection. 
 
 We may, perhaps, ascertain occasionally the 
 physical seat of the movement, or the part of the 
 body affected, but seldom the nature of the move- 
 ment or affection. To this day it remains unde- 
 termined not only how the nerves move, but 
 whether they have a motion of their own, or are 
 only the lines traversed by a subtle fluid, ether, or 
 other indescribable agent. 
 
 Nor is there, to speak in very moderate terms, 
 any reasonable prospect that the most wonderful 
 success in physiological research will ever issue in 
 the establishment of a correspondence and con- 
 nexion between the play of matter in the organi- 
 sation on the one hand and affections of the mind 
 on the other, at all approaching to that which 
 subsists between vibrations and musical sounds. 
 
 And even if, in contravention of all probability, 
 
 recent works on the subject, admits that little has been done 
 towards connecting physical organisation nnd mental pheno- 
 mena with each other. See p. 172.
 
 204 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 it should so issue, highly valuable as the acquisition 
 would be, no change would be thereby effected in 
 the phenomena of consciousness, or in our know- 
 ledge of the resemblances, successions, and other 
 relations, to be observed amongst them. 
 
 These would remain as little altered, as melody 
 and harmony, and the laws which govern them, 
 and our knowledge of those laws, have been by all 
 that has been accomplished in the science of me- 
 chanical acoustics.
 
 PHRENOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE MIND. 205 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 PHRENOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF 
 THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 HAVING in ray last letter endeavoured to show the 
 relative position in which mental philosophy and 
 material physiology stand to each other, I purpose 
 next to inquire into the relation between the former, 
 or the science of consciousness, and phrenology ; 
 and how far the views already propounded apply to 
 the particular phase of the subject presented by 
 the latter. 
 
 It is not necessary for my purpose to profess 
 either belief or disbelief in the doctrines of the 
 system I am about to consider. 
 
 Assuming for argument's sake that certain por- 
 tions of the brain are severally connected with 
 certain propensities, certain kinds of emotion, and 
 the operations of the mind about certain subjects, 
 1 proceed to examine what bearing the discovery 
 of this connexion can have on the philosophy of 
 consciousness, premising that it is immaterial, in 
 the proposed investigation, whether the phreno- 
 logical organs are taken to be few or numerous. 
 
 In the first place it may be observed, that all the 
 arguments already employed to show that, however 
 sedulously and successfully we may study the phe-
 
 206 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 nomena of mind and of body in connexion with 
 each other, they will ever remain perfectly distinct 
 objects of knowledge, manifesting themselves to us 
 through different channels, will apply to the subject 
 to be considered. 
 
 As even the movements we may be able to trace 
 in the parts or tissues of the body, can throw no 
 light on what the operations of the mind with 
 which they are found to be connected are, it 
 follows, a fortiori, that the motionless tissue, or the 
 mere form or size or relative position of any part, 
 however intimately it may be associated with the 
 phenomena of consciousness, is incapable of doing 
 it. And in phrenology, as commonly studied and 
 explained, there are no perceptible physical move- 
 ments to be connected with mental events, but only 
 a set of unmoving forms, as subjects of observation 
 for that purpose. 
 
 But leaving this general ground, let us turn to 
 the particular aspect of the investigation before us. 
 
 The subject will perhaps be best approached by 
 selecting for examination a single phrenological 
 organ. I will take that of cautiousness, and assume 
 it to be an established fact, that *a person who has 
 a cranium exhibiting a large development of that 
 organ is proportionately, or at least in a high de- 
 gree, timorous, or easily frightened. 
 
 At the outset it may be admitted that the con- 
 nexion thus shown to exist between the size of a 
 certain part of the skull, and an excessive manifes-
 
 PHRENOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE MIND. 207 
 
 tation of fear, might be usefully employed in aiding 
 us to regulate our intercourse with our fellow-men, 
 to select individuals for particular offices, to choose 
 professions for young people, to shape appro- 
 priately our instructions and discipline in the 
 education of children; and, in a word, to appreciate 
 the character of both ourselves and others. 
 
 These are, doubtless, exceedingly useful results in 
 matters collaterally related to mental philosophy; 
 but it is plain that the -connexion between the 
 emotion and the particular conformation of the 
 skull or brain, although it may thus be serviceable 
 as an indication of character, does not enlighten us 
 at all as to the nature of the feeling, its various 
 modifications, the circumstances which generate, 
 foment, prolong, and allay it, the conduct to which 
 it leads, how it affects other states of consciousness, 
 such as reasoning and imagination, and is affected 
 by them, nor yet how it operates on the nerves and 
 other tissues of the body. All these things what 
 the emotion is, its distinctive peculiarities, how it 
 arises, subsides, and departs, and its moral and 
 physical results must be gathered from our own 
 conscious experience, assisted as to some of the par- 
 ticulars mentioned by external observation directed 
 to the conduct of others, as well as to physiological 
 phenomena. It is knowledge which never could be 
 gained by measuring or manipulating or scrutinising 
 the cranium, or anatomising the brain. The fact of 
 the connexion may throw light on a man's character
 
 208 PHILOSOPHY 07 THE HUMAN MIND, 
 
 as to the possession of cautiousness or the want of 
 it, as to his constitutional susceptibility to the 
 class of feelings allied to it, or implied in it; 
 but none as to the nature of the quality or the 
 feelings. The philosophy of fear, an emotion 
 which has played so important a part in govern- 
 ment, in social conduct, and especially in religious 
 inculcation, since the first records of the human 
 race, and the effects of which, when excited for 
 moral purposes, are as yet very imperfectly under- 
 stood, would not be advanced by it a single step. 
 The whole of the assistance rendered by the estab- 
 lishment of the connexion in question, resolves itself,' 
 I repeat, both in this and all other instances, into 
 the circumstance of enabling us from an external 
 physical indication to form a rough estimate of the 
 probable degree in which the mental characteristic 
 indicated is naturally possessed. 
 
 It may be added that the establishment of the 
 organ of cautiousness, as it is styled, serves to 
 corroborate most completely the previously ascer- 
 tained fact, that timidity is not the product of 
 external circumstances, but a constitutional quality, 
 varying in intensity and excitability in different in- 
 dividuals; and it serves also to show the futility of 
 expecting that an appeal to it for any purpose will 
 have a uniform result in all cases. 
 
 What has been here said of the organ of cautious- 
 ness is true mutatis mutandis of all the rest. 
 
 Let us take as another illustration the faculty of
 
 PHRENOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE MIND. 209 
 
 Wit. From the circumstance that witty men 
 individuals who possess an extraordinary facility in 
 forming ingenious and unobvious combinations of 
 ideas have a particular part of the brain largely 
 developed, we may anticipate a rich intellectual 
 treat when we are fortunate enough to meet with 
 them; but from such a development we can tell 
 absolutely nothing of the nature of wit or its 
 essential characteristics, of what constitutes its 
 charm, of its various kinds, of its difference from 
 humour, of the incidents which tend to heighten or 
 abate its effects, of the intellectual habits and disci- 
 pline favourable to it, and of its influence on the con- 
 duct of the man who is endowed with so brilliant a 
 gift.* On all these points the phrenologist possesses 
 no advantage whatever over an ordinary inquirer 
 who knows nothing of the cranium and its organs. 
 What then in this instance is our amount of 
 gain from the science ? Simply the fact that the 
 capacity for wit has some inexplicable connexion 
 with a part of the forehead, and that where the 
 part in question is largely developed, an exuberant 
 manifestation of it may be expected. It is scarcely 
 needful to add that the superficial appearance of 
 the organ, which is all that is accessible during 
 life, yields not the slightest perceptible indication 
 whether it is in repose or activity. 
 
 * The reader who feels interested in the subject may find 
 most of these topics elucidated in " The Theory of Wit" by the 
 present author, in his volume of Discourses Literary and Phi- 
 losophical.
 
 210 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 On the most favourable view of the whole matter, 
 the utmost which can be said on the side of 
 phrenology is, that it presents us with an as- 
 semblage of organs indicating, to a limited extent 
 and in a manner more or less vague and indetermi- 
 nate, the mental qualities of their possessor ; but as 
 to what these qualities are (which is purely an affair 
 of consciousness), the organs themselves can ob- 
 viously give us no information whatever. The 
 latter are simply outward physical signs, empirically 
 established, of inward mental characteristics. 
 
 Our knowledge of the so-called faculties, feelings, 
 and propensities, is primarily constituted by the 
 recollection of the various states of consciousness 
 through which we have passed, combined in some 
 instances with our observation of the conduct of 
 others ; and these mental states we arrange and 
 classify under convenient names. It is only after 
 they are known and classified that it is possible to 
 connect them empirically with any external ap- 
 pearances as indications of their being possessed, 
 and these external indications, although they may 
 be established <by the most indubitable proofs, 
 cannot in anyway modify or add to our know- 
 ledge of those things which they indicate.* 
 
 * In the ablest essay on Phrenology which I had ever the 
 good fortune to meet with, there is a passage so consonant with 
 the views in the text, that I am tempted to subjoin it : " What- 
 ever," says the writer, " may be the defects or absurdities of 
 the mental or moral philosophy which phrenologists teach, we 
 will avouch phrenoloyy itself to be wholly innocent. It is
 
 PHRENOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE MIND. 211 
 
 This description of phrenology undoubtedly cir- 
 cumscribes its province within very narrow bounds, 
 and is widely at variance with the views of those 
 philosophers who regard it as presenting us with 
 a tolerably complete philosophy of mind. 
 
 I can imagine an advocate of it arguing in the 
 following manner : 
 
 "By a long series of observations we establish 
 that certain developments of the brain indicate 
 severally certain propensities, sentiments, and 
 faculties. When this is done we take these pro- 
 pensities, sentiments, and faculties, as the material 
 of our science, and trace the ways in which they 
 manifest themselves and the laws which they 
 follow. Now it is plain that inasmuch as the con- 
 nexion of every one of these mental affections or 
 phenomena with a particular portion of the brain 
 or cranium was, in the course of the before-men- 
 tioned investigation, separately and independently 
 established, they must, taken together, form a set 
 of moral and intellectual' characteristics true in 
 themselves and susceptible of being classed accord- 
 ing to their resemblances. 
 
 powerless alike for good or evil. It cannot go an inch beyond 
 its first principles : those principles can only assert the corre- 
 spondence between one set of facts and another set of facts ; 
 and one of these sets of facts can only be ascertained by means 
 those of observation and consciousness to which the phre- 
 nological method of philosophizing is always characterized as 
 opposed" Edinburgh Review, No. 150, art Phrenological 
 Ethict. 
 
 p 2
 
 212 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIKD. 
 
 "Thus without any premeditated plan or theo- 
 retical assumption at the outset, we arrive by a 
 patient observation of facts at a multiplicity of 
 sentiments, propensities, and faculties in connexion 
 with the exterior forms of the cranium, presenting 
 in themselves if not a complete congeries of mental 
 phenomena, yet a fair approach to it ; and a me- 
 thodical exposition of the results so attained may 
 justly claim to be styled a philosophy of the human 
 mind." 
 
 In looking at this argument, which I have en- 
 deavoured to put in its most forcible form, it must 
 be admitted that whatever mental qualities or 
 characteristics have been proved to be indicated in 
 human beings, must be possessed, and so far form 
 a part of the material of mental philosophy. 
 
 But it is also true that all which there is in this 
 proceeding peculiar to phrenology is connecting 
 them with certain forms or developments in the 
 cranium. 
 
 The moral and intellectual phenomena them- 
 selves have not been brought to light by the 
 establishment of the connexion, but are presupposed 
 by it; and would have been just the same as objects 
 of knowledge, and been susceptible of the same 
 discrimination and arrangement, had the connexion 
 never been established or imagined. 
 
 Showing that certain forms indicate certain cha- 
 racteristics, supposing it to be perfectly accom- 
 plished, discovers nothing new in what is indicated ;
 
 PHRENOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE MIND. 213 
 
 and the whole of the facts relating to the human 
 mind and character, adduced by the phrenologist, 
 are such as are open in common to every speculator 
 in human nature, and such as must be learned 
 by every one in the same way, whether he is 
 cognizant or ignorant of the part played by the 
 brain. 
 
 In accordance with the preceding representation 
 it will be manifest to the careful inquirer that 
 phrenological disquisitions are for the most part, 
 when they are well founded, made up of either 
 facts of consciousness or facts of observation, which 
 might have been collected without the knowledge of 
 a single cerebral organ. Of this remark I shall 
 take occasion in a subsequent letter to furnish 
 abundant elucidations. 
 
 What is peculiar to phrenology, I repeat, is 
 simply the establishment of the connexion between 
 certain cranial forms or developments and certain 
 mental characteristics. 
 
 It is true in this and in other instances, as 
 already pointed out, where two sets of facts resting 
 on independent evidence, or known through dif- 
 ferent channels, are shown to be connected us 
 causes and effects, or concomitant phenomena, that 
 facts belonging to one set may be highly service- 
 able in stimulating inquiry and in directing atten- 
 tion to facts belonging to the other, which might 
 have else escaped observation, or not have been so 
 promptly noticed.
 
 214 PHILOSOPHY OF TUB HUMAN MIND. 
 
 The endeavour to establish a connexion between 
 cranial developments and mental characteristics, 
 has undoubtedly been serviceable, not only in 
 raising the importance of the nervous structure as 
 an object of investigation, but in bringing to light 
 many curious facts in human nature ; and in col- 
 lecting a great number and variety of grounds for 
 concluding that there are original differences, fre- 
 quently of an extraordinary kind, in the constitu- 
 tional qualities of individuals arid races. 
 
 Although it is true that all these facts might 
 have been observed without reference to the brain, 
 or its configuration, or its exterior covering, still to 
 phrenology as actually prosecuted must be awarded 
 the merit of strongly directing general attention to 
 many of them ; and also of hastening, confirming, 
 and disseminating views regarding the constitution 
 of human nature which, notwithstanding they were 
 once warmly contested, and are yet not universally 
 received, the philosophical observer, without such 
 instance, would doubtless have finally reached. 
 
 A century or half a century ago, it seems to 
 have been a prevailing notion that men are not 
 naturally adapted by mental constitution to one 
 pursuit more than to another; but that when any 
 such peculiar aptitude is evinced, it is due to the 
 direction given to the mind by casual events or 
 burrounding circumstances. In unison with this 
 view, it was expressly maintained by Dr. Johnsoif, 
 in a well-known passage, that the true genius is a
 
 PIIRENOLOGY IN RELATION TO THE MIND. 215 
 
 mind of large general powers accidentally deter- 
 mined to a particular direction.* 
 
 Phrenology, while failing in its more ambitious 
 attempts, has greatly assisted in dissipating such 
 erroneous views of human nature, and by the 
 instances which, partly in the mistaken estimate of 
 its own proper scope, it has industriously brought 
 together, of extraordinary aptitude for music, 
 mechanical invention, calculation, language-learn- 
 ing, and other pursuits, as well as of peculiar 
 proneness to certain emotions and sentiments, it 
 has widely spread the conviction that there is an 
 infinite variety in the degree and combination of 
 constitutional qualities by which men are adapted 
 to as great a variety of functions and fortunes. 
 
 * The passage occurs in the "Life of Cowley :" "In the 
 window of his mother's apartment lay Spenser's 'Fairy Queen, 1 
 in which he very early took delight to read; till, by feeling the 
 charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrevocably a poet. 
 Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and 
 perhaps sometimes forgotten, produce that particular designation 
 of mind, or propensity to some certain science or employment, 
 which is commonly called Genius. The true Genius is a mind 
 of large general powers, accidentally determined to some parti- 
 cular direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great painter of tfie 
 present age, had the first fondness for his art excited by the 
 perusal of Richardson's treatise." Lives of the Voets. 
 
 r 4
 
 213 PHILOSOPHY OP THB HUMAN MIND. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 THE PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS CONSIDERED AS INDI- 
 CATIONS OF MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 IT is sufficiently apparent from the preceding ex- 
 position that if phrenology has any value at all, it 
 must mainly, if not wholly, consist in furnishing 
 K series of physical facts corresponding to a series 
 of mental facts, so that one shall indicate the 
 other. 
 
 This it has in a measure accomplished by estab- 
 lishing (according to the hypothesis I have assumed) 
 that certain cranial developments indicate certain 
 moral and intellectual characteristics. But there 
 are several reasons why this business of indication 
 is very imperfectly done, and exceedingly limited 
 in its scope : and why, notwithstanding the pre- 
 tensions of phrenologists, it* cannot be either 
 minute or precise. Where two series of facts are 
 perfect indications of each other it is obvious that 
 both must be known in detail ; that the facts of 
 each series must be susceptible of precise ascertain- 
 ment and exact definition, and that each particular 
 fact or set of facts iu one series must indicate a
 
 .;.:; PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS. 217 
 
 particular fact or set of facts in the other. Such 
 are the two series of facts in the mechanical 
 department of acoustics and in music, to which I 
 have adverted in a former letter : one is a perfect 
 or rather set of perfect indications of the other. 
 The vibrations are definite ; the notes which they 
 produce are equally so; and every kind of vibration 
 is paired with a particular note. 
 
 In phrenology, on the contrary, the two series of 
 facts presented to us as conjoined are defective in 
 definiteness and in particular correspondence : the 
 organs indicating, and the faculties and feelings 
 or mental phenomena alleged to be indicated, are 
 alike indeterminate : or at least there is an absence 
 of easily discernible limits in both, and of corre- 
 spondence in detail between the two. 
 
 With regard to the cerebral organs, there are 
 confessedly no definite lines or divisions in the 
 cranium or in the brain, to mark out one from 
 another, to determine where one ends and another 
 begins. Nor, if this difficulty were surmounted, 
 or of no practical moment, are there any dis- 
 coverable conditions or movements in the organs 
 corresponding to the fine and complicated varieties 
 of thinking and feeling and willing of which man 
 is the subject; no perceptible physical states or 
 changes answering to the diversified and inter- 
 mingled and continually shifting phases of con- 
 sciousness which it requires so much sagacity to 
 reduce under definite heads. There is no parity in
 
 218 1'IIILOSOI'HY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 point even of multifariousness, if we set aside the 
 requirement of particular correspondence, between 
 the indicating and the indicated facts. 
 
 In theory the phrenologist is bound to maintain 
 that every mental change must be preceded or 
 accompanied by a particular corresponding move- 
 ment within the appropriate organ : but no such 
 interior motions are in any way discoverable. 
 They are wholly conjectural or inferential, nor is 
 there the least clue to the kind of movements or 
 (if you prefer the term) physical affections, which 
 take place. Not only has the organ no definite 
 external or even internal boundary, but when it 
 may be presumed to be in the most intense action, 
 it appears to the observer a mere motionless surface 
 presenting no signs of the physical changes which 
 are theoretically going on below, and of which, in 
 their character of physical facts, the possessor of 
 the organ is quite insensible. 
 
 Debarred from direct cognisance of cerebral 
 movements, the only possible way in which the 
 phrenologist can connect any of the various phe- 
 nomena of consciousness with parts of the brain, is 
 by first classifying such phenomena, or taking the 
 classifications already made to his hands, and then 
 finding out by repeated observation what particular 
 classes (if any) are severally conjoined with the ex- 
 terior developments of the cranium : which has 
 been done or attempted by noting, in each case, 
 what mental characteristic is largely manifested by
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS. 219 
 
 persons who have a given part of the cranium 
 amply developed. 
 
 This is a perfectly legitimate and philosophical 
 undertaking, but it is a much narrower, a more 
 strictly limited, and a more difficult one than the 
 advocates of the system under review appear to 
 suppose. What I have just described is the utmost 
 which can be achieved by it, viz. establishing that 
 certain parts of the brain are connected in some 
 unknown manner with certain kinds or classes of 
 mental phenomena, and that by the size of the 
 several parts an indication, more or less exact, is 
 afforded of the degree in which the phenomena are 
 manifested ; or, to express it differently, of the 
 degree in which the mental properties or charac- 
 teristics exist. Although the legitimate end or 
 aim of the science is thus by no means compre- 
 hensive, yet to reach even this moderate result 
 requires both rare discrimination and a rigid ad- 
 herence to rules, while the liability to error in the 
 pursuit of it seems to be in proportion to the 
 facility with which both discrimination and rules 
 may be neglected and yet the semblance of 
 methodical inquiry preserved. 
 
 I- purpose then to consider, in the present letter, 
 the limits which circumscribe the proper sphere of 
 phrenology ; or, to express myself differently, the 
 principles which must in the nature of the case 
 regulate the process of establishing the connexion 
 between organs and mental phenomena, as well as
 
 220 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 limit the indications of the phenomena by the 
 organs ; and likewise the errors which, from inat- 
 tention to such principles, j>ervade phrenological 
 speculations. 
 
 The remarks which I have to offer in the prose- 
 cution of this design, I will throw for the sake of 
 clearness into several distinct propositions, to be 
 afterwards more fully elucidated. 
 
 1. In order to establish an organ there must be 
 a definite class of mental phenomena proved by 
 appropriate evidence to be connected with it. 
 
 2. After the organ has been established, it cannot 
 be assumed to indicate anything not comprehended 
 in the class of mental phenomena with which it has 
 been proved by evidence to be connected; and, 
 reciprocally, nothing else can be assigned to it. 
 
 3. In proportion as the class of mental pheno- 
 mena is general or comprehensive, the establishment 
 of a corresponding organ by the requisite evidence 
 will be difficult, and require multiplied observa- 
 tions, while the value of the organ as an indication 
 will necessarily decrease, till it may be finally anni- 
 hilated. 
 
 4. In the same proportion facilities and induce- 
 ments will be multiplied for lapsing into the error, 
 so predominant in phrenological speculations, of 
 assigning operations to organs without evidence: 
 whence the necessity of a rigorous adherence to 
 rules 1 and 2. 
 
 5. A remarkable form of this predominant error
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS. 221 
 
 which is worth dwelling upon, occurs when the 
 functions or provinces of two or more organs are so 
 represented as to interfere with each other, ren- 
 dering it necessary to resort to arbitrary lines of 
 demarcation between them in itself a suicidal 
 reductio ad absurdum. 
 
 Such principles and observations as are here laid 
 down might perhaps be advantageously multiplied, 
 but the elucidation of th'e preceding five propo- 
 sitions will suffice to exhibit the proper scope and 
 limits of the science, the difficulties incident to it, 
 and the nature of the aberrations into which its 
 followers have been betrayed. 
 
 1. The first proposition, that in order to establish 
 an organ a deBnite class of mental phenomena must 
 be proved to be connected with it, sounds like a 
 truism, but what follows will show that to explain 
 and enforce it is by no means needless. The class 
 in question may be more or less general or compre- 
 hensive, but it must be definite, otherwise the 
 organ will be an imperfect and useless indication. 
 It is of course implied that two or more classes 
 cannot be connected with the same organ, but were 
 it possible or attempted, separate evidence would 
 obviously be required for each. 
 
 The consequences of not attending to the plain 
 and simple rule embodied in the first proposition, 
 are seen in the strange and unscientific jumble of 
 mental phenomena frequently referred to one
 
 222 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 I will select an example from one of the moat 
 eminent phrenologists of the day. 
 
 " The faculty of ideality," says Mr. George 
 Combe, " produces the feeling of exquisiteness and 
 perfectibility, and delights in the beau-ideal. The 
 knowing and reflecting faculties perceive qualities 
 as they exist in nature, but this faculty desires 
 something more exquisitely lovely, perfect, and 
 admirable than the scenes of reality. It tends to 
 elevate and endow with splendid excellence every 
 idea conceived by the mind ; and stimulates the 
 other faculties to imagine scenes and objects in- 
 vested with the qualities which it delights to 
 contemplate, rather than with the degree of per- 
 fection which Nature usually bestows. It is this 
 faculty which inspires with exaggeration and en- 
 thusiasm, which prompts to embellishment and 
 splendid conceptions." * 
 
 Mark the number of things which a single 
 faculty or organ is here represented as doing: it 
 produces feelings, and itself experiences delight; 
 it also desires what is preternaturally exquisite, as 
 well as rejoices: further, it endows all ideas with 
 splendid excellence ; it stimulates other faculties to 
 exercise their imaginations ; it inspires with exag- 
 geration and enthusiasm, and it prompts to embel- 
 lishments and brilliant conceptions. 
 
 In this crowd of operations, real and fictitious, 
 huddled together without congruity, you seek in 
 
 * Elements of Phrenology, p. 75. Third edition.
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS. 223 
 
 vain for any principle of classification ; the author 
 could not have had any distinct class in his mind, 
 and it is difficult to surmise what sort of evidence 
 he fancied he had to prove that these various mental 
 phenomena (many of -them wholly imaginary) are 
 alike the results of movements in the organ of 
 ideality. He seems not to have been at all aware 
 that for the assignment to the organ of every 
 different kind of operation described, separate 
 grounds are indispensably required. For instance, 
 assuming it to have been indisputably established 
 that ideality " delights in the beau-ideal" we cannot 
 fail to see that distinct evidence must be adduced 
 to show that it also performs the very dissimilar 
 function of " inspiring with enthusiasm." 
 
 2. We shall now be prepared to take up the 
 second proposition. After the phrenologist has 
 legitimately established the connexion between the 
 organ and the class of mental phenomena, he is 
 manifestly precluded from assuming the organ to 
 indicate anything not comprehended in the class. 
 The evidence being such as to establish a connexion 
 between the cranial development and a definite 
 kind of mental phenomena, and nothing beyond, the 
 subsequent introduction of any other mental pheno- 
 menon must by the supposition be without evidence, 
 and would arbitrarily unsettle the classification. 
 
 It would be of no avail to urge that the pheno- 
 menon so introduced is closely allied to the others 
 or consequent upon them.
 
 224 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 If anything not belonging .to the class as estab- 
 lished were allowed to be included, it would neces- 
 sarily be brought in without any grounds for it, or 
 the original classification would be wrong. 
 
 The point here insisted upon may be elucidated 
 by referring to the organ of cautiousness, or more 
 properly, of fear, which has been established on the 
 ground that men very much subject to that pas- 
 sion, have the part of the cranium so denominated 
 largely developed. 
 ' Let us see then how far this fact can carry us. 
 
 A man who is suffering under the passion of fear 
 is riot only possessed with it, and percipient of what 
 excites it, but is at the same time conscious of other 
 affections : he perhaps conceives, remembers, rea- 
 sons, exaggerates appearances, imagines unreal ob- 
 jects, takes precautions, adopts means of evasion 
 or flight from the apprehended evil, or resolves in 
 the very excess of his alarm to contend manfully 
 with it. 
 
 Of all these various operations and affections the 
 phrenologist cannot, according to the principle laid 
 down, refer any one to the organ but the emotion 
 of fear itself. His sole evidence of the connexion 
 between the mental phenomena and the organ being 
 that in persons who have the feeling in excess, the 
 organ is large, nothing more can be inferred in the 
 hypothetical case before us than that during the 
 excitement of the feeling of fear the organ is in 
 activity. He cannot include in this activity any
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS. 225 
 
 concomitant or consequent mental incidents how 
 closely soever they may be allied. And reci- 
 procally, as he cannot refer such incidents to the 
 organ, the organ cannot indicate the incidents : it 
 can indicate nothing but emotions of fear, or rather 
 liability to such emotions. 
 
 Some light may be thrown on the question before 
 us by referring to a difference between the founder 
 of the science, Dr. Gall, and other phrenologists in 
 relation to this very organ a difference which is 
 singularly instructive as to the difficulties to be en- 
 countered and conditions to be observed in connect- 
 ing an organ with mental phenomena. He attributes 
 to the organ not only the emotion of fear but the 
 intellectual properties of circumspection and fore- 
 sight; while Dr. Spurzheim more sagely, but in 
 language at which it is difficult not to smile, declares 
 his belief that it does not " foresee," but on the con- 
 trary " is blind," and " without reflection." 
 
 Surely since the organ is recorded as "esta- 
 blished," there ought to be no doubt or controversy 
 about what it indicates. If the process of establish- 
 ing it, briefly expressed, was " large organ, mucli 
 fear," nothing but that passion can be referred to 
 it. Should it be contended that the evidence ad- 
 duced by Dr. Gall goes to prove that circumspec- 
 tion and foresight ought to be included in the func- 
 tions of the organ, the defence, if admitted, would 
 indeed free him from the charge of having over- 
 stepped the limits prescribed by the assumed evi- 
 
 Q
 
 226 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 dence, but it would involve him in the difficulties 
 and disadvantages consequent upon comprehensive- 
 ness and even incongruity of classification to be 
 considered under my next proposition. 
 
 Meanwhile all that it is here needful to maintain 
 on this point is, that the phrenologist when he has 
 finally formed his class must, in the nature of the 
 case and in logical consistency, abide by it. If in 
 the course of investigation he discovers that he has 
 made his class too narrow as, in the opinion of suc- 
 ceeding inquirers, Dr. Gall did by limiting the organ 
 of Acquisitiveness to theft, and that of Destructive- 
 ness to murder, let him widen it ; but after having 
 rectified all errors he must at last come to a definite 
 class more or less comprehensive, the limits of which 
 he cannot be allowed to exceed in his subsequent 
 expositions or dissertations. 
 
 We must not confound the liberty of altering a 
 class on the acquisition of new evidence, with the 
 irregular or surreptitious introduction without evi- 
 dence of something not belonging to the class. 
 
 An example of the irregularity is furnished by 
 Mr. Combe in treating of the aforesaid Destructive- 
 ness, the organ which is attended by the impulse 
 and desire to destroy, and is greatly developed in 
 carnivorous animals as well as in human beings 
 who hunt them. We have here something definite, 
 and there is no reason, as far as I know, to question 
 the fact*. But the author goes on to tell us that 
 " it [the organ] is essential to satire; and inspires
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS. 227 
 
 authors who write cuttingly with a view to lacerate 
 the feelings of their opponents " * a gratuitous in- 
 troduction of what would require a large amount of 
 separate evidence to substantiate it. Mr. Combe's 
 leap from a lion to a satirist (lions suggest leaps 
 even when they do not make them) is a leap in the 
 dark, although he contrives to look at the hun- 
 ters' heads by the way. 
 
 3. The third proposition is, that in proportion 
 as the class of mental phenomena is comprehensive, 
 the difficulty of establishing the connexion with the 
 organ by the requisite evidence is augmented, while 
 the value of the organ in its character of an indi- 
 cation necessarily decreases. 
 
 This remark applies with additional force to 
 those numerous cases in which what is said to be 
 indicated by the organ consists in fact of hetero- 
 geneous mental phenomena forming several distinct 
 kinds or classes, and scarcely reducible under the 
 widest denomination. 
 
 To elucidate the proposition before us, I cannot 
 do better than to take up again the instance of 
 Dr. Gall's classification last cited. 
 
 Suppose that instead of regarding what is usually 
 termed the organ of Cautiousness as simply indicat- 
 ing the passion of Fear, any one tried to prove, in 
 accordance with Dr. Gall, that it indicates likewise 
 Circumspection and Foresight, lie would have to 
 
 * Elements of Phrenology, p. U9.
 
 228 PHILOSOPHY OF TUB HUMAN MIND. 
 
 show, in order to make the indication of any value, 
 that these three different qualities always accompany 
 each other, as well as that they are always accom- 
 panied, when remarkable, by a large development 
 of the cranial organ. 
 
 The classification or rather collocation, in any 
 way, of mental phenomena so different under one 
 head, would be bad simply as a psychological ar- 
 rangement, inasmuch as there is (to express myself 
 in popular language) the foresight of hope, of love, 
 of ambition, as well as that of fear; and there is the 
 circumspection of wisdom contemplating all things 
 in the circle of its resources as means to the highest 
 ends, and the circumspection of self-interest quietly 
 looking about for every opportunity of aggrandise- 
 ment, as well as that of alarm casting around it a 
 hurried glance at the outlets for escape from the 
 dreaded object. 
 
 Jiut, what is more important, fear is an emotion, 
 while foresight, although it may be attended by an 
 emotion or result from it, is an intellectual act or 
 combination of intellectual acts. The two are hete- 
 rogeneous and disparate, and bear no sort of regular 
 proportion to each other; nor can they well be 
 brought under a less general description than that 
 of "modes or phenomena of consciousness." The 
 same remarks are of course applicable in the case of 
 circumspection. 
 
 For the reasons here given it may be pronounced 
 impossible, to all appearance at least, that these
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS. 229 
 
 several mental phenomena can be proved to be the 
 consequences of movements in the same organ ; it 
 would require at all events the evidence of three 
 separate trains of very numerous and well sifted 
 facts j but supposing the apparent impossibility to 
 be overcome by some inconceivable means, the indi- 
 cation subsequently afforded by the organ would 
 be extremely vague and therefore comparatively 
 worthless. Should you happen to meet with a 
 person endowed with a large development of the 
 organ in question, you would be altogether perplexed 
 what distinctive conclusion to draw as to the quali- 
 ties indicated : you would be utterly at a loss to tell 
 whether he was very timid, very circumspect, or 
 possessed of great foresight. Your safest inference 
 would doubtless be that the qualities appertained to 
 him in equal measure, but even this cautious conclu- 
 sion would not be borne out by uniform experience. 
 It is well known that the Duke of Wellington, whose 
 courage was unquestionable, and who was certainly 
 not subject beyond his fellow-soldiers to needless 
 or easily excited alarm, was one of the most cir- 
 cumspect generals that ever conducted a campaign 
 or fought a battle; and his foresight reached to 
 the minutest as well as the most comprehensive 
 arrangements needful to carry out his purposes. 
 In respect of these latter qualities he ought to 
 have had the organ large ; in respect of fear, he 
 ought to have had it small. Such indications of 
 dissimilar qualities consequently, eoukl they even
 
 230 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 be established, which they cannot be, would prove 
 of little or no value in any case, and in most cases 
 would mislead. 
 
 4. The fourth proposition flows naturally from 
 the third. In proportion as the class is compre- 
 hensive it affords facilities for assigning, or rather 
 it leads irresistibly to the practice of assigning, 
 mental phenomena to the organ arbitrarily, or with- 
 out evidence. 
 
 Perhaps no instance can illustrate this position 
 better than the speculations of phrenologists about 
 the organ which they name Individuality. Its func- 
 tion is very comprehensive; it seems to be simply 
 Observation, but is described phrenologically to be 
 " knowing things as mere existences," the precise 
 meaning of which I leave to your sagacity to dis- 
 cover. Such a wide definition presents a fine field 
 to men who are not bound down to evidence, and 
 they accordingly take the opportunity of freely 
 roaming over it. 
 
 The faculty of Individuality (say the phreno- 
 logists) renders us observant of objects which exist ; 
 gives the notion of substance j forms the class of 
 ideas represented by substantive nouns when used 
 without an adjective ; gives the desire accompanied 
 with the ability to know objects as mere existences, 
 without regard to their modes of action ; it prompts 
 to observation; it is a great element in a genius 
 for natural history; it assists imitation in pro- 
 moting mimicry ; it enables the artist to give body
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS. 231 
 
 and substance to the conceptions of his other facul- 
 ties ; it gives the tendency to personify notions and. 
 phenomena, or to ascribe existence to mere abstrac- 
 tions of the mind, such as Ignorance, Folly, or 
 "Wisdom ; and it does many other things. Such is 
 the account, abridged but not misrepresented, 
 which is given by Mr. Combe.* 
 
 Now you must recollect that the phrenologist 
 here virtually makes the astounding assertion that 
 physical movements take place in the organ of In- 
 dividuality corresponding to all these diversified 
 mental incidents. Conceive the amount of evidence, 
 the separate chains of facts required for the scien- 
 tific establishment of such a position; and then 
 turn to the narrow ground on which the whole is 
 apparently made to rest, viz. the alleged fact that 
 persons who have the part of the cranium referred 
 to largely developed are remarkable for large powers 
 of observation, or (to keep to phrenological lan- 
 guage) for great aptness at "knowing things as 
 mere existences:" in itself, by the way, a sort of 
 knowledge which I for one have never been able to- 
 attain or even conceive. 
 
 I should like to see this evidence, or, if I have 
 understated it, any other which can be adduced, 
 the stronger the better, brought to bear in support 
 of some of the preceding assertions, especially the 
 positions, laid down with such remarkable punc- 
 
 * Sjbtem of Phrenology, 4th :dit. p. 163.
 
 232 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 tiliousness, that Individuality forms the doss of 
 ideas represented by substantive nouns when used 
 without an adjective; and that it assists Imitation 
 in promoting mimicry. 
 
 It seems as if, in such cases as these, the phre- 
 nologists, taking the general function of the organ, 
 which alone they can prove (e.g. observation in 
 the above instance), set themselves to imagine what 
 ft man endowed with such an organ would be likely 
 to think, feel, and do, and then forthwith put down 
 these his hypothetical or imaginary deeds as the 
 functions of the organ. 
 
 5. Passing to my next division, I come to the 
 consideration of another form of the attribution of 
 functions without evidence. It occurs when two or 
 more organs are so represented as to clash with 
 each other in the functions assigned to them, whence 
 it becomes necessary for the phrenologist to draw 
 arbitrary boundaries between their several pro- 
 vinces ; a necessity which bespeaks that he is al- 
 ready deep in error, and which amounts, as I have 
 baid, to a self-inflicted reductio ad absurdum. 
 
 To explain what I mean, it will be requisite to 
 take a rapid glance at the phrenological organs 
 from my own point of view. 
 
 What I have already, for the convenience of brief 
 reference, called their functions, or in other words 
 the mental operations and affections assigned to 
 them, may, for the convenience of the present expo- 
 sition, be arranged us> follows:
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS. 233 
 
 1. Simple feelings, such as benevolence," firmness, 
 veneration, &c. &c. 
 
 2. Feelings having specific directions, such as 
 amativeness, philoprogenitiveness, &c. 
 
 3. Specific intellectual operations about various 
 things, as comparison, individuality, &c. 
 
 4. Various intellectual operations about specific 
 things, as tune, colour, form, language, &c. 
 
 In the case of the two first divisions there is not 
 much room for the defect of which I am treating. 
 Here the phrenologist may have little difficulty in 
 establishing an organ, and lias chiefly to guard after- 
 wards against ascribing to it anything but feelings 
 of the appropriate and peculiar kind. He is not 
 very likely, even in his most random explanations, 
 to be led into making the organs or their functions 
 clash, although it is quite possible to do so. But 
 when we come to the so-called knowing and reflec- 
 ting organs, and find that the function of one organ 
 is represented as consisting in a specific intellectual 
 operation about various subjects, and the function 
 of another organ as consisting in various intellec- 
 tual operations about a specific subject, we cannot 
 fail to see a source of collision and confusion. 
 
 The phrenologist in dealing with them cannot 
 help involving himself in embarrassment ; he is 
 obliged either to assign to the organs what may be 
 called cross-processes to make them, in fact, play 
 at cross-purposes or to draw quite arbitrary lines 
 ol' demarcation between their respective functions.
 
 234 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 The point in question is pretty well illustrated by 
 the phrenological treatment of the organ of compa- 
 rison. In ordinary philosophy to compare objects 
 is simply to discern their resemblances and differ- 
 ences, and although other mental operations may be 
 going on at the same time in connexion with it, the 
 process itself, to whatever objects it may be directed, 
 whether sights or sounds or tastes, or lines or 
 angles, or actions or passions, is generically the 
 same. If it were not, it would scarcely have re- 
 ceived in all these cases the same appellation. 
 Mark, however, what the phrenologist teaches : 
 " The faculty [Comparison] gives the power of 
 perceiving resemblances and analogies. Tune may 
 compare different notes ; Colouring contrast dif- 
 ferent shades ; but Comparison may compare a 
 tint and a note, a form and a colour, which the 
 other faculties by themselves could not accom- 
 plish. * The great aim of this faculty,' says Dr. 
 Spurzheim, ' seems to be to form abstract ideas, 
 generalisations, and to establish harmony among 
 the operations of the other faculties. Colouring 
 compares colours with each other and feels their 
 harmony, but Comparison adapts the colours to the 
 object which is represented ; it will reject lively 
 colours to present a gloomy scene. The laws of 
 music are particular, and Tune compares tones; 
 but Comparison chooses the music according to the 
 situations where it is executed. It blames dancing 
 music in 11 church ; it is opposed to walking with
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS. 235 
 
 fine clothes in the dirt ; to superb furniture beside 
 common things j it feels the relation between the 
 inferior and superior feelings, and gives the prefer- 
 ence to the latter. Its influence, however, presup- 
 poses the activity of the other faculties, and it 
 cannot act upon them if they are inactive. This 
 explains why some persons have. taste and good 
 judgment in one respect and not in another. He 
 who is deprived of Reverence may not be careful 
 enough about its application. He may deride what 
 others respect. But if another possess it in a high 
 degree and at the same time Comparison, he will 
 wish to bring his Reverence into harmony with his 
 other powers.' Comparison thus takes the widest 
 range of nature within its sphere." * 
 
 Can any thing, by the way, be more positive and 
 precise and minute than this assignment of special 
 functions, this distribution of distinct offices ? 
 
 How clearly and unhesitatingly everything is 
 laid down ! 
 
 We seem to see the faculties at work as plainly 
 as bees in a glass hive. 
 
 The multiplicity of duties falling to Comparison 
 is indeed somewhat astounding forming abstract 
 ideas, establishing harmony amongst its neighbours, 
 adapting and rejecting colours, choosing one sort of 
 music and blaming another, opposing perambula- 
 tions and fine furniture, feeling relations arid show- 
 
 * A System of Phrenology, by George Combo, vol. ii. p. oGo.
 
 236 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 ing preferences. Just glance in passing (for it is 
 not yet time to do more) at the mass of evidence 
 requisite to substantiate such allegations. 
 
 But the circumstance for which I have cited the 
 passage and which I particularly entreat you now 
 to notice, is how the organs would be inevitably 
 playing at cross purposes, or rather treading on 
 each other's heels, unless they were prevented from 
 doing so by the most arbitrary limitations of their 
 respective functions. It is obvious that if Tune, 
 Colour, Form, Language, Weight, and the rest, all 
 compare their own proper objects as there repre- 
 sented, they must wofully interfere with the func- 
 tion of Comparison, and very often disagreeably 
 jostle with it ; in a word, they threaten to leave it 
 nothing to do. Hence it becomes necessary to mark 
 out its distinctive province, so as to preclude such 
 interferences and collisions, and save it from immi- 
 nent extinction ; and it is certainly an admirably 
 conservative expedient a life-boat amidst the 
 breakers to allot to it the perception of resem- 
 blance between objects lying within the different 
 spheres of the other organs, while each organ looks 
 after resemblances between objects within its own 
 special sphere. 
 
 So fur all seems adroit and ingenious and plausible 
 enough ; but in order to appreciate it fully and 
 fairly, we must come to the evidence on which 
 it rests. 
 
 llurbh as it may seem to disturb such precise and
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS. 237 
 
 specious representations by asking for the grounds 
 on which they proceed, it cannot be avoided : the 
 spirit of modern inquiry is inexorable : the question 
 must be put. What then are the facts that warrant 
 this allotment of functions, this accumulation of 
 offices assigned to comparison, and particularly, 
 in connexion with the subject before us, this, at 
 first sight, arbitrary limitation of provinces ? 
 
 How, amongst other marvellous tilings, is it dis- 
 covered that Colour (to adopt phrenological lan- 
 guage) perceives and fuels the harmony of crimson 
 and green in a rose, but that it is Comparison 
 which discerns the adaptation of the latter hue, 
 in its utmost freshness, to symbolise the mental 
 condition of a young man just entering the world 
 in a tumult of high spirits and inexperience ? or, 
 in literal language, that there is in the first case 
 a physical affection of the organ of Colour, in the 
 second, a physical affection of the organ of Com- 
 parison ? 
 
 In vain we turn to the cranial developments; 
 they are mute, they tell us nothing in such a case. 
 If we turn to consciousness we are no better off. 
 Not being conscious of the organs at all, we cannot 
 be conscious of the part which each of them plays, 
 or how the business is partitioned amongst them ; 
 or, in other words, of the motions of which they 
 are severally the seats. 
 
 In reference to what is ascribed to comparison, 
 we may be conscious, I admit, of the various acts
 
 238 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 and affections described ; of abstracting and gene- 
 ralising ; of discriminating what colour is adapted 
 to a gloomy scene ; of blaming dancing-music in a 
 church; of feeling decidedly opposed to a walk 
 with fine clothes in the dirt ; of discerning the 
 incongruity of superb furniture in juxtaposition 
 with common things ; and of preferring the loftier 
 to the lower principles of human nature; but of 
 any movements in a particular organ of the brain, 
 preceding all or any of these multifarious acts and 
 varied emotions, we have no consciousness what- 
 ever. In a word, neither are we conscious of these 
 cerebral movements, nor can we perceive them as 
 external facts, nor can we infer from the mental 
 phenomena described that they take place in one 
 organ, or two, or twenty organs. As to the usual 
 kind of phrenological proof, the large organ found 
 in connexion with a powerful manifestation of the 
 function, it is scarcely within the capacity of the 
 human mind to conceive the possibility of bringing 
 evidence of this description, which would establish 
 that such different operations as forming abstract 
 ideas, adapting colours to objects, blaming, op- 
 posing, preferring, are all the 'results of physical 
 affections or movements in one and the same busy 
 region of the brain. Independently of the clashing 
 with other organs so fatal in itself, the evidence 
 for these multifarious functions is a complete blank. 
 " Well, but taking the general function we find" 
 (it may be said in reply) " that men with inverted
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS. 239 
 
 pyramids in the upper part of the forehead are 
 always prone to the use of similes and metaphors ; 
 in short, to drawing comparisons in general. This 
 is a fact which no reasoning can put down."* 
 
 Be it so. I grant it. What then? Should we 
 happen to fall in with persons carrying such a 
 development in front, we may confidently look out 
 for figures of speech when they open their lips, or 
 take up a pen: just as when the barometer sud- 
 denly sinks at sea, we may look out for squalls. 
 But how does this prove that while the frontal 
 pyramid, in phrenological deference to Tune, takes 
 no notice of the similarity of the sounds issuing 
 from the various instruments of yonder military 
 band, it reserves to itself the exclusive privilege of 
 perceiving that the martial music and the gorgeous 
 banners are alike adapted to inspire warlike ardour ? 
 Why should not Tune and Colour compare notes on 
 the occasion ? Why not unite to oppose the mo- 
 nopoly and claim as a joint-right the office, in 
 which they are both interested, thus usurped by 
 Comparison ? 
 
 The survey which I have now taken is designed 
 to show how greatly phrenologists have overrated 
 the capabilities of their science even in its legiti- 
 mate province ; and how insensible they have been 
 
 * Dr. Gall's description of the organ is, that it is an eminence 
 of the form of a reversed pyramid, on the- upper and middle 
 portion of the frontal bone typical, it may be presumed, of 
 the slender basis on which many turgid comparisons rest.
 
 240 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 to the difficulties in their way, and to the necessity 
 of evidence at every step. 
 
 I have endeavoured to point out, by a somewhat 
 minute examination of their doctrines and expla* 
 nations, the errors into which they have fallen in as- 
 cribing functions to organs without any, or without 
 adequate proof; and to bring into view the great 
 truth which they have overlooked in their zeal, but 
 to which they must ultimately come, that all which 
 the phrenological organs can indicate is a proneness 
 to some particular kind of feeling, or an aptitude 
 for some particular kind of mental operation, or for 
 some particular intellectual pursuit. 
 
 When the frontal pyramid (to take the last ex- 
 ample cited) is established as the organ of compa- 
 rison, what in reality does the fact amount to ? 
 Stripped of all hypothesis, it amounts simply to 
 this, that the part of the forehead in question is 
 connected in some unknown manner with dis- 
 cerning resemblances, and that the function will 
 probably be manifested in proportion to the size of 
 the organ. The same assertions may of course be 
 applied mutatis mutandis to the other organs, and 
 they comprise all that phrenology can teach. 
 When seen in its true light and kept in its proper 
 place, it is a species of knowledge which may be 
 exceedingly useful, and is worthy of strenuous 
 cultivation : but when, leaving the simple facts of 
 such a connexion and of the limited indications 
 afforded, it proceeds to allot various and often dis-
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL ORGANS. 241 
 
 crepant functions to the same organs,, and in a 
 series or complication of mental actions, to distri- 
 bute the several parts of the performance amongsfc 
 them with all the particularity of a play-bill, the 
 so-called science loses all pretension to that name, 
 talks without evidence, and weaves a mere tissue of 
 dreams. 
 
 You will probably have observed that in the 
 preceding commentary, I have in genei-al avoided 
 using the term faculties, and spoken only of organs. 
 I have done so purposely, because organs are, in 
 truth, the only peculiar things belonging to phre- 
 nology. 
 
 To speak of faculties is the common and much 
 abused practice of all philosophy, and I have shown, 
 in the first series of these letters, that they are 
 only fictitious entities assumed for the sake of 
 readily conveying our meaning, but frequently 
 leading us into serious error. On the other hand, 
 organs are real things and form the sole peculiarity 
 of the science before us, which has no mental pheno- 
 mena exclusively belonging to it either as subjects 
 of speculation or by right of discovery. 
 
 The shortest and most direct way of treating it 
 is, consequently, to set aside the imaginary exist- 
 ences called faculties, and come at once to the 
 connexion between the real mental phenomena and 
 the physical organs. Accordingly, you will find 
 that whenever a mental operation or affection has 
 been assigned to a faculty, I have treated the 
 
 R
 
 242 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HITMAN BOND. 
 
 assignment as equivalent to asserting a physical 
 affection or movement in the organ. To this the 
 phrenologist cannot consistently object. If he did, 
 I should be at a loss to conceive what ground of 
 objection he could take. 
 
 The organic movement or affection is all in the 
 way of event that is peculiar to his doctrine, and if 
 in assigning a mental phenomenon to a faculty he 
 refuses to be considered as affirming or implying 
 the physical incident, he deserts his colours. If, 
 for example, when he attributes a simile to the 
 faculty of Comparison, or a smart saying to that of 
 Wit, he disclaims any ulterior reference to the phy- 
 sical process denies that his assertion implies an 
 organic affection then he is employing such Ian- 
 guage only in the same manner as any other writer 
 may do ; there is nothing phrenological in what he 
 enunciates. It is by the assertion either expressed 
 .or implied of a corresponding affection of the 
 cerebral organ that the doctrine of the phrenologist 
 is distinguished from all others, and to this he must 
 be held.
 
 PHBBNOLOQICAL EXPLANATIONS. 243 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS OF HISTORICAL AND 
 FICTITIOUS CHARACTERS. 
 
 THE preceding letters have endeavoured to show 
 what is the utmost that phrenology can do, on the 
 supposition that the connexion asserted to exist 
 between the developments of the brain and the pos- 
 session of certain mental characteristics has, at least 
 to a considerable extent, been established. 
 
 I have attempted to point out that, besides the 
 establishment of the connexion itself, which I thus 
 assume to be proved, and the assistance which it 
 may lend in the appreciation and predication of 
 personal character, this department of inquiry, as 
 actually prosecuted, has been of service by directing 
 the attention of the observer to facts of conscious- 
 ness and of conduct otherwise likely to be for a 
 while overlooked or less minutely investigated ; but 
 that it is, and must be, quite powerless to throw 
 any light derived from exclusive sources on the 
 nature of mental qualities and operations ; that, 
 even as furnishing indications of such qualities and 
 operations, its sphere is exceedingly circumscribed ; 
 
 B 2
 
 244 PHILOSOPHY 0V THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 that, when it oversteps its proper limits, it falls into 
 inevitable error, and frequently assigns functions 
 to organs, particularly in complicated mental events, 
 either on inadequate grounds, or without any evi- 
 dence at all. 
 
 It will be instructive to follow up and corroborate 
 these conclusions, by examining some of those ex- 
 planations of historical and even fictitious characters 
 which make so conspicuous a figure in phrenolo- 
 gical writings. The science claims to throw new 
 light on the history of mankind, and especially to 
 afford a deeper insight than is commonly obtained 
 into the virtues and vices, the excellences and 
 defects, of the eminent men who have at once 
 benefited and dignified their race. Such large 
 pretensions, although already virtually disproved, 
 challenge an express and careful investigation. 
 
 Amongst other celebrated persons on whom the 
 experiment of phrenological elucidation has been 
 tried, I find our great lexicographer, Dr. Samuel 
 Johnson, and I do not know that a better subject 
 could be selected for the trial. 
 
 It is, perhaps, an advantage that the paper from 
 which I shall quote was written by one who was 
 considered in his day as an accomplished and suc- 
 cessful expounder of the science, and was besides 
 of fair repute in his profession, I mean Dr. Andrew 
 Combe. 
 
 From a biographical article before him, Dr. Combe 
 cites an account of Dr. Johnson's tendency to me-
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS. 245 
 
 lancholy ; of the predominance of his fears of the 
 Supreme Being over more cheerful views ; of his 
 constant apprehension of death; of his slavish 
 adherence to the creed of the nursery; and of 
 his horror at the slightest incredulity. Had the 
 biographer been a phrenologist, says Dr. Combe, 
 he would have added that these feelings arose out 
 of large Cautiousness, Veneration, and Wonder. 
 
 He then goes on to give us information respecting 
 these three sentiments. As to the first, an over- 
 activity of Cautiousness produces distressing dread 
 without adequate external causes; also doubts, 
 hesitation, uneasiness, melancholy, and hypochon- 
 dria. This " explains " the gloomy part of Dr. 
 Johnson's character. Next as to Veneration. " It 
 gives the feeling of respect " (in the language of 
 Dr. Spurzheim) " and leads us to look upon some 
 things as sacred ; it venerates old age, and whatever 
 is respectable, and it adores God." We are further 
 told, that it predisposes to religious feeling, but 
 does not judge what ought to be venerated. 
 
 "Besides the proof" (continues our author) 
 " already afforded us of the activity of this feeling 
 in the mind of Johnson, we are expressly told, that 
 the tendency was so strong as to prevent him ex- 
 ercising his intellect in determining the objects of 
 worship. His veneration for everything connected 
 with religion was extraordinary." All this part of 
 his character is " explained " by a large endowment 
 of the organ appropriated to reverence. The writer 
 
 R 3
 
 246 PHILOSOPHY or THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 then proceeds to the third organ before mentioned, 
 namely, Wonder. 
 
 " Nothing," he says, " has excited more astonish- 
 ment in the minds of philosophers than that a man 
 of Dr. Johnson's mighty intellect should have been 
 so credulous and superstitious as to believe in su- 
 pernatural agency, ghosts, second sight, lucky days, 
 &c. ; * for,' says his biographer, * though a jealous 
 examiner of the evidence of ordinary facts, yet his 
 weakness on the side of religion, or where anything 
 supernatural was supposed to be concerned, ren- 
 dered him willing to give credit to various notions 
 with which superstition imposes upon the fears and 
 the credulity of mankind.' " * * " But," continues 
 our author, " phrenology again shows its superi- 
 ority in the simplicity with which it explains this 
 singular feature." 
 
 This simple explanation is that a large endow- 
 ment of " Wonder " gives the tendency to seek and 
 see the supernatural in everything, and to believe 
 in inspirations, forewarnings, phantoms, demons, 
 witchcraft, astrology, and such like. 
 
 Thus the melancholy, the gloomy apprehensions, 
 the religious tendencies, the superstition, and the 
 credulity of Dr. Johnson, are simply and satisfacto- 
 rily " explained " in the view of the phrenologist 
 by referring to the great development in him of 
 Cautiousness, Veneration, and Wonder. 
 
 In all this, nevertheless, I am unable for my own 
 part to bee any explanation at all. It is substan*
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS. 247 
 
 tially no more than enunciating in a round about 
 way, with the admixture of a few incongruities, 
 two or three identical propositions ; that his fears 
 proceeded from his fearfulness ; that his pious feel- 
 ings sprang from his piety, and that his credulous 
 conduct resulted from his credulity. It is for the 
 most part putting into the phraseology of a system 
 truisms, which, were it needful to utter them at all, 
 might be equally well expressed in ordinary Ian- 
 guage. It obviously furnishes no information of 
 any kind. What is said of his feelings and his 
 conduct does not specify an emotion or an incident, 
 a peculiarity of superstition, or an eccentricity of 
 behaviour, which is contributed or pointed out by 
 phrenology : they are all taken from the common 
 accounts of his life, and referred in a somewhat 
 rough and indiscriminating manner to the phrenolo- 
 gical faculties and organs, without any special and 
 independent evidence to warrant the attribution. 
 Looking at this reference merely as a classification 
 of mental characteristics, it is largely disfigured by 
 those faults which almost always attend the creation 
 of distinct faculties and the attempt to describe 
 their spheres of action incongruity, indefinite- 
 ness, and want of grounds for the distribution of 
 the parts severally assigned to them. 
 
 In the instance before us, there is, you will not 
 fail to observe, an odd heterogeneous mixture 
 (similar to what I have pointed out in the pre- 
 ceding letter) of the actions and feelings attributed 
 
 R 4
 
 248 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 to the so-called sentiments or their organs, a re- 
 markable if not a ludicrous jumble. , Thus Cautious- 
 ness engenders not only " distressing dread," but 
 " melancholy " and " hypochondria : " Veneration 
 " venerates whatever is respectable " and " adores 
 God, but does not judge what ought to be vene- 
 rated : " Wonder " gives the tendency to seek and 
 see the supernatural in everything " and " to be- 
 lieve in phantoms, demons, and astrology," and 
 " contributes to religious faith." 
 
 The whole of the "explanation" is surely la- 
 mentable, trilling in a really well informed and 
 sensible writer, making assertions without proof; 
 allotting functions without either evidence or dis- 
 crimination, and yet doing all with a happy un- 
 consciousness of its nullity, and with the intre- 
 pidity of perfect intuition. 
 
 If an actual examination of the great lexicogra- 
 pher's head had been made, and the cranial organs of 
 Cautiousness, Veneration, and Wonder, had been 
 found to be large, something strictly belonging to 
 phrenology would have been effected ; but it would 
 have amounted only to this, that the conformation 
 of his skull showed he was constitutionally very 
 much inclined to fear, to reverence, and to credu- 
 lity : that the remarkable proneness to these senti- 
 ments or affections evinced in his life was the 
 result of his organisation, and not to be ascribed in 
 the main to the circumstances by which he had 
 been surrounded and impressed : and even the
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS. 249 
 
 conclusion that these were in a high degree na- 
 tural or complcxional qualities of his mind, might 
 have been inferred by any one well acquainted with 
 his career, his conversation, and his writings, yet 
 utterly ignorant of his cerebral organisation. 
 
 But instead of furnishing independent cranial 
 evidence, to proceed, as the author on whom I am 
 commenting has done, to take a man's character as 
 portrayed in a biographical narrative without any 
 proof of the actual conformation of his brain, and 
 gravely tell us that certain gloomy moods resulted 
 from his Cautiousness, certain religious traits .were 
 the consequences of his Veneration, and certain cre- 
 dulous acts were the fruits of his Wonder, plainly 
 amounts to nothing but a transmutation of phrases. 
 Considered as to the reasoning implied, it is moving 
 in a circle. It is first deducing the possession of 
 a faculty and its corresponding organ from the re- 
 corded conduct of the man, and then " explaining " 
 his conduct by referring it to the faculty and organ 
 previously deduced from it. 
 
 To sum up what I have said : when a phrenolo- 
 gist takes in hand the skull of any eminent cha- 
 racter of past times and shows that its conformation 
 indicates the qualities which the conduct of the 
 individual actually exhibited, he is engaged in a 
 rational and scientific proceeding ; but the whole of 
 what he accomplishes is proving that such qualities 
 had a constitutional ground or origin. What else 
 they were, all their particular manifestations and
 
 250 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 connexions, must be gathered from the biographical 
 narrative. 
 
 When, on the other hand, without reference to 
 the actual cranium, he merely attributes the sen- 
 timents and conduct of the individual to the phre- 
 nological faculties, he is doing nothing more than 
 classifying the feelings, mental operations, and 
 actions of the man under the peculiar terms of his 
 own system. He cannot proceed a step beyond. I 
 correct myself: there is a further achievement 
 possible. Should he choose to amuse himself with 
 drawing inferences from the qualities displayed to 
 the organisation possessed, he may conjecture or 
 conclude, without the possibility of being refuted, 
 unless the actual skull should be subsequently pro- 
 duced, that the subject of his speculations had 
 very probably a cranium of a particular confor- 
 mation; that he had one organ full, another 
 moderate, a third large, and a fourth small. But 
 of what avail would such inferences be ? 
 
 The sort of explanation of which I have attempted 
 in the present letter to show the utter futility has 
 been carried so far that the actions of Shakespeare's 
 dramatis persona? have been elaborately "explained 
 on phrenological principles" 
 
 " They," says a writer in the * Phrenological 
 
 Journal/ * " who have studied the subject, and who 
 
 have consequently accustomed themselves to think 
 
 phrenologically, are able in all cases of real cha- 
 
 VoL i. p. 93.
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS. 251 
 
 racter, even the most anomalous, to discern the 
 combination of powers and feelings (according to 
 the phrenological system), which produce the 
 manifestations perceived ; and whenever a character 
 is well or naturally described, either in real or ficti- 
 tious writing, have no difficulty in applying to the de- 
 lineation the same mode of analysis. "We who have 
 experienced this in numberless instances, feel, in 
 the occurrence of every new case, a confident ex- 
 pectation that it is capable of being explained 
 satisfactorily on phrenological principles, and we 
 are never disappointed. We can assure our readers 
 that if they will only be persuaded to try the 
 efficacy of this system as a medium of thought, 
 they will find it to furnish a key to human cha- 
 racter, and to afford an insight into human na- 
 ture, of which, antecedently to actual experience, 
 they could not have formed the remotest concep- 
 tion." 
 
 The writer then proceeds to what he calls an 
 analysis of the character of Macbeth, and quotes 
 for this purpose the following soliloquy from the 
 third scene of the first act : 
 
 " Two truths are told, 
 Aa happy prologues to the swelling act 
 Of the imperial theme. I thank you, gentlemen. 
 This supernatural soliciting 
 Cannot be ill ; cannot be good : If ill, 
 Why hath it given me earnest of success, 
 Commencing in a truth ? I am thane of Cawdor : 
 If good, why do I yield to that suggestion 
 Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
 
 252 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, 
 
 Against the use of nature ? Present fears 
 
 Are less than horrible imaginings : 
 
 My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, 
 
 Shakes so my single state of man, that function 
 
 Is stnother'd in, surmise ; and nothing is 
 
 But what is not." 
 
 From this soliloquy it is inferred that se 
 acquisitiveness i and love of approbation were strong; 
 and conscientiousness and veneration moderate not 
 sufficiently active to keep down the evil thoughts 
 that began to rise in his mind. On another passage 
 of the same tragedy it is remarked, "Destructiveness % 
 secretiveness, and cautiousness seem all to have a 
 share in dictating this speech," [another of Mac- 
 beth's] " while conscientiousness and the love of ap- 
 probation seem only * so far awake as to show him 
 the evil nature of the deeds he is meditating with- 
 out making him resolve to avoid them." * 
 
 These specimens are sufficient to exhibit the 
 kind of analysis attempted, which, so far from 
 meriting that name, is nothing more than showing 
 how the mental qualities attributed by the poet to 
 Macbeth may be described in phrenological lan- 
 guage no improvement certainly on the original 
 text. There is no new light thrown in any way 
 on the meaning of our great dramatist ; or on his 
 powerful description of what is passing in the mind 
 of -the future murderer ; or on the nature of the 
 passions described. 
 
 * Phrenological Journal, vol. i. p. 97.
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS. 253 
 
 How the so-called analysis, amounting as it does 
 to a mere change of terms, should furnish a key to 
 human character and afford an insight into human 
 nature, I am wholly at a loss to discover. Such a 
 transmutation of phrases may possibly inspire the 
 novice with the conceit of having a scientific hold 
 of a subject, by putting into his hands a set of 
 technical terms, in the management of which little 
 difficulty can occur; and about these terms his 
 mind may revolve and seem at once busy and 
 concentrated, when, if not provided with such helps, 
 it might have idly wandered without method or 
 purpose. It is something certainly to have the 
 attention aroused and directed. 
 
 Even a false system may give both an impulse 
 and a coherence to a man's thoughts, and conduce 
 to the satisfaction of that longing to account for 
 passing phenomena which is so natural to the mind, 
 and which is so susceptible of being appeased by 
 trivial and even fantastic explanations ; but by 
 doing this, the system is likely enough to stop any 
 real advance of knowledge on the subject to which 
 it relates. 
 
 If any one, for example, should fancy he under- 
 stands any belter the characteristic feelings and 
 motives of a brave man, by being able to ascribe 
 them technically to certain organs called Destruc- 
 tiveness and Combativeness, he would be deceived 
 by mere words, and would probably seek no further 
 knowledge and bestow no further thought in that
 
 254 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 particular direction. The notion of being possessed 
 of " a key to the character, would strongly tend 
 to stop inquiry and prevent reflection. 
 
 With a wish to do full justice to the department 
 of inquiry under consideration, I am not able to 
 say that it can render more assistance to any one 
 in the appreciation and description of historical 
 and fictitious characters, than he might derive from 
 an equal attention to their qualities and actions, 
 without possessing any knowledge of phreno- 
 logy* but at the same time provided with a tolerably 
 precise and consistent nomenclature in which to 
 describe what he observes in himself and his 
 neighbours. 
 
 The whole of the preceding observations on 
 phrenology have had in view the original mode of 
 allotting functions to organs, by noting the extra- 
 ordinary development of particular regions of the 
 cranium in men remarkable for extraordinary en- 
 dowments or susceptibilities ; but they will apply, 
 in the main, or with certain modifications, to the 
 science in the new position in which it has been 
 placed since the alleged discovery of the influence 
 exercised over the organs by. mesmeric mani- 
 pulations. 
 
 Admitting this influence without question, for 
 the sake of argument, I think it will be at once 
 acknowledged by the candid inquirer, that it lessens 
 the indefiniteness on which I have insisted in regard 
 to the locality, if not to the boundaries of the
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS. 255 
 
 organs, and strengthens the evidence for their 
 several functions. 
 
 If an organ can, as these experiments avouch, be 
 roused into action by a touch or pointing of the 
 finger, its locality or relative position to other 
 organs is at all events confirmed, although its 
 limits are still undefined by precise lines. And 
 further, if, when the organ is thus touched or 
 pointed at, particular feelings, ideas, and volitions 
 ensue, you approach nearer than before to the 
 establishment of a connexion between the organ 
 
 o 
 
 and a class of mental phenomena. 
 
 But the business even yet is not so simple and 
 easy as people are apt to suppose. There are in 
 reality great difficulties to be overcome. 
 
 It is obvious, that if a single organ were alone in 
 activity, it would be easy enough to determine its 
 function. Such a solitary activity, however, may 
 be said never to occur spontaneously ; and there 
 are no means of insulating an organ so as to dis- 
 sever its action from that of the rest of the organs. 
 We may assume, therefore, that several of them 
 are always in activity although only one is purposely 
 excited. As this nevertheless may be presumed 
 to be more active than the others, the predominant 
 feeling or intellectual operation manifested might 
 be regarded as proceeding from it ; but it is evident 
 that to determine with any precision which of the 
 mental phenomena exhibited are exclusively con- 
 nected with movements in that organ, and which
 
 256 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 of them with movements in other organs, would in 
 the majority of cases require a long and elaborate 
 series of observations, conducted with great patience, 
 nice discrimination, and sound judgment. 
 
 It is obvious, too, that this new method of in- 
 vestigation, although it might be serviceable in 
 establishing or confirming the connexion of organ 
 and function, could be of little avail as an instru- 
 ment for the predication of character. 
 
 Thus, however valuable the recently discovered 
 mode of phrenological inquiry may be, the indeter- 
 minateness of the two sets of corresponding facts 
 is by no means eliminated, although it is in some 
 respects lessened ; nor is there any approach worth 
 speaking of to a perfect set of signs and of things 
 signified, as in the case of vibrating strings and 
 musical notes: there are no movements observed 
 in the organs, and consequently no connexion 
 established between particular motions in the brain 
 and particular mental phenomena. The phreno- 
 logical organs may still be described as mere 
 superficial and motionless regions or developments 
 of the cranium, capable of indicating only classes 
 of mental characteristics, more or less general or 
 comprehensive. 
 
 But the most important consideration remains. 
 Even supposing the discovery in question, to render 
 the connexion between organs and mental phe- 
 nomena ascertainable with greater precision, still, 
 while it makes the science more complete in its
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS. 257 
 
 proper province, it does not at all enlarge its scope, 
 rior set aside the conclusions already arrived at : 
 namely, that all which is peculiar to the science, all 
 which it can claim as exclusively its own, is the esta- 
 blishment of this connexion ; and that whether it be 
 more or less completely accomplished, the moral and 
 intellectual phenomena concerned cannot be eluci- 
 dated by it, but must ever continue to be learned 
 from internal sources, as they always have been; 
 on which account the philosophy of mind can never 
 be any other than a philosophy of consciousness.
 
 258 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 ANTHROPOLOGY. PROPOSED CLASSIFICATION OF 
 INQUIRIES RELATING TO MAN. 
 
 IN writing the letters on the connexion between 
 the body and the mind, as it is commonly termed, 
 or the reciprocal dependence of the phenomena of 
 our physical organisation and the phenomena of 
 consciousness, I was more strongly impressed than 
 ever with the expediency, if not the necessity, of 
 dividing our investigations relating to man into a 
 greater number of departments than has, hitherto, 
 been usual, except in the instance of the physical 
 organism, and perhaps also in that of social 
 science; and keeping these departments as distinct 
 as the nature of the case would admit with matters 
 so closely allied. The attempt to make such a 
 division, if it bore no other fruit, would at least 
 not be without advantage in bringing before the eye 
 the relative position in which several subjects of 
 investigation stand to each other. 
 
 If we were to comprise all the departments of 
 inquiry relating exclusively to the human race under 
 the term Anthropology, we might proceed, it oc-
 
 PROPOSED CLASSIFICATION OF INQUIRIES. 259 
 
 curred to me, with tho distribution of the subject 
 in something like the following manner : 
 
 CLASS. 
 
 ANTHBOPOLOQT, OR INQUIRIES CONCERNING MAN. 
 
 OUDER I. Inquiries relating to Man at an Individual. 
 
 Genus 1. Relating to his Corporeal Frame or Physical 
 Organization, comprising Anatomy and Physio- 
 logy. 
 
 2. Relating to his Mental Operations and Affections, 
 
 or the Phenomena of Consciousness (including 
 Language, as connected with Thought and 
 Feeling) : a department of inquiry now appro- 
 priately termed Psychology, or, if you like the 
 older name, the Philosophy of the Human 
 Mind. 
 
 3. Relating to the mutual dependence or connexion 
 
 of the Phenomena of our Physical Organization 
 and the Phenomena of Consciousness, which 
 would of course include Cranioscopy or Cranio- 
 logy (the proper designation for the modern 
 Phrenology), and Physiognomy as cultivated by 
 Lavater and others. 
 
 4. Relating to Individual or Personal Character a 
 
 department usually referred to Psychology, but 
 admitting of separate cultivation. 
 
 ORDER IL Inquiries relating to Man as a Social Being. 
 
 Genut 1. Relating to Morals, or to Right and Wrong Con- 
 duct between Man and Man and other sensitive 
 and intelligent Beings. 
 
 2. Relating to Government. 
 
 3. Relating to the Economical Condition of Com- 
 
 munities, or Political Economy. 
 
 4. Relating to Language as a medium of intercom- 
 
 munication and influence, including tho prin- 
 ciples of Exposition and of Rhetoric. 
 
 2
 
 260 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 ORDER III. Inquiries relating to Mankind at to their Origin, 
 Race*, Progress, and Civilization. 
 
 These inquiries might have been included as a 
 Genus in the second order, but they will stand 
 very conveniently alone, and might be divided 
 into several genera themselves. 
 
 OBDER IV. Inquiriet relating to the connexion of Mankind 
 with Superior Beings, or Theology. 
 
 This distribution of anthropological inquiries, to 
 be correct, must necessarily coincide in many re- 
 spects with received classifications, and is proposed 
 in its totality merely as tentative or suggestive. 
 It is doubtless exceedingly imperfect, but so simple 
 as not to require much explanation. A few re- 
 marks on some of the divisions under the first 
 Order, on account of which the arrangement has 
 in truth been produced, and which more particularly 
 come within the compass of the present letters, are 
 all that I think it needful to lay before you. 
 
 With regard to separating our inquiries into the 
 phenomena of consciousness, from those into the 
 reciprocal influence of mind and body (which there 
 is a tendency, I think, in the present age, not to 
 keep sufficiently distinct), it scarcely needs pointing 
 out that there would be ample occupation in both 
 pursuits for the undivided attention of their fol- 
 lowers, and that they so far differ as to require, 
 in a great measure, different kinds of mental 
 aptitude. The two would of course be always 
 intimately connected, and the inquirer in one de-
 
 PROPOSED CLASSIFICATION OF INQUIRIES. 261 
 
 partment would have to acquaint himself more or 
 less with the collateral processes, principles, and 
 results of the other. 
 
 The latter, or the inquiry into the mutual in- 
 fluence of the physical and mental parts of our 
 nature, presents not only an important but a very 
 extensive subject, and one which could not be 
 adequately treated until psychology on the one 
 hand, and physiology on the other, had attained 
 something like a mature state. 
 
 The affections and operations of the mind, and 
 the structure and organic functions of the body, 
 must be tolerably well known before any investi- 
 gation of their mutual influence could be satis- 
 factorily attempted. Speculators seem to have 
 sometimes engaged in the inquiry without first 
 determining what were the precise phenomena 
 they were to inquire about. 
 
 It would be out of place to do more here than 
 briefly advert to two or three of the principal 
 topics embraced by it. 
 
 The connexion between the structure of the 
 brain, or rather the form, size, composition, ar- 
 rangement, or other incidents, of its several parts, 
 and mental qualities or characteristics, may be 
 cited as one of the most interesting. 
 
 It is scarcely needful under this head to repeat 
 the mention of phrenology. There is evidently no 
 insuperable difficulty in tracing a connexion between 
 the form, size, and internal structure of any part, 
 
 3
 
 862 
 
 and certain mental qualities, provided it exists; 
 or in showing the groundlessness of asserting it, 
 provided it does not exist. 
 
 The problem is both within the range of ex- 
 perience, and worthy of investigation. 
 
 Closely allied to and scarcely separable indeed 
 from the preceding topic, is the connexion between 
 the changes or movements in the nerves, as well as 
 other tissues and mental events. 
 
 We have grounds for inferring that no mental 
 affection or operation takes place without some 
 antecedent change in the state of the brain and 
 nerves, although we are unacquainted with the 
 nature of these changes : and from their being in- 
 accessible to direct observation we are likely enough 
 long to remain so. 
 
 It is a subject, however, concerning which we 
 ought to be at once alive to the least gleam of 
 evidence, and on our guard against the strong 
 temptation to indulge in gratuitous theories. We 
 shall not be wrong in discarding merely hypothe- 
 tical explanations destitute of proof (Dr. Hartley's 
 vibrations for instance) as fruitless or rather pre- 
 ventive of real progress. The' kind of movement 
 in the nerves is, as far as I am informed, yet un- 
 determined, notwithstanding the discovery that 
 certain nerves are concerned exclusively in the 
 physical process instrumental to perception, and 
 others in the process instrumental to willing a 
 discovery which (it may be remarked by the way)
 
 PROPOSED CLASSIFICATION OF INQUIRIES. 263 
 
 throws no light either on the nature of the two 
 mental acts (how should it ?) or the nature of the 
 physiological motions concerned. 
 
 Turning to the other phase of the connexion we 
 find that certain mental affections can be traced to 
 their effects on certain tissues of the body. Shame 
 produces blushing, fear paleness and tremor, wit 
 and humour laughter ; and other feelings seem 
 severally to disturb, to impede, or to stimulate the 
 action and secretions of some one or more tissues 
 or organs. Cabanis has well described the unsus- 
 pected muscular vigour which a man finds in him- 
 self when under the influence of energetic passions.* 
 All these phenomena and others akin to them are 
 worthy of minute scrutiny. 
 
 The effects of external agents, applied to the body, 
 upon the phenomena of the mind form another 
 topic under this head, and one perhaps more 
 .accessible to investigation and more promising in 
 results than any of those hitherto mentioned. 
 
 One of the subjects falling within its scope is 
 the mental influence, temporary or permanent, of 
 various substances food and medicine, stimulants 
 and sedatives received into the stomach ; a very 
 interesting and important inquiry, which has been 
 hitherto greatly neglected, by English philosophers 
 at least, but which would repay an almost exclusive 
 devotion to it, while it would come within the 
 
 Rapports du Physique et du Moral de L'Homme, torn. i. 
 p. 175. Quatrieme Ed.
 
 264 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 range of the purely mental philosopher only as a 
 subsidiary topic.* 
 
 This is only one amongst a multitude of interest- 
 ing researches which a division like that I have 
 suggested would bring into more distinct apprehen- 
 sion, and probably incite inquirers to undertake; 
 such as will rise to view at the mention of the 
 effects of light, heat, various conditions of the 
 atmosphere, and other elements of climate, with 
 numerous other agents producing modifications of 
 mind through the physical organs and tissues. 
 
 In fact, the connexion of mind and body abounds 
 with weighty but neglected questions, and ques- 
 tions too of a nice and difficult nature. The work 
 of the eminent French author whom I have already 
 cited is full of information and suggestions on many 
 of them. 
 
 The reader may be amused with the following illustration 
 of the subject here lightly touched upon ; it is highly charac- 
 teristic of the admirable writer": 
 
 " I am convinced," says Sydney Smith, in one of his Letters, 
 " that digestion is the great secret of life ; and that character, 
 talents, virtues, and qualities are powerfully affected by beef, 
 mutton, pie-crust, and rich soups. I have often thought I could 
 feed or starve mrn into many virtues and vices, and affect them 
 more powerfully with my instruments of cookery than Tinio- 
 theus could do formerly with his lyre." Memoirs of Sydney 
 Smith, vol. ii. p. 40o. To ibis may be added the assertion of 
 Cabanis, that in certain countries, where the indigent class live 
 til most exclusively on chestnuts, buck-wheat, and other gross 
 aliments, there is to be remarked in that entire class an almost 
 total want of intelligence, and a singular tjowness in their de- 
 terminations and movements. Itapporls, torn. ii. p. 58.
 
 PROPOSED CLASSIFICATION OP INQUIRIES. 265 
 
 . In reference to the division concerning Indivi- 
 dual or Personal Character, I may remark that 
 it would be advantageous on several accounts to 
 keep it distinct from Psychology, which, when con. 
 fined to its proper objects, is chiefly occupied in 
 describing, classifying, and bringing under general 
 laws, the phenomena of consciousness common to 
 all mankind, and deals with Individual Character 
 only incidentally and briefly too briefly for the 
 importance of the subject. 
 
 The expediency of making the latter a separate 
 department of inquiry, will be more readily ad- 
 mitted if we consider that character is constituted 
 not by peculiar qualities, but chiefly by the propor- 
 tion in which mental properties common to the 
 individual with the rest of .his species are mani- 
 fested. 
 
 The elements of a man's character may be stated 
 to be mainly the following : 
 
 1. The predominance of certain feelings, propen- 
 sities, and desires in his mind over others which, 
 although existing there, are less marked, such as 
 fear, hope, resentment, the love of approbation, con- 
 scientiousness, curiosity, benevolence, ambition, and 
 so on ; all of which may be found united in in- 
 finitely varying proportions. 
 
 2. His being able to perform certain intellectual 
 operations better than other operations, such as 
 remembering better than imagining or reasoning, 
 and conversely reasoning better than remembering.
 
 266 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 3. His being able to perform these and other in- 
 tellectual operations much better in respect to cer- 
 tain objects than in respect to other objects. Thus 
 one man will recollect, imagine, and reason about 
 mechanical matters more readily than he will per- 
 form those operations in the case of mental 
 phenomena; and another will remember mathe- 
 matical figures and draw conclusions respecting 
 them, with more facility than he will perform 
 similar acts in reference to the incidents of common 
 life, to music, or to poetry. 
 
 One important ingredient in the aptitude for 
 particular arts or sciences, is being able to form 
 clear and steady mental representations of the 
 objects in which they deal, when such objects are 
 not present. To grasp them firmly in conception 
 is manifestly indispensable both to devising new 
 combinations and to reasoning on their results 
 whilst yet untried.* 
 
 4. The energy or feebleness of his volitions his 
 acts of willing. The observation is anything but 
 new, that we frequently see men of strong intellect 
 combined with weak powers of volition, and vice 
 versd. Coleridge was a notorious example of the 
 former. 
 
 5. His physical endowments or the qualities of 
 his bodily constitution, the perpetual consciousness 
 
 * It is the want of this power of clear conception which, as 
 it appears to me, leads writers into mixed metaphors, as well as 
 other both rhetorical and logical incongruities.
 
 PROPOSED. CLASSIFICATION OF INQUIRIES. 267 
 
 of which (not to mention other effects) enters 
 largely into the composition of his character. Of 
 this remark Lord Byron may be cited as an illus- 
 tration. The contrast between the mental effects 
 of a consciousness of great muscular vigour on the 
 one hand, and muscular feebleness on the other, 
 has been well drawn by Cabanis. 
 
 The attributes or characteristics above enumer- 
 ated being the results partly of natural constitution 
 and partly of the peculiar habits and associations 
 superinduced by the particular circumstances in 
 which the individual has been placed, or by the 
 discipline through which he has passed, there is 
 ample room in this province of inquiry for the 
 exercise of the most sedulous observation and the 
 most discriminating sagacity. 
 
 It is this science of character which constitutes a 
 great part of the modern Phrenology ; and from 
 which, I may say, have been gathered the chief 
 fruits of that department of knowledge as actually 
 cultivated. As a philosophy of mind, phrenology 
 can, as we have seen, do little or nothing : as a 
 system of cranioscopy, by assisting us in the appre- 
 ciation of the natural qualities of individual men, 
 it may do more ; and in calling attention to pecu- 
 liarities of conduct and constitution, it has actually, 
 although from no exclusive sources, thrown useful 
 light on the special department of Anthropology 
 before us. 
 
 The advantages of dividing cur investigations
 
 268 PHILOSOPHY OP THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 concerning mankind in the way proposed, without 
 insulating any of them, would, I apprehend, be the 
 same as we see attend the separation of physical 
 science into so many different sections. The seve- 
 ral departments here sketched out, although some 
 of them would be often united, would usually be 
 pursued by different individuals as their peculiar 
 qualifications and opportunities might determine, 
 and such a division of labour would doubtless have 
 the usual beneficial results. 
 
 Above all, so far from preventing or impeding 
 large and comprehensive views of human nature, it 
 would not fail to multiply the points of speculation 
 presented to the man of a powerful intellectual 
 grasp. 
 
 It may be said indeed that the end here in con- 
 templation will be naturally effected (and has 
 already been partially so) in the progress of know- 
 ledge, during which such divisions as are now 
 recommended, present themselves as matters of 
 course when the necessity arises, without any pre- 
 concerted distribution such as I have formally 
 suggested : and the assertion that it will be effected, 
 and is even now in process of being accomplished, is 
 true enough ; but then it must be recollected that 
 such tentative distinctions and classifications (I 
 offer mine in no other light) far from being useless 
 or supererogatory, are themselves steps towards 
 the goal which we are looking to reach. Although 
 they are often silently made in the prosecution of
 
 PROPOSED CLASSIFICATION OF INQUIRIES. 269 
 
 inquiry, it is not without advantage to the inquirer 
 to have them beforehand distinctly set forth. 
 
 The supposed objection would be levelled against 
 taking measures expressly adapted to further a 
 certain end, on the ground that there were other 
 causes already in operation which would also con- 
 tribute to effect it, and might perhaps accomplish 
 it alone if there were leisure to wait.
 
 270 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN HIND. 
 
 LETTER XXL 
 
 THE PRESENT CONDITION, ESTIMATION, AND PROSPECTS 
 OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 ON casting a retrospective glance over the two 
 series of letters which I am now hastening to close, 
 I cannot help being sensible that the philosophy of 
 the human mind, as received and taught by its most 
 eminent cultivators, stands out in my representa- 
 tions as being in an extremely unsatisfactory con- 
 dition. In regard to this point you will see that I 
 coincide in a great measure with the late Sydney 
 Smith, who, in a passage which I have before 
 quoted, declared that the language and divisions of 
 intellectual philosophy appeared to him to be in a 
 most barbarous state.* 
 
 I shall not now attempt to enter further, except 
 incidentally, into the causes of this disheartening 
 position of the science, but will content myself with 
 offering a few remarks in vindication of its rank 
 and importance, and with briefly touching on one 
 or two considerations which claim to be attended 
 to in all endeavours to improve what so much wants 
 improvement. 
 
 * Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith, vol. ii. p. 23.
 
 ITS CONDITION, ESTIMATION, AND PROSPECTS. 271 
 
 Of one thing we may at the outset make our- 
 selves sure* there can be no real progress in 
 mental philosophy without the most careful pre- 
 cision of language, the uniform and consistent em- 
 ployment of all terms on which our statements and 
 inferences depend, and the rigorous exclusion of 
 fictitious entities and imaginary events. Neither 
 can any progress be achieved without minute self- 
 introspection, nor without the trouble (or the tedi- 
 ousness if you will) of making very nice and subtile 
 distinctions amongst the phenomena of conscious- 
 ness, as well as the words in which they are de- 
 scribed ; and, what is of equal moment, in the views 
 right or wrong which have been taken of them. 
 
 These are the indispensable means of uprooting 
 error and establishing truth on a subject of so much 
 difficulty. 
 
 Yet such close research, rigorous precision, and 
 nice distinctions in mental philosophy as are here 
 insisted upon, have been contemptuously decried, 
 and stigmatised as vain, shadowy, and valueless, 
 even by some of those who eagerly extol the mi- 
 nutest inquisitions of physical science. 
 
 What! shall thousands of scientific men with 
 triumphant acclaim employ themselves in almost 
 infinitesimal physical investigations ; in searching 
 into the atomic composition and microscopic struc- 
 ture of bodies ; in exploring the innumerable forms 
 of animal and vegetable life which are invisible to 
 the unassisted sight ; in discovering planets that
 
 272 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 have for ages rolled unmarked through their obscure 
 orbits; in condensing with telescopic power into 
 suns and systems what was recently regarded (so 
 to speak) as the elemental vapour of stars*; in 
 throwing into arithmetical expression inconceivably 
 rapid vibrations in the apparently steady ray that 
 even the strongest wind cannot shake ; thus bring- 
 ing into view from the distant and the diminutive, 
 the most recondite parts of the material universe ; 
 and shall the exact analysis of the phenomena of 
 consciousness, the discrimination of differences in 
 feelings and intellectual operations however fine 
 and minute, the vigilant detection of the subtilest 
 concatenations of thought, the firm yet delicate 
 grasp of mental analogies which elude the rough and 
 careless handling/of common observation, the nice 
 appreciation of language and of all its changing hues 
 and latent expedients, the decomposition of the pro- 
 cesses of reasoning and laying bare the foundations 
 of evidence, shall these, I say, be stigmatised as an 
 
 It was the hypothesis of Laplace " that systems of re- 
 volving planets, of which the solar system is an example, arise 
 from the gradual contraction and separation of vast masses of 
 nebulous matter. Yet it does not appear that any changes have 
 been observed in nebulae which tend to confirm this hypothesis ; 
 and the most powerful telescope in the world, recently erected 
 by the Earl of Rosse, has given results which militate against 
 the hypothesis ; inasmuch as it has been shown that what ap- 
 peared a diffused nebulous mass is, by a greater power of vision, 
 reso'ved, in all cases yet examined, into separate stars." 
 History of the Inductive Sciences, by Dr. Whewell, latest 
 edition, vol. ii. p. 29.
 
 ITS CONDITION, ESTIMATION, AND PROSPECTS. 273 
 
 over-exercise of acuteness, a waste of analytic 
 power, a useless splitting of hairs, and a worthless 
 weaving of cobwebs ? Amidst the honours lavished 
 on investigations into the most secluded recesses of 
 the material world, are we to be told that the close 
 and minute and discriminating examination of our 
 own mental nature is a vain and superfluous labour 
 leading to no beneficial or important issue ? 
 
 Believe it not: rest assured that here untiring 
 investigation, minute analysis, close scrutiny, care- 
 ful discrimination of things apt to be confounded, 
 scrupulous accuracy in pursuing processes, and 
 precision in recording results, are as apposite, as 
 fruitful, as important, as indispensable, as dignified 
 if you will, as they are (1 say it without dis- 
 paragement) in tracking invisible stars, calculat- 
 ing the millions of imperceptible undulations in a 
 ray of light, weighing the atoms of chemical ele- 
 ments, peering into the cells of organic structures*, 
 
 * These are really interesting and important investigations : 
 the following passage from an eminent naturalist will never- 
 theless justify the description in the text. "Cells," says Pro- 
 fessor Owen, " predominate in the tissues of the vegetable king- 
 dom, the lower members of which consist exclusively of them, 
 and have been thence called ' plantae cellulares : ' the lowest of 
 all consist of a single nucleated cell. The animal kingdom 
 starts from the same elementary beginning : a cell-wall forms 
 the smooth, elastic, and contractile integument of the Grega- 
 rina: a fluid with granules, and a firm nucleus which some- 
 times contains one or more nucleoli, the ordinary cell con- 
 tents are the sole representatives of organs or viscera." 
 Parthenogenesis t p. 6. 
 
 T
 
 274 PHILOSOPHY OF THB HUMAN MIND. 
 
 studying the anatomy of mites and midges , and 
 even searching into the specific characters and 
 peculiar habits of molluscs and animalcules. 
 
 But this is not the only kind of depreciation and 
 disparagement which mental philosophy has had to 
 sustain. Strange to say, a man of science who has 
 attempted to grasp the whole body of human 
 knowledge f, has pronounced that the pretended 
 direct contemplation of the mind by itself is a pure 
 illusion. The fallacy of this notable declaration it 
 is not difficult to see. It is worthy of a completer 
 examination than the incidental one which is all 
 that, were I so disposed, I could now consistently 
 give it ; but should I live to send you a third series 
 of philosophical letters, I hope to show the un- 
 tenableness of the position and the source of the 
 mistake. 
 
 The depreciation of a department of inquiry 
 which concerns itself, professedly, with only internal 
 objects and events is scarcely to be wondered at in 
 the mass, although it may be surprising in a 
 philosopher. 
 
 * I hope the acarua and the culex will not disdain to re- 
 cognise themselves under these humble appellations. I may 
 add, that in the Handbook of Natural History, used in the 
 schools and colleges of France, which I have just happened to 
 take up, I find the anatomy and physiology of insects, molluscs, 
 and animalcules occupy a considerable space both in the text 
 and the plates, showing the importance attached to these minute 
 inquiries. 
 
 f M. Comte : " Cette pre"tendue contemplation directe de 
 1'esprit par lui-meme est une pure illusion." Court de Philo- 
 sophie Positive, torn. i. p. 35.
 
 rrS CONDITION, ESTIMATION, AND PROSPECTS. 275 
 
 Mankind are pre-eminently a sensuous and 
 mechanical race. Long before they know them- 
 selves, their own mental and physical qualities, 
 their relations to each other and to surrounding 
 circumstances, their rank in the scale of being, 
 what they may rationally hope and rationally fear ; 
 while still floundering about their own position in 
 the universe, and blindly wandering into courses of 
 action which, although they are too ignorant to 
 discern it, lead them headlong to their own misery ; 
 they exhibit the most astonishing proofs of mecha 
 nical ingenuity and dexterous handling generally 
 of the properties of matter. 
 
 Thus nations who cannot with any accuracy be 
 called morally civilised, barbarians in personal 
 habits, in domestic morals, in social customs and 
 political arrangements, in theological dogmas and 
 ecclesiastical institutions, in self-knowledge and 
 consecutive thought, have left behind them monu' 
 ments of architecture, sculpture, dynamical art 
 and manufactural skill, which are viewed with 
 astonishment and admiration by the most advanced 
 people of modern times. 
 
 And even we, who plume ourselves on the high 
 position in refinement which we have attained, 
 can we pretend that it is essentially different with 
 us? Is the civilisation in which we have made a 
 progress more than physical ? * 
 
 * "Let us not deceive ourselves. Like the man who used to 
 pull off his hat with great demonstrations of respect whenever 
 he spoke of himself, we are fond of styling our own the en- 
 
 T 2
 
 276 PHILOSOPHY OF THK HUMAN MFND. 
 
 Our great achievements are only triumphs of 
 material science and mechanical art, while in all 
 that constitutes moral progress, in the cognisance of 
 what is purely internal, in the knowledge of the 
 dependence of mental causes and effects, and their 
 connexion with physical circumstances ; of the 
 nature and varieties of intellectual and emotional 
 processes; of the true character and use of evi- 
 dence on which so immense a superstructure must 
 always rest ; of the wisest modes of individual and 
 social procedure so as to insure all practicable 
 happiness to every human being ; of the best 
 methods of cultivating the nature of every man so 
 as to bring out its capabilities and make him no 
 unworthy specimen of his race in the knowledge 
 of all such things, and above all, in the apprecia- 
 tion of what is purest and noblest in spirit and 
 in conduct, we have comparatively speaking made 
 scarcely a perceptible advance. 
 
 Is proof required ? What proof of some of these 
 assertions can be more striking than the derogatory 
 attributes and procedures which we still continue 
 to embody in our conceptions of a Supreme, Perfect, 
 and Infallible Being? 
 
 Or turning towards what solely concerns our 
 mundane affairs, for evidence on other points, look 
 
 lightened age : though as Jortin, I think, has wittily remarked, 
 the golden age would be more appropriate." Coleridge 1 1 Friend. 
 This is now a somewhat trite saying, but the important ques- 
 tion i>, does it not still point to a truth?
 
 ITS CONDITION, ESTIMATION, AND PROSPECTS. 277 
 
 at the grovelling earthly superstitions, the absurd 
 doctrines, the mean sentiments, of which we are 
 the slaves; and at the rapacity, the frauds, the 
 wars, and the still pettier hostilities and quarrels 
 by which we ignorantly or wantonly destroy the 
 happiness or create the misery of ourselves and our 
 kind. And even irrespective of crime and violence, 
 look at the wretched economical condition of a large 
 section of the people in every so-called enlightened 
 country in itself a signal proof of our incapacity 
 to understand and deal with our own position. 
 
 The discrepancy, too, between our rapid strides 
 in physical science, and our tardy progress in 
 moral and intellectual knowledge and its applica- 
 tion ; in the science of human nature and human 
 welfare; seems to become every day wider and 
 more conspicuous. We are truly, as it has been 
 said by some one, " immersed in matter." If civili- 
 sation may be compared, as it sometimes is, to a 
 rising tide with its alternate advances and retro- 
 cessions, it would be difficult to show, as far as 
 morality, mental refinement, and general happiness 
 are concerned, that it is not in the present age at a 
 very low ebb. 
 
 Is it then in this position of human affairs that 
 any department of what may be called non-physical 
 in contradistinction to physical inquiry, is to be 
 depreciated or even neglected and excluded from 
 the benefit of all that subtility of research and 
 minuteness of discrimination which are so freely 
 
 T .1
 
 278 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 bestowed on the most obscure and unobtrusive 
 appearances of the material universe ? 
 
 Surely at no time could it ever be more expedient, 
 if not imperative, to look into our own nature and 
 to direct accurate observation and precise thinking 
 to moral, mental, and social inquiries of all kinds, 
 than it is at present, even if it were only as a 
 counterpoise to all the more engrossing influences 
 to which I have adverted. 
 
 The intrinsic difficulty of such inquiries compared 
 with those of a physical character, or, what perhaps 
 amounts to the same thing, the natural inaptitude 
 or distaste of mankind for them, renders it the 
 more to be desired that minds, especially young 
 minds, gifted with the peculiar genius requisite, 
 should at least not be discouraged from yielding to 
 their constitutional bent and pursuing their proper 
 course. 
 
 Positive encouragement is scarcely to be looked 
 for, if for no other reason than the formidable 
 errors and prejudices which block the way. Be- 
 sides the blunders of ordinary men, some of the 
 most powerful minds that have appeared in the 
 world, in exemplification (it might be said) of the 
 constitutional inaptness of the human understand- 
 ing for non-physical speculations, have employed 
 themselves in building up ingenious systems des- 
 titute alike of sound foundation and natural cohe- 
 rence, as if they imagined their business was to 
 construct truth instead of to discover it.
 
 ITS CONDITION, ESTIMATION, AND PROSPECTS. 279 
 
 Errors of any kind which have established them- 
 selves in the world are of course serious impediments 
 to progress, and can be overturned and removed 
 only by earnest perseverance and repeated efforts ; 
 but they are especially difficult to contend with 
 when they have been fixed in the minds of men 
 not only by tradition but by the authority of great 
 names. 
 
 To push aside such as now prevail and replace 
 them by simple truth, is a work requiring all the 
 acuteness and vigour of intellect, depth of thought, 
 closeness of investigation, subtile discrimination, 
 and punctilious accuracy, which the whole human 
 race are for many ages likely to spare from their 
 addiction to material research ; and hence the 
 science of man as a moral, intellectual, sensitive, 
 and social being must, at present and for a long 
 period to come, be in a great measure a militant 
 science a work of comment and criticism and 
 contest and cannot be expected in any of its de- 
 partments to make a rapid advance. 
 
 With regard to my special subject, the philosophy 
 of mind, which must always constitute the found- 
 ation of non-physical science of every description, 
 I venture to repeat the prediction that no great 
 progress will be made by those who prosecute it, 
 and that they will continue to move in a circle, 
 until they consent to do what successful physical 
 inquirers do, namely, to dismiss all figurative 
 statements of fact, all fictitious entities and occur- 
 
 T4
 
 280 PHILOSOPHY 07 THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 rences, all abstractions except as mere forms of 
 expression, all hypotheses but such as may be 
 professedly put forth in the character of tentative 
 suppositions; and to confine themselves to real 
 objects, actual events, literal statements, and rigo- 
 rous conclusions. 
 
 On the two latter points it is doubtless a dis- 
 advantage, and one that in the nature of the case 
 must always attend a department of knowledge 
 which deals with the common thoughts and feelings 
 and mutual relations of men, that there is no 
 exclusive scientific nomenclature appropriated to 
 designate the operations and affections of the mind, 
 but the philosopher is obliged, for the most part, 
 to make use of the terms employed in common 
 conversation and daily intercourse : employed, too, 
 in the generality of cases either with very loose and 
 indefinite meanings, or in more senses than one. 
 
 There are several momentous evils flowing from 
 this want of a peculiar nomenclature. 
 
 It occasions great difficulty in always keeping to 
 one precise sense, even on the pnrt of the most 
 exact thinker. It also operates to prevent the 
 reception of doctrines which are really true, in 
 consequence of the paradoxical air that, curiously 
 enough, is frequently thrown over accurate and 
 important conclusions by rigid adherence to the 
 employment of terms in only one acceptation. 
 
 Worse perhaps than all, it tends to inspire the 
 incompetent with the conceit that they can under-
 
 ITS CONDITION, ESTIMATION, AND PROSPECTS. 281 
 
 stand and are qualified to pass judgment on doc- 
 trines far beyond their capacity because they have 
 taken no pains to gain the requisite knowledge. 
 As every word is one they are familiar with and 
 presents no superficial difficulty, not the least sus- 
 picion enters their minds that it may be necessary 
 to pause and ponder on the drift of the propositions 
 before them ; and they are fully satisfied with the 
 negative result of meeting with no verbal stoppage. 
 
 On this point I beg your attention to what I 
 have said in a former treatise not unknown to you. 
 I am not sure that I could express my meaning 
 better were I to attempt a fresh exposition, and to 
 save you the trouble of reference, I will here intro- 
 duce the passage (of no great length) to which I 
 allude. 
 
 Speaking of the necessity of vigorous application, 
 it proceeds, " We are apt to be deceived in this re- 
 spect on subjects relating to morals. The terms 
 employed are such as are daily used in the common 
 intercourse of life, and we imagine we at once 
 comprehend any doctrines which they are the me- 
 dium of expressing. In physical science, where at 
 every step we are encountered by the difficulties of 
 a technical phraseology, as well as of practical 
 observations and experiments, we immediately feel 
 the necessity of a regular application and progres- 
 sion, of mastering one principle before we proceed 
 to the next, of carrying our object by detail, work- 
 ing our way by vigorous and reiterated efforts. Jn
 
 282 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN HIND. 
 
 morals, on the contrary, we are too apt to be content 
 with mere cursory reading : no difficulties are pre- 
 sented by the language, no unusual terms arrest 
 our progress, no particular experiments demand a 
 pause to verify them, and we glide smoothly along 
 the pages of the profoundest treatise, with an ap- 
 parently clear apprehension of the various proposi- 
 tions we meet with, but in reality with a vague 
 conception of their full drift and precise meaning. 
 Hence people are often deluded into fancying 
 themselves competent to pronounce a decision on 
 questions requiring severe study, great nicety of 
 discrimination, and close logical deduction."* 
 
 The same deceptive facility of superficial com- 
 prehension is one source even amongst philosophers 
 of the not uncommon phenomenon of misconceiv- 
 ing and misrepresenting each other's doctrines. 
 
 From the frequency of such misrepresentations 
 it would seem to be one of the most difficult things 
 in the world to give a correct account of any philo- 
 sophical theory. 
 
 Nor can there be the faintest doubt in the mind 
 of any one who hap tried the experiment, that it is 
 exceedingly difficult, demanding. much study and 
 great care ; difficult, partly because it is requisite 
 to undergo the trouble of placing ourselves at the 
 author's particular point of view, while we are too 
 engrossed by our own preconceptions to be able or 
 
 Essay on the Puibuit of Truth, p. 78, second edit.
 
 ITS CONDITION, ESTIMATION, AND PROSPECTS. 283 - 
 
 disposed to do it; partly because we are apt to 
 catch up general assertions without attending to 
 the context containing modifications by which they 
 are accompanied and restricted ; partly because there 
 are real inconsistences, of which the writer himself 
 is unaware, between different parts of the same 
 exposition, whence discordant interpretations are 
 unavoidably put upon his doctrine by various 
 readers. And these sources of misrepresentation, 
 if not engendered, are heightened and aggravated 
 by the necessity of employing a lax and popular 
 phraseology.* 
 
 Such evils are undeniable, but not, in my opinion, 
 to be remedied by any attempt to form a peculiar 
 and scientific nomenclature. They will be best obvi- 
 ated by an endeavour after rigorous precision and 
 consistency in the use of common phraseology, aided 
 by a careful study of the various expedients of lan- 
 guage (many of them little noted if not wholly over- 
 looked) natural to mankind in the exercise of their 
 gift of speech. 
 
 From these observations one truth may be 
 deduced, which, however manifest it muy be, is 
 too frequently unheeded, that a department of 
 knowledge destitute of a specific nomenclature, 
 far from not demanding on that account equally 
 
 I have already had occasion to point out various misrepre- 
 sentations, or to say the least, discordant representations of the 
 theories of Berkeley on Vision and on the External World, 
 which fully exemplify the remarks in the text.
 
 284 PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND. 
 
 minute and devoted application to it, requires even 
 more than a science which possesses one. 
 
 No physical or physiological or mathematical 
 science, neither astronomy, nor mechanics, nor 
 chemistry, nor any of the sciences of organic 
 nature, nor yet of calculation and measurement, 
 exacts a longer, closer, and steadier dedication of 
 time and attention to it than the Philosophy of the 
 Human Mind. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON I 
 
 rttiirnut v worruwoooa AMU 
 
 W-4TBWT yul. 
 
 11 OK 8
 
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